Source: Supporter Donation
Price: £19.49
Where To Get It: Steam

I thought my disguise was perfect. Who would have suspected The Mad Welshman, noted vaudevillain and spotlight hogger, to dress as a distinguished old lady? Statues checked and swapped: Check. Ambassador bugged: Check. Guest list purloined: Check. All in under a minute. Time to enjoy my drink, and…

That final, fateful sip…

Well, in the middle of savouring the drink, a high velocity round, the only one the sniper has, enters through my ribcage, putting paid to my dreams of living high on villainy. My opponent calmly explains how they tagged me: They knew that the Pub was a git to see the statues in, so they suspected me from the get go, but it wasn’t until the guest list disappeared that they were sure. So close. The next game, they also steal the guest list, but on the move, so, instead of my rightful suspect, a diplomatic incident is created as the harmless old lady, who was enjoying a nice G&T, is snuffed out due to a case of mistaken identity.

Spy Party is a simple game, in one respect: There is a sniper, whose laser sight is visible, and who has one bullet, watching a party in one of several locales. There is a spy, who has to achieve a certain number of missions without getting sniped. You would think, considering that the possible objectives go up, but the number of objectives to achieve remains roughly the same through most of the difficulty levels, that it would be stacked in the spy’s favour: Anything up to 16 guests, only a few of which can be ruled out (due to being targets for the spy in one respect or another), and an average of 7 possible objectives per area.

The replay function, in combination with helpful players, is very useful for working out what went wrong… Or *so close to right, dammit*

But this is without accounting for the fact that there are any number of tells that can give you away. Sometimes, as with contacting the Double Agent, it’s loud. “BANANA BREAD”, the game declares. Sometimes, as with another game I played, they’re subtle. “Oh, you picked up your glass and went straight to the statue? The statues need to be picked up with both hands, so the AI doesn’t go to the statues unless they’re on their last sip.”

See? So obvious once it’s explained… But it caught me out. But it goes the other way, too. You can, if you’re clever (and a little lucky) grab the Ambassador’s briefcase, fingerprint it while walking, hand it to the ambassador, and bug them, all while strolling to the next conversation. One objective, and a part of a second, with no-one the wiser unless they’d already pegged you. A false contact, while the sniper’s looking at another of the two Double Agents, can get them suspicious of exactly the wrong people. There’s a lot of depth to it, and this is early days yet.

It’s not all roses with Spy Party, although it’s a solidly designed game with a lot of depth… The lobby’s an old school IRC type deal, with a little reading of the manual needed to understand how to, for example, make your own room (it’s /mr “[room name]” , by the way) , but playing publicly is currently alright, with players often explaining how they got you.

The Dossier, while not quite finished, nonetheless shows you what you can do, and is thus a useful source of tips… For both sides!

Spy Party is multiplayer only, but it’s definitely a multiplayer game I can get behind, one with depth in both perspectives, some good old fashioned psychological warfare, and a clever premise, well executed. Games are 1v1, and, if you have friends, it’s best to make a room, but if you want a multiplayer game with thought required, this is definitely one to look out for.

The Mad Welshman will snipe you. He’d snipe your little dog, too, but, y’know, Intelligence Service budget cuts…

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £19.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access

Lobotomy Corporation is, at times, a frustrating game. But then, I would imagine daily life in a corporation not dissimilar to the SCP Foundation would be rather tense. Here’s the bird that punishes sin. Looks small, but it’s deadly. Steve has a cloud of fairies around him. He’s heard about what happened to Mike, so now he’s exclusively on fairy duty, and doesn’t argue. He’s too afraid of what would happen if he succeeded. Mary’s frantically turning the handle of a music box, tears streaming down her face. She knows that if she listens too long, she’ll feel bad things, but the music helps her forget what the thing in the shape of an old woman told her, and what she might tell her next time she has to listen to her stories.

Things go horribly, horribly wrong.

Oh, and in about thirty seconds, giant leeches are going to appear in the hallways, and devour Steve, Mike, Mary, and their friend Kira. But the energy has been harvested, so maybe the next day won’t be so horrifying, except that poor performance means budget cuts.

Welp. Time to load that checkpoint… Or maybe start over. I haven’t decided yet.

Lobotomy Corporation is, reductively described, a pausable management sim. It’s reductive because it’s got elements of roguelikes, like the fact that what you learn about the monsters stays unless you delete it, and that, each day, a new monster is added from a pool, so each run is a little different. Similarly, the management end is essentially “Create the best kinds of armour and weaponry to keep surviving, and assign the right people to the right beasties for the best result.” Objectives, also, such as “Suppress 8 meltdowns” (Suppress, in this context, means “Beat the hell out of whatever monster has invaded/escaped, try not to kill everyone.”) help upgrade the department they’re given to.

Successfully completing missions improves that specific department. Anti-fear effects? YES PLEASE

As such, it’s an odd mixture of frustrating and ho-hum. New abominations make life more interesting, and some of their quirks genuinely add depth and interest to play, but at the same time, that first time feels a bit like a roulette where a third of the segments are “Die horribly, do not roll again.” Once you know what the abnormal object or creature does, however, it becomes… Well, not tame. As noted, some outbreaks occur just by harvesting, and knowing what a thing does doesn’t help if you’re not healing or dealing with problems correctly… But safer, is probably the best word.

I would still say that Lobotomy Corp is worth a go, because it’s one of the few games I’ve seen trying to tackle this particular subject from this angle, and it honestly doesn’t do a bad job. It’s more that, in accurately representing its source inspiration, it’s also getting across the frustration attached.

A distant cry of “NOT MY HAAAAAAAAAIR” is heard. Or, it would be, if the other noises didn’t drown it out. Another day in Lobotomy Corporation…

The Mad Welshman is, for reference, Teth O-O5X-9 , The Twirler Of Moustaches.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £15.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Version: 0.2.0

What is it with fun-hating dictators? So often in a game, a dictator comes to power, and the first thing they do is ban something fun, like music, or skateboarding, or dabbing and twerking…

…Okay, I have yet to encounter those last two, but I’m sure it’ll come up someday. In any case, in TERRORHYTHM, the thing that’s been banned is music. So, in true video-game revolutionary fashion, not only are we going to defy the endless hordes of the Not-Actually-Great Leader, we’re going to do it with rhythmic beatdowns!

Oh dear. Yep, this doesn’t look good for our rhythmically pounding hero…

The basic idea is that, from left and right, enemies will stream, sometimes big, sometimes small, and you have to fight them to the rhythm. Left and right does basic attacks, down expands your area of influence (as do certain weapons taken from enemies for a limited period of time), and up charges a move where you smack multiple enemies in a direction at once (useful for when they’re grouped up, too close to attack one at a time.) Of course, where the depth comes in is that different enemies change that basic game plan, and you have to adapt. Some enemies (and small groups) can only be beaten up safely with the charged attack, some require multiple attacks, and others cannot be attacked with the charged move. And those are but a few examples.

Suffice to say, the main obstacle to enjoying TERRORHYTHM right now is its difficulty. Although adjustable to some extent, it’s taking me about three or four tries to clear early levels, and, of course, it’s a score attack game, so I’m reminded, every level, that I’m not doing so hot. Still, it’s got its charm, as the base tracks are threatening, pulsing EDM (lots of saw, lots of bass), the aesthetic is similarly hard edged, and enemy types are clear to see as they stream in.

The Tron style Chakram allows you to attack at any range… For a limited time.

In essence, it’s a promising start, and being able to use your own music in the game is a definite plus (I tried it to CoLD SToRAGE’s “Canada” , and died horribly every time), its base gameplay loop works just fine, but it’s quite tough, even after some early balancing. Still, it’s early days yet, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

No, really… Somebody’s going to end up making a game where a dictator bans twerking. One day…

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £13.37 (No, really. Soundtrack £4)
Where To Get It: Steam
Version: Update 18

Flying through space in a giant brick with guns, with fighters swarming around me is, perhaps, one of the more powerful moments I have. Yes, the giant space brick (A Heimdall Lineship) steers like a cow, and it’s somewhat hard to see exactly what I’m aiming at, but that’s not really mattering too much, because all of my guns are firing, enemy ships are dying, and, in my own small, confused way, I’m contributing to the capture of the Ixion space station.

On the one hand, this thing steers like a brick with strings. On the other, goodness me, it makes things explode!

This is just one moment of Angels Fall First’s gameplay… In a 64 player botmatch. Well, 63, minus me. And it feels good.

A quick catch-up: Angels Fall First is a science fiction multiplayer team shooter, along the lines of a Battlefront, Battlefield, or COD, with space and ground based missions, a bewildering variety of builds, weapons, and vehicles, and locales, that essentially boil down to either taking an objective, destroying an objective, or defending an objective, supporting both multiplayer and solo, bot driven play.

Aesthetic wise, it looks good. Chaotic, but good. Everything has a chunky style that gives at least some idea of what people are using (I can tell, for example, a sniper by the long barrel as they run, or a heavy by the fact that their armour is bigger and chunkier), and the music is properly pounding and theatrical, changing as the battle comes to triumph… or disaster. Elements of the UI are somewhat confusing (The radar in the lower left, for example), and, sadly, the game’s loadout function isn’t as helpful or informative as it maybe could be, but being able to save your own custom loadouts for later use, working them out in botplay, then using them in multiplayer does help somewhat.

Yup, that sure is a thing I’m seeing… an LAV and a Mech fighting side by side, while infantry like me scream and hide.

So, it looks pretty good. It feels pretty good. It’s got its flaws, mostly to do with informing the player what their loadout does and what it’s good for. How’s the AI play?

Well, the AI is very objective focused. What this means in practical terms is that, on the one hand, defending in Incursion mode (where the attacking party has dropships that can be destroyed, but the defending party can’t regain any objectives they lose) is a tough proposition… But on the other hand, the AI is so mission focused that a player can, if they survive long enough to get to the dropships, do some serious, unregenerated damage, perhaps destroying a dropship in a single life. That’s highly chancy early on, when the enemy is pretty much streaming from a single LZ (so your chances of getting to the dropships are low), but once I got to the dropships… Well, the ship defends itself, but the AI infantry tended to only take potshots before heading off to their designated objective from the dropship. So that needs a little bit of work.

I don’t mind this *so* much… After all, I still feel like a badass for doing it. I just probably wouldn’t be able to against human players. XP

Still, for a small team, this is a big game, with customisation options out the wazoo, a variety of weaponry (and the weight of your loadout does matter), and a bunch of ships and maps. Even in Early Access, even with things it needs to iron out, this gets a thumbs up from one of the more multiplayer averse reviewers out there.

The Mad Welshman hasn’t really favoured multiplayer since Bad Company 2. That should give some idea…

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £8.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access

Well, last time I looked at Bombslinger, I would be embarassed to die to the bosses, and often died to the enemies. By the time of release, however, things have gone back to a more natural order of bosses being more challenging than enemies. And what a set of bosses it is…

Ahhh, the sweet smell of nitro in the morning…

Bombslinger, as noted in my Early Access review, is a spaghetti western inspired procgen Bomberman style game. The basic idea is very simple: You have bombs, which hurt both you and the enemies, and clear terrain. Blow up enemies, collect powerups so you get more bombs, health, speed, and bomb power, ensuring you don’t die. Get to the end of the level, blow up the pattern based boss, go to the next level with more difficult enemies and bosses, until you win or die. Easy.

But Bombslinger adds a little extra, a little variety with its roguelike elements. On top of Bomberman style staples available like Big, Extra Splodey Bombs and remote detonation bombs, there are powerups that let you dodge roll, let you leap obstacles, and even ensure that those pesky obstacles are no impediment to your explosive revenge on the folks that killed your wife (Yes, like a Spaghetti Western, it’s got a story that goes some of the same places a Spaghetti Western would have, for good and for ill.) Some of these powerups are available at the beginning of a run, based on previous achievements (thus adding some incremental improvement in there too.)

For some odd reason, I’m thinking of Wolfenstein right now…

While some things (such as the earliest enemies being more tedious than tense or tactical) haven’t changed, the bosses have definitely improved. While the Firestarter boss is still heavily pattern based, he’s more threatening, getting more dangerous the closer he is to death, for example. The UI remains pretty clear (although the keybinding is a little odd, the clarity helps remind me what’s a special, what’s a consumable, and what’s an ability), the aesthetic is interesting (Essentially, it’s 2D sprites in a 3D space, as shown when you enter the shop, done smoothly enough that it’s only really noticeable in the shop), the music is quite nice, and, overall?

Bombslinger does nice things with its mechanical inspirations, and is well worth a poke for Bomberman fans.

The broom, while technically useless, does save a little time.

The Mad Welshman is a big fan of the old cannonball bomb design. It has history.

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