Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £14.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access 2, Early Access 3, Release

Subnautica is a game that takes a while to get going, and then GIANT SQUID happen. It’s also a game that takes a little while to learn. While Starbound does strange new worlds, and games like State of Decay do the zombie survival thing, Subnautica does Blue Planet. Ocean everywhere. And it does a good job of dissuading you of the idea this would be boring… But some things do require a little bit to learn. Thankfully, with the exception of Creative Mode, you get to enjoy the story in the manner you want, with a choice of Permadeath and Everything on, and varieties of Not-Permadeath with or without the need for food and water.

Being underwater may seem confusing in screenshots, but feels natural in game… Also beautiful.

Funnily enough, the base Survival mode (No permadeath, but you need to obtain food and water) is the right mode for me, it seems. Because fish are assholes, and once the world opened up to me? Wow, did I suddenly feel very small… In the best way. So let’s talk progression, to give you some idea of why I like this game.

It begins with an escape pod. Yours. Your ship, a coloniser, got shot down over an ocean planet, by strange energy beams. You’re the only survivor, and you can hold your breath for 45 seconds. You’re slightly hungry, slightly thirsty, and rather irritable. So you explore this salty “paradise”, and grudgingly admit that yes, it does look beautiful. Kelp forests, caves, underwater gardens of red weed, and… Thank fuck, the fish are actually edible. One of them, the Airsack, even filters water for you if you run it through your Fabricator. Okay, that’s one worry gone. Now for building a home, because it looks like you’re going to be here a while. Titanium and Copper, it seems, can be found in limestone nodules that are thankfully easy to break apart, and the wreckage of the Aurora, your ex-ship (Which is making some worrying noises, and will explode soon, kicking off the story.) But you can’t find any silver, which you’re told is useful for all sorts of electronics, vehicles, and Lead, for a radiation proof suit (Important, because large areas are irradiated now.)

Once you get past the hump, you too can make a home away from home!

It takes you a while to realise that there are two kinds of nodule in the Kelp forests, and you have to brave Stalkers (Asshole Fish #1) to get that Sandstone, which gives you silver and gold. Luckily, building a base mostly takes Titanium and Glass, and you don’t have to build very much to make it a home away from home: Couple of solar panels (Titanium and Quartz), rooms and foundations (Titanium), maybe an observatory (Stalker Teeth and Quartz to make Enamelled Glass), and some lockers and a fabricator (Mostly titanium, some glass). Along the way, you will probably have discovered Asshole Fishes #2 and #3 (A large, carnivorous burrower and EXPLODER FISH.) But food and water are still largely not a problem. You can even completely leave the escape pod behind if you want.

But until you realise where the silver is, you aren’t getting to the really interesting stuff. And that can be a pain, some games. But once you do? Oh boy. Both the kit and the world get bigger. The Aurora is explorable. You build personal mini-subs, and probably get them blown up exploring cave networks. Jellyfish that hang out in cave networks. Massive blue and green glowing creatures that seem harmless… And Gigantic, toothy beasts. Oh god, the Gigantic… Toothy… “Squid”. Subnautica is one of the few games that can claim to have caused an underwear replacement, and my first encounter with this beastie is exactly why…

…Picture the scene. I’m trundling home in a somewhat damaged minisub (The Seamoth), and I keep hearing… Noises. Big noises. It’s dark, even for the depths I’m at, and something is on the edge of my limited vision. There are bumps. Big ones. My console starts sparking. I turn around…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

OHGODITLATCHEDONTOMYCOCKPITBAILBAILBAIL!

…Faced with so many teeth, I take the option of leaving my Seamoth just in time. Seemingly satisfied, the creature (Many times bigger than I am) slinks back into the darkness, leaving me to try and make my way home the slow way.

So yeah… Although the ocean in Subnautica is beautiful, and it seems, at first, like a slow game with little combat… The ocean is also deadly… It just takes a little while to make you realise that. It’s a survival game which could do with a little more help for the player, but lets you mostly play at your own pace, and I’m definitely looking forward to when it becomes a release candidate. As it is, it’s worth checking out if you like the genre or the ocean… Just be aware… The Squid Is Out There, and It Is Always Angry.

Not everything that’s big is lethal. Maybe. The jury’s out.

The Mad Welshman loves the ocean. He loves some of the… Things that dwell in it a little less.

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Screwfly Store , Steam

The Fog hates you. Nobody really knows what happened. Nobody really knows what caused it. After all, The Fog just… Happened. But there is hope. A slim hope, in the form of a train. It may be… Just may be… That The Fog can be escaped, and the nightmares can end. And Screwfly Studios are quite fine with helping you achieve that.

The map is one of three tools you’ll be looking at a fair bit. This is how it looks with Maxed Radio. :V

A little backgrounder before we begin: Screwfly have experience with strategic, procedurally generated survival horror games, with their first game being Zafehouse Diaries (Zombies!), and their second being Deadnaut (Eldritch Horrors From Outside Space-Time, Bug Hunts, Super-Soldiers Gone Wrong, among others.) Their games generally involve interpersonal relations, unorthodox control schemes that are nonetheless quite atmospheric, and hidden mechanics. Fear Equation is possibly the most atmospheric yet. Fortunately, I remain a filthy lucker. Let’s go through my first game to show both this, and why the game is worth checking out.

It began with a train. A steam train, from the looks of things, a junker… But thankfully, a sturdy junker with an emergency flare. This is always the first step: Summon some survivors with the beacon. It’ll generally be between 2 and 5, and the first group, at least, is generally cohesive. From there, the ride truly begins. A hellride through an unreal fog that makes nightmares real, with no guarantee of survival. I get three this time.

I look at the map… There’s a few buildings nearby, and so long as we go slow, we won’t run out of fuel doing so. I can plan where to go at any point in the day, but when we reach it determines whether we’ll have to stay the night. So I decide to hit up a small village along the way, with a Pub, a Supermarket, and a School in easy reach. My radio defaults to “Looking for Signs of Survivors” (HELP), but I switch it to Supplies. Believe me, survivors aren’t too tough to come across. Fuel, on the other hand, is going to be a constant worry.

Always keep an eye on the dreams of each carriage. Preparedness means less visits from… THE SALESMAN.

Having decided my destination, I set up The Lottery. This train isn’t a democracy. I, The Driver, secretly control what’s meant to be random chance. I have to, because if people are sent into the Fog too often, or don’t get what they want, or just decide they think they can run the train better, they’re going to try and rebel. And I want them to survive… Even if they’re idiots. Right now, though, there’s no point. Starting survivors, with whatever skills they have, are going to have to make do until we find more.

With the lottery over, I can order them to do several things. They can move supplies between carriages, move people between carriages, and either build defenses against the coming nightmares, indicated by their dream diaries, or upgrade the train. The first night, I opt to improve my Radio. The bigger my coverage, the more of the map I can get a handle on ahead of time. I could have improved fuel, carriage strength, the amount of power my train generates, or even medical facilities… But I go for radio.

It takes two days to get to the village, and I’m attacked on the second night. This time, it’s spiders. Folks are injured. Not a good start. But the fog is, thankfully, still weak, and I try to explore. The school has survivors, and… The first group doesn’t want any of them. All four go to different carriages. Carriages with neither food nor defenses. Sadly, I can neither move them or give them food until the morning (One of the few flaws with the game), but, being both brave and foolhardy, I explore the other two buildings, and food is obtained for them. I don’t lose anybody, although I come damn close.

They’re going to die. At least one of them died that very second. And all because I was too gutsy.

Much like Deadnaut, I don’t have high tech equipment. Some LEDs, a barometer (Which shows how dangerous the Fog is getting), and a greenscreen CRT are my window to the survivors, and, like Deadnaut, it’s surprisingly tense to watch those little radar blips move around a building plan, with the radio occasionally telling me things (Mostly plans of sedition and cries to shut up about said plans.) I will never know what they face, and, in a sense, I’m glad. As it is, the Nightmares make me cower in the head carriage… I don’t want to know.

By the time I’m halfway across the map, I have lost some survivors, but gained quite a few more. Mostly, when I lost them, it was because I ran out of fuel. Running out of fuel is Bad. Not only are you defenseless, you have to send your survivors out to gain fuel in the middle of nowhere, and they are much more likely to die. I’ve had attempted rebellions, things are tense… And there are flags on the map. I find out what the flags mean in short order…

…They’re the military. And, for some reason, they don’t want me to leave. They bombard the train. Luckily, nobody is injured… But there are more flags on my planned route.

There’s more, of course, but this is the game. You grab what survivors you can, make compromises and enact dirty tricks to manipulate the survivors… Sometimes, you deliberately send people to get killed to quell rebellion. The Driver is an Old Testament God. Maybe this ark will save humankind… But you can guarantee that sacrifices will be made.

Nightmares… Are real. I only hope we propitiated the dead enough.

If you like strategy games with unorthodox UI, atmosphere out the wazoo, and the feeling of commanding lives from a distance, maybe Fear Equation is for you. It’s definitely not for everybody, but it’s worth at least a look in. There are lots of things I haven’t mentioned, like the variety of fears (from Soldiers, to Chinese Ghosts, to the SALESMAN and The Engineers, each with their own atmospheric touches), special crew (Who fully upgrade a section of your train as thanks for rescue), and other fun stuff.

The Mad Welshman sighed as he looked at the lottery card. Taking his eraser, he rubbed out the name of the new folks, and added in the troublemakers. There were four buildings here, a rare opportunity. Either they’d prove themselves, or they would die after bringing in some useful supplies. So long as The Train survived…

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Release

Capitalism sucks. There’s really no easy way around it. It’s biased, it’s unfair, and it promotes shitty attitudes that make everyone’s life a misery. Which is, in its way, a good segue into talking about Gremlins Inc, a computer board game about a steampunk capitalist society of Gremlins being dicks to each other. It’s a game that needs a little polish, a little toning down of the single player AI, and a somewhat more clear tutorial and UI… But it’s also got the same ingredients that give certain well known board games their rep as awesome games that destroy friendships.

A little hard to read parts of the UI at times, but the art style is *gorgeous*

Ruleswise, there’s a lot to go into, so I’m just going to sum it up: You have to achieve X victory points (With 20 being average), while stopping anyone else from doing the same, and you do it by moving around a board (using cards), and playing events when you’re able to (using the same cards). Sometimes bad things happen to you, and there doesn’t appear to be any single “OP Strat”, as it were, because everything is out to get you, including large portions of the board. It’s a little more complicated than that, and the tutorial doesn’t cover everything (Like the existence of a collective pool of “EEEEVIL” cards, as a prime example I wish I’d known about), but it’s effectively in a very solid beta (Meaning there are bugs, but not as many as a release would have, and nothing that appears game breaking), and board game afficianados would definitely enjoy it. Why?

Let’s start with how it encourages a wide spectrum of good, strategic thinking. I have three cards. One can be used relatively nearby, but I can’t afford it. Yet. One can be used right across the board, and one can be used back the way I’d already come. All of these options are technically viable, but to play any of them well, I have to think. The first option just requires both time and not being dicked over. It’s do-able, but requires me to either not be seen as a threat, or to pre-empt the threat from whichever player I think is going to threaten me. The risk there is that I’m either wrong about which player is the threat, or don’t keep a low enough profile. There are shortcuts I could use, but they have a chance of screwing me over just by taking them, especially on the shortcut through the middle of the map. I have to be adaptable. I have to play the players as well as the game. I have to risk assess. And I have to be lucky.

Even Jail can be used to win the game, if you’re clever about it…

This turn, I am not lucky. “Who rolls a 1?” I ask jokingly, as I refuse to bribe my local policeman so as to stop any searches without risk. After all, if I do that, another player gets to profit off my loss. And I roll a 1, immediately being sent to jail, and watching one of those options evaporate. But that’s okay. Even jail can be used to better my circumstances. In the long term.

Secret and Criminal cards. Evil cards. Elections. Bribes and Searches, and the role of the buildings… The game has somewhat of a learning curve problem, which means the tutorial has to be spot on (And currently, doesn’t show off everything you might need to know). A good system of tooltips somewhat helps, but new players will want to invest time in the single player to get a feel for things, and those of us who can’t invest an hour or so into a game? Probably shouldn’t get this, as a 20 point game might take as long as 4 hours, and the first single player challenge is 30 points to victory.

Similarly, the aesthetic is both a good and a bad point with this game. I love the art style, having always been a sucker for some good ink and pencil work… But the UI suffers in readability because some of the parts of it are small and relatively unhelpful (The turn log, for example), and the board looks busy because light value contrast isn’t as clear as it could be (Although, again, the tooltips help somewhat with “Where can I go?” and “What does this do?”) The music is pretty good, just the right, farcical feel for a farcical fantasy dystopia.

I am a moustache twirler. This is a moustache twirler’s game. QED. :V

However, when all’s said and done, I look at this game, think “This cost me as much as Dr. Lucky did, back in the day”, and smile. It’s a fairly well crafted, competitive game, and the devs know exactly what they have on their hands, with a tournament already having been started in the Early Access phase. If you want a competitive, multiplayer computer board-game, and have the time to spare, I really don’t think you could go wrong with Gremlins Inc. I would, however, mention one final thing in regards to the multiplayer… Er… How do you make a game friends-only again? Wasn’t a problem right now, but best to nip it in the bud if that hasn’t been thought of. I had a lot of fun with this, and expect to have more fun in the future.

The Mad Welshman cackled with glee as he dipped freely into the Widows and Orphans Fund for Disenfranchised Gremlins. Campaign Contributions, it seems, were always there if you knew how…

Filed under: Early Access Releases, Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam

I’m genuinely conflicted about this one. Mainly because I can’t understand why it looks the way it does. This isn’t Melissa Royall’s first art gig, nor is it Richard Perrin’s first outing. Both of them made Journal, and Richard Perrin helped make The White Chamber and Kairo. And yet… I’m faced with an art style that wouldn’t look out of place in one of those low effort “Girl Games” (The quote marks are there for a reason), and UI placement weirdness that I’d expect from worse games than this.

The opening is highly artistic, and seems inspired by games like Persona, but the game itself…

Make no mistake, it isn’t a bad game, per se… But it definitely makes some strange decisions. Like adding quicker week timers as a thing you buy in game (No, it’s not using microtransactions), or an unlockable “comedy ending” to the game’s story, which is about harassment in cosplay… Admittedly, it’s hard to unlock, and considering the non-sequitur that was the “Comedy ending” in The White Chamber, I’m not really sure I want to bother.

So, er… The game, yes. It’s essentially a life sim, like Princess Maker or Academagia, where you want to become the very best cosplayer there is, so you can be flown to Japan for the International Cosplay Championship and be feted as being awesome. You plan your… Wait, more odd decisions. The week’s divided into weekdays (All of them), weeknights (All of them), and weekends? But what if I finish a costume early, do I…? Yes. Yes I do waste the rest of the week. And I’m not entirely sure researching to raise skills works. Or if it does, how it works. The game isn’t very communicative, even for a life sim. Finally, considering actual events happen pretty slowly, as opposed to the normal kind of “While you’re doing this thing, one of your stats was changed by something happening”? I haven’t gotten amazingly far in the story, I certainly haven’t gotten toward relationships, and I’m not entirely sure I want to put in the effort. Because it means watching the protagonist (Who is the worst drawn of the characters, some of whom are moderately well drawn, others… Not so much) stand in a relatively static image, while one of something like four jazzy tunes plays.

…This is our protagonist. Compare the two portraits.. And that pose… o.O

Okay, they’re good tunes, but hearing them for the hundredth time in a row is starting to get wearing. As are the work images. And the dissatisfaction I’m feeling is really awkward, because I’m pretty sure there’s some happy endings in there, the characters talk about cosplay fairly realistically (Even if the jobs in the work system… Er… Aren’t depicted as anything but gamified “Get money and stress” options that you usually see in life sims), and the intro (Which looks inspired by Persona) shows signs of quality that… Aren’t as obvious when you get to the actual game.

And this makes me very sad, because I want to like this game. I like the idea. I like that it’s trying for social commentary on a scene that definitely has its ups and downs, not to mention a bit of wider social commentary. I like that it apparently has same sex relationships. But I’m struggling uphill against a game that lacks some necessary transparency, has a blank-slate protagonist that creeps me out a little every time I see her vapid stare and odd poses, and whose UI and controls make decisions that constantly make me think “What the hell? How was this not spotted, when it’s that obvious?”

…This is what I mean about the UI. The windows blur into one another, making a hot mess…

There’s more content coming, and the game is being updated at a rate of knots right now, but… I’m extremely conflicted about this damn game. It has its pros, but right now, they’re outweighed by strange design decisions, a UI that hurts my eyes if I stare at it too long, and that protag…

The Mad Welshman, eventually, will achieve his dream of cosplaying Elijah Snow from Planetary. But until then, he will wait.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Review Copy
Price: £18.99
Where To Get It: Steam

I will say this much about Cityconomy from the get-go… It made me truly understand those robotic spies pretending to be human in Psychonauts. “Greetings, fellow hu-mans. I am a Garbage Collector. Watch as I go on my rounds. Boy, these garbage trolleys sure are heavy.” I never though I would see a game from their viewpoint, but Cityconomy… Cityconomy somewhat takes the cake, in many ways…

Now, while *this* looks like a no-nonsense professional…

Now, before we begin, let’s say the idea is cool: Service Vehicle Business Simulator 2015, essentially… Drive garbage trucks! Sewage trucks! Tow-Trucks! Hedge Trimmers and those big lawnmowers and street sweepers! Keep Insert European City Here Tidy! But, while the idea is great… The execution is lacking in several ways.

Let’s start with how it runs. Poorly. On my current, quite nifty system. Loading screens flash in and out of existence, the game’s screen blacks out or vanishes entirely when loading, and even when playing, there are moments of frame drop. The city doesn’t look terrible, but every now and again, it will make my GPU make alarming noises. Not a pleasant point.

Equally not a pleasant point is the difference between the genders, and the fact that it is white folk central. You have two choices of white fake human to drive your garbage trucks, and one of them, I would swear, is more fake than the other. I would give props to any women garbage truck workers, but you cannot make me believe that they sashay while walking. I wish I was kidding, but no, the walk cycle for women involves some hella hip movement, and I’m genuinely confused why that needed to be in there. Is there some fetish I’m not aware of?

*This* highlights something, er… Well, something. Umm…

It is also, it must be said, a grindy game, and for the first few hours, you’re going to be driving either a garbage truck… or a recycling truck. That’s all you can start with… You have to work up to sewage, my friends, and god forbid you have the cojones to cut grass or tow trucks… Your insolence is astounding, asking to do these things from the beginning! And this would be fine, if any of the vehicles handled well… But they don’t. The poor turning radius, I sort of expected. I know that garbage trucks aren’t exactly known for turning on a dime. What I didn’t expect, however, was the myriad of other problems. I can turn turning signals on… But I can’t seem to turn them off. Accelerating and decelerating involves either lots of waiting, or frustrated waits for the hiss of whatever piston based machinery your engines run on, as a signal you can finally move.

I have to take my delight where I can, sometimes…

And then there’s the city, and the soundwork, and the skill tree. All three are somewhat empty. No radio, that I can see. The vehicles sound… Well, very canned. The city is nearly empty, except for the occasional (Mostly White) person walking around, and the myriad of vehicles with barely seen drivers, all of whom have the intelligence to understand a stop signal, but not slightly more subtle things like “If there is a garbage truck in the way of you leaving your turn, do not attempt to leave your intersection, thus parking your arse less than five feet from the garbage truck’s arms” or “There is a garbage truck turning here… It is bigger than you, and has legal right of way. Please do not ram it as it is leaving.” One thing I won’t complain about is the placement of your job requirements… While I obviously can’t be sure it’s intentional, yes, real human beings leave their junk boxes, of various sizes, on awkward street corners and alleys, requiring real garbage folk to stop their trucks in awkward places once a week, and take five to ten minutes wheeling things as safely as possible while being honked at by irate drivers.

The fog and night effects can… Sometimes be a little odd. Y’know, in the distance…

…There is no irritated honking by the city’s drivers, only yourself… If you really want. The problem is: You don’t. Now, this is by no means the worst simulator. The devs are patching things, but… I honestly don’t have much confidence, considering that it is entirely possible to buy some trucks, hire and “send” workers (By which they mean “The worker sits in the truck and rakes in money from the garage”), and earn millions this way. The multiplayer is limited, the game is poorly optimised, there doesn’t appear to be a windowed mode I can find (Making streaming awkward), and the only thing recommending it is that not many, if any, have tried this specific kind of Sim before. Which, when you get down to it, isn’t really much of a recommendation.

The Mad Welshman must collect the Garbage. That is his function.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!