Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £14.99
Where To Get It: Steam

It’s not so bad, being a robot miner whose uncle left you some kick-ass robot powers strewn around the very place where he’s gone missing. Well, y’know, apart from all the times you got disassembled because you got too curious… Or found yourself further on the path toward finding your Unc than you were maybe prepared for. But, generally speaking, being a robot miner isn’t bad.

A wee backgrounder before we continue: Steamworld Dig was the story of Rusty, a mining droid who dug deep, discovered an ancient, electronic evil, and put paid to it via digging, selling ore, gaining and using special abilities from lost technology, and buying ladders just in case he screwed up and dug too far. It was an interesting game, but also a somewhat grindy one at times.

I can happily state that this sequel, while still having the digging and the exploring and the selling ore and finding whatnots, is a tighter, less grindy game. Gone are purchasing teleports, replaced with a (mostly) handy pneumatic tube system that serves as checkpoints, and an ability you can earn later on that allows you to teleport to the surface anywhere that isn’t a cave or a plot-important area. Ladders, similarly, exist in a sense, but the game relies more on the more traditional mobility powerups to speed getting around and gate progress. For example, one particularly clever segment has you using a hookshot to cross a very windy segment of desert, with the most difficult segment involving timing your walljumping to coincide with very short periods of lower wind speed, and, importantly, very little of it feels frustrating.

Well, except for one feature, but that’s pretty much a personal preference: I really, really don’t like bosses who are invincible for the majority of their pattern, and there are a couple of those. Nonetheless, overall, Steamworld Dig 2 trades a lot of its procgen for something that, in the context, works better… tight design. From the very first, you are taught to use your powers until they feel natural, and then asked to think of them in slightly different ways. Hookshot as means of climbing. Hookshot as means of passing an impediment. Hookshot as means of clearing nuisances. Hookshot as boss avoider. A lot of the time, while there is a difficulty curve, it’s mostly only when the game seriously changes up the formula, or introduces something you’re not prepared for that you notice that. So yeah, props on that. Anything bad?

Well… Not… Really. The game isn’t going to win any awards for writing, with most characters being both functional and one-dimensional (Here’s the cowardly greedy mayor, and his long-suffering mother. There’s the shy mechanic, surprised and pleased when you actually want to hear the tutorials or them nattering about the tech you’ve gotten. Merchant. Archaeologist. Most folks are defined by their role, more than anything else.) But beyond that, it’s a well designed action platformer with clear direction, clear visuals, and some cool powerups. Honestly, that’s all it needs to be.

The Mad Welshman took quite a few screenshots. And then he realised a lot of them are spoilery as heck. Consarnit.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Steamworld Dig 2 (Review)

Source: Free-To-Play (Tables come from Pinball FX2, mostly)
Price: Free (Tables are DLC ranging from £1.99 to £7.99 packs, 1 table (Sorcerer’s Lair) included, with option to trial play tables)
Where To Get It: Steam

It’s nice when I get to say something has improved. Even if it’s basically a new lick-of-paint, some community features, and quality of life improvements, it’s still nice. And so it is with Pinball FX 3, by Zen Studios, a free to play pinball game with tables-as-DLC. Let’s get into that.

Pinball games, thankfully, are somewhat simple in terms of basics, so let’s sum this up quickly: The shift keys control the paddles (Left side paddles on left shift, Right side on right shift… A scaled down version of how pinball machines’ paddle buttons are generally placed on either side of the cabinet), Space tilts the table (Used sparingly, firstly because it’s rarely needed, and secondly because pinball machines don’t like it when you tilt them, punishing someone trying to cheat by lifting the table with a loss of control, and consequently… The ball), and Enter starts the game or, held down and released, launches the ball. Bam. There’s also camera and powerup controls, but those are either not used so often, or are clearly shown when you have a powerup unlocked and usable.

No, the real joy is in how the tables of the Pinball FX series play with the basic rules of pinball. The special modes in the Marvel: Infinity Gauntlet table (Yes, based on one of the many times cosmic gems and Thanos co-incided) can change the camera, elements of the table… Even the basic rule that shift flips the flippers, rather than holding them down, is exploited in the Mind Gem mission. In the Aliens table, the game will, at certain points, flip to a game you wouldn’t possibly have on a real pinball table, a segment where you’re piloting the APC down a corridor, dodging debris by shifting left or right with the paddles. Even some of the earlier tables have their own, separate mini-tables for certain minigames, and each table has its own twists. Epic Quest, for example, has a combat system, an XP bar, and spellcasting. Yes, on a pinball table. No, I’m not messing with you. Right ramp for Sword, middle left ramp for shield, smash bumper for smashing, and you get XP for completing quests and beating up monsters.

So, let’s talk about upsides and downsides. Firstly, if you did not have Pinball FX2, it’s no longer available for sale, nor are the tables that were licensed to it, and it alone (A list is available here). There is, at base, only one table available for free (Sorcerer’s Lair), but the table sets are, for the most part, reasonably priced at between £1.99 for some individual tables, and £7.99 for the Bethesda 4 table pack (With most at £6.99 for three tables, and bundle options.) Due to the updated visuals on tables, the game has higher system requirements, and is not quite as accessible as FX2, specwise. New tables have already been licensed, such as in the Universal Classics pack (consisting of ET, Jaws, and Back to the Future.) A downside is that the high-score table seems reluctant to share with me some friends’ scores, counterbalanced by an, overall, friendlier UI.

Finally, there are community improvements, powerups, and challenges. Tournaments, for example, are easier to see, and there’s a “matchup” mode where you can play multiple tables to try and get the top spots each month (Alas, the tables chosen aren’t guaranteed to be ones you own, and yes, this is a subtle way of trying to get you to buy tables, along with the Wizard Score, partly based on the number of tables you’ve played. I’m not going to begrudge this considering that the game is microtransaction free, honestly.) Similarly, tables now have different ways to play them, such as the three challenge modes (1 ball mode, 5-minute mode, and Survival mode, where you have a minute to reach an ever increasing score level, the clock resetting each time you get the score up to the maximum of 15) and powerups. Unlocked partly by playing the table normally, and partly by completing the challenge modes to a certain level, these add a bit of variety and score to your game, such as more score when hitting bumpers, or the ability to rewind time a certain number of seconds, improved by use.

How does it feel? Well, there’s quite a variety to the tables, so the feel varies quite a bit. Weakest in my opinion is V12, a table with a high emphasis on edge ramps and a limited lower play field, and have had the most fun with the Aliens, Sorcerer’s Lair, Epic Quest and Mars tables, but I’ve sunk a fair amount of playtime into the game, feel like I can ignore the tables whose properties I don’t particularly care about and still have a good time (Sorry, Balls of Glory pack, I don’t particularly want to remember that time where Family Guy was shit, or, y’know… Family Guy in general), and the tables are reasonably priced in reasonable packs. The tables have easily accessible guides as to how they work, and trial plays so you know roughly what you’re in for before (IE – before you say if) you buy, so… Yeah, I quite like it!

The Mad Welshman likes a bit of pin-of-the-ball. It reminds him of ye olde days of cabinette arcades.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Pinball FX3 (Review)

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £13.59
Where To Get It: Steam

Niche, a turn-based strategy/simulation game about keeping a clan of animals alive, is, on the one hand, an interesting one, with subtle details and features that make you think. On the other , it’s also a game which could do a better job explaining how to play it.

Briefly covering gameplay, depending on whether you play story or sandbox mode, you are either a single animal that travels islands looking for… Well, family, at first, or a mated pair of critters on an island type (and difficulty) of your choosing, simply looking to live your lives as best you can. Each critter only has a limited amount of energy (actions) with which to do things like cut grass for nest materials, mate, gather food (Be that by gathering fruit, killing animals, digging up tubers, or the like), and, at the end of each day, food is eaten, going down the pack order. Anything that can’t eat dies. Anything that gets sick and doesn’t get better dies. Anything that tries to tackle something it can’t handle dies, and anything well out of its element (Say, deep water) will probably die. Finally, compatible animals can be invited into the tribe with food, and you can have a chance of flipping the genes on animals that mate, changing your children into… Well, different children.

So far, so sandbox, and, once you get into it, it can be quite interesting. It’s visually consistent, with a clear, friendly looking style, and similarly, there is clear visual representation of the different traits. Unfortunately, the game does not tutorialise all that well, so you’re going to be doing a lot of exploring and fiddling (and probably failing) before you’re going to get anywhere. Some quick tips include that the bottom left buttons are act (paw), check DNA (the DNA twist), Select Mutations (the wider DNA twist), and family tree (the trio of animals.)

Is it worth it when you get into it, though? Myself, I somewhat like it, as it’s something I haven’t really seen much of since Reus… A chill game which, yes, does have consequences if you screw up, isn’t the friendliest game out there (Ahh, Reus. I still have a love/hate relationship with those 36 remaining achievements, all bastard hard to unlock), but is also, in its way, low pressure. Nature, after all, finds a way to survive, and I don’t mind going back to see if, maybe, just maybe, this time, I can make it work, and nobody has to worry about digital watches anymore. Bigger snout? Yes, I’ll be able to sniff out those lovely roots and berries better. Bigger claws? Ahhh, yes, that’ll do nicely, I can dig, and if any of those mean Bearyenas pop up to try and eat any of us, then we’ll be able to take them on in future. But wait, why is my clawed little child sick? Ah. Two of the same immunity gene, making them more susceptible to a certain illness! Damn youuuu, nature!

A few days later, half my tribe is sick, but the rest has survived, thankfully. Albeit clawless. Boo.

In summary, it’s a game that very much depends on replayability and experimentation for fun. Which, personally, I don’t mind coming back to now and again. If it could tutorialise a little better, then it would be a pretty good, relaxing, sandbox game. As it is, it’s an at least alright, not quite that friendly sandbox game.

The Mad Welshman appreciates that, one day, his creations will rise up and supplant him, taking their rightful place as the inheritors of Earth. In the meantime, the Bearyenas work.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Niche (Review)

Ahhh, the dungeon management genre, how I love it so. Defeating those righteous do-gooders with the promise of treasure, and maybe even a fellow dungeon owner that doesn’t agree with my platform of Mine, Mine, Mine. Which makes Dungeon Manager ZV 1 and 2 somewhat interesting, as the two games take very different approaches to, effectively, the same subject.

Dungeon Manager Zombie Vital Edition (to use its full name) hit the Western world in October 2015 (It had originally been developed in 2004), and… Well, it’s a game where the options expand as you play, but you’d be forgiven, for playing the game for an hour or two, to think that there was little beyond building rooms, watching heroes come in, and then they go and do whatever the heck they want, occasionally dying, occasionally leaving, and always, always aiming for the final treasure in your dungeon and the death of your boss monsters. If the last treasure in the dungeon goes, whoops, you’ve lost.

Thing is, there’s actually a lot more that can be done than the first, near-surface level game implies, and here comes both the draw and the problem of DMZV in general: Because it isn’t terribly clear at times, you’ll make mistakes on your first run, mistakes you won’t always be able to correct, and won’t always be made clear as mistakes until hours later, when the Big Boys of herodom come and play. Although there are multiple saves, that’s a lot of either work or faffing around that’s going down the drain.

Equally, there is an optimal play considering you always have a 3×3 grid to play with on each floor, and any room connects with every other adjacent room: One long path filled with your heavier monsters, nastier traps, and the like… And one, very short path, filled only with monsters beneath the notice of the groups you encounter, leading straight to your final boss. And you have to make it clear the difference in difficulty from the first room, as groups only judge where to go by adjacent rooms. The more heroes you kill, the more you let some vital few escape to tell the tale (having been satisfied by murdering some of yours, or defeating your traps… All the better to lure bigger, better heroes in), the more you can do. At first, it’s only traps, capped at the dungeon level you’re in, and some simple monsters. But once those monsters level up, you can merge them, making new, nastier monsters. You can change the elements of floors, giving advantage to certain types. You find Dragon Eggs. And, of course, treasures can change things up too.

Unfortunately for DMZV1, there is somewhat of a flaw: Very quickly, certain monsters are outpaced, so it becomes tougher to level them up so you can get them to be able to meld with other monsters. Also, time will proceed unless you’re holding down the CTRL key or have set it to Freeze, so keeping track of everything, even on slow, can become a slog. As such, while DMZV1 is interesting, it’s also a deeply, deeply unfriendly game.

DMZV2, on the other hand, changes the formula. It’s still, at its heart, a tower defense game, but now it has puzzle elements, sprites and tiles, and a friendlier interface. The general idea is still the same: Monsters, it seems, are getting a lot of stick, and the Lord of Dungeons is beseeched to create a dungeon so deadly, so alluring, that it will bring even the king of the land to it, to be murdered horrribly as vengeance for all those cute slimes being murdered. Dungeon features are unlocked in a main campaign mode consisting of, well, puzzles. How do we stop the adventurers from taking the objective in the time allotted to us? With fireballs, traps, and a succubus who is not terribly good at hand to hand, but can summon zombies (Remember, the ZV stands for Zombie Vital!), and shoot rather nasty magic, so long as the ghostly power of heroes who were satisfied until we killed them horribly lasts out (Obviously, we get that ghostly power by satisfying their needs, then murdering them horribly before they can leave. Priorities, folks, priorities!)

It is, so far, my favourite of the series, because, although the unlocking of features to use in the Create A Dungeon mode is through the campaign, that extension of DMZV1 and Resurrection’s “You get more things to play with the more you play”, it has selectable difficulty (indeed, Easy is mandatory the first time), the ability to go back, and the sound and visuals are less straining on a nice long game. It’s also, to my mind, the most characterful of the three, with at least some heroes introducing themselves, the sprites having their own character, and, sometimes, the black humour in levels. One of the early easy levels has you doing… Well, exactly nothing. The dungeon’s set up pretty much perfectly, and it harms your ability to murder folks to interfere with a trap setup that catapults heroes in laps round the dungeon until they die from impact damage.

Finally, to my knowledge, this is the only game in the series with an expansion, released earlier this year. A fairly cheap one, too, with extra puzzle dungeons, 10 extra items, and second sets of transformations of monsters into better, nastier forms for, around £3. In fact, both of the first games and the expansion comes to just over £13 for all three in a bundle. It’s pretty reasonable, although DMZV1 and the newly released (and separately reviewed) Resurrection both involve making mistakes that you may not notice for an hour or two. Try them out if you like to see interesting experiments with dungeon management games.

Dungeon Manager Zombie Vital 1 is available on Steam here, and DMZV2 here. Both pages have a link to the bundle.

Filed under: Game Reviews, Games Gone By by admin
Comments Off on Going Back – Dungeon Manager Zombie Vital 1 and 2

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £9.99
Where To Get It: Steam

The Dungeon Manager series has had an odd place in both my mind and heart since I was first made aware of the first localised installment (Dungeon Manager: Zombie Vital Edition.) They are, undeniably, tower defence games in a sense, although, as you’ll see from the Going Back on DMZV and DMZV2, they’ve gone in a couple of different directions, and I kind of like them… But one thing I can’t deny is that I’m never sure if I’m playing it right. And that’s never a great feeling.

In any case, the general idea is that you, the Dungeon Overlord, have become somewhat tired of those heroes killing monsterkind, again and again, so you’ve decided to make a dungeon. A dungeon that will grow, tempting greater and greater heroes inside to be given hopes, then slain, until finally, you destroy kings. So you dig out a dungeon (in this installment, by basically “painting” it with the mouse), place traps, enemies, and monsters (within set limits, and starting with only a limited toolset) , and then?

You wait. Heroes arrive periodically, and from there… Well, this is where the mileage begins to vary. See, the heroes and monsters alike move and attack in a fashion best described as “Bumblefucking.” They have some rough idea of the direction they’re heading, but seem to bump into walls, fumble their way around, and, in the case of monsters, suddenly shift priorities from someone they were sure to kill to someone who could (and does) easily murder them. And yet, despite all this, heroes will find their way to chests, they do find their way through the dungeon, and the monsters do manage to kill folks.

Killing them too early isn’t great, but it’s serviceable, as it still grants you bones with which to summon zombies and traps. Kill them after they’ve satisfied some of their needs (which, yes, includes killing your monsters), and you get Spirit, which can be used for slimes, building new kinds of traps, and other fun stuff along the way. Let them escape after satisfying their needs, and they talk up the dungeon, slowly increasing the fame of the dungeon, and the power of the heroes invading it. Playing through the tutorial once thankfully gives you the basic idea, and there are hints that give you further possiblities (Why not build an “easy” path to the boss monster(s) so low level characters can be easily fed to them, and a “hard” path so more experienced heroes get tempted away from that “easy” path?)

“But wait, doesn’t that mean eventually low level monsters eventually become useless?” Well, not quite. See, with Resurrection, the option now exists to invade the surface world, in a wave based monster on hero combat. At the price of temporarily and completely depopulating your dungeon afterwards, even level 1 zombies and slimes have at least a chance to level up and become the murderbeasts you need to progress. Oh, yeah, combining monsters of high level together gets you new monsters. Better monsters. Two zombies, for example, make a Half-Golem, while two of those become a Golem, a slime and a zombie becomes a Melty Zombie, and two of those becomes a Core Ghost, and two slimes becomes a Big Slime, and so on… There’s a fair few combinations, and due to the fact that monsters gain abilities in this game, they get a little nuance and character of their own.

Of course, all of this has been mechanical talk. How does it look? How does it sound? How does it feel? Well, this is where it gets a bit awkward. I don’t particularly feel invested in the dungeon building itself, the sound effects are okay (Although it’s easy to get tired of them), and there is a single music track in-game that is pumping, but like the sound effects, feels repetitive after a while. What I do feel invested in, on the other hand, is finding out what makes what. And, since this game appears harder to outright lose than the original Dungeon Manager, I can do that a little bit at a time. The game autosaves, with the options to clear the dungeon, but keep your monsters (Initialise Dungeon) or to just plain restart (Initialise Save… The localisation’s okay, but definitely not perfect.)

It’s not a game that feels all that deep, although there are hidden complexities under the hood, and it’s certainly not going to be impressing anybody graphically (Although I was interested by the developer, Studio GIW, going back to letters, but in pseudo-3d, rather than the tile or sprite based monsters of the previous game.) My main recommendations, here, would be to fantasy game strategy fans who want to see something somewhat different, with no short-term pressure, and who are okay with the fact they’re going to be doing a fair amount of micromanagement even without having direct control of their dungeon denizens.

The Mad Welshman is, of course, a Dungeon Lord of some standing. Why, he’s run more than six dungeons, in six worlds, and none of his minions have ever filed a complaint!

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin
Comments Off on Dungeon Manager ZV Redux (Review)