Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £19.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access 1, Early Access 2, Early Access 3

Well, Subnautica is out. And oh boy, there’s a lot to take in there. The possibility of escape from this watery world awaits, to those brave enough to… Er… Brave the horrors. Although, as I’ve said previously, I’m not entirely sure I want to leave, considering how damn cool the world is.

Why are floaters doing this? Because. That’s the kind of answer you get when the lone survivor is not a marine exobiologist.

Enigmatic caves, mushroom forests, islands held aloft by gigantic floating creatures bonded to the rock… This is before the plot of the game properly kicks in, that, thankfully, you can mostly do at your own pace. The Aurora is shot out of the stars by… Something, and you, seemingly the only survivor, must not only find a way off this rock, but also solve an ancient mystery. A mystery that gets quite personal, as you are rapidly infected by… Something.

I’ve gone through a lot of emotions playing Subnautica. Consternation as I hunt for Lithium and Magnetite. Amusement, both the gentle kind when I’m cheered on by random space truckers, and the black kind, when I discover how some survivors… Were real candidates for the old Darwin Awards. Bed wetting terror, the first time I met the Reaper Leviathan. Mostly, though, I’ve been pretty relaxed, because the world is a beautiful one, with a thriving ecosystem that, as a lone human, I can’t really despoil. Mmmm, that feels good.

…Not that I haven’t tried my damnedest. Even built a scanner room or three to try harder.

So, after three Early Access reviews (Each a good indicator of how far things have come), is there much left to say? A little. After all, it was only in the most recent updates that things like the Prawn Exosuit let me clomp around the sea bed, and building the Cyclops, the submarine that’s been almost emblematic of the game, seemed a pipedream up until fairly recently.

But that’s the thing with Subnautica: It brings you in with friendly, accessible survival gameplay in the kinds of biomes you haven’t really seen anywhere else, then gives you more to hope for, more to achieve, more to explore, and in the end… Gives you a chance to escape from even that.

Sorry, but even if I had gotten that far, I probably wouldn’t take the option. Subnautica’s world… Is just too damn pretty to leave, and I have so much more to do.

Join me. It’s a wonderful experience.

You… You are my new best friend. And I shall call you… John Bigboté!

The Mad Welshman is going for a swim. He’s also bringing two tonnes of TNT, because god-damn, that Reaper NEEDS TO DIE.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £15 (For all three episodes. The third isn’t out yet, and will be covered separately)
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Episode 3

Ah, the early 90s. A time of ‘tude. A time of textured, low-polygon worlds, often heavily interlaced. A time where plots were paper thin, gibs flew freely, and nobody asked “What’s my motivation?”

Okay, so this isn’t entirely true, but a lot of people remember it that way, and DUSK? Tickles that nostalgia gland. Looking for a nuanced protagonist? Nope, you are a shootman. You shoot, and you shoot, and you shoot some more, because folks and creatures who are most likely evil want to shoot you. Puzzles? Sort of, if by puzzles, you mean finding walls that look suspicious, blowing them up, or finding switches to open them, and, of course, the hunt for up to three colour coded keys you need, Red generally being last.

The satisfaction of both a job well done, and the possibility of the last key nearby.

Honestly, even if Dusk wasn’t quite my cup of blood (and it is), I would appreciate the sheer commitment to aesthetic. The world is low poly and grungy, everything is chunky, and while there’s no need to reload, hitting the time honoured R key will spin your weapons in a cool way that vaguely looks like somebody reloading stylishly. Similarly, the music is hard, dark, and fitting with the grimdark sort-of-plot that Dusk has. Namely, evil experiments, a cult of worshippers who need stopping, and teleportation experiments. If that seems familiar, yes, it’s hammering together elements of Quake, Blood, and Doom in ways that, honestly? Don’t have to make sense. There is no fall damage, so feel free to look awesome as you drop from the sky raining explosive death.

So far, I’ve been quite complimentary, but it mustn’t be said that Dusk takes only fun lessons from 90s shooters. Bosses aren’t too challenging, beyond the fact that they have boodles of life and do a lot of damage if they hit. Some of the levels (Looking at you in particular, The Steamworks!) are dark and mazelike for the sake of being dark and mazelike, and are a sod to navigate, even for a 90s style shooter. Homing attacks from some enemies are annoying, even as they add a dimension to the combat style the game wants you to be playing with: Always moving.

The weaker weapons are all dual wield capable. The shotguns, in particular, are a joy to use.

Still, so far, I like Dusk Episodes 1 and 2. Since the game is episodic, I can quite happily cover these two episodes separately as actual reviews, and the third when it comes out as its own thing. The gunplay is a surprisingly clever game of resource management, as, while using a hunting rifle on mooks is entertaining, you’re probably going to need that ammo for more dangerous enemies, and the pistols see use pretty much throughout.

In the end, Dusk is an entertaining throwback to the days of swearing at your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT , without all that swearing and asking why the hell you have to reboot your computer because a game doesn’t like what you put as your HIMEM, and with a few design lessons of the modern day thrown in. If you like love letters to Ye Olde Days of Gibbing, that Tarnished Golden Age, then yes, Dusk is worth a go.

It even preconfigures the Soundboomer card correctly. Bloody magic, that is.

Commitment to aesthetic, thy name is [Clicking and whirring as of a struggling 486DX hard drive]. As you might guess, that’s somewhat hard to pronounce for anyone who isn’t a 90s kid.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £15.49
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access 1, Release

Last time, on Hacktag

“You’re a loose cannon, Hacktag! Competition and co-op play in the same game? Hand me your badge!”

And now, we return you to… Hacktag

People forget, I think, how many possible ways there are of making a multiplayer experience single player. They also forget that sometimes this can be quite tough. AI companions require extra code, extra thought. A checkpoint based auto companion can feel very samey, but cuts down on the work.

Updated skills and lobby interface? Yes, please!

Hacktag has gone for something a little more old fashioned, but it’s interesting to note how it changes the game: Split-screen, swappable solo. One keyboard, two characters, and you’re switching between the perspective of both. How is it?

Challenging! With multiplayer, the other player is able to spot and avoid threats just fine on their own. The only times you worry about them is when they screw up and get caught, when you screw up and need to be rescued, or when you both need to be at the same place for the dual hacks. With singleplayer? Ahh, there’s the rub. Because whether you’re on split screen or full screen perspective for each character, once you switch characters, the other is helpless, and so, timing becomes much more important. As do safe zones. As such, it’s both a more challenging, and, at the present stage at least, frustrating experience. In the middle of a dual hack when bam, guard. Stealthing to the next safe point, but… Crap, antivirus. It’s got a lot of planning to it, that’s to be sure.

AAAaaaaAAA! There are also new objectives. Now… AaaaAAAAaaaaAAa!!!

Nonetheless, if that were the only change at this stage, rough as it is, I’d be happy. But the general experience has improved as well, with more types of event, rejiggered minigames for hacking and stealthing, and… Traps. Sometimes, it’ll be the standard “There is an alarm, get to it and disable it before it goes off.” Sometimes, it’ll be a laser grid, to be avoided in either hacker or stealth mode until the timer runs out. What’s nice about that one is that it varies depending on who triggers it, a clever touch that swings things a little back toward parity between stealth and hacking play.

The competitive score with co-operative play remains (And seems to now firmly be a part of the vision), but skills and cosmetics have also been improved, so levelling up gives a broader depth of rewards, and now, should your heart desire, you can be one of a small multitude of anthropomorphic animal cat burglars. Go you!

So, on the whole, the potential of Hacktag is really shaping up. Good co-op play can tough out even the meanest of missions, be it local or multiplayer, solo play is there for those of us who like planning (and also acknowledge that a plan never survives contact with the enemy), and, even aesthetically, there’s a little more variation. There are still some bugs and glitches, but they are, at the present time, relatively minor, so, overall, I guess I’ll leave you with the denouement of this episode of Hacktag.

Solo *does* have the option of switching between fullscreen perspectives, but… Nah, not risking it!

“KOFF, I never shoulda cancelled my laser-grid insurance!”
“No… Don’t say that… You’re Gonna Live.”

The Mad Welshman recommends this and many other games… Because they’re video-games. And all your friends are playing them.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £7.99 (£10.99 Supporter Edition, £1.59 each for Art book and Soundtrack)
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Release

Crest is a god game, and one that intrigues me. How can it not, when rather than direct control, doing quests, or building buildings for my worshippers, I’m giving commandments, telling folks things like “Peoples of the Savannah, explore your new home!” (With the caveat, added later of “Peoples of the Savannah, please don’t go near my lions, I haven’t ironed out that whole ‘Killing you’ thing yet… Soz.”)

TFW you want to say “YES, DO THAT!” , but don’t have the energy.

Alas, right now, I’m having to remind them, every now and again, to make food to eat. And considering my power is limited, moreso if I haven’t given them commandments they liked, replenishing every half year, it’s a little bit of Goddery that I can do without.

Well, still plenty of time for rejigging, and I can wait for that, as, beyond this niggle, the game is quite cool, both aesthetically and in terms of ideas. A low-poly, Sub-Saharan world, the lions and hippos and antelope (Oh my!) breed, wander, eat each other, while my stylised tribesfolk breed, wander, and… don’t eat each other. Unless commanded. Maybe. The UI, while a little confusing at first, is helped along by a tutorial that plays with each new game, teaching you about giving commandments in the form of [Worshipper type] – [(Do/Do Not) Verb] – [Target] .

It’s quite clever, really. There’s not a lot of ways you can outright order the destruction of resource based items, you can check what a commandment actually says before you send it, and, as noted, you have the twin considerations of limited, worshipper based power, not only to give commandments, but also to approve or deny when followers… Get creative with them. Silly me, not writing these things in sto- What, those got futzed around with too? Bloody humans.

I’m somewhat proud of myself for establishing trade among my chosen people. Even if, a few months later, most of them starved from being too busy to fish or farm.

Yes, commandments are, over time, either forgotten or changed (or both), and, as it turns out, followers are averse to three things: Commandments that don’t fit their (shifting) philosophy, being told “No, when I said build farms here, I didn’t mean turn everything nearby to a different terrain type”, or silence on whether their hot new idea for a commandment impresses the boss that gave it to them. On the one hand, it’s an interesting idea, and has some interesting balancing acts. On the other, that balancing can, with too many commandments, quickly turn into micromanagement, and oh boy, do I want to give commandments, because without things like exploring, I and my followers don’t get new words to play with quickly. Words like “Lion” (Important for “Don’t go near the lions, they’re bad for you”) , Metal (“You can make shit with this.”), or “Socialise” and “Trade” (Important once they’ve got more than one settlement.)

So, in essence, Crest is a God game trying something different, something potentially very interesting, but also has bits of micromanagement that, honestly, it could do without. Everything breeds on its own, can they maybe, once they have the idea, realise that farms and fishing are kind of important to their lives? I don’t know, maybe my commandments are interfering with each other. Maybe I’m just a Bad God. But I’m certainly waiting to see what comes closer to relea- PUT THAT DOWN, ABDU! NO, ROCKS ARE NOT FOR EATING, THEY’RE FOR MINING OR – ZOYA, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO PLAY WITH LIONS, LOOK AT THE STATE OF Y-

If it’s dancing or has hearts over it, odds are it’s something going forth and multiplying. That constitutes a *lot* of this screenshot.

Eesh. Kids.

The Mad Welshman proooobably wouldn’t make a good parent. “Your Father Commands You To Lay Waste To The Sweet Shop!” probably wouldn’t go down well.

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Source: Free copy due to owning the original.
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam

When I reviewed Shadowhand, late last month, the last thing I was expecting was to be talking about the earliest “Solitaire with a story” game that I’d played, 2010’s Faerie Solitaire. And yet… Here we are. So… Solitaire, but with Faeries, and Remastered, how is it?

Ahhh, that twinkle, that sound you sadly can’t hear because it’s a screenshot. It’s nice to get rid of cards.

Well, there are, in fact, some changes under the hood. Eggs, for example, which had been a pain in the rear to collect, now drop more frequently, although the developer has stated that they’ll be adding more creatures to the egg pool. Spare cards have been replaced by wild cards, found the same way you find eggs and resources (by getting to the bottom of a stack, and finding them), and the game can now be put in an adjustable window. There’s new mechanics in the Challenge mode. So, overall? Yup, it’s an improvement!

None of this, of course, changing the basic idea, which is exactly what you’d expect: Get rid of cards, preferably all of them, by going up or down in numeric order, and filling arbitrary goals like “Get rid of seven cards in one go”, or “Get rid of all cards in three out of the ten rounds of this level.” Succeeding in these goals, and getting rid of enough cards in each round, means you get to smash a crystal with a fairy trapped inside. Before you even know why these fairies are trapped in crystals in the first place. Which is a nice segue into the story, such as it is.

In the land of Avalon, there’s magic, and a balance between these forces. But something is unbalancing them, and our young, male hero is out to repopulate the land by freeing fairies, and spending magical card money to give them buildings, which helps his card removing skills, his egg raising skills, and other skills that… Look, it’s paper thin, and you’re not really getting this game for a narrative magnum opus. You’re not getting it for the backgrounds of each area, either, as even with a remaster, they’re muddy paintings, a mere framework to let you know “You are in a mushroom land” or “This is the spiky place.”

Despite the backgrounds not feeling like an improvement, some of the art *has* improved.

No. What you’re paying your seven pounds for is 400 different rounds of Solitaire with puzzle elements such as fireballs to free up frozen stacks, roses to clear thorn stacks, and other fun things, split among 80 areas, themselves split among eight worlds. You’re paying for that minor serotonin rush of the cute widdle beasties you unlock and level up, and you’re paying for a free copy of the original game. Which is okay, as noted, so long as you’re okay with solitaire puzzles. Faerie Solitaire, even remastered, remains an okay game. Which is all it needs to be.

In the interests of disclosure, The Mad Welshman would like to note he didn’t spend as much time as he’d like with Faerie Solitaire, due to the unfortunate fact it fits with the more esoteric triggers for his epilepsy. Epilepsy can be weeeeird, folks.

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