Review Category: Games

Few genres have endured so well as the bullet hell games. While platformers have dabbled with a 3D format, RPGs have branched out into multiple forms and FPS releases have a new trick at every turn, you know exactly what to expect with a shoot ‘em up: Lots and lots of projectiles. There’s an odd purity thanks to this, a distinct sense of hardcore arcadey fun, where you can pick up and play in an instant but find yourself against near impossible odds. Xenoslaive Overdrive follows this format, but with one or two minor tweaks.

 

Promoting itself based upon a fractal aesthetic, the game leaves you weaving your way through wave upon way of specific assault patterns. While minimalist, this allows the entire level to transform at a moment’s notice, with enemies warping in shape and design in a split second. You never wholly know what a new level might bring, and the bright saturated colours offer a psychedelic kaleidoscope of death to navigate your way through. Furthermore, the game offers a multitude of modes to work through, from one which grants you the ability to shoot bullets out of your path to controlling how dead-on each strike needs to be in order to take you out. Better yet, more than a few variations of classic weapons always show up, from the ever popular 6-way spreads to more explosive alternatives.

 

However, while the fractal designs of Xenoslaive Overdrive might be aesthetically pleasing to some, when compared to many other releases it appears unfortunately quite bare-bones. Bereft of more intricate backgrounds or solid details, the levels quickly become extremely samey and surprisingly easy to any addict of this genre. It makes the projectiles easy to track and a cinch to avoid, as there’s little to get in the way of you tracking the exact firing patterns or learning how to swoop around a boss’ arc of fire. This makes it perfect for leaning the genre’s core mechanics, but leaves little depth to those familiar with the genre. Furthermore, with only six levels to work through, you can easily fight your way through the game with relative ease, and the multiple play-throughs will only appeal to avid completionists.

 

Still, while it’s definitely no Ikaruga, Xenoslaive Overdrive nevertheless offers enough innate fun and creative boss battle choices to keep things interesting. Gamers looking for an easier entry into the genre than Jamestown or the Touhou series would do well to give this one a look, but veterans will likely find it a little too easy.

 

XENOSLAIVE OVERDRIVE / DEVELOPER AND PUBLISHER: EVXIO / PLATFORM: PC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Warlord Games’ Exterminate! set comes with a dozen plastic Daleks to get people started with their own squad of murder-aliens. However, anyone who gets into the game knows full well that these might not be enough for some games, especially Dalek versus Dalek action. Hence this nifty expansion, Davros and the New Dalek Empire.

 

As the name implies, it also comes with a model for the creator and occasional leader of the Daleks, Davros. This is a pretty simple to put together metal kit; even the most ham-fisted of gamers shouldn’t find this too challenging, though the back rest is a little tricky. The model is very finely detailed and comes unpainted. Hobbyists will have fun adding colour to the ancient monster, however.

 

The Daleks themselves are plastic snap together kits. You get a dozen of the iconic space-tank monsters in the set, and they’re as finely detailed as you’d expect (also, they’re classic Daleks, not this New Paradign iDalek stuff). A little patience is required and you should really read the instructions required as the bits snap together in a set order. Glue is only really needed if you plan to do something clever with the things. They come in gold-ish plastic, which is ideal if you’re too lazy to paint models.

 

The expansion comes with cards for the game. Recruitment Cards include Davros, The Cult of Skaro and the Emperor’s Guard. Davros is a tough old bird with plenty of Fate tokens and tricks up his sleeve to avoid death. He’s not as deadly as a Dalek, but he’s very hard to get rid of. Which means in most games of Into The Vortex he’ll be solving problems and grabbing tokens. You also get 11 Adventure Cards. Some of these are equipment for Davros, either giving him a decent attack or some more survivability. Others just make the Daleks more deadly, such as elevating over terrain or pretty much dishing out an extra dose of murder. The expansion easily makes the Daleks even more terrifying and that’s exactly what you want.

Moreover, some of the cards make it easy to pull classic Dalek moves, allowing you to play Davros as the super-creep he really is. Betrayal, ambush and scaring the pants off your opponent is the order of the day. If you’re a fan of the show and just like 28mm scale models, this is worth picking up. If you like the Into The Vortex miniatures game, this is pretty much essential.

 

INTO THE VORTEX: DOCTOR WHO EXTERMINATE! THE MINIATURES GAME – DAVROS & THE NEW DALEK EMPIRE EXPANSION SET / PUBLISHER: WARLORD GAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

There’s something about arena battle boardgames that simply brings the fun in. CMON’s latest offering, Gekido Bot Battles combines Pokémon style arena fighting with really nicely painted robot models to create something that’s rather nifty.

 

It’s a 2 to 4 player game in which robots beat each other up in a rather small arena. It’s a pretty quick game; ten to thirty minutes at the most and can be best described as an appetiser; the sort of thing you play a couple of times in a gaming session before getting stuck into something longer and meatier. It’s dice driven, using custom dice. It’s similar in a few ways to dice & power-up monster smashing game King of Tokyo, but more nuanced and more focused on hitting things.

 

Each bot is different but they’re all fairly well balanced; thematically each combatant has its own look and feel. The models look very cool, with everything from an anime style robo-knight to a cutesy cat creature. There’s a sort of mecha-pokémon style going on here and it makes the whole thing more fun. The board is stark in design, the pieces and the dice are bright. This works and lends a real cartoon feel to the affair.

As per usual for dice games, you get three rolls of the dice, locking in ‘good’ dice with the sort of results you need. This means that some of your strategy will shift and mutate as the dice gods decide what you’re doing next. This combination of push-your-luck mechanics and strategy makes for an engaging game with rapidly shifting strategy. Different areas of the board change this as well; do you move to a place with a defence bonus? Or risk a less defendable area for more attack dice? Do you move to that power-up, knowing full well that everyone else will and you’ll get a smack.

 

As the robots get hit, they lose dice. As they lose dice, you can unlock more devastating attacks, abilities and upgrades. This means that the tempo of the game speeds up quickly; the bots become more deadly and more able to zip round the board, smacking into each other to great effect.

 

The two-player game is tighter with less rules (and a smaller board). It’s a quick and nice starter whilst you’re waiting for people to arrive. It’s not enough to be the sole focus of an evening, but as a way of warming up your risk assessment and dice rolling skills, it’s excellent.

GEKIDO: BOT BATTLES / DESIGNER: FEL BARROS, ROMULO MARQUES / PUBLISHER: CMON LIMITED / RELEASE DATE: UK RELEASE DATE TBA

One of the things that has made Star Wars X-Wing The Miniatures Game the world’s most popular thing to do with dice and models is the depth and variety in which it can be played. For a space-ship dogfighting game, there’s a heck of a lot of variety available and an absolute bundle of (both official and unofficial) scenarios out there for when you grow tired of blowing the heck out of TIE Fighters.

More to the point, this deeper and more inspiring style of play is supported with Cinematic and Epic formats, and uses models larger than your average X-Wing. The latest addition to growing range of Epic ships in the C-Roc Cruiser miniature, a huge space designed to help players tell stories of scum and villainy.  The ship itself comes from Star Wars Rebels. It’s personal play pit of the crime Lord Azmorigan. Though not as iconic as the Tantive IV or the Imperial Raider, it adds a much needed sneaky side to epic play, with some clever tricks smugglers tricks up its sleeve to confound both Rebels and Imperials alike.

The model itself is rather nice. It’s a lovely selection of shades of brown, reminiscent of the Hutts and all those desert planets that Star Wars criminals love to inhabit. With lots of detail of engines, weapons and cargo crates, it’s an eye-catching piece.  It also comes with an M3-A Scyk in similar colours. The Scyks is a light fighter, likely to get popped early on but deadly in larger numbers. New rules (available online but they also come in this box) also make it a little more effective and little more scary as a model. We also get a brace of ‘light scyx’ cards, turning the little ship into a breakable swarm, meaning you could run 8 of the horrors in a standard game.

The C-ROC comes with plenty of cards of its own, of course. Cikatro Vairago lets you ‘hot swap’ certain upgrades in play, instantly adding more flexibility to your lists and giving you a potential points advantage early on. Azmorigan does a similar thing with crew cards on epic ships, firing and hiring as he pleases. There’s a Jabba the Hutt card, which lets you refuel ‘illicit slots’. These tend to be things like combat drugs (Glitterstims) and the like. It’s not very useful right now in the game, but it’s likely to be massive in some future wave of the game. Gameplay wise, it’s a tough ship with plenty of tricks.

The C-ROC also comes with its own set of scenarios, which involved Imperial and Rebel sides pitted against the cunning of the criminal cartels. It makes for a fun evening’s play and a change of pace for those who prefer tournament style gaming. And it looks lovely on the shelve.
 

THE C-ROC CRUISER EXPANSION PACK / PUBLISHER: FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Warlord Games own the license for all things Doctor Who Miniatures related. Mostly this means exciting pieces for their Doctor Who Into The Vortex miniatures game, but it also means that they can produce exciting Who themed work for the enthusiast. One excellent example is the rather neat Nightmares in Silver – Cybermen Collector’s Set.

 

This is a box of ten Cybermen models, all cast in metal. It covers the history of the Cybermen from the TV show, starting with a Mondasian Cyberman from Tenth Planet and ending with the War Cyberman from “Nightmare in Silver”. All the models are unpainted, have fixed poses and are “heroic” 28mm scale. Basically a little bigger than the scale suggests, but it looks great.

 

The Mondasian Cyberman comes in a very stocky pose, reminiscent of their first appearance. The model is very pretty, even though it’s a horrifying thing. The ‘lamp’ is particularly well done and appears to have been designed with painting in mind. The 1967 Tomb Cyberman is posed as if it’s about to pounce, with the various balls and cables cleverly arranged in the piece. The 1968 Wheel in Space Model has those iconic tear-drop eyes and again strikes a threatening pose.

The 1968 Invasion Cyberman is, sadly, not in mid-march. He looks like he’s guarding something and clutches a rifle close to his body, which is a bother for those into modifying models. His cyber-codpiece is very well done though. The 1975 Revenge Cyberman is in a catalouge model pose, showing off his cyber-pants. The piping is fab.

Both the 1982 and 1988 Cybermen (“Earthsock” and “Silver Nemesis”) are quite close in design. Again, weapons are sculpted for impact rather than adjustment. Still, we can almost hear the “Silver Nemesis” piece uttering the words ‘Excellent’ as he rubs his hands together. The final three models come from the new Who era, and show off the evolution of the newer baddies. The 2006 Cybus model is in mid-stomp, were as the 2011 Legion Cyberman looks bad-ass. The final model, 2013’s War Cyberman (from “Nighmare in Silver”) looks like a sleek robo-predator. They are lovely looking things.

The set comes in a nifty little box with a wraparound insert that explains the history of each model and which episode of Doctor Who they appear in. The pieces are arranged in thin plastic packaging which is reminiscent of “Tomb of the Cybermen” (though the models won’t burst out of their own accord).

They are no rules in this set, and it’s worth noting that the starter set for the Doctor Who into The Vortex contains a dozen easy-fit plastic Cyber Legion Cybermen and rules for Cyber Leaders and the like. This is not a vital addition for anyone collecting Cybermen for the game at this time. It is, however, very cool and extremely pretty and fans of sci-fi wargaming and Doctor Who will have a cyber-blast assembling and painting this army of horror. It’ll look lovely on the shelf as well.

NIGHTMARES IN SILVER – CYBERMEN COLLECTOR’S SET / PUBLISHER: WARLORD GAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

By Bandai Namco’s own admission, Get Even is a difficult game to pin down. In fact, they’ve pretty much made that the USP for this high-concept, first-person trip down the proverbial rabbit hole. You are Cole Black, a sleuth with a Sean Bean drawl (it isn’t him though) who finds himself poking about inside one of those abandoned, over-grown old asylums you’d never go near unless you were, well a bloke in a video game like this. So why are you there? Why are there armed guards patrolling about? What’s with the girl tied to a chair who disappears before your eyes? And is it worth eight hours of your time and £29 quid finding out?

 

It’s worth knowing going into Get Even that the plot has been woven by the same writing team responsible for several of Derren Brown’s fiendishly twisty audience-participation TV magic specials. You know, the ones where they make people think they’ve just blown up the planet or personally cancelled Christmas for everyone. In other words: nothing is what it seems, so prepare to be well and truly hoodwinked. The story sets up a lot of familiar tropes – memory machines, corporate overlords and disembodied voices are all present and correct. But as you delve further into the game, you realise these are merely a baseline for something much more interesting, involving and even (sniff) emotional.

 

Plenty of effort has been put into creating detailed documents that the player can read if they want to learn more about the game’s world. Some of these are necessary to understand the plot, so it is advised to give as many as possible a look. The combat can be satisfying and fun and at other times somewhat clunky and frustrating. However, the game goes out of its way to encourage you to avoid guns-blazing confrontation and instead use stealth and peaceful solutions in place of killing. Stealth mechanics – should you choose to use them – can be a problem as they are barely explained and will lead into early blunders. Even when mastered, we found ourselves spotted by guards through bushes and from miles away but we did enjoy (yes!) the corner-gun.

 

Puzzles are varied, and quite enjoyable – always ending with a satisfying ‘eureka!’ moment. Although developed in Poland by The Farm 51, it has a very British feel thanks to some excellent homegrown voice work. Sound design is excellent, with a very effective music score perfectly complimenting the atmosphere of the zones and emphasising moments of terror or action. This is one to play with a decent pair of headphones. At first the asylum appears to be a bit of cliché, solely functioning as a hub for you to access other zones. However, as the game builds it becomes crucial to the plot and is the setting for easily the best sequence, which uses a combination of setting, atmosphere and music to deliver a truly harrowing phase of terror.

 

Commendably over-ambitious for its modest budget, Get Even is a mid-priced gem full of cool ideas, enigmatic conundrums and clever twists on the first-person formula.

GET EVEN / DEVELOPER: THE FARM 51 / PUBLISHER: BANDAI NAMCO / PLATFORM PC, PS4, XBOX ONE / RELASE DATE: OUT NOW

Adding vampires to any setting opens up new doors. From secret societies to new abilities and afflictions, it grants the developer a chance to really experiment with a few new ideas, and add a new layer to their game. Darkest Dungeon’s already grim and gloomy world adds to this with this latest DLC – the Crimson Court – with the chance for your heroes to become a desperate bloodsucker themselves.

 

Treating vampirism as a virus you cannot heal, your characters can become afflicted with an unending bloodlust which boosts their attacks but leaves them vulnerable to the elements. After a time both are taken to extremes, and you will be forced to hunt for blood to keep them alive. In theory this is fun and fine, but the execution sadly leaves a lot to be desired. The sheer rarity of blood means that your character will often turn upon your companions, and the fact you cannot cure it is more of another hindrance over a new mechanical element. It leads to more than a few utterly unavoidable deaths as your veterans will keep wasting away, and the fact the blood-giving district is currently bugged means becoming afflicted is effectively a death sentence. This, combined with the fact you cannot even enter the titular court without bumping into a random drop which can take dozens of hours to find, adds merely another level of grinding onto the game; something it desperately needed to lessen.

 

With this said though, a few good elements can still be found here. The new class, the Flagellant, is a fun twist on the stress mechanics and the actual enemies of the Court are both fascinatingly well designed and fun to combat. Furthermore, the addition of the districts to the late game portion opens up far more opportunities than with the vanilla build, granting you more ways to approach the finale. All of these would be fine, but the troubling execution of the big selling point unfortunately overshadows them.

The bottom line really is that this is a weak addition to an otherwise spectacular game. If you have yet to pick up Darkest Dungeon then definitely look into it, but the Crimson Court is simply too problematic and too random to build upon existing elements without ruining the whole experience. Ultimately, this is a series of great and very ambitious ideas which sadly just didn’t add anything more than sheer frustration to the game.

DARKEST DUNGEON: THE CRIMSON COURT / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: RED HOOK STUDIOS / PLATFORMS: PC, OS X, PLAYSTATION 4, PLAYSTATION VITA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

In all the high profile new releases of last month, there were naturally a sizable number of releases that sadly failed to have a spotlight shone on them. Today we’re correcting that, with a release, which is one of the most creatively surreal and bizarrely enthralling indie games of the last several years – The Edgelands. 

The story is ultimately one about a journey, as you control a woman crossing through the run-down and bizarrely fantastical world surrounding her home. As a core narrative it’s fairly loose to be sure, but its strength instead lies in individual moments, as you uncover bizarre puzzles and bump into ever stranger individuals with every passing moment. Some serve to actively question the reality of all you are seeing, while others help to break up and branch the story with certain choices; a very welcome addition as it allows the game a solid amount of replay value.

The visuals and musical score are where the true beauty of the game lies. While the flavour text certainly helps to fill in certain blanks and offers substance to the world, the macabre beauty of the minimal artwork and animations keeps you hooked. Nothing here seems wholly right, and even the basic movement seems somehow off, making you constantly question the world around you. What’s more, there’s always something going on about you so, while it might delve into point and click territory more than a few times, there’s always something new and interesting for you to bump into. Thanks to this, it never feels as if you are merely filling out a list of objectives, and instead you’re doing more to change the environment around you.

Unfortunately, The Edgelands’ greatest strength doubles as its weakness as, with little in the way of additional mechanics or content, it is difficult to become hooked to start with. The visual storytelling, implications and surreal presentation all give the sense of a world twisted beyond recognition, but without an overarching tale or the ability to build upon certain points, the player is left to make up the context behind journey for themselves. This can sometimes work – just look at Limbo – but The Edgelands lacks the more physics-based mechanics to help balance out this element.

Ultimately if you’re a fan of Kentucky Route Zero or games which hinge upon blending surrealist visuals with the more rustic or burned out elements of life, The Edgelands is definitely for you. It might embrace a minimalist artistic style, but there’s more than enough substance behind the art to keep you interested until the credits roll.

THE EDGELANDS / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: MARSHLIGHT SOFTWARE / PLATFORMS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Above all others, Last Dream has always served as the game against which all other RPGMaker clones should be measured against. Closely following classic RPG tropes and qualities without using them as a crutch, it struck a very precise balance between paying tribute to SNES era releases while displaying surprising level mechanical innovation. Well, after several years the stand-alone expansion World Unknown has finally hit shelves, and it was more than worth the wait.

Set almost immediately following Gabriel’s defeat, the protagonist’s return to his world is rudely interrupted by a cataclysm. As visions of his family disappear even as he returns home, he finds himself dragged by an unknown power to an entirely new world along with his comrades from Terra. One that is in an even worse state than the realm they just saved.

The story, at its core, hinges upon more than a few well-known clichés, but that’s part of its beauty. It executes so many of them so perfectly that you’re often reminded of just why they became overused in the first place, but they never lose their charm despite this. In addition to this, World Unknown isn’t afraid of subverting expectations, or offering you the freedom of choice absent in so many similar RPG remakes. It is, after all, perfectly viable to threaten an inn owner into allowing you to stay for free, and taking the wrong chest can horrifically backfire on you in the wrong town.

The game also keeps many strengths of its predecessor, as it allows you to control many basic stages and design elements from the start. The exact encounter rate, when and where you can save, the overall strength of enemies, and even the ability to completely omit cut-scenes for those focusing purely upon the gameplay are all present. Atop of this though, World Unknown also starts off exactly where the last one ended mechanically, and you will find many late game elements (such as tunnelling to reach new areas or blowing open walls) present from the very start. Furthermore, the same sense of exploration and hidden quests are present even in the starting town, as you can bump into a Thieves’ Guild dungeon and be pitted into a boss fight to take back some of your old gear.

Even without the story elements and open world mechanics, World Unknown’s combat nevertheless stands out thanks to its complexity and broad character classes. You have all the expected tropes and types from the Fighter to White Mage, but each offers such a broad range of skills that there is a surprising amount of crossover between each one’s specialties. The Knight might be a tank, but besides merely dealing damage he can breach the armour of foes and hinder their movements, while the White Mage has access to any number of buffs from basic healing to preventing anyone dying in the turn she casts a spell. Even the Engineer has some fun with the likes of smoke bombs and an ability titled ICBM along with their usual class elements. All of which you will need to emerge victorious, as the enemies here are relentlessly unforgiving, with many retaining abilities capable of totally healing one another in a split-second or dropping a dozen debuffs on members of your party. As such, it takes a fair bit of tinkering and intelligence to start regularly winning fights without any difficulty.

However, more so than anything else here, World Unknown seems to have been made with satisfying old hands of RPGs with new ideas. There are plenty of opportunities to break story sequences and skip ahead, or avoid intended meetings entirely for speed-runs, and earning renown will be reflected in NPC dialogue. Unlike the Elder Scrolls series, if you take on a giant world threatening kraken with naught but a sword and win, they’re going to praise you in the street for it.

If there is a negative point to cite in World Unknown, it’s that it takes a few hours for the developer’s true genius to shine through. During the opening segments of your quest, the abrupt beginning and almost generic town elements can make this easy to write off as merely another by-the-numbers RPGMaker clone, and even without that there are obvious major benefits to transferring a save file from Last Dream over starting anew. As relatively minor as these are, it can make life difficult for anyone looking to get into this game without having experienced the first instalment. 

Still, no matter its flaws, Last Dream: World Unknown is still a monumental success and a true hidden gem on Steam. This is an essential purchase for any fan of classic 16-bit RPGs and one of the single best releases of 2017 so far. Make this an essential purchase for this month.

LAST DREAM: WORLD UNKNOWN / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: WHITE GIANT STUDIOS / PLATFORMS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

You have a steam powered mech and you use it to hit people on your way to freedom. If that got your attention then this might be a game worth looking into, as its thematic qualities are Acaratus’ greatest strength.

 

Set in a world ruled by a despotic tyrant, where technology is suppressed and reserved only for the thugs of the elite, a former slave trader and a serf are hounded by the king’s guards. Retaining an outdated and outlawed battlemech, the two must set aside their differences to survive the constant onslaught of foes. It’s an interesting twist on most character relationships, and the semi-Tzarist environment helps to give a fresh spin on an often-overexposed genre. Even in the middle of battles you might find yourself stopping to marvel at certain ideas, and it utterly nails the charm of the archaic advanced technology.

 

In terms of its gameplay Acaratus emulates many ideas which were more prominent in tactical RPGs of past eras, especially the PSX. You move your units about a grid, visiting towns, taverns and blacksmiths as you wonder a limited version of the world. Time ticks away overhead as you spend your days and you can bump into enemies at many major points, locking you into a turn based battle. It’s a little dated but still effective, and it helps that said turn based combat is solidly designed. While you have a few essential elements for your mech, abilities come in the form of one-shot cards which you buy, loot or build for a brief advantage, while your equipment can be switched out at a blacksmith. It encourages a more conservative approach and means that the brief battles still remain satisfying, but it can be an uphill battle to comprehend certain mechanics thanks to poorly worded tutorials.

 

Perhaps the greatest failing lies in the execution of the story more than anything else. There are good elements here and while the opening cutscene is an info-dump and a half, it’s enough to get you hooked. Yet, even with this, there are many points where it offers masses of exposition but little explanation. An issue hardly helped with a notably problematic English translation and little in the way of character introductions.

 

Despite the genre differences, Acaratus is in many ways comparable to the AquaNox series. You can tell that there is great lore there, you have striking visuals to work with, and the basic gameplay is solid, but the clunkiness of its presentation and narrative holds it back from real success. Steampunk and tactical RPG aficionados might want to give this one a look on release, but otherwise it’s best saved for a sale.

 

ACARATUS / DEVELOPER & PUBLISHER: NODBRIM INTERACTIVE / PLATFORMS: MICROSOFT WINDOWS / RELEASE DATE: 25th MAY