Source: Review Copy
Price: £1.99 (Soundtrack £1.99 , whole shebang £3.99)
Where To Get It: Steam, Itch.IO

Sometimes, rainbow robots just want to break free. And they’ll butt their heads into walls, time and time again, at great speed, to do so. This is basically what I take away from Blitz Breaker, an easy to learn, hard to master arcade game about dashing your way to victory, and headbashing your way through obstacles with style. Also collecting coins and square gems.

Things start *relatively* simple…

It’s a somewhat addictive game, and that’s because it’s learned from its spiritual ancestor, Super Meat Boy. Death is two button presses away from getting right back into it. Levels are, at first, pretty short, then get longer as the game goes on. Each stage introduces a new trick, from spikes, to belts, to lasers and beyond, and the rules for how your character moves are extremely clear, so there’s relatively few points in the game you’re going to cry “Bullshit!” Because you know damn well it’s your own fault. Oh dear, I dashed into the spike when I should have used my tiny jump. Oh dear, I didn’t take into account that bullet. Oh well! [push, push] Time to try it one more time!

So how does it feel to play? Well, pretty good, for the most part. There’s that primal satisfaction of learning new tricks that I do like in a game, and the music is either chilling you out through difficult parts (World 2), or pumping you up for a boss fight (Most of the boss tunes.) Here’s a good trick… Want to spend some time waiting for something without losing height? Just remember that, so long as you hit the direction you want to go before you hit a wall, you’ll do it as you hit the wall, and so you can dash back and fore between two walls without losing height!

…Then get a bit more hectic, a bit at a time…

I’ve already mentioned that the music is quite nice, but visually, it’s pleasant too. Everything is pretty clear, so you know what’s what, the background rarely conflicts, and you quickly get a feel for what’s dangerous and what isn’t. My only real gripe is that some of the bosses (World 3’s , particularly) can get a little tedious, and that I’m not really a fan of the vertical letterbox, pretty backgrounds or not. I get that it’s a small game, with small sprites. But it does annoy sometimes.

For less than £2 , however, this will present some good, arcadey fun, and perhaps a couple of visits to the dentist as you grind your teeth trying to unlock everything. If you liked Super Meat Boy, definitely give this one a go, as it’s learned many of the (pleasant) design lessons that game teaches. There’s unlockable character skins, at least one “secret” world, and a fair amount of good chiptunes.

…And then you come across some headscratchers.

The Mad Welshman doesn’t have time to ponder your lasers! CHAAAAA- FZZAP.

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £3.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Oh, Kumoon. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s getting SteamVR support, so I thought this would be a good time… and I am amused. For those who never heard of Kumoon, it first looked very different. For example, it didn’t involve a cute robot, but a cute baby chick. The game is no less fun for this, however, and I’m quite happily bouncing my balls.

…Okay, so I’m not getting this trick shot. Who cares, I already won this one!

Wait, maybe that came out wrong. So let’s talk Billiards for a bit. Billiards has often been touted as the mathematician’s favourite ball game. The Billiards table has no pockets, unlike pool or snooker, and less balls, but this is because the object of the game is to hit both the sides of the table and at least one “object” ball, then the target ball. There’s at least a few variations, but the basic idea is that, the more things that you hit before successfully hitting the target ball, the more points. It’s tough.

Kumoon is both more and less than that, in a sense. Much like Billiards, if you can somehow consistently hit the targets with a minimum of three bounces, you’re world class. But you have to do it in 3 dimensions. And the “cushions” aren’t always on the outside. Oh, and there’s often more than one target. Usually lots. It’s not, it must be said, a game which is terribly difficult. So long as each target you hit is, on average, 3 or 4 bounces, you’ll defeat everything, and you have a lot of balls to work with. The real challenge, and indeed, the real fun, is in trying to set up those perfect shots. Not the two or three bounce hits… The nines. The tens. That all too rare fifteen bounce hit. It’s a game where most of the challenge is the one you set yourself.

Your avatar, while not as cute as a chick, still glories cutely in the chaos they’ve caused.

And when you manage it? It feels good. Okay, liiiine ‘er up, and… Off the sloped wall (+1), into the air, on top of another sloped wall (+1), off the back wall, thankfully a score wall this time (+1), onto that green ball I find so hard to use just right, but feel so happy when I do (+2), just skimming off another sloped wall (+1), and finally, into the stack I was aiming at… 5 target bricks, all knocked over with the same blow, each worth 6 sweet points each. 30 god-damn points, hell yes!

Of course, even when you don’t, it can be amusing to just fire those balls off, just to see where they go. Phunk, phunk, phunk, phunk… Within a few minutes, you’ve got balls lying all over, at least a few bricks are knocked down, and whether you’ve scored enough (or even hit anything) or not, there’s a quiet amusement to watching the balls fly all over. Meanwhile, pumping electronic beats… Actually kind of conflict somewhat with the cute aesthetic of the main character, and the somewhat unserious game, but hey, you can’t have everything!

Sometimes, you just need to get things done by shooting balls *everywhere*

In summary, it’s amusing, it’s somewhat short, but it’s £4, and if you like setting challenges for yourself, the playtime can be extended a fair bit. If you don’t like physics puzzling or score attack, this may not be for you.

The Mad Welshman chuckled as he bounced a steel ball off one of his robotic henchmen. “That isn’t a valid cushion!” , they cried… Wait, who was worrying about valid? He was having fun!

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £3.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Lucifer, it appears, is a game developer. Through the receptacle of Daniel Mullins Games, they have created something devilishly amusing, and somewhat fourth wall breaking. There’s just one problem with reviewing it… If I tell you pretty much anything that happens, it’s going to spoil the damn game. So let’s talk in generalities, and in mood.

PonyIsland.JPG

Your mood when you begin (Or, indeed, look at the Steam page) can be summed up as something like “Oh christ, ponies. Fucking ponies.” Followed quickly by “Oh christ, Creepypasta… Bloody creepypasta.” It is my recommendation that you ignore these first two instincts. After all, the store page pretty much told you that the game was (in-game, at least) written by the Devil themselves, so you only have yourself to blame if you think these things after it’s outright told you.

Indeed, once you ignore these two beginning urges, you get to the puzzle elements of the game. And they’re clever. At first, they’re simple, switching symbols to get code to work. That much, I can mention. But it gets cleverer, and requires timing, and both the puzzles and the game begin to escalate. Kill things as soon as you’re able. But don’t kill other things. Beat the devil at his own game, or rather through the code of his own game (While playing his own game), and eventually, you will come to an awesome, hectic, and somewhat odd finale. Then, if you’re a good person, you will uninstall the game. All the while, you will be encouraged to give your soul to the developer of the game within the game. But screw that! (At least partly because it is “common wisdom” that we reviewers don’t have one. Pfeh, common wisdom. We just don’t like giving them away.)

ALSO PonyIsland.JPG

Of course, I am a moustache twirler, not a nice person. So I reinstalled, and went back in. And not everything fits as well as it could. The overall narrative? Yes. It twists, it turns, it has some clever moments that are only implied through showing, never outright shown, never outright told. But it has moments of “BUT THOU MUST” that you’ll probably only notice on a second playthrough. I can’t deliberately fail certain moments, though I know I want to fail them, no matter how innocent (or not) they appear.

But the simple sound, the lo-fi aesthetic, the implications within the story (Despite having all the time in the universe, the Devil, it seems, is an insecure and passive-aggressive game developer) draw me back in for another go, to see the rest of my life story (Such as it is, and slightly cliched though it may be), and to experience that finale one more time. For £4 , I won’t say it’s for everyone. Not everyone’s going to appreciate the puzzles, or the switches between a simple arcade style using the mouse, and the not so simple segments. But if you’re okay with games that switch between simple (And I do mean simple) arcade games, a boss fight or two (More complex), some logic and timing puzzles in between (Forming around half of the game), and humour that I’m guessing is aimed at “Oldschool Gamedev”… Y’know, the kind of folks who think a game isn’t fun without a death pit, or one-hit kills, then this might be worth a shot.

If you guessed this was also PonyIsland.JPG , you can now give me your soul as a reward.

There’s a lot I could say about it. About how the dutch angles are a nice touch, nice and subtle. About how the developer has nailed “Sickeningly cutesy” in places, and “OhGodWhy” in others. Little touches, little things. But all I will say is: It’s worth a go if you like something moderately amusing that will take you about 3 or 4 hours to finish the first time, then go back to see if you can get all the tickets, or remember a password, or maybe learn the full story of… Well, something.

Things it is not too much like: Undertale. Things it is somewhat like: Frog Fractions. Things it is exactly like: Not a bleeding one, it’s its own thing.

The Mad Welshman also wants your soul. Well, actually, all he really wants is to pay his bills. He has enough trouble with one soul, ta muchly!

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Source: Review Copy
Price: £29.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Oh, that poor old Van Helsing bloodline. They’ve been put into some pretty awful films, continuations of the Dracula storyline, lampooned… Oh, it’s tough to be a Van Helsing. However, this isn’t quite so true of the Van Helsing Jr in The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing series. And now, for slightly less than the original trilogy put together, we have the whole shebang in one package.

Katrina Is Not Impressed.JPG

I’ll mention a couple of things right off the bat. Firstly, this requires an online login to play, even in single player. I’m not entirely happy with that, but there it is. Secondly, I have not played the trilogy before this point. This is basically a fresh look at it.

So, if you’ve ever played the Torchlight or Diablo series, you’ll have the rough idea: Left click things till they die, occasionally hitting numbers, right click, or the heal button (Q), then left click their loot, make your numbers bigger, and go off to kill things. The devil, of course, is in the details, and there are definitely things that make Van Helsing unique, such as an upgradable companion (The irascible, vain, and selfish wraith Katrina), a crafting and upgrade system (using magical essences and the banging of three items of the same type together), hidden quests, and power-ups to your active and passive skills (called Auras.)

The thing is, it suffers a little bit from a somewhat erratic difficulty curve. For most of the first chapter, I happily murder nearly everything in sight, often killing entire groups in one blow (This is especially true of the Phlogistoneer, whose weapons are basically rockets and cannonballs), but when I got to a certain boss fight, suddenly, it went from “Ahahaha! Die… Dieeee!” to “Huh, I have to take the prie- sigh … The priest out first, run round like a blue arsed fly until my shields regen, kill the- Oh, sod, I died again.”

Did I… Did I just do that? I did just do that… LET’S DO IT AGAIN!

…Yes, that’s exactly what happened. I died twice (Once because I didn’t prioritise the healer, once because I didn’t run away fast enough.)

And from there, it was challenging all of a sudden, and has remained that way up till halfway through Chapter 2. I expect another sudden difficulty spike any minute now.

However, once I hit multiplayer with a friend, the game changed. We laughed, with one or the other of us making “Ohhhh”s and “Ahhhh”s as we showed each other the Hidden Fun Stuff in the game (For lo, there are hidden quests), and chuckling at the fact that, due to budget and time constraints, the voice acting for the first chapter is aimed at the Bounty Hunter class (originally the only one, now one of six.) It’s okay, though, they all wear silly hats, so we were fine with it, NeoCore.

It’s important to say, at this point, that the game is fun. The writing is silly and over the top at times, but presents some interesting ideas, and does so consistently (Turns out the original Van Helsing brokered a peace between man and monster, an interesting inversion of the way things usually go), while, if what I’m seeing and what I’ve been informed is correct, there’s been some major changes under the hood to mean that no one class feels less than interesting to play. It still retains the three chapter structure, and I enjoyed messing around with the crafting system.

Just like any ARPG, when you get swarmed, it can be a little tough to work out what’s going on.

Of course, it’s not without flaw, and some areas (Most especially in the crowded urban landscape of Chapter 2) could do with a bit of a readability pass, as I often thought I had found a clever way around things, only to find that no, actually, the path I’d taken became impassable only a short distance in, with nothing interesting to show for it. The ability tree for the main character also seems to encourage specialisation, as you’re not going to get your second tier abilities until Chapter 2 (Unless there’s something I missed), so spreading your points around seems an easy way to fatfinger your way to death. There’s also the N key, which zooms in to where your mouse pointer is because… Well, actually, we never figured that out. The angle doesn’t seem quite right for dramatic closeup.

Overall, though, I think ARPG fans would like this version, and it seems like an okay introduction for new players to the ARPG genre (Although I’d still say Torchlight is tops for that.) I shall leave you with the parable of the Big Red Button. So far, I have encountered two Big Red Buttons. You should all know what is said about Big Red Buttons, and it won’t surprise you to know that Katrina, bloodthirsty chancer that she is, wants to push said BRB because she wants to know what it does. One of these times, it ended in tragedy. Another, it ended in murderous glee. In a way, this sums up the experience very well, with both good and bad coming from the same… Shiny… Red…

I should also mention, at this point, that the voice acting can be quite good at times.

[PUSH BUTTON? Y/N >Y]

The Mad Welshman sweated as Katrina grinned. His finger hovered. Fate hung in the balance.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £3.99
Where To Get It: Gamersgate

Technically, this should be a Going Back, as Cursed Mountain originally released 6 years ago, on the Wii, but the PC Port has finally arrived, courtesy of its main publisher/developer, Deep Silver, only this past month. Was it worth the wait for mountain climbing, Buddhist hungry ghost shenanigans on PC? Well, only kind of.

But what could *do* such a thing? SUSPENSE!

You see, apart from the control scheme, and adjustable resolution, it’s a straight port. So saves are strictly checkpoint only, the graphics are much as they were on the Wii (Running at around 30 frames a second, it doesn’t look bad, per se, so much as slightly dated), and there are a couple of quirks that I find a little amusing, and occasionally frustrating. For example, you always attack in the camera’s direction, so sometimes, to break a pot nearby, you have to get out of the fixed camera zones the game has.

Of course, part of the problem is that the game was designed with the Wii in mind, so there are things that you’re going to be missing out on (And I honestly couldn’t work out how to get a Wiimote connected to a PC to see if that functionality is still there.) For example, the Wiimote acts as a walkie talkie at one point, and that segment… Slightly loses out. Other features, however, become much easier. Combat, especially.

Y’see, combat in Cursed Mountain used to have some fairly janky Wiimote detection, leading to problems, as putting ghosts to rests, whereas, in the PC version, things definitely appear to be friendlier. Now, instead of having to follow lines closely, or flick your Wiimote, it’s “Mouse over these in roughly the right order, and flick your mouse in directions while doing stuff.” Much easier to deal with ghosts now. Speaking of ghosts, let’s talk story.

It can’t be understated that the game maintains an oppressive feel quite well.

The game is set in the 80s, in the vicinity of Chomo Lonzo (Bird Spirit, so named for its appearance), and you are Eric Simmonds, a scottish mountaineer searching for his brother… Who, as it turns out, has not been very respectful of local tradition, with the disastrous result of a plague of ghosts from Bardo. Buddhism is one of the main themes here, and I’m honestly not qualified to say whether it’s a respectful treatment or not (Although many folks seem to think it is), but I am qualified to talk about the pacing, how it makes you feel, and the like…

…It’s not for everybody. Survival horror generally isn’t, but the pacing in this one is slow and deliberate, although when it starts ramping up, it doesn’t screw around. Personally, though, I like it. Eric is a skeptic, and the game sort of reflects this. I say ‘sort of’, because “It’s a hallucination” is something Eric says all the way through, and you get the feeling that, as much as you’re playing along to see where things go, so is Eric… And he seems to cling to the idea of a hallucination more as a defense mechanism than any actual belief. Still, it leads to some interesting moments, like where meeting Edward Bennett doesn’t… Seem like a real thing that happened, thanks to the design of the static cutscenes. And yes, there are static cutscenes, but they’re really not that bad.

AND SUDDENLY DEATH AND BLOOD

What I did find bad, however, was that early areas made it very hard to see some things. “They didn’t even have time to bury the bodies.” Er, what bo- Ohhhhhh, THAT body! But, otherwise, the design is pretty consistent, the game is somewhat easier as a result of the port, it has an interesting premise, and the voice acting is… Alright! There’s definitely a sense of oppression in the game, and I kinda like the religious/spiritual elements (Although, as noted, keep in mind I am not qualified to say whether it’s appropriating rather than being respectful.)

But, also as I said, it’s definitely not for everybody. Some will be put off by the slow pace. Others will be put off by what is effectively QTEs for unlocking secret doors, boss fights, and making fights go a lil’ quicker. Others still will be put off by the lack of graphical options. The price of £4, as such, doesn’t really feel like a cheat to me, because it does interesting things, in potentially interesting directions, and the pacing doesn’t put me off. But, as mentioned… Your mileage will vary on this one.

The Mad Welshman sighed as his ice pick cast another soul back into the cycle. So much pain and suffering, and for what? A man’s pride? 

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