Everything Review

David OReilly is probably best known for making unique animations, but recently he has begun developing video games. In 2014 he released his first game "Mountain", where you simply observe a mountain without controlling anything. This may sound a bit odd, but Mountain received critical acclaim and laid the foundation of "Everything." 

As soon as I heard that Everything promised to let the player control anything from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy, I instantly put up my guard. There have been way too many times where developers promise gamers the ability to do something you've never done before only to leave them disappointed. Fortunately for us, where other developers have failed, Everything delivers. 

You first start off by entering a name. You are then put on a random planet controlling a random object. For me, I started on an ice planet controlling a polar bear. The very first thing I noticed (which is also the same that other people noticed in the official trailers) is that a lot of the animal's movements resemble stiff somersaults. At this point, I'm thinking what is going on? But I pushed through and began exploring my surroundings. After discovering a few different types of trees and a few standard animals, I started to get that feeling of dread that I may have been lied to again, but that quickly went away when I learned how to ascend and descend into different levels. These levels range from microscopic to being out in the middle of the universe surrounded by different types of galaxies. Only once I realized the true scale of Everything did I really start to appreciate what was happening. 

Now even though you can get as small as the smallest atom, Everything never becomes overwhelming. While there doesn't seem to be true objectives, you will find yourself collecting objects from certain classifications (animals, trees, viruses, spacecraft, etc) to try to complete a collection. Whenever you go to a new area the map appears to be as far as the eye can see, but when you move around you'll start to actually see that you're really in a confined space. This limits the number of objects that you'll find and encourages you to move to another area. The awesome thing about this is that if you visit the same type of area twice in a row (ice continent, city continent, grass continent, etc. ) there will always be something new, as long as you haven't completed your collection. 

A major aspect of Everything are the readings of philosopher Alan Watts. As you progress there will be opportunities to listen to different audio clips that talk about the different ways the world is connected. These readings support the underlying theme of the entire game and have a nice calm presence that makes for an enjoyable experience. 

Everything took me about 2.5 - 3 hours to complete. Once you finish, you can keep collecting objects in your game or start a new game plus. Everything relies heavily on experience, which isn't a bad thing, as long as you know what you're getting into. If you've enjoyed games like Journey, flOw, Flower, or even the Katamari series, then Everything is definitely worth your time. 

4.5 out of 5

Thank you to Double Fine and David OReilly for providing the code. 

Loot Rascals Review

For as many games as I've played I've never actually played a true "roguelike." I really didn't know what this meant until I played Loot Rascals. What appears to be a simple game with procedurally generated levels where you loot cards and strategically move one space at a time in an attempt to gain an advantage over an enemy, is surprisingly difficult due to the all too real threat of permadeath, but also incredibly satisfying. 

At the start of every level, you have 250 turns to find the exit portal, which will take you to the next world. Each time you walk, loot a card, use an ability, or get into combat counts as a turn. Once you run out of the first 250 turns, extra enemies spawn after the next 50 turns until a monster spawns that pretty much causes instant death if he catches you. It's not too hard to find the portal once you have a firm grasp on Loot Rascals. 

Loot Rascals feature 7 different types of cards; attack, defense, passive, ability, unique, burst, and mysterious artifacts. Attack and defense cards increase your damage and determine how much damage you can withstand respectively. These cards can also come with bonuses that will increase the strength of themselves or the cards around them. Passive cards don't need to be equipped to enjoy their benefits but do require tokens which are received from "decompiling" extra cards. Ability cards feature different spells such as healing, fire and lightning attacks, teleportation, freezing enemies, and decoys that will distract enemies. Unique cards have to be equipped but can give you extra health, additional points to your attack and defense cards, and other things that affect the actual gameplay of the game such as taking away your "turns" and replacing it with a time limit. Burst cards (which may not be there official name) will combine all of the equipped attack or defense cards into one super strong card, however you will lose any bonus those cards have. I finished the game and I'm still not sure what the mysterious artifacts do, but I can tell you this, don't decompile them. 

Loot Rascals features a day/night cycle which changes every 5 turns and determines if you'll have an advantage or disadvantage over your enemies. The advantage that you want is the ability to attack first. Attacking first will not only damage the enemy first but it will also increase your chance of blocking. There are times where you find that no matter what you do you are in a situation where you're going to be attacked first, so in those instances just hope that you have a good amount of defense. 

One of my favorite parts of Loot Rascals is the community aspect. During your adventure you'll find cards that once belonged to other real life player's characters who have died. You can choose to send the card back and be rewarded with the chance of finding a helpful hologram who will fight and take damage on your behalf or you can choose to keep it, which will result in the chance that an angry hologram will show up and try to kill you. I found myself only keeping the cards that either came with an ability and had a really good bonus. When you die (which you will a lot) people can choose to send the card back to you where you can find them back at your base. If people are nice enough you can easily start a round with a pretty decent inventory. 

Loot Rascals also features one quest per level. Each quest is to kill a powerful named enemy and return the card to your base. If you do complete the quests you can receive additional health, a card that will reveal the entire map, 30 tokens, or 2 extra spaces for your inventory. Depending on how strong the enemy is and what your current attack/defense situation is you may find yourself passing on quests, but if you have the turns to spare and feel good about your situation, these quests are totally worth completing. 

Because Loot Rascals is procedurally generated, you may be dead on arrival. There were times where I started up a new round only to find an enemy that meant certain death. There are also other situations that you'll find yourself surrounded by enemies where your only option is to die. Some of these may be at the fault of the player, but other times they aren't. Luckily, if you die, you can quickly start a new round and try again. 

One of the other things that was frustrating for me was that Loot Rascals crashed on me way too many times. I understand that no game is free of bugs, but at one point I had found myself moments away from killing the final boss only for the game to crash. I had been playing the game for almost a week and had only reached the final boss about six times, only to have it taken away from me. This was probably an isolated event, but nonetheless, crashes are never a good thing. 

In all honesty, I absolutely love Loot Rascals. It's definitely a challenging game that takes a lot of patience, but in the end, it's totally worth your time. I'd love to give it a 4.75/5 but due to the crashes the highest score I feel that I can give it as a 4/5. There's no doubt in my mind you won't regret purchasing Loot Rascals. 

4 out of 5 stars. 

Thank you to Hollow Ponds for providing us with the code. 

Sylvio Review

Most horror games give you a heart-pounding experience filled with jump scares, terrifying encounters, and ambient music that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Sylvio breaks away from these standards and provides a much creepier experience that constantly makes you feel uneasy. 

You play as a Juliette Waters, an audio recordist who specializes in EVP which is just a fancy way of saying she's a ghost recorder. Your goal is to unlock the mysteries of what happened to a family by recording audio from ghosts that uncover clues and items. Once you find what you need, you are able to progress to the next task, but this isn't always easy. 

Sylvio has very little direction. When I first started, I didn't really know what to do and early frustration set in. Once I started figuring out what to do, I was having a lot of fun. For the most part, you are walking around an open world trying to piece together how certain items go together while occasionally fighting ghosts, which are large black clouds, with a potato gun. That's right. A potato gun. The fights aren't that difficult, but sometimes they can come out of nowhere. If you are touched by a ghost you are transported back to the beginning of the level, but you don't lose anything. It's a minor inconvenience that doesn't really matter. Once you defeat a ghost, you record the audio they left behind and a new destination will appear on your screen. When you arrive at the destination you'll find either an item or a puzzle of some sort that you have to complete. Before I move on to the puzzles I should mention that the potato gun does shoot more than potatoes. It shoots rocks, bolts, nails, and other miscellaneous items. 

The puzzles are actually quite similar to something you would find in a point and click adventure game. You have to have the right item that connects to another item and then you have to interact with it to move forward. Many of Sylvio's puzzles require you to think past just the first step. You can't just connect a sign to a windmill and expect it to generate electricity - you have to find the proper way to interact with it. This layered approach shows that a lot of thought went into the design of the objectives, making the experience more rewarding when you accomplish your task. The issue that's here though is that sometimes certain puzzles don't make sense. There are times where you are walking around aimlessly with a newly discovered item trying everything you can to make it work only to find out that you need something else or that you haven't reached the point where you can actually use it. 

One of the greatest parts of Sylvio is deciphering what the ghosts say. After you record the audio, you are brought to a reel to reel machine that has six settings; play forward, play backward, slow forward, slow backward, fast forward, fast backward. This aspect of the game is always creepy. There were times where I had to turn down the TV because it would make me uncomfortable listening to the voices. It's also a good thing that this never gets old because you do this a lot. If you're really hustling and making good progress, you'll feel that you're stopping every couple of minutes to try to figure out what these ghosts are saying. 

Graphically Sylvio is nothing to write home about. The entire game has a red fog that basically hangs over everything and makes it hard to see in the distance. The other textures in the game definitely aren't up to next-gen standards and even though the developer Stroboskop is a small studio I would have liked to have seen a little more graphics quality. Graphics definitely don't make a game fun, but can we all agree that to an extent they do help?

One of the biggest downfalls of Sylvio is the last level of the game. I was so confused and frustrated with what I was doing that it actually crossed my mind to put the game down and just move on. Giving up isn't my style, so I stuck with it. A good example of this frustration came when I flipped a large switch and had no clue what it did. I had to walk around this large complex only to find a small space that had opened extremely far away from where I was at. I've probably gotten soft as a gamer with all the breadcrumbs and directions that we get these days, but this was absurd. I completed the game in about 8 hours, which is much longer than I thought it was going to take. 

Overall, if you're a horror fan and you want to try something different, then Sylvio is a game that you may want to check out. If you're looking for the next big horror series or you're just starting out with horror games, then I would recommend going with a different title. 

2.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Stroboskop for providing us with the code. 

Sports Bar VR Review

Virtual reality games provide the user with immersive experiences that can at times be overwhelming and intense. The amount of games that are currently out there that just let the user chill out in a virtual world with their friends is severely limited. Luckily, that’s where Sports Bar VR comes in to save the day.

Currently, there are four games in Sports Bar VR; Pool (8 ball, 9 ball, 3 ball, and Killer,) darts, skee ball, and air hockey, with more to come in the future. The games are pretty straight forward if you’ve played them before, but at times the controls and Move Wand responsiveness can get in the way of what would be an overall fun experience. 

Without a doubt, playing pool is the highlight of Sports Bar VR, so naturally, that’s where we are going to start. Originally the game was released as Pool Nation for the HTC Vive, which allowed you to physically walk around a virtual table. With the PlayStation version, you can either teleport to different parts of the table or you can access Hulk Mode which allows you to rotate the table around you. To set up the perfect shot all you have to do is lock on using the back left trigger on the Move Wand, pull the right Move Wand back,e and then push forward. It’s simple enough to execute a shot, but it definitely takes some time to get good. 

While playing pool you can play against an AI for an extra challenge. The AI is actually really good at the game and is a lot of fun to play against. You can also invite over a total of 5 real life players to your sports bar to play against, but I will get into the multiplayer a little more later. 

The next game is darts and as much as I’d like to say it’s as good as the pool, it’s just not. I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how to throw the darts consistently and never got a grasp of it. The trouble may reside in the Move Wands because I’ve had a lot of trouble with throwing in other PS VR games, but regardless the darts experience wasn’t enjoyable. 

Skee ball is another game that is pretty straight forward and does actually work well. Start up a game and just start rolling the balls up the ramp hoping to get the highest score. This is a nice addition but skee ball, in general, doesn’t have a lot of substance unless you are playing with someone else. 

Air hockey is probably my second favorite game after pool. The AI is incredibly well balanced and every time I played against it I felt that it was a good, close match. The Move Wands responsiveness works perfectly when playing air hockey so if you’re a fan of this arcade staple, then this is the only place that I know you can currently get it in a VR environment. 

The major downside for me was the multiplayer. Unfortunately, one of my Gamers Lounge companions, Robert, and I were never able to get a good connection. This caused a ton of issues when playing the game and made us wonder how well could the game handle six people if it can’t handle two. There were times where I was receiving points during an air hockey session even though it appeared that he had hit the puck back to me. It also made darts virtually impossible and the pool experience was also plagued with lag. After troubleshooting, restarting multiple sessions, and switching hosts we determined that the probably must be with the game. This is unfortunate and I do hope that the connectivity issues that we experienced eventually gets addressed in the future. 

Overall Sports Bar VR is a great game if you are looking to take a break from intense horror games and other crazy virtual reality experiences. You’ll have a great time playing pool and really for some, I can imagine that’s enough. 

3.25 stars out of 5

Thank you to Cherry Pop Games for providing us with the code. 

Weeping Doll Review

It's been awhile since I've played a game where the narrative has really shocked me. I've been surprised and tricked, but actual shock in what I'm hearing and seeing. Weeping Doll from Oasis Games creates a wild story that is so dark and twisted that it's almost unbelievable. 

The story follows a housekeeper through a creepy mansion that looks like it's been ransacked. You know something has gone wrong and it's your job to put together the pieces. As you progress through the story you start to uncover layers of unnerving subjects such as child abuse and neglect. While other games may use metaphors to dance around sensitive subjects, Weeping Doll jumps right into them. 

Weeping Doll, at its core, is a puzzle game. You enter a room and have to either figure out a way to get out or find an essential item that will help you advance. The premise is awesome, but the execution falls flat because the puzzles don't require much thinking. At one point, the game gives you a tutorial on how to combine items to solve a puzzle, but you only use it that one time. There's no option of failing either, which means that there isn't really a challenge. 

I also ran into quite a few major bugs in Weeping Doll, which is always unfortunate. At one point I accidentally dropped a key and it went either through the floor or under a dresser, which forced me to reload the checkpoint. After reloading the checkpoint, I had to complete the first part of the room's puzzle again, which is fine, but the piece that I needed was nowhere to be found. This meant that I had to start a whole brand new game. Luckily, I was less than 10 minutes into the game so it wasn't too much of a pain to start over. 

Once I got through the beginning, I was making real progress. The atmosphere of Weeping Doll is pretty terrifying and you constantly feel like something is about to happen. Unfortunately, there are only about three real scares in the entire game. I will say this, as odd as it may sound, Weeping Doll succeeds as a great "psychological narrative." The game really got in my head and convinced me that at any moment something scary was about to happen. 

The entire game is only about an hour long so you can easily finish it in one sitting, however, there is something odd about the way the game ends. Once you finish the game, you'll hear the trophy chime, but the game keeps going. You are able to walk around the house and you may think that there is more to do, but there isn't. This is sort of a byproduct of the PSVR not showing you trophies when you have it on, but there aren't any credits to inform you either. I probably spent an additional 10 minutes walking around trying to figure out what to do next, only to find out that I had finished the game once I looked at my trophy list. 

Overall Weeping Doll is a short and strange game. It's currently only $9.99 on the PlayStation store so it's low-risk. An added bonus is that the trophies are incredibly easy so this may entice trophy hunters, but outside of that, there isn't much there. I do feel like it some real potential and I hope that the relatively new studio, Oasis Games continues to build and develop their games further because they definitely have a knack for crazy stories. 

2.25 out of 5 Stars

Thank you to Oasis Games for providing us with the code. 

Slain: Back From Hell! Review

Slain follows the adventure of a Bathoryn, a doomed hero, who wishes nothing more than to sleep. Unfortunately for Bathoryn, duty calls and he must wake up from what seemed to be like a very long nap to cleanse six different lands from demons, monsters, and the living dead.

Within the first few minutes of Slain, I died, and then I died again, and then I died again. If Slain’s objective was to die over and over, I would be the grand master of Slain. Luckily, the checkpoints are so frequent that you never get stuck anywhere for too long. There were plenty of times where I had killed all of the enemies, only to be killed by a trap, causing me to completely redo the part that I had just finished. I really only have myself to blame for constantly underestimating the world of Slain. There is never a moment that just lets you breathe. Whether it’s a group of enemies or a boss fight, you’re going to experience your fair share of deaths. 

Most of my early deaths could have been prevented if I would have taken a step back from trying to murder everything and embrace the complexities of the combat. One of the main features of Slain is the ability to reflect almost every projectile - and there are a ton of enemies who shoot different types of projectiles. There is also a parry system that allows you to time your blocks and then land critical hits. Parrying enemies is the best way to get through difficult encounters. 

Overall, there is a decent variety of enemies. There are a few reskins, but their difficulty has been increased. I never got to the point I felt that I saw the same enemy too much. Because Slain has such a wide variety of enemies I always felt that I had to stay on top of my combat game. The game even introduces new enemies right before the final the boss fight. 

The boss fights in Slain are all intense. They use every aspect of the game’s combat mechanics which makes it critical that you never let up. One constant throughout the game is that once the boss starts to lose health they start to speed up their attacks making you have to work even harder. There were plenty of times that I felt that I was about to execute the boss only to get them down to a quarter of their health and die. 

Slain's biggest issue is that there is a lack of any sort of upgrades. The health and mana you start with are the same that you end with. Eventually, you're able to switch your regular weapon to fire or ice, but it doesn't feel like much of an upgrade. I find myself torn if this is a major issue or if it's just something that I'm not used to. Traditionally, games will have an upgrade system, so when you run into one that doesn't have one it's kind of odd. In the end, this was okay for me, but other gamers may find this to be an issue. 

I had a great time playing through Slain: Back From Hell. It took me roughly about 7 hours to finish which is a great length. If you like difficult games, heavy metal, and tons of gore, then this game is right up your alley! 

4.25 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Wolf Brew Games for providing the code. 

Catlateral Damage Review

Have you ever wondered why your cat knocks everything off your shelves? You could try it out by setting something on your counter and give it a good hard swipe, but in the end you’re going to be cleaning it up. So what can you do? Thankfully, Fire Hose Games has developed the cel-shaded adventure, Catlateral Damage!

In Catlateral Damage’s Objective mode you play as a disgruntled cat who is upset with their human. Your goal is to knock over a certain amount of objects before your owner gets home. This means climbing on dressers, opening the refrigerator and swiping out all the contents, jumping on bookshelves and sending those classics to floor. There are multiple ways to accomplish your goal. You can pick items up with your mouth, ram things with your head, hold one of your legs straight out and runinto things, or swipe left and right with your paws. The absurd nature of the game, along with the cel-shaded graphics may remind some gamers of the Katamari series and that is never a bad thing! 

When you first start a level your cat is slow and weak, but as time goes on you pick up a ton of upgrades that increase your speed, jump, and swipe ability. If you focus on finding upgrades you’ll be in great shape to dominate your owner's home. Some of the ways you find these upgrades is by interacting with objects such as the litter box, unraveling a roll of toilet paper, and interacting with cat toys that are around the procedurally generated levels. By the final levels your cat will be able to jump halfway across almost any room. 

There are a guarantee of five levels per play through, but if you find a hidden object you can actually increase this amount. I personally was only able to find two extra levels during my play through, although I think there are more.  To finish all of the levels will probably take you around 45 minutes to an hour. If you’re a trophy collector, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll need about 5-6 hours to get all of them. Besides levels, you can also unlock different cats to play as by knocking over pictures of cats or by completing specific objectives that are related to trophies

Catlateral Damage also has a Litterbox mode where you can choose around 10 levels to play in without a time limit. This gives you the opportunity to play without the stress of a constant countdown. There are a few trophies tied to Litterbox mode, but other than that there’s not much to do. 

The questions with all reviews is if the game is fun and worth a purchase. The simple answer is yes, however this does depend on what you’re looking for. If you’ve ever dreamed of playing as a cat whose main goal is to cause the destruction of a home then this is the game for you. It’s also a great game for anyone who is new to gaming or someone who likes games, but isn’t too hardcore. I honestly believe that a grandparent who has had limited exposure to video games could pick up Catlateral Damage and have an absolute blast. If you’re a casual gamer or have someone in your life who is, then 100%, no question Catlateral Damage is for you, but if you consider yourself somewhat above casual you may be a little disappointed. 

Final Score: 3.75/5

Thank you to Fire Hose Games for providing the review code!

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Review

Back before first-person shooters ruled the gaming world, point and click adventure games were king. They were full of humor, difficult challenges, and incredible stories. The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, developed by King Art Games, attempts to bring back all of those qualities to long time gamers, as well as new gamers.

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is the second installment in the critically acclaimed Book of Unwritten Tales series. When you first start up the game, you are controlling a Nate, who is falling through the sky. This brief introduction to the game not only introduces you to the controls, but also the light-hearted and hilarious tone of the game. As I mentioned before, the Book of Unwritten Tales is about 20 hours, so having a bit of comedy throughout it can really help the player get through any parts where they may be frustrated. I’d also like to mention frustration doesn’t happen often, but the nature of a point and click adventure game is that it may take a lot of trial and error to complete tasks.

One of the biggest concerns about console point and click adventure games is that they don’t translate well from PC. This is however not an issue. There wasn’t one time when I thought that I would rather have a keyboard and mouse to play the game. By making solid controls, King Art Games really opened up the accessibility to console gamers.  

Players who have played the first game will recognize the four main characters: Nate, Ivo, Wilbur, and Critter. The characters have been updated and do look a bit better than their previous models. This doesn’t make or break the game, but it is nice that the characters have had some work done. Besides the characters being updated, King Art Games did a great job with the scenery. You may notice that all of the scenes are pretty much static, but that each part has a tremendous amount of detail. You will also travel to so many different locations that it’s really hard to ever feel bored with your surroundings, which is important because even though there are a lot of different locations, you do frequently visit them.

The worst part about the Book of Unwritten Tales 2 isn’t anything related to gameplay, graphics, voice acting, or anything else related to the actual game. In fact, the game is a solid experience. The worst thing is the odds weighing against it. In 2015, if you don’t have a point and click adventure game with the name Telltale on it, it’s going to be a tough sell. Pair this with the fact that it’s digital only and you may have two strikes against you in the eyes of gamers, but I’m here to tell you to give this game a chance. Not only will you be supporting a developer who seems to have a bright a future, but you will also get a true fantasy experience that you will not forget.

There are plenty of games out there that are worth your time and Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is one of them. I’m so lucky that I got to review this game, because I don’t know when I would have ever gotten around to playing it otherwise and that’s a shame. Do yourself a favor and put the Book of Unwritten Tales series and King Art Games on your radar, because I believe they are here to stay.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to Nordic Games for supplying the review code.