A Hat in Time Review

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Release Date: December 5, 2017 (PS4)
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Mac
Developer: Gears for Breakfast
Price: $29.99

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In A Hat In Time players play as Hat Girl, a top hat wearing child captaining her own ship from world to world on her own. As the game starts, you encounter a bald mafia man knocking on the outside of your windshield and demanding you pay a toll for occupying his planet’s airspace. When you refuse, he smashes the window, sending you, along with 40 hourglasses that power your ship, falling towards the planet.  To make it back home, she must venture down to the surface and collect all the time she lost. Naturally, the only way to survive the planet's strange locales is to utilize a bottomless collection of flashy headwear.

Stages come in the form of different planets, floating across the universe, waiting to be unlocked with timepieces. Hat Girl’s spaceship is filled with cuddly toys, pillows, and even a Roomba. Jumping on the latter unlocks a trophy, highlighting one of the many excellent touches A Hat in Time hides across its charming world. The hub area is filled with nifty secrets, many of which are discovered naturally once you unlock new hats.

Along with collecting the hourglasses needed to power your ship, you can also collect balls of yarn.  These balls of yarn are used to craft different types of hats that can be used in many ways.  You’ll only craft a small range of hats throughout A Hat in Time, but the number of ways they can be used are vast. Whether it’s a hat that gives you the ability to sprint or see into the nether realm, platforming and puzzles are engineered to make you think both fast and outside the box.  Gaining different abilities using these hats made me want to go back to previous levels to explore for more hidden goodies.

Visually, A Hat in Time looks wonderful and the controls are smooth, for the most part.  However, my one main gripe is that the camera can be unpredictable from time to time, making some platforming elements difficult and frustrating.  The main levels are fairly easy to get around and enemies are easy to defeat.  The boss battles are a lot of fun and each one is different.  While they are not difficult, each boss battle takes some thinking to figure out the best way to defeat the boss.  Again, each hat you craft can help you defeat these bosses in different ways. 

Overall, A Hat in Time gives off a Super Mario 64 vibe and is a very fun platformer collect-a-thon.  There is a lot to explore and collect, levels are a decent difficulty and each boss scene is fun and unique.  I found myself using the different hats I crafted to explore as much as possible and reach areas that I thought weren’t possible before obtaining certain hats.  

Pros

• Lots of collectibles to find with many ways to explore the world.
• Visually fantastic
• Boss battles are fun and unique

Cons

• Camera can be very unpredictable

Thank you to Gears for Breakfast for providing a review code.  This review was done on the PS4 version of the game.

Small Radios Big Televisions Review (PS4)

Small Radios Big Televisions, developed by Fire Face and published by Adult Swim Games, is an adventure puzzler that takes place in a series of buildings, each with multiple doors to alternate areas that only become apparent through exploration. Players move through a series of closed doors in each building by clicking around, with the goal being to navigate through each area fully before moving on. In order to open certain doors, players will need to find gems that are obtained from cassette tapes scattered around each building.  Each cassette tape transports players to a different world based upon the title of the cassette.  These tapes contain all different types of worlds, including a beachfront area and visualizer type scenes, with each becoming even more bizarre when run through magnets hidden around each stage. Moving around a given building is never difficult, often feeling more relaxing than challenging.

The puzzles in Small Radios BIg Televisions are fairly simple and the game can be quite relaxing.  Some of the more in depth puzzles will require you to block light to kill door-blocking weeds or collect missing parts to complete a machine, but these won’t hurt your head. Flowing through buildings in a seamless, smooth manner is what makes Small Radios Big Televisions so mesmerizing and relaxing, so the fact that the vast majority of gamers probably won’t ever find themselves stuck is a good thing.  

While the game is relaxing and flows smoothly, there is no real story or plot to why you are navigating through these buildings.  This is probably the biggest weak point of the game.  As far as the little story you do get, after clearing out a given stage, there is a brief cutscene between two off-screen voices. It’s interesting to hear tales of how the same tapes that hold the keys to unlocking factory doors have also corrupted people, but it’s almost the equivalent of a game about war not including details of why the war is occurring. Being such a short game, it would be much better with more detailed narratives.  

The graphics and sound in Small Radios Big Televisions are the strong points of the game.  The graphics are great for this type of game and make the relaxation even better.  The developers incorporated a great combination of 2D and 3D visuals and having graffiti on a wall of a building mocking you by saying that you will never solve the puzzle ahead of you really immerses you in the environment.  The soundtrack of the game is very tranquil and does a great job immersing you in the game as well.

Overall, Small Radios Big Televisions is a decent adventure/puzzle indie game.  It is fairly short, roughly 2 hours, which may be a good thing.  It is a fun game while it lasts, and a good starting point for what may come in the future of the genre.  You can purchase Small Radios Big Televisions for $11.99 on the Playstation Store.  It is also available for PC on Steam for the same price.

3/5

Lost Sea Review

Lost Sea is a 3D strategy-action game, developed by EastAsiaSoft, that takes place inside a procedurally generated archipelago. Players must form a crew of survivors and explore the surrounding islands as they hunt for the necessary resources to upgrade their ship and escape the Bermuda Triangle.  

Lost Sea reminds me of some of the old-school action titles that you can pick up, play and beat in a few (3-4) hours. Players start off by choosing a character from a few choices, which include a mix of male and female characters. The only difference I could find in the characters is cosmetic, which is a little disappointing.  Some differences between the characters would have be nice for replay value.  The game starts off with your character getting stuck inside the Bermuda Triangle. Before long you find a machete and come upon a survivor that gives you a tutorial of the game. The entire first stage is a tutorial, which you can skip past and get to the other stages if you would like.

The game has five levels, or archipelagos, to explore that are split up into several islands that each lead to a boss fight. Players must lead their character through each stage and find stone tablets and survivors. These stone tablets are required to move on to other islands. Each stone tablet allows you to sail a certain number of islands through the archipelago and then you have to find more to continue on to other islands. Along with finding tablets, you will come across survivors. You can choose to have these survivors accompany your main character to provide assistance with hauling the tablets back to the dock area and also use one of their many skills, such as opening locked chests or repairing bridges, among other types of skills.

The graphics in Lost Sea are presented very well. The environments look great and is presented with a 3D top-down sort of view of your character, with the ability to move the camera with the right analog stick.  The environments are full of color and the characters are all unique. Every island you explore is randomly generated, so you'll never truly play the same island each time you play the game, but I found the islands to have features that seem to repeat quite often, such as the same bridges or arches.  Each archipelago have different types of environments, such as a desert island or a snow covered island, but as I stated, many of the features on these islands will be the same.  The randomness of each island make the game replayable, but I think it would be even better if there were more features instead of repeating features all of the time.

The gameplay in Lost Sea is very simple.  As I stated earlier, Lost Sea reminds me of some of the old-school action games from my childhood.  One of the main reasons this game brings back those memories is that there is very limited saving in the game. Upon dying and restarting, you get a certain amount of coins and experience based on your progress during your previous play-through. There is also a stage select where you can choose between which archipelago to start at based on the areas you have reached in a previous play-through. There are no in-progress save files, so you have to worry about dying and losing much of what you have. At some points of the game I wished there was a one-time save where you could stop playing and then pick up progress later, but the game is just the right length to not be a necessity.

The combat system in Lost Sea is simple, but effective.  As I mentioned before, while exploring the islands you will find fellow survivors that you can have join your crew.  While they are helpful in many ways, combat is not their strong suit.  Your crew members actually hide and cower in fear, instead of helping you in battle.  I found this to be a little irritating at times.

Overall, Lost Sea is a good game to pick-up and play when you have a few hours to spare and want to feel some nostalgia from the days of past when there was no saving your game and coming back later.  The game is fun and a great concept, I just wish the developers had put more environmental features in the game to avoid so many repetitions.  You can purchase Lost Sea for $14.99 on the PSN Store.

I give this game 3/5

The Magic Circle (PS4) Review

In today’s world of console gaming, it seems that a majority of games that come out are “broken” or unfinished.  Developers have to push out patches at, or shortly after, launch to fix glitches and bugs and have to continue pushing out these patches for a good amount of time after the game has released.

Developer Question took this practice of releasing unfinished games to a whole new level with their game The Magic Circle.  In The Magic Circle, you are the hero of an unfinished fantasy game. You have all of the powers the developers of this game have, including the ability to trap their creations and reprogram their behaviors and swap their body parts.  This allows you to uniquely solve puzzles and make your way through the game, ultimately finishing and “releasing” it, being as creative as you want.  

In The Magic Circle, you have no weapons or ways to attack, so when you are attacked by one of the many monsters in the game, you have to trap them and change their code to make them your allies, which makes them follow you.  Doing this makes for highly flexible interaction with a simple interface. You can make one creature enemies with another and have them battle it out, or make every creature your ally with no enemies and have a huge army following you.  With this being said, there are puzzles to solve and obstacles to overcome, many which require some creativity without much help from the game. This makes for a nice ‘Aha-experience’  when you realize what you can do to solve some of these puzzles.

The graphics in The Magic Circle fit the game very well.  It contains a nice open-world style map that really gives off the unfinished look.  The soundtrack really keeps the game interesting and gives you an idea what it is like to work on a game development team.  The “developers” of the game, represented by floating eyeballs, are working on the game as you play.  Most of their work amounts to them bickering loudly with each other, which you might expect in a game about an unfinished game. The “developers” joke about crowdfunding, development, game tropes and media, providing some insightful and funny observations on those fronts.

I’ve always been interested in game programming and development and The Magic Circle gave me a very unique perspective on the topic.  I found it fairly easy to pick up and go and the “programming interface” of the objects in the game is simple but very flexible.  I found it very entertaining to try different methods of solving puzzles.  Overall, I found The Magic Circle to be very unique, fun and entertaining.

4/5

Poncho Review (PS4)

Poncho is a two-dimensional, semi open-world, scrolling platformer with puzzle-solving elements that takes place in a world where all humans have been eliminated, leaving only animals and a bunch of robot servants.  You, the player, control one of these servant robots named Poncho.  Your goal is to discover who your maker is and why humanity was wiped off the face of the world.

Poncho contains wonderful pixel-art graphics with vibrant colors, which works great for this style of platformer  While it is a two-dimensional platformer, the levels actually contain 3 different layers (think Little Big Planet).  Navigating between these layers is as simple as pressing R1 and L1 to move forward and backward, respectively.  I found myself switching between layers quite often, and this aspect of the game makes the game even more fun.  The one issue I had with the layers was that there were a few times that I needed to make a jump but wasn’t sure which layer I needed to be in to make that jump.  This resulted in a few trial-and-error attempts.

As I mentioned before, Poncho is a semi open-world game. You are pretty much free to go through the levels in any order you want, but in order to get to certain parts you will need to unlock color-coded gates.  These gates can be unlocked with color-coded keys, which you obtain by finding them throughout the world or buying them from robot merchants using gems that you find in the open.  I found myself back-tracking quite a bit to find or buy keys to advance, but not too much.  

The gameplay and controls in Poncho are very good.  Guiding Poncho through the levels is fairly easy.  Both the platforming and puzzle aspects of the game are implemented very well.  One of the few problems I had with Poncho is that there are very few checkpoints in the levels, so when you happen to fall (make a jump on wrong layer), you likely will have to start from the beginning of the level, which can become quite frustrating when you reach a difficult area.  

Overall, Poncho is a fun game with vibrant graphics, solid gameplay and a unique story.  I ran into a few glitches, but nothing serious. The game can become frustrating at times, but nothing that ruins the fun of the game.  If you are looking for a new platformer/puzzler to try out, give Poncho a shot.  I don’t think you will regret it at all.

Score 3 out of 5

Thanks to the publisher for supplying a copy for review

Blood Bowl 2 Review (PS4)

Blood Bowl 2 is a clever mixture of Warhammer’s board game fantasy universe and the basic structure of American football that features violence and humour. Instead of being a live-action type of football game, it’s a turn-based strategy type game. Like traditional American football, an offense consisting of 11 players uses coordinated plays (and some trickery) to move a ball into the opposition’s goal, while the opposition does everything it can to stop their progress and gain control of the ball.

Unlike American football games, Blood Bowl 2 plays like a board game on the gridiron with a heavy reliance on luck, since important movements are followed up with a six-sided dice roll. A single game consists of 16 turns. During a single turn, you, as the team’s coach, position and interact with each of your 11 players. Each player gets one move, in which they can re-position, block, or pass the ball. When you finish issuing orders or when a player fails an action, your turn ends. The success of almost every move depends on two things: your players’ stats against the stats of the opposing player, and the outcome of the dice roll. At certain times the game may feel like it is totally random and luck based, but once you get the hang of it you realize the game is good at calculating what actions are more likely to succeed or fail based on the situation.  With that said, even when you perform actions that seem to be a lock to succeed, they can fail miserably.  You can have a wide open receiver have a pass slip right through his claws, or have a player running free to the end zone and slip and fall a step short of the goal line.

The graphics in the game are great.  Players have a great amount of detail and are very animated when they interact with another player.  Although these animations are great, after a while they seem to slow the game down.  

The single-player campaign is where the game lacks.  It feels more like a challenging tutorial than anything else.  It does a good job at teaching new players how to play the game and brings in new concepts each game.  This is a good approach for a tutorial, but doesn’t give experienced players anything to look forward to.

Multiplayer with friends or a good opponent that won’t quit is a great time.  I can’t think of the last time I had a better time playing a strategy type game.  With that said, I have had a hard time finding good players online that won’t quit a few turns into the game if things don’t go their way right off the kick-off.

Overall, Blood Bowl 2 is a great strategy, turn-based football game.  A better single-player experience would be nice, but the multiplayer makes up for it, as long as you can find good players.

Score 3 out of 5

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy for review.

Giana Sisters: Dream Runners Review (PS4)

Giana Sisters: Dream Runners is a fast-paced, head-to-head platformer for up to four players developed by Black Forest Games.  The game pits up to four players (or AI opponents) against each other in a looping stage, in local and online competition, speed-running for the finish in an effort to push each other off the screen with the help of boosters and power-ups.  The layout of the level can also be changed by running through “Dreamgates”.  When one player is eliminated, the remaining players have 30 seconds to survive and whoever is in the lead after those 30 seconds wins.  Winning a round gets you a star and winning 3 stars wins the game.

The art style in Gianna Sisters: Dream Runners is very colorful and unique.  There are 9 different stages to choose from and each has its own setting, ranging from sandy desert to snow and ice covered stages.  The sounds and music are a little generic, but fit the game.

Gameplay and controls are pretty simple and self explanatory.  The first stage in the game is also a sort of tutorial in which overlays pop ups at certain points of the stage that explain the controls of the game as well as what the powerups do and how to use them.  After running through a few stages, the controls became pretty easy to handle.  

While Gianna Sisters: Dream Runners is a pretty simple game, it can be a lot of fun with the right people.  I tried multiple times to play online, but had problems finding players quite often.  The real fun was had with local multiplayer.  My family (2 young children and my girlfriend) all really enjoy playing through all the levels when we have “game night” at our house.  When you don’t have 3 other people to play with locally, you can sub in up to 3 AI opponents as well.

Score 3 out of 5

It is a lot of fun with family and friends in short sessions, but gets a little repetitive and boring after playing through the stages once or twice.    

The Gamers Lounge Reactions and Thoughts on Sony E3 Conference

Sony’s conference has a lot of hype coming into it, with games such as Uncharted 4 and No Man’s Sky rumored to make appearances.  Can Sony keep up with Microsoft when it comes to big announcements?  It’s time to find out!

A gameplay video of The Last Guardian is shown to the excited crowd.  The gameplay is full of intense action and the graphics look great.  Definitely a game to look forward to in 2016.

Hermen Hulst of Guerrilla Games introduces their newest franchise Horizon Zero Dawn.  The gameplay video features the main character as she hides in bushes while hunting robotic dinosaur type enemies.  The gameplay looked smooth and the graphics looked very good.  Looks like a game I will be following as development continues.  No release date announced.

It was announced that a new Hitman game will be available on Beta to Playstation 4 first.

Street Fighter 5 gameplay footage is shown along with characters Birdie and Cammie.  The short video looked great.  It was announced that a beta will be available on PS4 on July 23rd.

A gameplay demo of No Man’s Sky is shown.  The player shows a brief space fight.  The battle is intense and looks great.  He then shows how many different places you can visit, which seems to be endless.  He then travels to a random undiscovered solar system.  He flies to a beacon on a planet and the planet is now discovered.  Each planet is destructible but is protected by robotic machines.  The game looks awesome and I am looking forward to it when it comes out.

Alex Evans of Media Molecule presents Dreams, an art creation type game where players can work together to create unique art.  The short demonstration was very interesting.

A trailer for Firewatch is shown.  The graphics in Firewatch look great and the story seems interesting.  Looking forward to seeing more of Firewatch.

Destiny’s next expansion, The Taken King is shown and has a release date of September 15th.  It contains a new map and much more content.  The trailer was amazing.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is shown.  The trailer shows some intense combat along with some new weapons.  You can play some missions exclusively on PS4.

World premier of World of Final Fantasy is shown.  The graphics, story and gameplay look amazing.  It will be released in 2016 exclusively on PS4 and PS Vita.

It was announced that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is coming out on PS4.  The announcement got a huge reaction from the crowd, as expected.  The trailer looked awesome and is a game many gamers will be looking forward to.

Shenmue 3 is announced and is funded by Kickstarter.  It is a sequel to the first and second Shenmue, not a spin off.  Yu Suzuki counts down to the opening of the Kickstarter campaign and the crowd goes crazy.  This is a game I can’t wait for! It has been a long time coming and there is no doubt it will get funded.  I think it will reach it's 2 million dollar goal within 24 hours.

Batman Arkham Knight is shown.  The story looks to be great and graphics are amazing.  The scene shown is from the Scarecrow Nightmare Missions exclusive to the PS4 and takes place in a restaurant that is attacked by zombie-like creatures.

Project Morpheus is talked about.  Many games that are compatible with Morpheus are shown, including RIGS which is a 3 on 3 battleground.  

Playstation Vue is launching in San Francisco and Los Angeles tonight.  Subscribers will be able to choose what channels they want without purchasing packages.  

Sony and Activision have teamed up to bring Call of Duty Black Ops 3 to E3. The campaign can be played with up to four friends online.  Gameplay video looks great and teamwork seems to be the key to success.  The environmental destruction looks tremendous.  Multiplayer is also demoed and it looks very smooth.  I’m not a huge CoD fan, but I am looking forward to this game on November 6th.  Playstation players will be the first to get all map packs and get beta access.

Disney Infinity 3.0 is shown.  Star Wars Twilight of the Republic and Rise Against the Empire playsets are shown and a limited edition starter pack that is exclusive to PS4 is announced.  A trailer for Rise Against the Empire is shown and looks interesting.  It is also announced that a Boba Fett figure is included in the limited edition starter pack that will be released on PS4 before any other consoles.

Star Wars Battlefront is featured and talks about the multiplayer aspect of the game.  Co-op is playable online or split screen.  I have to say the graphics in Battlefront are some of the best I have ever seen.  I am not a huge Star Wars fan, but this is a game I have to play when it is released in November.  

The final game shown is Uncharted 4.  The gameplay shown starts in a crowded area and the graphics look amazing.  NPCs move around fluidly without any hiccups as the characters move through the crowd.  As bullets start flying, everything remains smooth and the environmental destruction is very realistic.  When the action moves to the streets, the environmental damage is just as impressive.  Another game I cannot wait for!

That wraps up Sony’s E3 conference.  Quite a few good announcements and gameplay demos.  Not quite as exciting as Microsoft’s conference, but still good none-the-less.  Make sure you stay tuned to The Gamer’s Lounge for more updates and news from E3!

Glitches, Misprints and Scams (Oh My!)

Over the past couple of weeks, major retailers have had glitches, misprints and scams on each of the major video game consoles.  Best Buy had a misprint in their 11/9-11/16 ad which advertised an Xbox One with Kinect Assassin’s Creed Unity Bundle for $349 instead of $449.  Shortly after the misprint was noticed, many people reported that their local Best Buy posted flyers in their store correcting the misprint and no longer accepted the ad price.  However, many people reported that they were able to price match at other stores, such as Walmart and Target without any problems.  

Sears also recently had a glitch in their online pricing.  For a short time, they had 3DS XL systems and Wii U systems both listed for $59.  This error was noticed fairly quickly and was corrected, but if you were lucky enough to come across this error before they corrected it, Sears honored the price. Some people also reported successfully getting other stores, including Kmart and Walmart, to price match Sears before they changed the price.

Most recently, people have been using Walmart’s price matching policy against them to scam them into selling PS4s for $49.  Walmart had a very broad price matching policy that included price matching Amazon. Someone created a fake Amazon listing for PS4s for $49.99 and people then printed off that listing and took it in to Walmart to price match.  A lot of people reported getting Walmart to price match this “sale”.  Shortly after this scam was reported, Walmart changed their price matching policy to no longer match ads from third party sellers, auction sites and marketplace vendors.  

If I would have come across the Sears deal in time, I probably would have picked up a Wii U for $60.  I’m not sure my conscience would have allowed me to take part in the Walmart PS4 scam, but it would have been tempting for sure.  Did anyone get in on any of these “deals”?  There are even more legitimate deals coming up with Black Friday right around the corner.  Make sure you check out our Black Friday preview article for more details on the best Black Friday deals coming up!