A Valley Without Wind 1 and 2 are basically the same game. 2D sidescrolling platformers with procedurally-generated levels and mini-dungeons, some character progression, customizable gear, and Sim City-ish world building system. While this might sound good on paper, it's a bit too much to wrap your head around, and it's not executed very well. If you've seen or played Actraiser on SNES, I think that's the best comparison, but even more stuff.
In both games, you're tasked with exploring a mashed-up world of past, present, and future settings, with enemies ranging from bats and bugs to small flying boats and robots. You explore short linear levels with mini-dungeons, the mini-dungeons have more verticality and a Metroid-style mini-map. You collect materials from dungeons that you can use to customize your gear or build up a settlement (the Sim City aspects). The customization includes perks for leveling up, different spells with various elements and ranges, and enchantments.
The graphics are one of the big weak points, the main character is too large, the animations are lacking, enemy projectiles are hard to see, the levels are underdeveloped and the tile layout is painfully obvious. There's a lack of cohesive visual aesthetics, which you might chalk up to the idea of a bunch of times mashed together, but it just doesn't look good. Combat is projectile-based, point with the mouse and fire in 360 degrees, it's functional.
The games simply lack polish in terms of visual quality and gameplay. Even getting both games, you may just skip the first game and play the second as it's slightly better visually but essentially the same game.
In Between is a puzzle-platformer game with a fairly heavy narrative about grief and regret. The puzzles are both challenging and varied, introducing new environmental hazards at a steady pace throughout the game with a few extra challenging levels for each stage that don't need to be completed for story progression. This is a pretty clever design choice, as earlier levels introduce new mechanics while the challenge levels take full advantage of said mechanics. If you want to play the game with minimal challenge to enjoy the story you can stick to the critical path while players looking for more of a challenge will certainly find it here.
You traverse the levels using a gravity manipulation mechanic; you can change gravity to any of the 4 cardinal directions after landing on a flat surface, so navigating levels requires precision and timing. In addition to standard instant-death spikes the game introduces moving obstacles, areas with set gravity, and levels with encroaching darkness that obscure the level and consume your character.
The hand-drawn art style and minimalist design give the game a unique look, but leave a little to be desired when it comes to menus. The music is solid and accompanies the themes of the story well. The game's presentation is great overall.
In Between will provide several hours of challenge and fun, the mechanics work well and the levels are varied with new features introduced at a steady pace. Well designed and engaging, this is definitely worth the price for puzzle fans.
Silent Age is a 2D point-and-click adventure with a miminalist aesthetic and a time travel mechanic allowing you to shift between a future and present version of the current area to collect tools and solve puzzles. As far as adventure games go, this one is not too difficult, as it relies on environmental puzzles to advance through the level. It's fairly straight-forward in terms of "ok, I found a fight extinguisher, I guess I'll need to put out a fire," and you use all the items you find before moving to the next chapter. Take that as you will, some may prefer the old fashioned Sierra logic games where you somehow have to make a rocket out of a office supplies and an oil drum to knock a book off a ledge. Others will prefer being able to figure things out without a walkthrough.
In terms of presentation and polish, this game gets a high B in overall quality. The UI is simple but functional, the art style isn't jawdropping but it still looks good, and the music is pretty good. The game runs without a hitch and offers simple controller support out of the box. I found using the controller preferable but it offers no advantage or disadvantage, it's just nice to have as an option.
The game is fairly short, so you may want to pick it up in a bundle or on sale rather than full price, but it's definitely a sold game that's worth your time.
BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooting game set in a steampunk alternate reality where American separatists create a floating city to worship guns and Ayn Rand. If you're familiar with previous BioShock games, you'll be pretty comfortable with what's on offer here. You're a man with a mission, armed with a gun in one hand and science-magic powers in the other, fighting waves of cannon fodder minions and robotic dead presidents. Much of the original formula stays the same, solid gunplay, impressive graphics, charismatic villains, but with a few small differences.
Infinite introduces the sky hook, which functions as your new melee weapon and a primary means of transportation. This allows you to traverse set tether points quickly, ambushing opponents for stealth kills, knocking them off the stage, or just exploring the area more quickly. The other addition is Elizabeth, whom you were sent to rescue from Columbia and much of the story hinges on. While the idea of a giant escort mission may seem tedious, Elizabeth enhances the game, providing you with spare ammo and the best story moments in the game.
Infinite is an excellent shooting game with a memorable story and solid gameplay. A must buy for every gamer.
RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition is an updated version of the original Myst with modern graphics and all the original content of the first Myst game. There isn't much to say about a point and click puzzle game from the 90's; the gameplay is comprised of exploring prerendered environments for clues to solve small puzzles that unlock the end of the game. What can be said is that the updated graphics bring one of the most beautiful game of the time into the modern age, and the remastered soundtrack is icing on the cake.
The biggest flaw for a 90's puzzle game is the fact that many of the puzzles are unnecessarily obtuse, but the difficulty is nullified by the fact that you can look up a walkthrough online. The end result is a game that's more historical than fun to play. If you play this, I'd recommend going in blind if possible, attempting to solve the problems on your own before falling back on a walkthrough. The game has not aged well, but you may still enjoy this little nugget of history.
The Season Pass contains the Early Bird Special pack, Burial at Sea Episode 1 and 2, and Clash in the Clouds.
The Early Bird Special pack contains skins and stat boosts, so take that as you will. Some people will appreciate the extra health while others prefer more of a challenge. Cosmetics don't add anything to the game, so there isn't much else to say about this.
Clash in the Clouds was the first DLC but adds little to the game. It's a series of arena-based challenge maps, so if you enjoy the gunplay and want more opportunities to shoot things or more of a challenge, then you may enjoy this.
Burial at Sea is the stand out of the DLC offerings, adding to the story and lore of the world, as well as letting you return to the underwater city of Rapture. Face familiar foes, warp reality, spend more time with Elizabeth. In my opinion, Burial at Sea is worth the price of the season pass alone.
Fairy Fencer F was originally released in 2013 for the Playstation 3 and uses a modified version of the Hyperdimension Neptunia battle system. So if you've finished all the Neptunia games and want something similar but new, here's your fix.
If you're not acquainted with Neptunia, the meat of the game is exploration and combat. From the world map, you can enter different dungeon areas, with pick-ups and roaming enemies. Instead of random battles, you can choose to fight the enemies or avoid them, if you hit them before the battle starts, you get a pre-emptive strike, or if they hit you first you get ambushed. Combat is turn-based, but you can move freely in a pre-determined area to position for attacks. Attacks from behind give a better hit chance and damage, and certain moves have hit radiuses (such as a fan pattern).
There's limited voice acting; dialog takes place in visual novel style with images of the characters speaking, but there's a bit of motion tweening as well to give them a little more life than still images. The writing is somewhat cringy, but if you watch anime you'll be used to it.
The only real negatives I can bring up are the excessive tutorials that go on for hours into the game and the somewhat dated graphics. 2D are is high quality, but the 3D graphics are high-end PS2 level; clean but blocky.
The gameplay is solid, so if anime and JRPG tropes don't scare you off, you'll enjoy this game.
This game was originally developed in a few days during the Ludem Dare 28 challenge. As such, there isn't a lot to this game, but what is there is finely honed and very fun to play. The game itself can be completed in an hour or two if you know what to do and are fairly skilled, but I would recommend going in blind to get the most out of this game. Part of the challenge is figuring out what to do and how to do it, you can look up a guide to help, but it mitigates some of the fun and challenge.
Titan Souls was developed with a theme of "You Only Get One." As such, you have one attack and die in one hit, but so do the Titans. The game closely resembles Shadow of the Colossus or Legend of Zelda with all the filler cut out. There are no fodder mobs, no levels or power-ups, just boss fights.
The presentation is one of the best parts of the game, sparse but beautiful music, a sprawling environment, and minimal story delivered mostly in environmental clues and allusion. It should be noted that this game is best played with a controller, requiring precision movement and twitch reflexes. It can be played with a keyboard, but, for an example, with a controller you can shoot the arrow in a 360 degree circle, while a keyboard gives you 8 directions.
Overall a great game, very polished, short and inexpensive.
Crash Time 2 is arcade-style racing game that lacks polish but remains a solid budget title in a crowded market of racing games. On one hand, Crash Time 2 lacks much of the visual polish of a big-budget game; the UI is basic, the car you race as doesn't display damage, and the voice acting and writing is amateur. On the other hand, it has all the basic necessities of a decent game; solid controls, destructible and varied environments, reasonable mission and car variety, and decent graphics. Crash Time 2 doesn't hold up to a $60 AAA racing game, but compared to other car racing games in a similar price bracket it holds up very well.
Crash Time 2 has a handful of modes, a story-based mission mode where you unlock new cars and customization options by completing missions, and multiplayer racing modes. The game has a giant floating arrow to point you in the directions, a la Crazy Taxi, as well as a mini-map with a recommended route that updates as you drive. The story and mission details are delivered in voice-over narration that, while not great, at least demonstrates a working knowledge of audio balance. The environment is fairly large, with a variety of terrain from sprawling cityscapes to scenic rural areas.
Overall, Crash Time 2 may scratch your itch for a Need for Speed game at a budget price. It's fun to play, has a decent amount of content for the price, and runs pretty smooth. If you can deal with the amateurish voice acting and interface you'll have quite a bit of fun with this game.
Avencast: Rise of the Mage is a 3rd person action game where you control a young mage learning to battle evil. If you're thinking Harry Potter, you aren't too far off. The problem is the presentation and graphics do not look like a relatively recent game. A theme you might notice with games published by Meridian 4 is decent games with an overall lack of polish and refinement. The problem with 3rd person action games is there's simply too much competition in the budget indie market to rate the game highly. It's competent, but the presentation may make the game difficult to get into. Tutorials are basic blocks of text and introductory missions. There's little style or flair to the UI, crowded with boxes of muddy graphics that lack conveyance or impact.
Combat is relatively simple, you have a weak melee attack with up to 4 equipable spells. You can customize the character visibly with equipment, customize stat progression, and a relatively small skill tree to unlock new spells. The game handles reasonably well, but the graphics look like a PS2 game. There are a fair number of games at a similar price point with better graphics, better gameplay, more customization, and are simply better. It does have passable voice acting, but the script writing is long-winded and too exposition heavy.
Overall, it's a decent game if you're willing to put in the time to get used to controls and UI, but I hesitate to recommend it.
I should bring up the fact that there are 2 games called Dark Matter on Steam, but at the time of posting this is the only Dark Matter on WinGameStore, so call this future-proofing the review. The other Dark Matter is a 2.5D side-scrolling sci-fi horror game while this is a top-down shooter set in space.
If you're unfamiliar with Asteroids, you control a lone spaceship fighting off waves of asteroids that break into smaller pieces before finally being destroyed. You can move around the screen by pointing the ship in a given direction and moving forward. The original Asteroids was one of the first games to demonstrate physics like momentum in a game. Dark Matter updates the core gameplay with new enemy types, power-ups, and a generic story with minimal impact on the game.
In terms of presentation: the game is functional, but far from the best update of Asteroids available on the market. The game has both mouse and gamepad support though navigating the menus with the controller is unnecessarily difficult. The in-game graphics are somewhat pixelated but stand out from the background, so they don't impede play.
The game itself hung on my several times during gameplay but did not crash, so it seems like it's not optimized very well. The controls are pretty solid, no visible lag, so at least it doesn't mess up the core gameplay.
That said, the campaign and survival mode don't really add much to the game; if you've played Asteroids you've basically played this game. If you haven't played an Asteroids game, this might be a good jumping in point.
Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals is a point-and-click adventure based on the art and stories of Enki Bilal. Set in France in the dystopian near future, you guide Alcide Nikopol after an alien spaceship in the form of an Egyptian pyramid arrives in the Paris astroport.
Being an adaptation of an existing literary work, there are a few considerations that should be made for the story. This game is based on the first book of a trilogy of novels, The Carnival or Immortals or La Foire aux immortels. The adaptation is cut and watered down, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing; if the story interests you, you may want to pick up the novels, and you would still find new content in the first book, so you have a reason to read the entire series.
Originally released in 2008, the animated cut scenes definitely show their age, while the prerendered backdrops still hold up fairly well. Gameplay is standard point-and-click affair, you have a small inventory of held items to run on other things and progress the story. It is somewhat flawed by the fact that you can miss important objects early in the game that prevent progress later on, which can ruin your game if you aren't using a walkthrough. On the other hand, the game is pretty short (3-4 hours if you know what you're doing), so you may see the lack of hand holding as an element of difficulty.
Overall, a flawed but intriguing game. Fans of the books may be disappointed by the lack of depth, but newcomers will appreciate the dark atmosphere and may find themselves picking up the novel series as a result.
The RIP trilogy may seem like value, but the fact of the matter is there's barely one game worth of content here to begin with. I will say it's interesting to look at the package as a whole since the game evolves with each installment to become a decent game by the end.
RIP 1 is a top-down turret game, you stay in one place fending off waves of enemies or surviving as long as possible. RIP 2 becomes a top-down twin stick shooter, but little else changes. RIP 3 is the most fleshed-out of the 3 games, a top-down twin stick shooter with a token attempt at a story. The same flaws persist throughout all three games: the enemy AI is flawed with poor pathfinding, the different playable characters are essentially the same, and level design is pretty basic (though the third game has a bit of variety). While the third game has a bit of polish, there's nothing that couldn't be achieved in a free Flash game, nor is this the best example of a top-down shooter.
Overall, the games are playable, and may get you a few hours of enjoyment. The third game is by far the standout of the collection, so if you plan to play them all, make sure you play them in order, as I don't think you'll want to go back to 1 after playing 3.
Space Hack has most of the trappings of a late 90's PC RPG; mouse-driven click to move and attack, an HP bar that can be replenished with potions, an Energy bar that's depleted by weapons, and a clunky, grid-based inventory management system similar to System Shock 2 and other old-school RPGs. This might still interest you if you've played Diablo and Torchlight to death, but for a game that isn't very old it's fairly dated.
In terms of gameplay, it brings nothing new to the table, you fight enemies by clicking on them, pick up loot, chug potions as your health drops. The game has a story and lore, but it's told in the laziest and most non-engaging way possible. The game starts with a single screen exposition dump and off you go to explore an alien world. Individual NPCs deliver multiple screens of dialogue which deliver some story and character development, but the writing is somewhat lacking. Hope you've already played Diablo, because this game does a poor job explaining how to play the game. Yes, there is leveling and stats, but the experience system is broken and it takes forever to gain levels. Seems like they padded game length by forcing you to grind for levels to further the game. Graphics in general are a bit dated, sound design leaves a bit to be desired, but overall it's functional.
All in all, it's a decent game if you want a space-themed RPG, but it's by no means up to par with classics like Diablo or Torchlight. It's lack of auto-save may also be a problem for newcomers to the genre, so be aware that if you don't manually save the game at regular intervals you will lose progress.
Kingdom has a fairly simple gameplay loop: you are a king or queen on horseback building a new kingdom from dirt with a few coins and some mercenary peasants, defend your kingdom from goblins, and expand! The graphics are 2D Atari-inspired pixel art used to fairly impressive effect with beautiful backdrops and a revolving day-to-night cycle.
In the day, you collect gold, recruit workers, outfit them with bows to make them hunters or hammers to make them builders. The hunters shoot animals for additional gold while the builders make defenses and expand your kingdom. At night you fend off attacks from goblins trying to destroy your kingdom and ultimately steal your crown, causing a game over.
This is where the difficulty comes in, you have a limited amount of time to gather resources and build up your fledgling city before waves of goblins come to tear your city down. Every few days a massive wave comes that tears your city a new one, which is when your crown is most at risk. This makes for tense and exciting games and multiple playthroughs while you hone your strategy and improve to progress further into the game.
Overall, this game has niche appeal, but it does what it does very well. A great game to play for short bursts.
Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches is a point-and-click adventure game with dated 3D graphics and somewhat off voice acting. The game uses Celtic themes of myths and magic to spice up the cliche setting of house-sitting a spooky mansion.
While the game doesn't really tread any new ground, it's definitely competent at what it does. The story is delivered with environmental clues and voice-over narration. The sound overall could use work, but it has some decent background music, no glaring issues just an overall lack of polish. Visually, while not stunning, the pre-rendered backgrounds are pretty well detailed without being overly cluttered, making them nice to look at without being too confusing.
If you enjoy point-and-click adventures, this will probably be worth a few hours of your time. While somewhat lacking in visual polish compared to more recent games, there's an interesting story and setting that make for a spooky little adventure.
I had to double-check this, but this game was released in 2009 and Cut The Rope was released in 2011.That said, Obulis is a physics puzzle game where you maneuver colored balls into matching receptacles (such as vases and flowers) by swinging, shooting, and bouncing balls off the environment or other balls! More than likely you've already played Cut The Rope, so I'll compare Obulis to that for the rest of the review.
Visually, this game isn't as polished as Cut The Rope; the images seem to be real pictures cropped and manipulated to create the environment. The overall aesthetic is a little inconsistent, but it's pretty clear what you can interact with and what's background, so it's serviceable. Options are practically non-existent, and you won't be putting the soundtrack on your iPod any time soon. That being said, there's a lot of variety in the puzzles and the difficulty ramps up quickly. Compared to Cut The Rope, there may be fewer puzzles but the individual puzzles are more unique. If you like puzzles or like Cut The Rope but want more of a challenge, give Obulis a try.
Amnesia Memories is a series of games beginning on the PSP, this game is also available on the PS Vita. It's an Otome game, or a dating sim from the perspective of a female lead. Voice over is in Japanese only.
There isn't much to say about gameplay or presentation, it functions like most visual novels with a dating sim aspect and has 5 male protagonists to choose from. The writing is solid, and the artwork is excellent. Not much else to talk about, either you like this style of game or you don't, and this won't do anything extraordinary to change your opinion.
Dungeon Hearts does one thing pretty well, but it quickly descends into grinding and carpal tunnel as you frantically move the mouse around trying to move the little dots into place to match 3. And yes, this is basically a match 3 game with an RPG skin on top. Graphics are ok, art style looks nice, but there isn't much more depth beyond more types of tiles and the stages going faster and faster. You play it over and over again, gradually getting better and occasionally getting enough XP for a permanent buff, such as 5% more HP for one of 4 characters. This was the first upgrade and it took an hour to get.
So I'd say it's a bit slow. There's a little bit of story there but the characters aren't really built up, so it's basically just window dressing. Mouse controls work, but as the stages speed up it gets harder to grab and move tiles, which quickly became agitating to me.
While this game is about 7 years old (released in 2009) and hasn't aged terribly well, it does what it sets out to do fairly well. If this website used a 10 point system it'd probably get a 7 instead of 3 stars.
The game is easy to get into, you have a good range of weapons at your disposal ranging from swords to twin pistols to dynamite to clear out small rooms filled with enemies. Enemy variety is a bit light, so expect to fight many bats and zombies. As you kill stuff you level up, so there's a bit of character customization in distributing skill points. There's little exploration as you traverse a grid of rooms to collect all lost souls before exiting the level.
Visually, the game is well-themed but not too impressive. Animation is a bit stilted, sound effects are stock, music is bland but fitting, but it works. Certain weapons, such as the sword, lack proper visual feedback when hitting enemies, when combined with shoddy hit detection it can be a little frustrating.
Overall, it's a competent game, if a bit repetitive. Oh, and there are spoopy elements. Occasionally images will flash on screen or whispered voices. This seems to occur after clearing out rooms, so it doesn't get in the way of gameplay.
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