Review: Reassembly

Reassembly, a 2 dimensional space sim from developer Anisoptera Games with a load of charm.  An exploration sim with building mechanics that lets you explore a procedurally generated galaxy.  As you explore you collect resources and build bigger and better ships to better handle your expanding influence.

The basic premise is pretty simple.  Choosing a basic starting ship and colors to stand out, you’re dropped into the galaxy near some friendly units to start your exploration.  The tutorial guides you through basic game-play to get you started.  From it’s top down perspective, Reassembly has you gathering resources from local meteors and strange space plants that can be returned to owned bases to be converted into more useful resources.

Damaged bases can be captured to help spawn more friendly NPC’s to assist you against the many enemy ships scattered around space.  Unless a ship shares yoru colors they are enemies, and will attack on sight.  More resources can be gained from combat as you destroy these enemies.

Combat in Reassembly is fast and fun.  Ships fly around irradically across the screen depending on their design, firing all sorts of different weapons, from lasers to torpedoes, to chain guns and more. This fast pace is fun and frantic, and though there is little strategy here, you still have to make sure to maneuver smartly around to best take advantage of gun placements and armor.  Armor is mounted all around your ship and can take a certain amount of damage.  As the armor is damaged, it flies off exposing more critical components of your ship.  If you can avoid getting hit long enough, your ship will slowly pull it’s pieces back together again and recover, otherwise expect to be blown up and re-spawning at a nearby friendly base.

Custom grill maybe?

Customization in Reassembly is not only just a visual change, it’s a necessity if you are going to survive exploring the galaxy.  As you gain resources, you will also earn “C” which are used to buy new components for your ship.  These can include weapons, new armor or useful components.  When you enter the customization screen, you’ll find your ship layed out in closeup.  Each component you can utilize has various stick points you can use to connect it to any other component.  It’s very easy to add or subtract parts or weapons you want to and build pretty much whatever you like within the 2 dimensional interface.

The amount and type of parts you can use, is limited by your ship’s “P” which you can upgrade with “C” along the way.  This allows you to add more weapons, armor or utilities  and make larger and larger ships.  It also allows you to add more ships to your fleet.  These are NPC’s that will follow you around and help you in battles.

Lots of parts to choose from and upgrade

The customization screen is where the strategy really exists in Reassembly.  You must carefully build your ship to take advantage of weapon range, direction, and firing means, while balancing armor around your vessel to ensure you can take some damage as you go.  You can also specialize ships for resource gathering or other beneficial specs if you like, or build a jack-of-all-trades ship otherwise.  Each component has multiple sticking points so you can be fairly creative within the 2D limitation.   All throughout you will also need to balance your ship’s energy generation ability to power your weapons and make sure your fighting ability is not hindered by a lack of power.  There are also various pre-built ships you can use as is, or as a starting point for something else.

The colorful visuals for Reassembly keep you engaged at all times.  Explosions fill the screen.  Thrusters burn through space, and the various weapon effects are all unique and make it easy to see what’s coming at you.  The quiet, ambient music helps fill the void of space without adding more to the frantic experience.  The HUD is informative without spoiling the view.  In the top right hand corner you can see  a live closeup of your ship, including any damage that may be accruing so that you can move to avoid death if you’re quick enough.

I can’t hold her together! I’m an engineer not a miracle worker!

Reassembly does a solid job of being fairly easy to learn, but also giving enough customization that those who want to spend hours building the perfect ship can do so equally easily.  It’s simple but fun graphics mean you have a smooth experience throughout with little slow down or hiccups regardless of how much is going on on the screen.  The unlimited replay-ability will have you coming back often to try out new tactics or ship designs.  This is definitely worth checking out if you are into space exploration sims.

As always, thanks for reading, and be sure to comment and like in the space below!

For more fun indie games with a space twist check out Cosmonautica

Review: The Flock

The Flock, an asymmetrical first person game of tag with a twist, when every dies at least once, the game comes to an end.  Unfortunately it’s hard to see the current population of 215 million plus actually wanting to play long enough to die that many times.

The basic premise of The Flock has all players starting off as strange gargoyle like creatures.  Your creature can run, jump and scamper, and when you stand still you become stone, and impervious to your prey.  There are no other attacks or actions, or special moves you can do as the gargoyle.  Your first objective from here is to lactate the light.  The light is basically a big flashlight with a terrible battery.

Once the first player finds the light, the game play changes slightly as you the carrier of the light are now the prey of everyone else and becomes a simpering weak human.  Taking away all the movement advantages of the gargoyle creature, you are left with only the light to protect you.  As the human you can only walk or sprint, you can’t jump or crouch or crawl or anything else.  You’re only protection is your flashlight which can burn up the other players who remain gargoyles.

Here the objectives change slightly, as now you as the human must run and hide from other players, while waiting for objectives to light up that you can activate for extra points.  You also gain points the longer you carry the light.  The other players adversely are trying to find you and attack you to take over the light.  The light however hurts them and their only protection is to stay still to avoid damage.

Well it’s kinda bright

This seems like a interesting concept, but it’s lacking in various areas.  For one, as compared to other asymmetrical games like Evolve, there is absolutely no teamwork involved here.  Everyone is out for there own score and objectives.  There is no in-game chat or any other form of communication to use, nor is there any benefit from working together as each individual is simply trying to get the highest score each match.

The other big issue, is after a match there is literally nothing else left to do.  Each match is the same, regardless of what map you choose to play on.  There is no variation to the game, nor is there any development to your skills or abilities.  There is literally  no replay value here.

The beautiful color pallet astounds

There’s not really much to look at here either.  Visually The Flock is drab and repetitive.  Every map though unique is dark and grey, with very little variety.  Though I will say there are generally some interesting areas to set up ambushes if you’re patient.  Character animations are also very limited, as you can see the gargoyle characters warping across the land and generally looking silly and un-detailed.

Sold as a horror game, there’s little to be afraid of with The Flock aside from wasting too much money on it.  With zero story progression, no replay ability and no other modes to try out, there’s little chance I will see the end game when 215 million other players die.

Thanks for reading, and as always, make sure to comment and like below, and let me know what you thought of The Flock.

Check out my review for Evolve for something much better to play.

Review: The Silent Age

Average guy named Joe, meet the apocalypse!  The Silent Age, originally released for mobile, and now available on PC, is a story driven point and click adventure where it’s up to you to save all humanity.  Shouldn’t be too difficult for a run of the mill janitor who just happens to show up at the right place and the right time.

Okay Doc Brown

Being at the right place and time is the core of the story of The Silent Age.  In fact it’s also key to the game-play itself.  Starting on a an average day in the life of Joe, a janitor for a large tech manufacturer, his life is suddenly changed when he’s given the responsibilities of his former fellow employee, who mysteriously quit.  After gaining access to new areas in the Archon building, Joe quickly discovers strange things going on throughout the building.  These discoveries soon lead him to an old, mysterious man dying from a gunshot wound.

This encounter quickly leads Joe on a quest to save the world, as the old man describes the end of days, and tasks Joe to save all humanity.  His only tool to do so, a small device that sends him into the future of 2012 where humanity is dead, and the world is a strange, barren place.

This quick encounter sets you up to explore both the present and future in order to solve various puzzles along the way.  The game play is simple, click to move back and forth through each area, finding useful items scattered around to help you solve the various puzzles.  Most of these puzzles will require you using the time device to shift from the intact 1972 to the desolate, falling apart future of 2012.

The story weighs heavily on our hero

Most of these puzzles are really clever, and need a bit of thought to get around.  Though you’ll rarely get stuck it may still take you some time to figure out the right sequence of items, how to use them and in which time period to do so.  There are also various secrets to find along the way.  though you can still save the world without discovering everything, it’s still fun to uncover these tiny bits of the story as in whole they add quite a bit to the experience.

During your adventure, you’ll get a chance to interact with a few other characters.  Each character has a bit of back story with them for you discover, and generally feel like real people.  All of these characters are also fully voiced which makes them feel even more unique.  The voice acting throughout is pretty solid and you’ll likely sit back to enjoy each of these scenes as they play out.

Well it is the 70’s afterall

The real jewel to find here, is the exploration of character.  Joe is a regular guy, caught up in things far beyond both his control and his understanding.  As he works to help humanity avoid it’s downfall, he grows from this simple man to a man willing to sacrifice everything to see it through.  This level of depth of character is quite amazing for a game that can be completed in under 4 hours.  It’s a credit to the writers for taking us on the tale.

The subplot to this main story, is classic sci-fi fare, tales of man overreaching his limits.  Going to far to fast, and causing destruction among himself, always for the greater good they’ll say.  Though it’s a well used story, and has been seen often, it’s still true, and there’s enough connection here with Joe to overlook this somewhat overused idea.

I barely knew him, no really, I didn’t.

Though the conventions in The Silent Age are not new, the blend of story, character and overall charm make it stand out among other similar point and click adventures.  This game is certainly worth checking out if you have a few hours to kill to explore humanity and its drive to destroy itself.

As always, thanks for reading and be sure to comment and like below and let me know what you thought of The Silent Age.

Check out another solid indie game with Cosmnautica. 

Rewind Review: Grandia II

This week we’re headed back to one of my favourite consoles, the Sega Dreamcast to explore Grandia II.  A fantasy RPG set in yet another world of fantasy and magic Grandia II brings with it it’s own charm and unique battle system.  Released in 2000 for the Dreamcast, Grandia II was also later ported to the Playstation 2 and Windows.

Sarcasm much?

Taking the part of Ryudo, a Geohound mercenary, you begin the story by being hired by the Church of Granas to escort a young songstress to an upcoming cermony.  This of course goes horribly wrong, and you are left with saving the songstress, Elena and escorting her to presumed safety with the Pope of the Church of Granas.  Trekking out across the large map, you eventually find yourself with the inevitable task of saving the world.  Seeking the location of the great sword Gransaber, you set off to defeat the evil go Valmar.

Let’s be honest, the overall plot here isn’t that unique, but Grandia II does do a solid job of presenting it.   There are a bunch of twists along the way, and every new character has some interesting background to learn about.  The story does an excellent job of connecting us with each one and making them all feel equally important.

The game is presented in a beautiful, 2.5D graphics.  The colorful and detailed sprites jump off the screen.  The varied environments are even more full of details.  Though this detail goes down somewhat on the battle screens, the characters are still lively and fully animated.  Each character has their own hand drawn head shot that appears during each of their actions.

So much going on.

The instrumental soundtrack that comes along for the ride is sharp and to the point.  It’s not the greatest soundtrack of it’s time, but it’s not bad, and does do a decent job of setting the mood at each phase of the game.  Grandia II does come with a pretty solid voice cast however that does really add a lot to the game.  Having fully voiced characters was also still fairly rare for the turn of the century console game.  This gave the overall game a solid presentation.

General gameplay is fairly traditional when it comes to RPG’s.  Explore the world map, talk to NPC’s in the various cities, and complete a relatively linear line of quests.  All of this any RPG player will be quite used to.  There were no surprises here.  The battle system however was quite unique in it’s design.

Headed to the map!

Taking inspiration from Final Fantasy’s active time battles, Grandia II adds  more layers to the equation.  Characters can move freely around the battle zone depending on their movement points, to either attack or avoid damage and attacks.  They can also perform combos that will lay multiple hits down on the selected enemies.  The really unique feature though, is the initiative bar.  Each character has their own initiative, which creates a sequence actions for all characters involved in the battle.  You’ll have to carefully plan around this initiative to both avoid enemy attacks as well as recover from them appropriately.  Well timed hits can also cancel out actions of various enemies on the screen.

Balancing all of these features makes combat fun and exciting.  You also have to balance each characters health points, magic points and skill points throughout.  Battles are pretty intense and short, with loads of colorful animations to keep you into the action.

The solid story and action of Grandia II allowed it to be one of the best RPG’s on the short lived Dreamcast.  With the various ports and soon to be released Steam version there is still much to enjoy with this game if you happened to miss it.  I suggest you do.

As always thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this week’ Rewind Review.  Keep checking back for more, and don’t forget to like and comment below!

Check out last week’s Rewind Review.

Youtube Review: Bronan Games

Another week has gone by, and I have discovered yet another channel for you guys to check out. Bronan Games is another great, humor filled gaming channel, with a wide variety of content, doesn’t hurt that he is Canadian either, or does it?

If you like variety then Bronan Games will satiate your hunger well.  With nearly daily updates on almost every type of game genre are available here.  What I really like about the channel is the huge selection of indie games featured.

As a lover of  indie gaming, it’s great to find a single channel that features so many different indie games.    Browsing through his catalog there are a ton of games here that I have not seen elsewhere.  Everything from short one-offs to longer horror games and the weird and silly are represented here.  Spin the dial and pick something random for some quick entertainment.

Style wise Bronan Games stick to fairly heavily edited just plays.  Lots of graphics, quick cuts and the such to keep you engaged whenever the games he is playing may not be.  Commentary on the channel is goofy and frivolous which may or may not suit all viewers, but let’s face it, we’re watching a gaming channel, it should be goofy and silly.  Bronan is also fairly consistent with interacting with his viewers, which in my opinion is a major miss for most channels this size.  Regular and prompt interaction with your audience at this level is almost as important as the actual content you put out daily, and it’s good to see a channel that has this.

I did have a good deal of fun and more than a few chuckles checking out video’s on Bronan Games’ channel.  With thousands of channels to surf through, it’s become harder and harder to find anything unique in the over-saturated market.  That being the main reason I do these weekly reviews of course!

All said, Bronan Games is a great channel to discover some hidden gems, especially in the indie horror scene.  It also offers enough selection of both random games, well known games, and just pure goofiness to keep a good range of viewers entertained. The level of interaction is solid and it seems you can usually expect most of your comments to be replied to, which keeps the channel genuine and on the level. Make sure to give Bronan Games a look see as soon as you can.

As always, thanks for reading, and be sure to like and comment below.

Find Bronan Games here, and follow him on Twitter.

Check out last week’s Youtube Review!

Review: Cosmonautica

Space.  The final frontier.  What waits for us, out there?  Awesome trading opportunities for us to make tons of cash of course!  Welcome to Cosmonautica.  A cute, funny, fairly solid game with a few issues that help it become just not that good.  Release on July 31st this year, Cosmonautica does have a lot going for it, but struggles in a few areas that would make it a great, highly addictive game otherwise.

When you first load up Cosmonautica, your given the choice of following the story driven campaign, or the open world where you can do whatever you like with no linearity getting in the way.  In either game mode however, you will take control of a small ship and head out in a mostly 2D adventure into space.

I gots trades!

At the beginning of either game, you’re given a ship and a lump of cash to get started off.  Cash, or credits, are primarily used to buy upgrades to your ship, which come in the form of upgrade-able rooms that you can place throughout.  Rooms range from basic living quarters, to washrooms, to medical and science facilities, and of course weapon rooms.  You can place these rooms wherever there is adequate space in your ship, and get access to a side view cross section of your ship in order to due so. Beyond efficient space use however, there doesn’t’ seem to be any advantages or disadvantages to where you place these rooms.

Once your ship is prepped with the basic rooms, you need to hire crew to fill various roles on board.  Pilots quicken your pace, and add maneuverability in combat, scientists conduct research and operate your shields, gunners shoot, and so on.  Each of these classes generally have a room specified for their use, and though you can recruit them with the proper room, it’s pointless as they will be of little use and gain no experience.  Experience levels your crew up, and gives them special skills, along with upgrading them with skill points which you can either assign to their main skill, or a random new skill to help fill out your ship’s needs.

What you’ll spend most of your time looking at

Regardless of whether you choose story mode or open world, you will primarily spend your time roaming from planet to planet.  Each planet offers a randomized arrangement of trade able goods, missions and personnel to hire.  Most of your early missions will have you transporting goods or people from planet to planet in an effort to make enough credits to upgrade your rooms, or ship entirely.  All the missions are pretty straight forward, but do come with time limits, as each jump to another planet takes time and you need to balance your missions carefully with travel time.  Take on too many missions may face you with heavy fines if you are not able to complete them in the given time.

Later on you’ll be able to engage in more dangerous missions like smuggling and combat.  Smuggling missions are a simple act of making sure your tech, rooms and crew members are of high enough level to disguise whatever contraband you may have on board, and area really just deliver missions not unlike the other early quests.  Combat missions however turn the game on it’s nose.

The local solar system

Entering into combat in Cosmonautica is almost game breaking.  Battles are slow, long winded affairs.  Ships are equipped with only a few weapons at most, and limited ammunition.  There’s no phaser or laser fire here.  You have limited maneuvering control of your ship, and are basically restricted to four flight patterns, circle around, fly by, collision course, or flee.  None of these seem to work well however.  You are also very limited by how much ammo you can store.  These battle are long, really long and most will end with both ships running out of ammo, and you having to hail the other ship to settle terms.  These terms generally ending up being 0 credits, and are really just time wasters.  If I didn’t mention it before, battles are long, so long in fact during one occasion my crew actually went to sleep during battle, causing me to not be able to activate shields or fire my weapons, as both my scientist and gunner had gone to bed.  The reward for the battle I eventually won was minimal and felt like a huge waste of time compared to the really lucrative option to earning credits, trade.

Yes, my gunner is sleeping in the middle of the fight

Trade in Cosmonautica is by far the easiest way to earn funds.  Each planet has a list of exports and imports, and trade is as simple as taking advantage of low price exports, and trading them at planets that are in need of those same items as imports.  Most of your time in Cosomnautica will be spent looking for deals, and adding cargo space to your hull in order to carry more goods.  You will spend a lot of time trading, traveling and avoiding combat during your time with the game.  Luckily a fast forward option is available for travel.

Story mode has you following a loose chain of linear missions revolving around your captain’s memory loss, and a mysterious box he was found with.  Though the story is mostly well written and funny, once you get into the game, there’s never really a huge urge to continue on with the story, it’s usually more interesting to just try and build up your crew and ship as much as possible.  There’s also no time limit to story missions, so no sense of urgency is ever given to complete them.  There’s also no real choice as to how to proceed through the story outside of a few minor decisions, and it seems to waste the potential of the open galaxy environment.

Hi Lady!

Cosmonautica brings with it a lot of visual charm.  The colorful, cartoon-like graphics are a lot of fun and there are tons of details throughout both your ship and the world to look at.   As you travel from planet to planet, you get a side view of your ship to look at.  Zooming in opens up the cross section view, and you can watch your crew busy at work, at play, or showering as needs be.  It can be fun to watch this for a time, though generally you’ll find yourself fastforwarding and not paying them much attention.

Outside of this, there are several other mechanics at play.  You’ll of course do research as you fly around, researching new rooms, and upgrades to existing rooms.  You will also have to research the solar systems and galaxy to advance to new areas.  There is also a needs simulation a la Sims that you need to address as you level up your crew members.  Higher level crew members expect more, and you have to build the appropriate facilities or upgrades to keep them happy.  Crew members also have traits which affect how they get along with other people.  This can result in bonuses as happy crew members will catch fire and work more efficiently, or adversely go on strike and stop performing their duties.  You’ll have to carefully balance your crew’s levels with the appropriate need fillers as you proceed.

Two of the three basic weapons you can buy

All of these factors give you a bit to juggle, but I never felt overwhelmed at any point.  The game offers tons of helpful hints as you proceed, or you can choose to turn these off and figure it out for yourselves.

Terrible, terrible combat aside, there’s still a lot to enjoy about Cosmonautica.  The trade system is well built, and it can be addictive trying to build up your crew and ship.  The downside here however is there are limited choices as to what you can build, and how much you can upgrade them, meaning after awhile there isn’t much left to do except explore, or earn more credits.  Hopefully the developers can address these downfalls in later updates, and especially work on the combat to make it more fun and interactive.  Cosmonautica is available now on Steam, and is definitely worth a try if you are into space trading sims.

As always, thanks for reading, and be sure to comment and like below and let me know what you think of Cosmonautica.

For another solid indie release check out The Bug Butcher 

Rewind Review: Suikoden II

If you are at all a fan of classic PlayStation one RPG’s then you already will know a good deal about Suikoden II.  Suikoden II was one of the standout RPG’s of it’s generation, and still holds out today as one of the best ever.  Released to the North American audience back in 1999, this classic game mixes RPG elements with simple, large scale tactical battles.  With over 100 playable characters it offers an entirely unique variety of game play for the genre.

Early game over?

The story takes place primarily in two lands of Highland and Jowston as the two primary lead characters in the game are caught up among a political plan to start a war between the two nations.  Separated early on in the story you begin your quest after meeting up with several characters from the first game, whom are now fighting against your former country.  This initial beginning sets you up as the future leader of an Alliance Army, fighting for your freedom, and the eventual meeting with a former friend who has now become your greatest nemesis.  The plot is full of twists, developments, and happenings throughout.  You’ll never be disappointed with the amount of effort put into the story side of Suikoden II.  Though fairly linear it’s solid and entertaining throughout.

Another major factor to the story is the amount of backstory each character has.  All 108 collectible and playable characters have some backstory.  Several of these characters were established in the original game, but the sequel adds literally dozen’s of new characters, each with their own style, background and motivations.  This sheer amount of story makes other RPG’s of its type pale in comparison.

Throughout the game you will meet more characters.  Many will join you on your quest after a short dialogue regardless of your actions, while others may require you to perform a task, or reach a certain level, or maybe recruit another character first prior to joining.  There are also several “hidden” characters whom can only be recruited through specific quests or at specific times in the game.  This adds an extra layer to game play as you try your best to collect each one.  Doing so has several benefits both in combat and out and it’s generally worth trying your best to do so.

Oh there’s more…

The primary game-play of Suikoden II revolves around a fairly straight forward, classic top down RPG style.  You explore your surroundings, talk and interact with people and items, and complete quests to move the story along.  Basic combat takes place on a pseudo-3d plane with up to six characters in your party.  Each character comes with a basic set of skills and magic to go along with their basic attacks.  Every character in the game also collects experience from battles and levels up, increasing their statistics and abilities.  During combat your characters can also work together to cast special spells and co-operative skills to inflict more damage on enemies, or result in special statuses.  This makes collecting new characters important not only for their mix of skills, but how those skills interact with others.

Later in the game you will also start taking place in large scale warfare, where armies battle each other on a field.  These armies are assigned a leader from your collected characters, as well as support characters who add a variety of skills, or statistical bonuses to each unit.  Though this part of the game has some tactics to it, it generally comes down to a Rock, Paper, Scissors feel as certain unit types generally just work better against others, though it’s still important to make sure you take advantage of the lay of the land in order to avoid those pairings going against you.

Your main character can also engage in one on one duels, which again come down to a Rock, Paper, Scissors effect, though you must guess what attack is coming next based off of what the attacking character says prior.

Eventually you will also build your own base of operations.  Here all of your collected characters will gather and you can speak with them.  Many characters you collect will also be very useful here as vendors, or craftsmen.  Some of these characters are not available for regular battles as well, but each one has his or her uses somewhere.  As characters level up they will gain new skills here as well, and the base can be upgraded.  There area also several mini games available here, with my favorite being the Iron Chef style food battle, where your chef’s will be challenged by others to make the best plates, depending on what items and ingredients you have been able to harvest during your regular questing.  This adds a great deal of flavor (pun intended), and humor to Suikoden II.

Visually Suikoden II is gorgeous for it’s era.  Each character and environment is hand drawn, and there a dozens of different animations.  Throughout the game characters move on the screen, even on the world map your hair flops around as you walk through the world.  In the battle screens both the characters and enemies are animated and highly detailed.  Magic and co-operative moves fill the screen with light and action, and it’s a fun just watching the going-ons on the screen.

The orchestral music also sets the tone of the game very well.  It’s one of the better soundtracks of the time.  Battle sequences feature faster beats and with the characters bouncing around and moving their stances it really helps you get into the tempo of each battle.

Flying Squirrel Girl is this your crew?

Suikoden II had a lot going for it.  The well thought out, twist filled story, and the massive amount of characters integrated with a variety of game-play elements made it truly unique.  It still stands the test of time, though it’s sequels became more and more disappointing.  Luckily you can still fairly easily play the original if you own a PsVita or PS3.  This is one of the very few games I would not mind seeing an update of, so long as it stuck to just the visual aspects of the game, and didn’t try to change basic game-play or story like many remakes tend to do these days.

As always, thanks for reading and be sure to check out the comments section below and let me know what you think of Suikoden II!

Check out last week’s Rewind Review too.

Youtube Review: GamingByGaslight

Another week, another YouTube review.  This week I stumbled across GamingByGaslight,  My continuing quest to find you guys interesting new channels stumbled across GamingByGaslight after YouTube insisted I check out more Don’t Starve videos.  I guess the timing had it, and the channel had just uploaded a video moments before I arrived, in fact I I am pretty sure I was the first view!  What I found was a very thorough play through of a portion of Don’t Starve with a good amount of both interesting facts, and survival tips which urged me to go and check out more.

The next thing that caught my eye about the channel was the sheer amount of content.  For a channel that only went live in May this year, there’s a ton of stuff here.  The channel features a variety of long Let’s Play series featuring several popular games.  Beyond the above mentioned Don’t Starve, you can find Terraria, or Penumbra, and some AAA games like Arkham Knight and The Witcher III:  Wild Hunt.

With some of the series numbering in the teens or higher in episodes, there’s an amazing amount of content to binge watch if  you have interest in one of the featured games, or just have way too much time on your hands.  This amount of consistent uploading is pretty surprising for such a newer channel, as many aren’t nearly that active in the early months.  This helps a small channel of under 100 subscribers such as this one grow, as it’s almost 5000 views attest to over it’s short life on YouTube.

The content itself is pretty solid and entertaining.  I am actually surprised that GamingByGaslight doesn’t have more subscribers yet, but that could boil down to simple marketing and sharing strategies.  The commentary is pretty solid and insightful, and offers a lot of insight for someone who wants to learn tips about the various showcased games.  Each episode is lightly edited and leaves the meat on the bone when it comes to what you see.

Though these relatively straight cuts work fine for the content, these episodes could use a little more to stand out from the crowd.  A snappy intro, or a face cam to add a bit more audience interaction would be great.  I also noted there’s little interaction with viewers in the comments for each video, and this lack of interaction on a smaller channel is a bit disappointing.  It may also be part of why the channel is still relatively small though the content is solid and regularly updated.

Aside from these small flaws though, GamingByGaslight is a solid channel that will allow you binge watch several popular games, while also helping you out with tips and hints for each one.  This alone adds value content  to YouTube and should hopefully see the channel grow in the future.

As always, thanks for reading and be sure to like or comment below and let me know if you’ve checked out GamingByGaslight.

Be sure to following GamingByGaslight on Twitter, and you can also follow him on Google+.

For last week’s YouTube Review, head on over here!

Life is strange Episode 4: Review

The story of Life is Strange is nearly at an end, and with episode 4 comes the biggest emotional roller coaster so far.  There’s a good deal of feels here, and some foreshadowed plot twists finally coming to pass.

Episode 4 drops us right into the alternate present created in the previous episode.  One major change in history has unraveled the complex structure of time and created a new world.  In this new world, tragedy and happiness are mixed in equally and you are left to decide the fates of the character’s closest to you.  Despite what you choose to do, this first scene ranges from heartwarming to completely heartbreaking and is filled with tough choices.  The realization for main character Max Caulfield by the end of this chapter is that these powers of rewind may be more dangerous than helpful as previously thought.  We also lose some of the sting of the scene, as we immediately traverse back to set it right.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

After this early heartfelt scene, you’re lead directly back into the mystery aspect of what is going on in Blackwell Academy.  Though a slow paced episode, clues as to the reality of the situation are regularly found as you progress.  There is also a lack of the redundant quests here.  Almost every action directly supports the main story line, rather than feel like filler to keep you in the game longer.  Though the pacing is quite slow, this fact alone makes the episode feel more full and important than some of the previous episodes.

Meanwhile, outside of this mystery of missing persons, and drugs, outlying factors continue to change around you.  The vision Max had of destruction at the very beginning of the series, seems ever prevalent, as signs of it are emerging more frequently.  Beached whales, dying birds and strange weather patterns are constantly focused on by the characters.  This with clues of other bigger events going on around the town are regularly mentioned in the same sentence with the game’s primary nemesis the Prescott family.  Whether these strange occurrences have something to do with them, or are entirely related to Max’s powers of rewind have yet to be revealed.

When it comes to Max’s powers themselves, expect to be a little disappointed, as this episode of Life is Strange reverts greatly in their use.  Only one puzzle in the episode requires their use, and only really one scene in particular about mid way through the episode urges to use them otherwise.  Though this step back in the frequency of their use does tie together somewhat with the overall story, it seems a bit of a waste that we aren’t give more choice as whether or not to use these powers now knowing that there may be some consequence from them.  I feel leaving more choices like this in the hands of the player would have better reflected the game’s intent that these powers are as dangerous as they are helpful.  We also don’t get anything new from the powers when we do get to use them.  The same basic puzzle mechanic exists, and the same, go-back-and-change-your-last-choice mechanism is also unchanged.  It is just a shame that these powers are not being developed with each episode as well as the story is, and seems like a major missed opportunity.

One new game play mechanic that is added to this episode, is a short scene where you must puzzle together all the clues you’ve found so far.  Though it only takes a few minutes to figure out the fairly simple puzzles, it does at least give you something different to do and adds another small opportunity to use your powers when you screw up.

Detective Max hard at work.

As the story unfolds we get our first really major plot twist near the end.  Those of you were paying close attention during early episodes however, would have likely seen the foreshadowing of this particular plot point already.  That aside, the twist still works well, and is otherwise executed well.   The end scene still has enough shock value, even if you saw some of it coming already to be a very good cliffhanger entry into the final episode.

Though most of the grounded portion of the mysteries of Blackwell Academy have been revealed at this point, there’s still a significant amount going on that hasn’t been made clear.  Whether the strange going on’s around the city of Arcadia are due to Max’s powers, or something else that may have inadvertently caused Max’s powers in the first place is still in play.  There is still a major mystery to be solved here, and potentially some major reworking of history as well to resolve it all.

What do you suppose that is?

I do hope however that the writers are able to find a unique way to end the story, and not go the fairly overdone route that most time travel stories such as this tend to go with the heroes going back in time to stop themselves from ever existing, or affecting the time stream.  We’ve seen this a great deal already and unfortunately it does feel as though this game my end on a similar note which in my mind would be quite disappointing.  The characters in this story are well written enough that they deserve a better end than this.

In the end, episode 4 gives us a ton to think about, and makes you feel a variety of emotions throughout.  This range of emotions throughout Life Is Strange Episode 4 creates one of the better episodes yet in the series, and we can only hope the conclusion takes on a similar ride.

As always, thank for reading, and be sure to like and comment below.  What decisions did you make in this episode?  What was your experience like?  

You can catch up on the previous episode here.

Rewind Review: Journey

With it’s PS4 update recently released, I thought I would take a literal journey back to one of my favourite Playstation 3 titles of all time,  Journey.  Brought to us by the astonishing minds at Thatgamecompany, creators of Flower and Flow, Journey left quite the lasting impression on me.

It’s beautiful right?

Not unlike Thatgamecompany’s previous efforts, Journey is as much an interactive piece of art as it is a game.  The game drops you into control of your nameless, speechless hooded figure amongst an endless seeming desert, your only real indication of what to do is a short opening sequence showing a falling star crashing into a distant mountain.  With that single action and not a peep of dialogue, the game has already set you on a course to discover exactly what that star was.

Resting in the beautifully detailed sand dunes, and I mean beautiful, the distant mountain shines to give you a focal point to lead your epic quest.  The 3d environment is gorgeous, and seems to go on forever, and you can choose to explore freely at your whim, or plot a direct course for the moment if you so choose.  Movement through the world is smooth as ice.  Your character treks through the sand leaving footprints as signs of his passage, swooping down drifts of sand and trudging up hills.

No caption required

As you explore through this dusty region you discover long forgotten ruins of some ancient society.  Here you will learn the ability to jump, collecting pieces of cloth that lengthen your scarf, allowing you not only jump but glide at points to reach higher areas, or cover large gaps.  You’ll have to solve simple puzzles as you proceed from here to find your way forward, or to free up the magical cloth pieces trapped around the area.

As you continue to explore the world you’ll find new areas.  These areas may be filled with vegetation, or be cavernous areas deep below the earth.  Ancient cities can be found along your Journey as well.  All of these areas have their own features, and points of interests.  Every area leaves glimpses of what seems to be the remnants of a long lost civilisation.  Stones remarking as tombstones, empty buildings, all you give you the feel that these lands used to be filled with life and people, but some strange occurrence transpired to leave it in it’s barren state.

Quiet moment of reflection

As you pass from one to another, you are shown small glimpses of the game’s story through short cut scenes.  These cutscenes make you nothing but more curious to continue, showing you small pieces of this beautiful world’s history and story through hieroglyphic like scenes.

To go along with the beautiful look and feel of Journey comes the amazing soundtrack.  The subtle instrumental tracks flow in the background.  Each area’s music ads gravitas and emotion to your situation.  As you proceed farther into the story and the trek begins to get harder, and harder on your character, this stunning mix of music and visuals helps you to feel everything your character is enduring as if you too were there with him.

Though Journey is primarily a solitary story, there is still a multiplayer aspect to the game.  This is done through an entirely unique approach as each journey you start is open to anyone else who happens to also be journeying to potentially encounter you along the way.  This can happen randomly at any point of the game as you just happen to stumble across someone else.  Though you can use a type of emote to draw attention to yourself when another player is around, there is no chat, or any other type of communication, nor can you identify the person traveling with you by more than a randomized symbol they are represented by.  This creates a truly unique interaction, as you can choose to try and communicate somehow with the other player to help them find the right path, or to seek assistance if you are stuck.  There are also benefits to sticking with someone else as you if you stay close together you gain speed and jumping ability, and can also resist some of the wear of the later areas.

making friends

Each journey is unique, and you can replay as often as you like.  There are several different routes that you can take to your goal, and several hidden gems to find along the way.  Each time you play you may encounter one other player, several or none.  These sometimes fleeting moments of interaction with others adds even more emotion to the game as certain points of the story are extremely heartfelt, and the sight of another person potentially experiencing the same emotions on their journey is quite an unheard of feeling in most modern gaming.

The game’s ending wrenches you from the lowest emotional state, and does a remarkable job of literally launching you and your character on a voyage you will never forget.  This full ark of emotions and senses is so hard to find outside of more grounded places like theatre or a live music event, and is completely welcome within a gaming experiencing.

Can’t show enough of this brilliant game.

Journey looks gorgeous on both PS3 or PS4, regardless of what system you have, so no harm in grabbing the PS3 version to just experience this one in a kind piece of gaming art.  Not taking the time to play this game however would truly be something to regret later on.  Journey remains one of the best games to ever be released on PS3, and is sure to remain one of the better games on it’s new release with the PS4.

As always, thanks for reading this week’s Rewind Review, and be sure to comment and like below and let me know about your Journey.

Check out last week’s Rewind Review.