Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.29
Where To Get It: Steam

Aesthetic can only take you so far. And when that “so far” involves forgetting to tutorialise at all… Ah, that’s not so good, is it? So, suffice to say, Warp Drive on gamepad (generally a good way of playing Future Racers like this) has gotten off to a rocky start. On keyboard, it’s more sensible. But still…

R2 (Lower right bumper) is what you use to accelerate, just an FYI. So you don’t have the frustration of trying to find that most important of controls, because W on keyboard would make you think forward on the d-pad or stick.

So yes, Warp Drive, a future racing game in which you drive drone like hovercars around a track, fulfilling the race objectives in a tournament, and… Wait a second…

Bad impression number 2: No solo tracks, no individual time trials, no challenges. Just a tournament.

Beyond these two crits, and that your earliest time trial requires a faster boost and solid racing (I get so sick of seeing that in future racers), it’s… Actually alright. But it’s mostly aesthetics. The gameplay’s relatively simple, there is only a benefit to taking on the higher classes of cars, and, if you’ve got your boosts and warps down, your handling up, and any decentish skill, you’ll, uhhh…

Bad impression number 3: We know there’s a hard corner that would need drift… But I’m in a high handling enough car that it’s not actually a hard corner, ta.

Sigh… Anyway, yes, it’s alright, it handles alright, the tracks are good, with interesting shortcuts, and, as mentioned, most of it’s in the colourful aesthetics, the worlds that are detailed and cartoonish, but not distracting from the track itself, and a soundtrack by the great funkster, Hideki Naganuma. Don’t worry if you don’t know the name, looking up his music is a very pleasant exercise if you’re into funky beats.

Oh, wait, bad impression 4: No option to turn off the flashy pink warp animations. Y’know, the epilepsy risk ones the game doesn’t warn you about.

But beyond that, with the good and the bad impressions mixing, it comes out… Well, okay. Its visuals grabbed me, its music got the blood pumping, but the game… Well, I felt lukewarm about the actual game part.

It’s some good popcorn if you’re into racing games. But I really get the impression it could have ended up with a lot more character than it did. And there’s stuff it really could have fixed.

I’m kinda sad that the game ain’t nothin’ like a funky beat.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys (My wallet, it weeps. And I ignore it)
Price: £49.99 (Season pass £62.99 (GASP), 21 DLCs ranging from £2.09 to £7.19)
Where To Get It: Steam

Well, since I gave in to the “dangerous to my wallet” urge to get hold of an Atelier game, let’s do a going back on it…

The Atelier JRPG series is, essentially, about cute alchemists and their rise, their personal arcs, and the people that surround them. It’s a series heavy on crafting, with turn based battles, and, sometimes, time limits to the game’s story which mean replaying things on NG+. Yay.

Thankfully, Lydie and Suelle is not one of those, being a pretty relaxing game about two young ladies (dorks), their attempts to become the greatest alchemists (and, keep in mind, this game has protagonists from the previous two, Atelier Sophie and Atelier Firis, appearing) in Merveille, in the kingdom of Adalet.

It’s good stuff, with nice, light music, cool characters, and a slow burn to the plot. That may be a turnoff for some folks, that the stakes don’t get raised until the second act, with minimal foreshadowing before that, but honestly… It was nice.

It was nice to avoid the plot for a while and just craft things. It was nice to enjoy all the fun side content. And funnily enough, that desire to see more of the characters (even the tsundork Lucia, or Liane and her cheery, yet overbearing love for her sister) actually helped, because this is a game that rewards you for seeing all of the plot, doing all the things. And it does it pretty organically, for the most part. The main story won’t progress until you want it to, and, while later items require later dungeons, the progression feels natural.

As to the combat? Well, it’s an interesting one, because, while Lydie and Suelle themselves are by no means weak, they’re still characters who rely on either their special abilities (which run out when you’re out of MP) or… The items they craft. And the game encourages the latter, while adding a nice little mechanical touch to emphasise this narrative. The characters who later join your party can, before a monster attacks, throw themselves in front of Lydie or Suelle, protecting them, while Lydie and Suelle have good synergies as support characters later on. I still kept Suelle, with her dual pistols (which she admits she demanded to be trained in because it looks cool) in the frontline pretty much throughout, but Lydie, in the backline, helped keep another character alive in rough fights.

This has been my first experience with the Atelier series, and it’s left me with a good impression. Cuteness, a mostly relaxing loop, slowly rising stakes with a lot of character moments, with interesting characters to fit? Yeah, sign me up for more, ta!

Cute alchemists should rule the world. Send tweet.

Filed under: Game Reviews, Games Gone By by admin

Become a Patron!

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

Leak Elite is the kind of game I’d normally like a lot. It has a storyline about a group of hackers, who aren’t after some evil corporation, just leaking emails, fucking with people, enjoying the process. It has strategy puzzle elements. It would normally be extremely my jam.

But it doesn’t tutorialise well. Beyond the absolute basics, it tells you… Nothing. Ah, okay, I’m meant to block the spawn of a follower using this deallocation, wot removes a tile. This is the first time I’m doing it, game… How?

I didn’t actually work out how. I knew it had something to do with patience, with waiting for patrol paths, so the spawn got blocked… But the security requirement was tight, so I ended up with no clue what to do.

Which is a shame, because its lo-fi aesthetic is pretty good. Its tunes are pretty chill. Its chat logs are… Well, they are indeed believable for a group like this, even down to the casual ableist slur.

But when two of the beginning server nodes, including the important one, are rough af to deal with? Well, that’s a bad sign, and, not being able to complete what’s effectively the tutorial mission, I bowed out.

Sorry, Leak Elite. You are, in fact, too Elite for me. Maybe hardcore strategy puzzle fans will get it better than I did. Maybe not. We’ll have to see.

(EDIT: Since the release of this review, the developer has changed security requirements for some of the levels, and clarified the final part of the first mission. So yes, if you have problems, let the developer know, and please give your feedback constructively.)

Leak Elite, as it turns out, was too 1337 for my n00b ass.

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £5.19 (Soundtrack £1.69)
Where To Get It: Steam

Inu To Neko games… They’re often about starting a business, and equally as often, it’s a case of tough (and sometimes misguided) love. In the case of Soul Smith of the Kingdom, Nine is the greatest smith in the nation of Aldenoar. But her uncle, perceiving a vital weakness, forbids her from smithing until she raises another great blacksmith. After all, she needs some business sense, and knowledge of how to train employees, so the legacy of the Soul Smiths can continue.

And so, enter perhaps the most idle game like entry in the series. Although, as always, it’s not that simple, but not as intimidating as it looks. You start with two low level blacksmiths, and, as is often in the series, you get your friends (the cast of the series) to enter dungeons to get materials, you set the weapons the blacksmiths are making, gain skills, gain new blueprints by either buying them, finding them in the dungeon, or, as is most often the case, soul-smithing a weapon the blacksmith is proficicient in.

Oh, and you get skills and, once you get a single smith to level 30, you can get other smiths to inherit their skills, gain souls, and buy more skills. And the minigame, once every month.

Funnily enough, most of the game is pleasant. Yes, the translation of the character stories is Engrishy, but honestly, I don’t have that much of a problem with it, as the characters are cool, and the stories are warm and light hearted generally.

But the minigames, or, specifically, the difficulty of some of them, is my biggest issue with the game. Jesus H Christ, if I see Drop Ball or Fill In The Blanks (and, to a lesser extent, Face Checker and Speed Aim), I just leave them alone, because math puzzles involving four numbers from 1 to 9 is not something I like to do on a regular basis, and Drop Ball rapidly becomes bullshit, since both a miss and a ball falling out loses you a heart, and so it’s very easy to lose it all in three rapid clicks of panic. I dislike the minigames, except for Big Search (which grid has the bigger total?)

But, overall, it’s a game I can relax with. I’m at the mid-late game now, and I’ve made my smiths too good, as, if they’re all left to make more expensive things, they’ll rapidly run out of materials. So I make the smaller stuff with two of them, to level up my friends for deeper dungeon delving, and try to ensoulise weapons with one at a time.

I’d definitely recommend this one out of the Inu To Neko games, as its mix of idle and management gameplay is pretty nice, and it’s got a pretty clear UX.

The Mad Welshman supports improving your craft. But not at the expense of your health, okay?

Filed under: Game Reviews, Games Gone By by admin

Become a Patron!

Source: Cashmoneys
Price: CON £1.99. Box Cats £1.69
Where To Get Them: Steam (CON) and Steam (Box Cats)

After a bit of thought, I’d decided to lump two games together for this one: Cats Organised Neatly, and Box Cat Puzzle. Mainly because the basic idea is the same: Fit cats into boxes. They’re around the same price, as well. But, while the basic concept is the same, both are subtly different experiences. Different flavours of cat herding, if you will.

Of the two, I’d say that Cats Organised Neatly is the more fleshed out game. A chill vibe, cute cats, rotation, a gallery of catte… Its puzzles, however, get nastier quickly. Box Cat Puzzle, meanwhile, is less polished. There is none of this rotation bollocks, you know where you stand with the pieces… Even if they’ve got a minimal representation until you place them.

But placing them, again, brings a different vibe. Cats Organised Neatly’s cats are cute. They are uniformly cute. They make you go d’aww regardless. The idealised form of cat, the cats cat owners see when they’re not seeing their cat be catlike in the “I own you, not the other way around” moments. While Box Cat Puzzle is very… Yup, they are definitely cats. Yes, sometimes they’re cute. But I chose the screenshot below for a reason.

Okay, two, I just couldn’t help but appreciate the aesthetics of four cats in a circle licking their balls. This, too, is part of Cat Life. Box Cat Puzzle also has an editor, which is a nice feature.

They are similar. Not the same, each having their own flavour, little differences that make them their own works. But I chose to review them together for one simple reason…

Regardless of the fact that both are good in their way (although you’ll quickly tire of Box Cat’s music loop, so points deducted, and both have elements in their UX that are less than clear, namely the back button in Cats Organised Neatly actually being the way you get to both the menu and the puzzle select (ARGH), and the buttons that aren’t “get the pieces out of the box” in Box Cat, it’s… Kinda hard to write a lot of words around a puzzle game about putting cats in boxes. So, since I had two to hand… Why not both?

Both is good. Both are, in their own way, good. And if you like a puzzle game involving cats, well, these are both cheap options that provide some fun. And that ain’t bad.

Cats own people. Not the other way around. All cat owners know this… Well, except the ones cats have trained particularly early…

Filed under: Game Reviews by admin

Become a Patron!