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.

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.

Obduction

“As you walk beside the lake on a cloudy night, a distant thunderclap demands your attention. A curious, organic artifact falls from the starry sky and inexplicably, without asking permission, transports you across the universe.”

The creators of Myst and Riven have done it again! If you’ve ever experienced one of Cyan’s beautiful, atmospheric, bizarrely imaginative games, you’ll know what to expect with Obduction, released today. Back when Myst was released in 1993, it took the gaming world by storm. The exploration-puzzle genre has faded into niche status since then, but in an industry increasingly dominated by quirky indie games, their new creation may change all that.

Starbound

 

Dev: Chucklefish

Publisher: Chucklefish

Release Date: July 22, 2016

 

You flee the earth as it’s ripped apart piece by piece on your battered starship with nothing but your Matter Manipulator and your loyal pet, fleeing to space, what could the future possibly hold for you now?

Well the answer to that is incredibly vague because after you fix that ship, the universe itself is your playground.

I have owned this game for quite a while being a part of the initial wave of Early access adopters of it. With its release and final form out for the world to see, I dove back into the absolutely fantastic game known as Starbound.

The general story of this game goes along the lines of this. You are a part of a defense, research, and colonization force for earth. However on your graduation day some force arrives and ravages the earth. You and many others barely manage to escape as earth is destroyed. You see strange readings from a planet, and you go to investigate, and from there your characters story truly begins.

Starting the game is fairly simple, you choose one of 7 races. Humans, Apex, Floran, Avian, Hylotl, Glitch, and Novakid. From there you choose what difficulty you’d like to play on, Casual; no need to eat and there are no death penalties, a good choice for first time players. Survival; You need to eat and you lose 30% of your money and drop all items upon death, a decent spot after you’ve become experienced with the game and want just a little more thrill. Finally Hardcore; this is not for the faint of heart, when this character dies, all progress and everything on them and their world is deleted permanently.

Once you have your character you can choose to skip or play through the opening mission, however if it’s your first time I recommend playing it, it’s pretty interesting and it teaches you the basics of this game. Once away from the opening mission, you must repair your starship by going to a mining facility, once you’ve made your way through there seeing the sights and collected what you need, you speak to a shady man and his penguin group and they repair your ship. Now it’s as simple as fueling your ship and going and exploring systems outside of the one you started it. You’ll find creatures, and small towns and colonies of the other races scattered on these planets, or perhaps even abandoned ruins of said races.

 

Should you choose you can bookmark planets you like, or even place down a flag that will allow you to warp to it from anywhere in the galaxy so perhaps put one down and build a base around it! If you’re also into building, well if you wanted you can build an entire colony filled with people from every race flocking to live there, and some after a while might even wanna become your crew!

Building isn’t the only thing you’ll be doing in this game either, you’ll also be exploring and fighting many terrible creatures, or even capturing them to have as pets. Combat in this game is fairly simplistic, and is vaguely like Terraria. However there are 1 handed and 2 handed weapons in this game. All 1 handed weapons can be equipped in the right or left side of each of the 6 slots, and upon pressing x, you get a fresh set of 6 slots giving you a large number of options and combinations. However for weapons that are two handed, they take up both the left and right of a slot, however they come with special abilities. This can range from having an ability that teleports the player forward but causes an explosion where they were standing before, or perhaps twirling a spear in a cyclone of death, or in the case of rifles perhaps you’ll have a handy grenade launcher attacked to the bottom. Due to the games random ability assigning, the possibilities are limitless.

I’ve put quite a lot of time into this game both alone and with a friend or two, and I honestly can say that I’ve enjoyed every second I’ve played and rarely did I have a dull moment. Some might say that the sheer amount of things to do in this game can be overwhelming, yet I disagree, not once did I ever feel any pressure to do one thing or another, in fact I often bounced between many projects I started and didn’t finish, only to later comeback and work more on it. Weather I was digging for resources, or building a colossal empire with my bare hands, this game has had me smiling and enjoying myself.

So let’s look at the good and the bad of this game.

The good:

• Each race in the game is unique, and different, and all their armor and weaponry are very characteristic of the race, they don’t possess any passives so you’re free to choose what race you want and love the look of without feeling like you’ll be at a disadvantage from the start.
• Each world I’ve visited has been different in some way shape or form, even if the villages or colonies I encounter where the same in look, something about them always made them feel different.
• The game itself isn’t incredibly difficult yet it poses enough of a challenge especially at certain stages and it’s never been boring.
• The weaponry of the game is all really fun, and often sometimes even a little silly.
• Speaking of silly, the sheer amount of cosmetic items throughout the game is fantastic, there are hundreds of items to put over top of your armor to make you look just about any way you want!
• The game has musical instruments and with workshop support, or some hard work, can play any song you desire, get some friends together and you can even make a band.
• The game has steam workshop support, and its moding scene is already nuts.

The Bad:

• At times while playing the game I have run into some minor problems of the game losing FPS, but it was never serious and often just resulted in the game going slow motion rather than jittering.
• Certain mechanics can at times feel far more fleshed out than others, ones like farming, and the merchant system as well as abilities and upgrades.
• While I personally have been enjoying the story that was added to the game I feel it’s worth noting that it’s honestly nothing special or anything to write home about.

And The Ugly:

• Whatever this thing is:

My final thoughts on the game after playing it, are honestly nothing but positive, I plan to play it much more in the future and probably almost more than most games I own currently. I cannot recommend this game enough to you, it’s 14.99USD or your regional equivalent, and I beseech you to go and give this absolutely fantastic game a go, maybe even grab some friends and turn it into one heck of an adventure!

The game is rated T for Teen

Darkest Dungeon

Dev: Red Hook Studios

Publisher: Red Hook Studios

Release Date: January 19, 2016

                        “Slowly, gently, this is how a life is taken”

The narrator chimes over as your poisoned enemy is killed. This is just one of the many lines you will hear in encouragement, and dissuasion.

Darkest Dungeons is an Eldritch, hard as nails dungeon crawler. The core concept of the game is collecting a party of 4 from your town to go out and explore the lands surrounding a manor that once belonged to your family, who’s name use to be of wealth and power, but is now of horror and holds many a dark secret.

I am actually one of the few people who bought this game when it first popped up in early access on steam, and with baited breath and some attention I played it during its original conception, and I can say that I’m very pleased with what it has grown to become, and is everything I expected the game to be when it’s launch finally happened.

The general story of this game is simple and explained quick and effectively through its opening cutscenes. For once in a review I do not think I should give away the opening, and the feeling of hearing the story spoken by the absolutely wondrous narrator of the game, Wayne June

Moving forward, the general concept and mechanics of this game are certainly not difficult to understand, however using them properly and to the best effect possible can be the difference between you’re entire party being wiped out, or you returning to down with packs full of loot. After the cutscenes are finished you are introduced to the games mechanics, you use a party, usually of 4 to traverse the lands of the tainted manor. You’re party will consist of 4 of the 15 hero classes; The abomination, Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, Crusader, Grave Robber, Hellion, Highwayman, Houndmaster, Jester, Leper, Man-at-Arms, Occultist, Plague Doctor, Vestal, and finally the Antiquarian.

Each hero has their own story to tell, and as they run the dungeon, the horrors of it will tear them down, both physically and mentally. In Darkest Dungeon there are 2 bars you have to manage on each member of your party, your health, and your sanity. After losing enough health a character will be at death’s door, any damage from that point on has a chance to kill the character, and if a character is killed, they’re gone for good. However in my experience the health bar is the easiest to manage, however a characters sanity, it ebbs away slowly and once that bar has filled, the character has a chance to have an Affliction, or in a slim chance become Virtuous. If a character becomes afflicted they become selfish, masochistic, or many other things, and they begin to take actions on their own at random without you being able to stop or prevent it, they may even refuse to do an action you tell them to, and sometimes may harm themselves or teammates, all the while their actions cause the other party members to become more and more stressed, and if you cannot get out of the dungeon quick enough, this often has a cascading effect that leads to most of the party being afflicted. However on the flip of this coin there is also the slim chance that your character will become virtuous, throwing away the most of the stress damage they have taken, and from that point on, they begin to say and take actions that actually relieve the stress of other party members.

Outside of those two bars, every character you acquire comes with unique traits, camping and combat skills. The traits the characters have often dictate how a character will act within certain situations inside of town, or in the dungeon. Yet each character also plays it’s role in combat, and where they are positioned in the party order, actually effects what abilities a character can use. As an example, plague doctors have abilities that they can only use if they are last in the party line up, while most of the Crusaders abilities require them to be within the first two spots.

Outside of that on longer voyages into dungeons of much higher difficulty, you more often than not will have to camp at some point. Camping is crucial to making sure your party can properly survive the hellish landscape of the dungeons. During a camp each of your hero’s has a set of abilities that they can use, and each does a variety of different things, either healing stress or HP, buffing the party for future fights, or simply making sure you do not get ambushed. However be wary as if you do not have the food to do it, or a party member is afflicted, camping may prove to cause some complications.

Past all that the last mechanic you should be aware of is how to relieve stress after you’ve left a dungeon. Stress is the one factor in this game that persists no matter what and after a foray into the depths simply leaving also causes stress build up. To rid your heroes of this, you must have them do one of 6 things in town. Drink, Gamble, Sex, or, Meditation, Prayer, Flagellation. The hero’s traits will determine just how much stress is relieved from one of the activities.

While in town you will not only be relieving stress, but after enough forays into the depths, new places in town open, a sanitarium for curing unwanted traits and illness, a blacksmith for upgrading your hero’s gear, getting more housing sorted to bolster your roster, the training grounds to improve your hero’s combat abilities, a camp of a nomad to better help your hero’s when forced to camp inside a dungeon. These are the many things you will be tasked with doing while in town, and using the spoils of your foray into the dungeon, gold and heirlooms alike, you will upgrade these buildings to strengthen yourself, for the eventual plunge into the manor itself, to topple the evil that tries to release into our world.

            Moving forward I’ll be quick and go over what I like and dislike about this game.

What I Like;

·        The games art style capitulates the horrors your characters are witnessing in a very dark and dirty look, and it helps set the atmosphere for just how awful a place your hero’s must traverse through

·        The Narrator is one of the best parts about the game, delivering his lines with enthusiasm and clarity, setting the tone of the world, and what is happening on screen with his whims, and jabs at the player.

·        The game is not afraid to punish you. If you didn’t bring enough food, or torches, the game will not be kind and let it slide by, your heroes will suffer for your mistakes.

·        The events that occasionally happen within town are very interesting, and can often force a player to take an expedition they simply cannot properly prepare for, or it can give a long needed relief to someone who may be on the brink of failure.

·        All of the hero’s that you can control are diverse, different, and each has their own story to tell. None play the same even though you can get multipul of one hero, each’s traits and characteristics will help set them apart from the others

o   The ability to name your hero’s also adds the ability to help you remember who has what, and if you wished, you can name them after friends and family and see how they fair in the Darkest Dungeon.

·        The trinkets that you can acquire and equip to your hero’s are always fascinating, and the design of each is fairly interesting and unique, and I really like that the lower quality ones still have really good effects, but they also come with detriments as well

What I dislike;

·        When it comes to healing for stress you are extremely limited and as far as I am aware, none of the current characters have stress heals.

·        It slightly bothers me that certain heroes simply will refuse to go out on a dungeon run with others

All in all, I honestly can say that I really love this game. I find myself coming back to it constantly, for its challenge, atmosphere, and in general gameplay. I cannot recommend this game more to people.

            The game is available on steam for 24.99USD or your regional equivalent.

            The game is rated T for Teen

Riders Of Icarus: First Impressions Review

Developer: WeMade

Publisher: Nexon America

Release Date: Jul 6, 2016

Sneaking up behind the giant spider as it skitters along it’s way, spell and crystal charging in your hand, when you suddenly leap forward into the air, landing onto it’s back with gentle grace, causing the spider to go into a panic, you use your wits and natural ability to calm and bring the spider under your control, and thusly become your friend, and mount for battle!

No Man’s Sky: Explore Trailer

Hello Games has released their first of four videos highlighting No Man’s Sky’s gameplay pillars. The pillars are; Explore, Fight, Trade, and Survive. 

The new gameplay shows off an improved UI and new planets we haven’t seen previously. It may be worth the mention that there seems to be improved lighting and graphics compared to older trailers. Now that the game has gone gold, we can expect no deviation in No Man’s Sky’s August 9th release date. Our Universe Awaits.

The Division Review

Massive Entertainment

Ubisoft

Xbox One, Playstation 4, PC

Rated M

March 8^th, 2016

Review started March 12^th and finished March 22^nd, 2016.

Review by:  Cody Neal Bennett

(Disclaimer: The following review is based on my experience on the Xbox One. Therefore, problems present on other consoles or the PC won’t be mentioned here.)

(Minor Spoilers are present in this review. I mention a piece of Intel that can be found by the player in the game. It has no impact on the story whatsoever)

Terraria

Developer and Publisher: Re-Logic

Original Release Date: May 16, 2011

Review Written on: March 3, 2016

Reviewer: Zechariah Gerthung

 

So, about four years ago, after watching a series of videos between two known Youtubers, Jesse Cox, and Totalbiscuit, on a whim I decided to buy Terraria. Four years later, and 301 hours in, I come to give you my opinion, and review of probably one of my most loved games.