PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate Review

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is an arcade style, twin stick shooter, puzzle game where you control a mining ship that heads deep into the planet to rescue survivors and collect gems whilst killing various enemies and avoiding deadly traps.

With Pixel Junk Shooter Ultimate, Q Games proves that sometimes simplicity is key as they provide a fun and easy to play gaming experience.

The controls are simple, using the W A S D keys and the mouse you navigate a series of changing levels, picking up the surviving miners and gems. The levels get progressively harder, with the first levels providing you with a nice learning curve that allows you to pick up the basics of the game and the mechanics. Before long, you are strategically planning every move and weighing up the potential consequences.

There are secret areas dotted around the levels and as a general rule they are well hidden, I certainly wasn’t able to find them all on my first attempt anyway. This provides the player with some replay ability, and will especially appeal to completionists. If you aren’t a player who likes to discover every nook and cranny, you aren’t forced to seek them out and can simply pile past them as you work your way through the game.

The game itself wasn’t overly long, but you get plenty of content for your money and if you enjoy replaying missions to get better scores, you will certainly see plenty of hours racked up in your steam library.

There’s a nice variety of enemies and as one would expect they become progressively harder and have different attack patterns the further you progress. Their designs don’t particularly wow you, but you quickly learn that figuring out how they will engage you is key, as some enemies will come from underground whereas others will even pour lava on you.

The graphics on the game are clean and simple and if you are looking to be visually wowed, you have unfortunately come to the wrong place. Each design seems to be carefully thought out and although they are generally basic designs it all seems to work. I’m not so sure that if the game had better visuals it would do much for the game, as I think it would lose some of the arcade feel, which I treasured throughout.

As an all-round experience Pixel Junk Shooter Ultimate provides a simple yet efficient game that appeals to the masses. It’s easy to pick up and play and doesn’t require you to dedicate a large amount of time to it in long sittings. It epitomizes what an arcade game should be, fun.

Score: 4 out of 5

Thanks to the publisher for supplying a code for review.

Bounty Train Review

Bounty Train is a unique game from Daedalic Entertainment. With its own unique take of the train simulation genre, you must strategically plan and maneuver between trade routes in order to complete missions and build a new rail route.

At first, the game is a little confusing as the tutorial for it lasts around 10 seconds and tells you how to send your train to a new destination. From then on out, you are on your own as you progress through the story, evade and defeat the enemies and make money from transporting goods on your steam train.

To proceed through the game you must complete quests for people in various cities, earning enough cash to purchase the license to travel to the next area. Whilst traveling around, you can get attacked by bandits or even stop to trade with traveling traders. You can meet a variety of passengers in the different cities who will have requests from you, such as transport them to Boston. You can also buy and transport cargo to different cities for a little extra cash.

The combat system can be flawed in places, as some enemies can stand out of your range and you literally get forced to stand still and take the damage whilst you wait for the battle timer to reach zero. The combat itself though is simple enough, you select your characters and click where you want them to go, who you want them to attack, whether you want them to drive the train and even if you want to put out fires on the train. The different options at the beginning of the game don’t feel very deep, however the further you progress, the more you value the different options available to you and can become quite manic when trying to fend off enemies attacking multiple carriages.

The Hardcore Mode is a really nice addition making the game's difficulty level so much higher. Within the Hardcore Mode you can’t save, load or even retry a checkpoint. I tested this at the start of the game by refusing to take the mission and the game actually ended with a short narrative of what happened to the characters. It’s a nice twist and it makes you play with a lot more emotion. You don’t need to keep it switched on either, you can turn it off whenever you wish so if you just want to complete the game to see what happens, you can go down that route.

In all honesty, when the game landed in my inbox I was very skeptical about it and was kind of dreading sitting down with it. It’s sometimes hard to resist the urge to prejudge and I can say after actually playing the game my opinion is completely reversed. It’s fun, challenging and deep enough that you can sit there for long periods enjoying the game. Currently available as an early access purchase on steam, this is certainly a title that will take many people by surprise.

Score: 4 out of 5

Thank you to Daedalic Entertainment for providing us with a copy of the game to review.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 3 V Generation Review

Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 3 V Generation (HNR3) is a Japanese style turn based Role Playing Game in which you take control of Neptune, a CPU that is one of the main superpowers in the world. From her home base of Planeptune you must take on quests and missions as you level yourself up and become once again the guardian that you were destined to be.

The story is simple enough to get involved in even if, like me, you haven’t played any of the previous titles. There is plenty of information available to provide you with enough backstory for you to push forward and enjoy the game. I found the dialogue in the game trying in many places and found myself having to fight the urge to skip quickly. It was acted out well, but the writing was poor and I felt it didn’t flow and was quite forced in places. Overall, it was easy to engage in, though and was actually pretty funny at certain points.

The battle mechanics at first are a little strange and can be off-putting, however after not very long, you get used to them and begin to sweep away enemies with ease. Whilst in a battle you can freely move your character around a pre highlighted area. You want to try and position yourself so none of the enemies will hit you from behind whilst still trying to do damage to your opponents. The styles of attacks are simple enough, in essence you have a SP Skill which is your special attack, only useable when you charge up a bar below your health bar. You also have normal attacks which you can combo together to maximise damage. The three types of attack you should use, combo attacks, power attacks and defence breaking attacks, depend on your situation so you have to think tactically what is best for your current situation. The choice in attacks, even with your different styles of basic attacks allows for some combat and tactical decision making which I thoroughly enjoyed.

The character design of the main protagonists are what you would expect from a Japanese style RPG. The bulk of the females have a cute feminine charm however the fact that nearly all of them are top heavy quickly becomes annoying. I felt as though the art designers could have showed a little more creativity than just throwing big breasts into the equation. The armour and enemy design though is the complete opposite, each of which held their own appeal and I enjoyed seeing what wacky creatures I would come across next.

The control system was quite a handful on the PC version which I reviewed and felt quite clunky. I was forced regularly to check the button configuration to find out what button I needed to use to accomplish what I wanted to do. For me, this was the biggest obstacle to try and overcome as I couldn’t ever really relax into the game and just play it. I do feel that it would be much more natural on a controller and the button symbols that are in game suggest the developer feels that way also.

The music in the game is very good, providing the right mood and ambience when necessary. It’s never too strong that it overpowers what is happening in game however it has enough of an effect that it helps set the setting nicely.

Overall, I enjoyed the game with the combat system being the real game selling aspect for me. The dialogue was unfortunately a big turn off and even after a lot of gameplay I still struggled a little with the controls but even this wasn't enough to make me stop playing. I would certainly recommend taking a look at this game but I personally will opt for the console version in the future.

3/5

Thank you to Idea Factory for providing us with a copy of this game to review.

Spirits Of Xanadu Review

Spirits Of Xanadu is an intense title, set in an alternate version of the 1980s. As a lone operative you must travel to the abandoned ship of Xanadu and bring it back to earth whilst discovering what happened to the missing crew. What can possibly go wrong?

From the offset, Spirits Of Xanadu creates an excellent atmosphere, instantly building and sustaining a level of tension and suspense that is difficult to accomplish with even the highest of video games budgets. Your goal as you traverse the ship and piece together an interesting story is to not only find out what happened on board, but to safely return the Xanadu back to Earth. As you begin to find snippets of what happened, you really become driven to find out what fate the crew had met!

The enemies on the ship are a combination of different forms of robots that each move, react and attack in different ways, forcing you to carefully consider how you approach each given situation. Although there are several different types of enemies, I unfortunately quickly found them VERY easy to predict, thus significantly reducing the threat they posed. That being said, though, on a few occasions I actually did get caught out by some unexpected enemies which gave me a rather large fright!

You have absolute freedom on the ship from the offset and can complete the puzzles in any order you like whilst exploring. Because the map has an interesting design, with tons of passageways and ventilation shafts, it provides you with alternative routes to use as you traverse the gloomy corridors.

In every area that you reach, there is nearly always a save point on the wall to save your progress, as well as a map so you can gather your bearings and plan your route to where you are heading. If you are a big scaredy cat, there is also a peaceful mode which makes all of the robots on the ship passive, so you can just enjoy your time exploring the Xanadu and solving puzzles as you please. I personally opted not to make use of this feature as I wanted to face the added challenge of the enemies, however I can completely understand how it would appeal to some gamers.

The puzzles were my personal favourite aspect of the game, as they were really well designed and actually a lot of fun to solve. They varied quite a bit in style and method, and on some occasions really did involve thinking outside of the box. One thing I learned quickly is that there are clues everywhere, you just need to know where to look!

Spirits Of Xanadu was honestly a game that I struggled to get into at first, however after a little while playing, I became well and truly immersed in the universe and my quest to discover what had happened to the crew on board. It's not a game that will necessarily appeal to everyone, however it is so well made and had such an interesting story behind it, I really do believe it's worth a shot. Will you meet the same fate as the Xanadu crew or will you survive the horror that awaits? I guess that's something for you to discover for yourselves!

3.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for supplying a code for review.

The Digital Gamer