Slime Rancher (Early Access)

Dev: Monomi Park

Publisher: Monomi Park

Origional Release Date: January 14 2016

There is a certain style and vein of games that I’d classify as the relaxation genre. They’re often of simple, easy to play games that often let you just kinda zone out and enjoy them while listening or doing other things. Slime Rancher is a part of this genre in my opinion, and it’s really adorable and fun to boot.

The basic story of this game so far is very simple. For reasons that are unknown at the start, you’ve set off on your own and purchased a slime ranch on some unknown world. Equipped with your trusty vacuum gun and some determination you set out to make yourself a fortune while exploring this strange slimy world.

As you explore and gather various slimes up you’ll occasionally come across a few interesting things. This can range from something as simple as some new fruits or veggies, to the massive and incredibly adorable Gordo Slimes.

These gargantuan slimes need as much food as possible, feed them their specified food and eventually they’ll burst. Once they do you have the chance to get a few rewards for freeing them. Aside from the splitting into a bunch of smaller versions of themselves, they can and often do drop 2 boxes that can house rare fruits or veggies, as well as some extra money for your trouble. On top of all this they have the chance to split apart into either a teleporter or a slime key.

 

The teleport will more often than not lead back to your ranch in some capacity, or on the flip side it can be a teleporter that will take you off to a portion of the slimey world that is far away, or impossible to access otherwise.

On the flip-side, the Slime key, in a way, is similar to the teleporter in what it gives you. The slime key after acquiring it will sit inside your inventory and, with some exploration, you will stumble upon this big ancient doorways, using your slime key on them will unlock the gateway, giving you access to an entire new zone to explore.

With a new zone now open to you, comes new slimes, new fruits veggies, and adorable hen hen and roostero’s to collect. As you explore the zone you’ll come across more Gordo’s and doorways, and the process rinses and repeats until you have the whole world opened up for you.

 

In order to progress in this game, it will require you to put in some good ol hard work back at your Ranch. You’ll need to pen up these new and crazy slimes, as well as buy expansions to your humble ranch. Don’t worry if you think your going to be stuck on your own when figuring all this out though. The game has a handy little thing called the Slimepedia. With each slime, hen hen, fruit and veggie you find this Slimepedia gets updated with new information. So don’t worry you’ll always have that to refer to if you can’t remember the preferences of a slime!

These expansions can include a dock, an overgrown jungle, a science/experimentation hut, and a dark murky crystal cavern. Each has it’s own uses and benefits for what you’ll more than likely end up using them for.

 

As the world opens up to you, and you come across increasingly stranger and more valuable slimes, you will occasionally get messages from someone claiming to know you. There is a sort of sad story within these simple messages and I highly recommend reading them.

While I played through slime rancher I often discovered something fairly surprising for an early access title. The game runs as smooth as butter for me. It managed to stay well over 60fps, though it did have moments where it struggled, though this was mostly due to the large number of slimes, and items scattered about giving my CPU a run for its moneys.

At the end of the day Slime Rancher is a very cute and adorable game that’s nice to play while you’re trying to relax. It has enough depth to be interesting on its own and as time goes on and it’s development continues it only serves to get better.

Slime Rancher can be found on Steam for 19.99$ USD or your regional equivalent.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada

Dev: Tindalos Interactive

Publisher: Focus Home interactive

Release Date: April 21 2016

Have you ever wanted to be the Admiral of a grand armada of star ships that have more guns and weaponry bolted into them then the entire world military combined? Well with a bit of effort you can do just that in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.

Set in the grim darkness of the 41^st millennia you are chosen to be the Admiral of one of the various races available, in the base game this is a simple 4 races. You have Imperial Navy, The Eldar Corsairs, a Chaos Fleet, and the ever wonderful Orkz.

Each of these races also plays vastly different from each other, and in my opinion beautifully reflect the races of Warhammer 40k in their simple mechanical differences.

However when it comes to the single player of the game there is only 1 race that you are able to play, that being the Imperial Navy.

A short run down of the plot goes something like this: You are Capitan Spire, commander of a ship that survives a surprise chaos fleet attack. Fleeing the battle field you run back to the Gothic sector to meet with Inquisitor Horst and inform him of the coming threat. However being that the taint of chaos is involved, the council of the gothic sector deem it necessary that your faith and trust be put to the test. You are put to extreme and vigorous torture, and not only manage to survive, but survive with mind and body intact. Thus Inquisitor Horst and Lord Admiral Ravensburg promote you to Admiral and task you with not only constructing a grand Armada, but protecting against the oncoming threat no matter what it might be.

Thus it’s entrusted to you to protect the Gothic Sector. You will be raided from Eldar and Ork alike, as well as fending away the vast Chaos fleet.  Should 50 worlds fall to these various threats, then it will be game over for you, and for the Gothic Sector.

Outside of the single player there is a skirmish and multiplayer mode available for play as well. In these modes you can chose any of the 4 races, as well as 2 dlc races should you own them. Before you select which race you play they each have a general run down of how they work, so you can chose accordingly to which would best fit your play style.

In multiplayer you have the choice of two different type of game modes to try.

Persistent Mode involves leveling an admiral up, this includes building your armada from scratch, test your mettle against other admirals and see if you can create your dream fleet.  You’ll get a randomly selected mission type, however in between these missions your ships can suffer status effects.

On the other side you have Ranked Mode. You start with a level 8 Admiral and get 8000 points to create your armada, but once you’ve used all your points that is your fleet. You play against other players in 3 round matches.

So far I’ve had a fantastic time with Battlefleet Gothic Armada and I can heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a good Warhammer 40k game.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada is available for 39.99$ USD or your regional equivalent.

It has a PEGI rating of 12+ and is without an ESRB rating currently.

Morphblade

 

Developer: Suspicious Developments

Publisher: Suspicious Developments

Have you ever heard the phrase Simplicity is bliss? Well I think that phrase describes almost perfectly the experience that I’ve had with Morphblade recently. I got this game fairly recently, and had forgotten about it, meaning to play it time and time again but always having my attention pulled elsewhere by various things, however it is only now after playing it that I regret not trying it sooner.

So what is Morphblade exactly?

To put it in the simplest terms possible, it’s a turn based hex grid geometry bug squishing puzzle horde mode game. Oh wait, simple, right. It’s a turn based strategy game.

The way the game works is fairly simple, you have 6 available forms that your ‘morph’ can take on in order to deal with enemies.  Those forms all have their uses, but they also get a little more complex after you’ve scratched their surface

You have the following morphs and here’s what they do:

• The hammer
  • It smashes any enemy that you click on that is directly in front of it, but only in front.

• The spear
  • This kills an enemy that is in a two hex line, and also simultaneously moves you two hex’s
• The teleport
  • This allows you to move instantly to any hex on your grid
• The medkit
  • This heals you after you’ve taken damage
• The acid
  • This destroys a blue shield that is on certain enemy types
• The dual blades
  • This destroys enemies to the left and right of the hex that you move to, but only the left and right.

They are all pretty simple, and they each have their uses, however the complexity of the game comes in upon killing all enemies in a wave. After every enemy is dead in a wave a few hex’s will appear with different morphs on them, when you select one, that hex now becomes a solid platform for your morph to move on, and also a useful ability for you to utilize. However you cannot just randomly select a hex based solely on the ability it offers, you must also remember that in selecting the hex you are also creating the field that you will have to fight on.

Not to bad right, well prepare for the next layer. Upon killing a certain amount of enemies with certain abilities, or a certain amount dying atop others, they gain an upgrade, however this upgrade isn’t just a simple choice, depending on the morphs surrounding the one that is upgradeable it allows for different upgrades, and it can only benefit from the upgrade of one morph so if you have multiple around the same hex, your upgrades for it will be very limited. Each Morph also gets a unique benefit from the other morphs as well, they can also gain an upgrade from the type of morph as well so having two of the same next to each other isn’t a bad idea.

Moving on, when it comes to a story, or plot, there isn’t any really, this is just a pretty simple in design, but very complex fun little game. I honestly had a good amount of fun with it and can gladly recommend it!

 

Morphblade is currently available on steam for 4.99USD or your regional equivalent.

Total War: Warhammer

Developer: Creative Assembly

Publisher: SEGA

Release date: 24 May 2016

Drums of war beat in the distance. Hundreds of troops stand side by side, swords drawn, and shields up. Thunder? No the sound approaching is the running of thousands of Orks. Now a new thunder, mortars firing from behind, bouts of fire and corpses fly into the air, shot after shot, thinning the horde as it approaches. One last sound is heard before steel meets steel… “WAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!”

 

This is just a small description of some of the great things you can see inside Total War: Warhammer, my newest and current addiction. It has been a long time since a game has so thoroughly held my attention as of late. Well there’s one other, but that’s for another time.

I think it’s no surprising fact that I love Warhammer, everything about it has just fascinated me for a long time, the lore and the stories that have come from it. From table top to video games, Total War Warhammer in my opinion gives a good taste and look at the style and kinds of epic battles you’ve only imagined when thinking of fantasy.

 

I recently got my hands on this game, and I’ve wanted to play it for quite a while, I enjoy total war in general so the notion of a Warhammer fantasy theme sounded absolutely fantastic to me. I can happily report, after quite a bit of time spent with it, that the game is quite amazing, though it does have some issues, but they are mostly nitpicks.

So let’s start off by looking at the basic story of the game itself. One common theme to each story for all the races is simply this. You are the new leader of a city/clan/town etc, and you must work your butt off to bring the world under your control, either by force, or diplomacy. However that’s where the similarities for each race ends. From the start on you’re faced with a different play style and mechanics for each race, and each has its downsides as well as it’s upsides. I’ll give my impressions on each race from my personal experience so far with the game, 50 something hours in.

The Dwarves are probably my preferred to play race, but that does not mean they are the best. The dwarves specialize in long range artillery and gunners. They are also from what I’ve seen the hardest to get rid of unit wise, it takes a lot of work to wither down their unit’s hp and moral wise. The Dwarves also are one of the two factions that have the ability to research tech and upgrades without the requirement of specialized buildings. However they are not without problems. They are probably the slowest race in the entire game, when you engage with dwarves, do not expect to be able to outrun your enemy in any fashion. Campaign map wise, they have a fairly interesting mechanic known as grudges, any action taken against your faction, small or big, will warrant a grudge. If a grudge is not fulfilled and sorted out quick enough, it will begin to cause a massive detriment faction wide.

The Orks play a lot like how you’d expect. You want to raid and fight as much as possible. Building wise you almost need to have something giving public order and everything else giving money, that way you can churn out as many armies as possible. Once that’s sorted you can go about squashing all the other factions with ease. They sound incredibly strong, and such I’m sure, however they’ve got their problems just the same as dwarves. The Ork unit’s tend to not run away as soon as other factions, this is a big problem because it tends to lead to your units getting wiped out completely. On top of that while the Orks are strong melee fighters, their ranged and artillery leaves a lot to be desired. The biggest problem Orks have from gameplay wise, is the fact that they have no diplomatic ability for trade what so ever. The only money you’re getting is from buildings and raids.

The Vampire Counts are a fairly interesting faction, in the early stages they can replenish and raise a full 20/20 army within a turn’s time. They are also very strong when it comes to defending their and provinces. This is due to the vampire corruption that they spread, it causes all races aside from vampires to suffer attrition and losses when having to stay and traverse through their lands. The Vampire Counts also possess a large group of horrors to both demoralize and destroy any who oppose. From a simple bat to the mighty Vargulf, a ghoul to wraiths, their armies are truly that of fear and one to beware of. The Vampire Counts are also the second race that does not require specialized buildings for research on tech. However, they have a very clear and strong weakness. Outside of lands that have vampire corruption, they suffer very heavy attrition.  Not only this, but it should be noted, that while their units can hit fairly hard, in my opinion after playing with them, their units seem to die the easiest.

 

Finally we have the Humble Humans, otherwise known as The Empire. The humans are, in my opinion, one of the most well rounded and versatile factions in the game. They have a little bit for everyone, and offer a lot. However I’ve found that their strength comes from their cavalry units and their ability to charge into enemies and utterly disrupt their formations, I’d argue that the mounted combat is their specialty. Along with this, I found that their heroes are as diverse as them. However at the end of the day, they’re a jack of all trade, master of almost none.

Outside of these races there are a few others that are not included with the base game and must be bought separate as DLC, however these other races will appear in your game still to be interacted with.

Moving forward, let’s talk about the game mechanic’s and what you’ve got to look forward to within this game. I have to say of the total war games that I’ve tried, this has felt the easiest to understand in terms of how everything works in the campaign map. Everything you need to know is shown readily when you need it, and the information of what each thing does is very clearly shown allowing for you to make the best choice possible. As well as this if you need more information you can hover over icons, and it will give a more in depth description of what you’re dealing with.  The game also has a nice touch to it for anyone who might not be familiar with the Warhammer universe, the game comes equipped with a window in game that connects to a wiki that gives an very descriptive lore read out on units, and buildings if you happen to be curious about them.

Outside, or rather inside, the main campaign map, you have what I consider to be the main bread and butter of this game, the battles. You can take control of monstrous and incredibly large armies of creatures and units that are shown off in lovely detail, on a massive battlefield. This part of the game comes equipped with view speeds, you can go from normal, 3x speed, to even slow motion so you can zoom in and watch some amazingly brutal moments. You can even pause the encounter at any moment so you can assess what is going on and make the best decisions possible to ensure the best outcome for your battle.

One final thing to note within the games mechanics is, that there is in fact the ability to play a co-op campaign, and there are no restrictions you can play any race co-op-ed with any race, it may make things very interesting, and possibly even difficult depending on combinations.

Now then, while I am absolutely in love with this game, I have to say that it does have some small problems that bothered me while I played it, but they’re not massive issues. The biggest problem I had with the game was the diplomacy and interactions with other factions while playing. More often than not there were times when I got pestered by a group turn after turn to enter a war against another group I just had no interest in fighting at the time, and it becomes easily frustrating when this continues to occur, especially when declining them causes the relationship with the faction to deteriorate to a degree.

Another issue I had was a very lacking system to deal with raiding parties. Many a time I found myself, especially after a certain event occurs, being raided by factions, and unless I declared war upon said factions, I had no real way of getting rid of them, at least from what I’ve experienced, and it was very frustrating to deal with as it causes the settlements in the area to begin to lose control, and it also impacts your income.

To wrap this all up, the game is certainly far from perfect, and it can feel daunting to try to get into it if you have no experience with the Warhammer Fantasy universe at all, but I encourage you that if you’re interested in this game, to give it a try and see if you like it, I personally had and will probably be, having a blast with it. If you’re a fan of Warhammer, you’ll love getting to play as factions you know, and getting to control massive armies of those factions. If you love Total War, there’s plenty here for you to sink your teeth into.

 

 

 

You can pick this game up on Windows, Linux, and Mac for 59.99 USD or your regional equivalent

Total War: Warhammer has a Pegi rating of 16, and an ESRB of T for Teen.

Space Hulk: Deathwing (Warhammer 40,000)

Developer: Streum On studio
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Release Date: December 14, 2016

 

“In the grim darkness of the future there is onl- what’s that? I’ve used this before!? Oops”

 

Say what you will about the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but it is probably one of my favorite science fiction/fantasy universes I’ve ever stumbled upon. Way back I first came into contact with Warhammer 40,000 from the games Dawn of War, since then I began reading novels set in the universe, most being that of the Horus Heresy series. Well ever since I always try, If I have the money, to pick up any Warhammer games I come across that seem pretty good. In recent memory the franchise has been a little, lack luster, with their action orientated games, the last one I remember enjoying quite a bit being Space Marine.

So when I was sitting about and I saw the video about Space Hulk: Deathwing showing the 13 minuets of gameplay, I got pretty excited. The game was set in a Space Hulk which is an amalgamation of fused together starships, usually infested with god knows what. On top of that you play one of my favorite things from Warhammer 40k, Terminator Space Marines. To say the least, I was excited, the game play looked good, and it got me hyped up.

Then release came out, and I’ve spent a decent bit of time with it now, but I have to say, I’m not all that impressed, and honestly a little disappointed, for a few reasons.

So before I get into why I’m disappointed, let’s give some background on the story. You play as Terminator Space Marines of the Blood Angels Deathwing chapter. You are a part of a fairly large scale insurrection into a Space Hulk that is believed to house a ship somewhere inside of your chapter, but it is one that dates back to the Heresy era, what it could house is invaluable to your chapter.

Moving forward, I have to hand it to the dev team, this game looks, and aesthetic of Warhammer 40,000 down to a T visually. Yet that’s about as far as things go in my opinion on the good side. Most of this is arguably nitpicks, and as usual your opinion may differ. However I have to say that I’ve not enjoyed myself while playing.

So let’s dive right in. Let’s start with the minor stuff. First issue I had was the sound of some of the guns. Now since Warhammer 40k has always been a table top franchise, the notion of how the guns should sound is subjective, but I’ve always envisioned them as these guttural sounding thunderous monstrosities. For instance the storm bolter in the game sounds, fairly plunky and more similar to a normal gun we have today. To me a bolter has always seemed like it would have this heavy, thunderous roar to it when it shot, after all it is basically a fully automatic mini rocket launcher.

Another issue I have with the game is that you have a stamina bar. Most games have stamina bars, and they make sense, but for a Terminator Space Marine, it does not make a whole lot of sense, again this could easily be seen as a nitpick but it’s something that bothers me quite a bit while playing.

Another tiny bother is the notion of the assault cannon and vengeance variant. They both are spinning barrel weapons, similar to that of a minigun, yet they have the spread and recoil of a fully automatic shotgun. Which, from what I understand, isn’t how they should operate. The recoil should be almost non-existent since it is bolted to the arm of the Terminator Armor and absorbed by the hydraulics in said armor, and the spread should be in a fairly tight circle.

A final tiny little nitpick I have, but this one is truly just personal, it sort of bugs me that your projectile weapons can’t pass through teammates. You might think “Oh well that makes sense though” Well yes, but the sheer size of a Terminators backside makes it almost impossible to help which ever poor sod is at the front when the swarm shows up, and you have to try and jockey around each other to actually be able to put rounds out into the swarm coming at you, and it just feels like a chore rather than fun.

So enough of the smaller details, I’ll move on to my biggest issue/’s with the game itself.

Boy oh boy, the biggest problem I have with the game is the game itself. The setting, in my opinion, causes the game to fall to pieces, which is a damned shame because of just how beautifully well they’ve crafted the space hulk. If I wasn’t told what type of ship I was making my way through, I could probably figure it out based on the level of detail they put in to the architecture of each ship… and yet the space hulk is the very reason I’m having issues enjoying the game. The loop of this game for the time I’ve played it has constantly boiled down to this:

1. Trigger gene stealer swarm
2. Back group into door we just came out
3. Hold fire button
4. Move on and repeat process.

While that can be fun starting out, the luster of this wears off very quickly. Step 2 is inter changeable with just backpedaling because they gene stealers and such just funnel themselves for you into your fire. There have been a few select moments where the AI showed a semblance of intelligence and actually dove down holes, or ran off in another direction to flank, but usually the swarm was dead by the time they pathed back to attack me again that I was able to just gun it down with ease. Like I mentioned earlier as well, because of the tight corridors, and narrow passage ways, trying to shoot past each other, because anything outside of melee and the flamer, simply cannot pass through your battle brothers.

Another issue of note, and this is something I usually forget to talk about in my reviews but it’s very worth mentioning here. The game does not really run that great. I thought maybe at first it would be just my system but after looking around, it seems this is a fairly common issue. At certain intervals, some at random, some where you’d expect, the game will just drop in fps, rather considerably, where I’ll go from a smooth 60-70fps, down to 30-40. My rig is fairly middle of the road with its build, so I imagine anyone on the lower end would have this game be almost unplayable.

That is the problem with the game, the space hulk itself, because of the very nature of a space hulk there is only so much a swarm can do to get at you, and it makes it fairly easy to deal with them, in turn making the gameplay loop extremely boring. I cannot express how just utterly sad that makes me to say either, because the story that Streum have crafted, and the look and everything is so well done, but the game falls flat in, well, it’s gameplay. From the boring gameplay loop, to the disability to fire through your squad mates to help, to the sound of the bolter, all these issues come together for me like a daemon of the warp and just squash any enjoyment I start, or have for the game.

Closing up, I’d like to reiterate, that I don’t hate this game, but I’m incredibly disappointed about it, and it makes me a little sad to see that it falls short of being a game that I’m sure many a 40k fan have wanted for a while, and I can tell that Streum tried very hard to make that game for us.

Yet I don’t think I can recommend the game at its full price, if it happens to go on sale and you have a couple of friends who are willing to get it with you, then by all means I strongly urge you to pick up the game. Outside of friends and sales, I’d say maybe wait for the price to drop a bit.

The pegi rating is 16+

The game is 39.99 USD or your regional equivalent

The game is currently out for PC

Estimated release for Consoles in 2017

Dungeons 2

Developer: Kalypso Media

Release date: Steam- April 24 2015, PS4- May 24 2016

To be the bad guy, most people’s deepest darkest dream in games when we play them. Sure everyone can love being the good guy who saves the day and makes everyone happy, but every now and again, there’s this desire, this want.

“What if I was the bad guy for once, and just steam rolled the good guys, I mean, without me they’re basically useless!”

Well Dungeons 2 is the game for you then as you take the mantle of quite literally, The Ultimate Evil. You are instructed and led by, in my humble opinion, one of the best written narrators, as you command the vast and powerful horde. However things are not all dark, and vile, as you march on the last bastion of Good left in the Overworld you are banished by a group of hero’s and your horde broken and scattered. However after a while your angry evil soul awakes and it’s hungry for the coldest dish, Revenge.

Upon this you are dumped into the actual game itself

So what is the actual game you’re probably asking, “How does it play?” Well it’s actually a fairly simple game, it takes elements from the beloved franchise Dungeon Keeper, in that you have works and must dig out a complex (or simple) dungeon lay out to place down rooms to attract different kinds of monstrosities to your dungeon, however layered on top of these mechanics is the Overworld, here the game switches from a building and management game to a somewhat basic RTS. However due to this RTS feature being in the game unlike in the Dungeon Keeper franchise you can’t quite get ‘unlimited’ amounts of creatures and just roll your opposition over, but with the ability to train your creatures increasing their attack and making them into specific variations allows for you to make an army that fits your needs and wants.

Various rooms available

During the main campaign your objective is basically to just recreate your evil empire and reap the vengeance that was so wrongfully taken away from you. All the while you’re being instructed by the absolutely delightful narrator I cannot stress enough how much they made the game for me, it’s stocked with well-done voice lines and fantastically written references and jokes, all though for some they may not be as funny and may come off as cheesy, bear in mind that there are actual options to mute the narrator completely, or make it so he only speaks for important things such as telling you objectives and furthering the plot of the current mission. Though personally I find that Kevan Brighting work here is amazingly done.

Moving swiftly forward let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what I liked and didn’t like about the game.

What I Liked:

• The game felt really well paced and it flowed nicely, I never really felt underwhelmed of overwhelmed.
• The narrator in the game to me is amazing and well written and should you not like him you can even disable his narration completely.
• The mixing of RTS with the management styles of the Dungeon Keeper of old I feel is done fantastically by Kalypso Media
• The art direction of the game feels like it fits like a glove to me, it’s cartoony enough that it allows for silly things, but has just enough a tinge of realism that you can appreciate the grotesqueness of things
• The gameplay differences between the 2 playable factions, being The Ultimate Evil with his Orcs and such, versus the play style of The Chaotic Evil with their Demons and such are pleasantly different.

Some of my favorite quotes from my playthrough

What I dislike:

• Though each mission in the story is fun and the story silly, the main gameplay loop I found as time went on became very repetitive, I had a standard army I used every time and it worked without fail, but at the same time it changed enough that I didn’t notice until nearing the very end, this problem is of course is somewhat remedied by the edition of the Chaotic Evil later on.
• Though I praise the story and the narrator and it’s writing it is worth saying that it could all be found to be very cheesy and lack luster depending on your sense of humor.
• The RTS elements of it are fairly basic baring a few interesting abilities of creatures you get later on, but most of the time it just breaks down to clicking on what you need to die first then letting them go after whatever they want next.

 

At the end of the day if a good narrator can make a game for you I highly recommend this game to you. However if it’s not that simple for you, I would suggest maybe waiting till the game goes on sale for somewhere around 20$.

The game has an ESRB of T for Teens
The game has a PEGI rating of  12+

You can find the game on steam for 29.99$ USD or your regional equivalent as well as PS4.

Gamer’s Elegy Everyone’s Welcome Here

It might be a little offhand to make this post, however, I feel that it needs to be made. This post will have very little to do with games, but this is just simply a message to any fans of our group.

First off I would like to apologize for our silence over the past months or so, we’ve all been dealing with some issues and simply don’t have the ability to dedicate ourselves to this fully yet. However going forward I hope that we will be able to push and bring you more and more content.

Now then onto the main point of this post. No matter who you are, or what you believe in I, being the reviewer GertaiusTheLich here at Gamer’s Elegy would like to say this
You are welcome here, no matter what, you are welcome here with us.
Hope you all have a fantastic day, stay safe.
-Lich-

Doom (2016)

Developer: id Software

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Release Date: May 13, 2016

            Anger, Hatred, and Pure Bloodlust. Three things you will experience as you grab your shot gun and blow away demon after demon in one of the best first person shooters I’ve played this year.

So what brought my attention to Doom so long after its initial release way back in May? Well to put it simply, I occasionally go and play the older Dooms, mostly when I’m bored and the current shooters that are floating around just aren’t quite cutting it. Well with the release way back in May I’ve been wanting to get my grubby hands on this iteration for a while, and I have to say, I was not disappointed.

If the Phrase “bath in the blood of your enemies” has ever sounded insane, but amazing, well this game will let you happily realize that dark hope. However, on hard and above, you will very much be working to make that cruel dream a reality.

Thankfully the game is merciful in that it will let you choose your desired form of Demon dismemberment. From a Pump Shotgun, to the legendary BFG, you’re going to be swimming in gore as you make population of hell all but disappear single handedly. Not only however, will you simply be equipped with the basic forms of these weapons, but throughout the levels, you can find cute robots, these guys hold weapon upgrades, but they aren’t your normal boring upgrades. What’s that? You’re Pump Shotgun is starting to feel a little boring? Well let’s slap on a mini grenade launcher to it! You’re Gatling Gun feels sluggish? Let’s add a second barrel and get rid of spin up!

Not only does this game give you a massive arsenal to bring the hurt to hell, but you also are able to occasionally find what’s called ‘runes’ scattered throughout the levels. This can be something as simple as a haste or double damage rune, to something as adrenalin pumping as the Breserker rune. Each of these has a short duration and will change how you tackle the enemies coming at you for the time that they’re active, and in higher difficulties, popping that rune at just the right time can mean the difference between surviving two barons of hell with a small army of hell knights, or getting your insides decorated on the nearby wall.

The best part of Doom is, in a way, is it’s portrayal of the story, and of the main character, whom is known by the demons as “The Doom Slayer”. The game starts off with you waking up, stark naked on a stone slab while a few demons stumble about and get ready to tear you apart. Well they don’t get the satisfaction as you easily break apart the steel chains restraining you, grab a nearby pistol, and swiftly deal with these few chumps. You move forward, find your Predator suit, and from there you make your way to outside, only to find everything has gone wrong, in all the worst possible ways. A man makes contact with you, he gives you the run down but, to say the least, The Doom Slayer is having none of it.

So let’s move on to what I personally liked, and disliked about the game.

Let’s start with what I like. For starters I have to say that the games pace feels incredible with the introduction of guns, and each of your abilities, and add-ons for said guns, it was spaced in a way that I never felt overwhelmed, yet I later discovered that if you feel like things aren’t being given to you fast enough, a quick jaunt around a level can often reward you with some goodies that you probably shouldn’t have your hands on yet, a nice throwback to the old Dooms. Now the story of this game, is probably overwhelmingly simple, at least on the surface. If you want to get a little deeper into it, or just need a break from burring a chainsaw into demons, there are various text logs that you can go have a gander at to get an idea of the universe you’re currently gunning your way through. The Doom Slayer, and as some speculate, Doomguy himself, are probably my favorite part of this game. Very rarely does the silent protagonist we play as in first person shooters get to show off their emotions, yet Doomguy is one of the best at expressing himself. He may only express himself in pure rage, but he does it perfectly. Finally the soundtrack in this game is incredible, if you need hype up, or pump up music, this games OST should be one of your first choices.

Now in comparison what I dislike. Well to be honestly, there isn’t much I dislike about this game. It feels right in every way I could hope for. Most of the complaints I could level at it, are honestly along the levels of nit picking or just playing boring. Yet if you must have one dislike, I’d have to say that some of the weapon upgrades in the game don’t feel as, upgrading, as others. For instance the pump shotgun has an explosive shot, and a charge shot. Yet the Rocket Launcher has a lock on burst, and a remote detonation as its upgrade. The Lock on burst is fine but the remote detonation just seems a little lame, that coupled with certain guns simply getting an aim down sights as one of their upgrades, just doesn’t feel right. However be perfectly aware that these upgrades you’re not forced to use in any way, there’s even ways to use the gun at its basic form without any upgrade attached. Like I said, nitpicks.

SO, at the end of the day, Doom (2016), what do I have to say about it as a recommendation? Get it. As simple as that. If you want a challenging, brutal, and metal as it can get first person shooter, then this game will give you everything you need and more.

 

Doom (2016) is rated M for Mature. It has a PEGI rating of 18+

You can find Doom (2016) on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 for about 60.00USD or your regional equivalent.

Dark Souls Soundtrack

One of the biggest things that really makes dark souls, in its entirety is the simple masterpiece that is the soundtrack. The sounds that the composers have created for us will haunt, and sit with you, and they are perfectly unsettling to where you just can’t stop listening.

This soundtrack was submitted by Gerty.

You can stream the soundtrack below or grab it from here.

Spyro the Dragon Soundtrack

Calling all ’90s kids!

This soundtrack reigns king with nostalgia. With percussion focused tracks, Stewart Copeland made this game iconic. The complete soundtrack is almost two hours long.