Source: Birthday Gift (From family, to clarify)
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam, GOG, Humble Store

Hoo boy. When you spend time on a game knowing you have other things to do, important things, you know you’re onto a winner. On that note, I need to eat. Both of these things are fitting for Stardew Valley, and I will elucidate more once I’ve got some food in my belly.

Morris is our Capitalist moustache twirler for the game. Also our ex-boss. And yet, the choice is there to side with him.

Stardew Valley, by Concerned Ape, is quite obviously inspired by Harvest Moon and its fighty cousin Rune Factory, as you are an office worker who has decided he wants to get out of the rat race, and, er… Into farming, which is a whole different kind of rat race. Pastoralism, Ho! So he moves to the village of Stardew Valley, and starts a whole new life, with backbreaking labour, and never enough time in the day.

Or, like me, he could largely ignore the farm the moment he got a fishing rod and a sword, beating up slimes and catching new and amazing fish. It’s the sort of game where yes, Farming is a focus of the game, but by no means the be all and end all. There’s the social aspect of the town, the collecting, and… I need a wiki to keep track of everything I might possibly want to do. Which, strangely enough, is a problem. Either you’re going to go to a wiki to know “How do I do thing?”, or you’re going to be playing more than once. Part of the reason this review has come out so slowly is that I took the latter option. The game does some tutorialising well, but expects you to learn other things on your own.

The game does try its best to add teaching as it goes along, with TV shows and books to teach you various aspects of the game.

But the thing is, it’s also a good thing that there’s so much to do. The world is relatively small, but you don’t feel that, because it’s jam packed with interesting decisions and interactions. It has character, from the visual design (Friendly and cartoony), to the sound design (The music is lovely, and the sounds support your actions.) I even enjoy the collectathon of the Community Center, despite normally hating such game measures, because it feels part of the spirit of the game. Essentially, it’s pretty cohesive, and even some of the bugs are amusing, such as Abigail’s seeming desire to eat Quartz (“Oh, how did you know I was hungry?”.) Also helping is, hey, relationships aren’t limited by your gender, and there’s a lot going on there, too! As such, I find myself drawn in, because there’s that “Just one more ho- Wait, it’s 5AM?” factor to the game.

Of course, the final problem with so much to do in Stardew Valley is… How can I cover it all? I could give you lots of examples of both good and bad (The well, for example, seems largely useless to most players in the early game… But it is useful if you’re farming extensively), but all I can really say is “It is mostly good, and enjoyable, if you liked Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, or Recettear, this game may well be worth laying down your money for.”

Oh, and there are events that happen, like the Flower Dance. Or the Egg Hunt. Or the Luau. And birthdays. There’s a fair bit.

There. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a budding geologist to woo, and a dungeon to fully explore, and all the fish to find, and –

The Mad Welshman was not found for several days after this review, whereupon somebody realised that what they thought was a duvet was playing Stardew Valley.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £5.59
Where To Get It: Steam

Space, it seems, is similar to War, in that it’s longish periods of nothing happening, followed by moments of pants wetting terror. Also of not knowing who your friends really are. Both of these, it seems, tie in to Mars 2030, a game which has apparently hit full release.

I will survive *this* Solar Flare. The next 9? Perhaps not.

I say “apparently” , because, honestly? It doesn’t feel quite finished. For the £5.59 you pay, you get a greenscreen styled Oregon Trail type game, in which you load up, try to travel to Mars, and get assailed along the way by various factors like asteroid belts, solar flares, medical problems, and… Computer virii. Which made me blink a bit. So far, so fine, and in fact, ignoring certain factors, it’s entertaining, in a relaxing, “Something I can play while I’m wanting to relax” sense.

There’s just one problem, or rather, a series of small problems making one bigger one: I can’t ignore those things. Not just because I’m a reviewer, and not mentioning these things would be bad, but because they have an impact on the game from the very start. By which I mean picking supplies, because this is, essentially, Oregon Trail… IN SPAAAAAACE!

You’re not actually told what you get for picking, say, “10” food. It’s certainly not 10 food. It’s definitely not just ten bits of ammo for your mass driver. And that’s a problem, because part of the fun of Oregon Trail type games is taking risks, or, more accurately, gauging risks. Beyond knowing that more than 10 food would appear to get me all the way there… I don’t actually know for certain. Likewise with, er… Everything I have. Meds, Food, and Ammo are fairly obvious, but Circuits, Panels, and Wires? Well, they’re possibly something to do with shields and system repairs, but it’s not very easy to tell.

Just a week before release, this could happen to dead crew members. I *think* that’s fixed… But I can’t be *certain*…

Similarly with the crew. I know, from experimentation, that my Software Engineer is the only one who can fix virii, and my Hardware Engineer fixes the shields. My gunner, I’m assuming, does gun things. Sod knows what the fourth crew member does. And sod knows, from the overlays I have, who’s still around to do these things. Because it doesn’t tell you, anywhere I can see. And once someone’s seriously laid up in the medbay, say from radiation poisoning thanks to Solar Flares, they don’t do their job any more. Which I also don’t know, because the game doesn’t tell me.

I don’t know what a virus in the Auto-Nav actually does. Or the Disposal System. And sadly, I suspect the answer to both is “Nothing.” But the fact I’m not being told these things, things the game presumably knows, is a massive black mark against it, especially since I know the developers have been informed. I would, I was one of the people who told them.

And then there’s the little things. Little things, but telling things: The “Repair” button sometimes blanks out just after I get the window back to do the thing, and also just after I’ve re-opened the ship status window because being told I had a thing to do, for some reason, closes the window. It’s pretty easy to pin down why it’s happening: Because you can’t do anything while the crew are having an event, or just before, and the game, just after giving you a thing to do, then checks to see if anything else happens, stopping you from doing the repair while it checks if something’s going to make your day more complicated. And that one little thing, combined with the other little thing, makes for frustration in an otherwise relaxing game.

A bone headed death, and my fault. Not all of them will be.

Oh, there’s also a lackluster minigame you can play, in which a defense satellite goes up and down, and you have to time your shots to defeat never ending waves of enemies. Whoop.

So, despite it having some nice ideas, some nice visuals that are inspired by, but by no means replicating the 8-bit greenscreen of my youth (Too smooth in places, too small in others), and the same with the visuals, I really can’t recommend this, because it claims to be finished, and feels like a beta still, with bad tutorialising, and promises that seem a bit empty about “crew status” being the next feature… Which is baffling when you consider this “Big feature” is literally adding a segment to the ship status UI, and using that same code to, er… Print some variables. Which… Somehow hasn’t been done in two months. There may be crew members still “with[out] activated game content”, and I don’t, neither as player or reviewer, know. I’m informed, just as I was informed a while back, that support will continue through 2016 for the game, but as release states go, this isn’t great.

The Mad Welshman looked up at the bright eyed, bushy tailed astronaut candidate. “Space Walker? So… No software, no gunnery, no hardware? YOU’RE HIRED.” He grinned, as another useless waste of human resources was sent into space.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Review Copy
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam

The dark future, it seems, involves pretty numbers going up. Also shooting people in the face, sometimes nauseating camera, and strange facial proportions. With Defragmented, the time comes to play a reviewer/critic’s game called “What am I deliberately ignoring?”

I love the expressions… It’s just the odd facial proportions that turn me off. And yes, that probably isn’t what you want to hear today, Mai.

This is a pretty simple game, although not how it sounds. In this game, you note down what features you didn’t really need to use, and which ones you didn’t want to use, and why. Then you ask how it differed from what appears to be the intended experience. So let’s talk about the intended experience in Defragmented first.

Defragmented is meant to be a cyberpunk Hotline Miami, where death is quick, restarting is just as quick, and you’re scored on how quickly you killed your targets, how little you died, and how thoroughly you looted everything. There are, however, problems, and one of them is that it also expects you to use special RPG abilities, level up, switch inventory, and read a plot that doesn’t appear to change with your class.

Oh, did I mention there are classes, with different abilities, different starting weapons, and this… Doesn’t seem to really matter in the long run? Silly me! Yes, you shoot with left click, throw grenades with right click, open things and push things with E, hit things up close with, er… Q… And abilities on F. This would sound fine, if it weren’t for the required action time. Specifically, the moment an enemy sees you, they’re going to fill the screen with tracers, and odds are you’re going to die. Other reasons you might die include “The enemy spotted me from a long way away” , “My ability/gun didn’t do as much damage as I thought it would” , and “Something was blocking the use of my ability/gun that I didn’t quite see because it blends with the wall/floor.”

Pictured: Just some of the confusion that’s going to arise. That’s just one shooting. Go in the front door, and anything up to three folk will do this.

Why doesn’t it matter in the long run? Because most of the abilities are very, very situational, whereas a) Having a gun with bigger numbers, and b) Shooting them repeatedly before they see you nearly always works. Nearly being the operative phrase, because guns have accuracy, which means… Sometimes they won’t hit. Meanwhile, loot is procedurally generated, which… Isn’t terribly useful. Similarly, perspective camera isn’t terribly useful because it then moves around your mouse pointer, and aiming becomes somewhat different, which… Is not recommended when you have maybe half a second to kill the other person before they kill you. Or when there’s an open elevator pit in the near vicinity.

So this, in essence, is the core problem. The only thing that’s really reliable are enemy positions. Loot is procedurally generated, so you could go several levels without a decent gun, the offensive powers don’t seem to scale with the enemies, and melee is… Largely ignorable, due to a similar unreliability. Special abilities, similarly, can be decidedly iffy, to the point where relying on them is a bad idea. It’s a game I want to like, because it has some cool ideas, some interesting designs, and a moderately entertaining story in which the Via Ascensio, home of Cyber-Psychics, is trying to overthrow the Ascended Council, who are corrupt conservatives. Okay, it sounds a lot better in the game, as does the music, but… The game’s got a bit of a conflict going on between its need for twitch, and the more thoughtful end of things, and this is leading to difficulties. Perhaps if the enemies didn’t react immediately, that balance would be a little bit more in favour. But while it’s entertaining, and tuneful, I’m not a fan of either enemies who can shoot you from off screen (Mission 1-2, even with the camera changes in a recent patch), or the uncertainty that any of my plans beyond “Shoot it a lot” will actually work.

I definitely don’t grudge the simple visuals, but the camera (And the neon) takes getting used to.

But who knows, maybe you’ll do better than I, or see what I’m missing here. After all, for all that it’s hard as nails, and the dying in the same places can get frustrating, death doesn’t really have a consequence (You just restart the mission instantly), so it can definitely be completed. I just wish it didn’t feel like difficulty for the sake of difficulty.

The Mad Welshman can always count on Deal-EO. Powers, politics, safety… None of these things could be trusted. But Deal-EO gave him the other thing he trusted. Guns. Lots of guns.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Review Copy
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Defect is possibly the oddest premise I’ve seen for a build and fly game in a while, but before we begin, like the game, I’d like to make clear which version of the word the title’s using. You’d think, considering the “Spaceship Destruction Simulator”, that it would be as in “Problem or flaw”, but no, it’s actually “Join an opposing side or political group.” Because that’s what your crew does. Every. Sodding. Time.

Every. Single. Bloody. Time.

It’s amusing the first five times it happens. Then you get horrified. What kind of civilisation encourages such disloyalty? Then you just get plain angry. How dare they steal your… Okay, for the first few missions it’s not going to be a sweet ride. But part of the difficulty curve is that you’ll be going up against that ship you built last mission in among the others. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m kind of hoping it’s got a little more nuance than the same set of events each time. “Oh hey, this is now the most powerful ship in the sector! G’Bye Cap’n, we’ll put it to good use!” “Oh… Well, surely that won’t happen next time, huh?”

I’m thinking of defecting myself, engineer lady. It comes from working for a navy that’s obviously a big shower of assholes, the way everyone keeps mutineering. Speaking of, why do they keep letting Crewman Bowie back into the Navy? Why do I keep letting him back onto my ship?!?

Well, okay, we all know the reasons, but still… Everyone in this universe is dumb. But is the game?

Not really, no. The main variation is in what you can build, which increases after each mission. Good example, after I’m done with the tutorial missions, I finally get a shield. Which, unfortunately, I can’t use without some other facet of my ship suffering right now… Like decent guns. Or steering. The UI, and the music, are nice and minimalist, and I do like the caricature designs of the characters who, variously, advise and annoy you. The one problem I have right now, though, is a bit of a weird one…

Take a look at that zoom meter on the right. That will give you *some* idea…

…The maps are too big. On the one hand, this is to allow the frankly huge designs you get later in the game, and fight pretty early on. But for at least the early missions? You’re quite small. And that means you don’t really get to see your ship in action, except as a tiny thing on screen, shooting at other, possibly as tiny things on screen. An automatic zoom helps with this, but it unfortunately doesn’t help that much in the early game. Also not helping is that you are very limited by your Core, and you have to work with that, which becomes… Very fiddly. Seven or eight missions in, and you’re going to wish you had something better. Which leads to the other problem… It’s not very balanced right now, and it seems like you’re pretty much expected to grind missions you’re good at so you can have the equipment to deal with those you don’t. Good example, the game is reminding me why I hate escort missions.

“Oh yeah, defend this freighter against some pirates, and… OH NO, TORPEDO BOMBERS.” Fuck. You. My choices at the time this mission comes up (And three others of its ilk) are something nippy and tough, but with next to no firepower; something able to turn on a dime, but with only forward firing weapons (Because turrets take up more crew than I’m comfortable with); or something that shoots well, shoots in many directions, but has armour thin as tissue paper. This is about where I got frustrated, because everything currently needing work starts giving you a kicking, like a schoolyard bully and his mates. The camera wants to encompass as many enemies as possible, so you have to fight the auto camera to avoid the torpedoes, which will kill you in one, maybe two shots. The game’s preference for forward firing weapons means you have to fight the steering of your design, and the fact that nearly everything is faster than you, because the engines aren’t quite balanced, means that you’ll die… Again… And again… And again, because you can’t quite build something useful.

Yeah, um… Good luck with that!

Then you go back to grind, and realise most of the rewards up till now have been mission rewards. So your rate of new equipment slows to a crawl.

In summary, while Defect is definitely interesting, it’s looking right now like it might be a good idea to wait and see. The mission requirements definitely outpace the equipment right now, the camera needs a bit more work, and it gets frustrating once you’re out of the tutorial. It undeniably has its cool moments, it’s UI is pretty nice (Although Symmetry mode, also, needs some work), and I kinda like what’s going on with the visuals. Thankfully, it’s a pretty early version (0.12.22076), so there’s plenty of time for the devs to balance things, and fix hiccups.

The Mad Welshman sighed as he tumbled through space, waiting for the pickup. You’d think, after the 253rd time, that he’d remember to lock the bridge door.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Review Copy
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam

In a perfect universe, everything is easily understood, and if you then fuck it up, it’s your fault. Enter newtonian platformer Perfect Universe, a collection of games with the single theme of gravity. Also some nice shaders that make it look a bit like an ink drawing.

This man with no shirt is part of a Perfect Universe. Food for thought…

So let’s talk games. There are several games, three of which are available single player, 6 multiplayer. The SP games are all variants on “Collect the things, and do it quickly for maximum cheevoness”, while the MP games are things like Moon Golf (Warning, does not often contain moons), racing to collect balloons, and platformer Dodgeball. It’s at this point that you may be thinking “Oh, well that’s easy, and not worth my time!”

Let me tell you about Mister Legs. Mister Legs laughs at your bravado, knowing it to be ultimately foolish. He waits, eyes wide, because he knows that you will forget that his legs can stick to things, or that he jumps better, so much better, when his legs are firmly planted on terra firma. He may not be a rocket, or a gliding bearded man, but he will make you scream, as you stick his leg to a surface just a little too low, a little too late, and you have to do a segment all… Over… Again. He will not sigh, he will not laugh. For he knows it is a Perfect Universe, and thus, it’s your fault.

Mister Legs, implacable avatar of a Perfect Universe. He has sticky and independently moving feet.

Indeed, each game has its own tricks and traps, and the main one is actually kind of clever: Gravity, in this Perfect Universe, is based on the objects in the world. And this allows for some pretty cool perspective and control tricks. Take Space Station 1, for example. Looks simple, doesn’t it? Go around, jump on platforms, avoid spikes. Just hold ri- Oh, yes, when you’re moving up a surface, up is right. This, combined with the fact that gravity is toward the outer surface of the level (IE – The spikes covering most of it) makes it more of a test of skill than it appears. And, since the rules are easily understandable, and explained early in the game… It really is a test of skill.

If I could reduce the game to a single world, it would be “Minimalist.” The controls are simple (although sometimes oddly placed on the keyboard, such as Enter for jump), the music is low key, mostly piano and some piano synth, and most of the sound is in the background… Apart from the flare of thrusters on the rocket game modes, and the grunts of the half naked beardy man of the main mode. It kind of impresses me how much Will Sykes Games is doing with so little: Perspective tricks, control tricks… For something with simple rules, it’s somewhat hard to sum up.

There’s more than just these two, of course. Rockets. Golf. Balloons. But I wanted to show off this clock, because it’s pretty cool.

I honestly don’t have many gripes about this game, mainly with the single, somewhat lackluster death animation, the fact that some menus are still usable while they’re slowly fading out after you press Quit, the key binds sometimes tripping me up (Only sometimes, though), and some of the game modes not really feeling that appealing to me (I’m not a big fan of the rocket games, but that’s mainly because inertia is a big consideration with those), and, for its price? It’s a perfectly reasonable game, with mostly reasonable challenges based more around doing it better than having to do it perfectly for most of the game, some fun co-op modes, and some cool visual designs. Worth a look if you like simple games that become complex due to the combination of simple rules, rather than through adding complexity to the rules themselves.

The Mad Welshman looked over the endless void, and remembered the old truism: Stare ye not too long into Mr. Legs, for while you stare, Mr. Legs stares also into you. He shivered, then jumped to the next moonlet: Shirtless, bearded, and proud.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!