Wolfedood
Mid-May report!
So here we are again dear assassins, the half month mark is upon us so time for another update!
So far I think I’m on one of my most “productive” months when it comes to gaming. Lots of free time certainly helped :P
First off we have the usual suspects, Armello, Final Fantasy Mobius and Fire Emblem: Heroes. All of them still going strong although I did significantly cut down on Armello time, it was just taking way too much. Also finally the mobile version of Injustice 2 is out so that’s been added to my online time killers ;)
As for the rest here we are:
Tales From The Borderlands
Well this is not entirely a new game. I had won it on SG back in the day, while there were only 2 episodes out with the 3rd coming soon after. Since then it had been left untouched. So I finally took the time to play those last 2 episodes and I now wonder why the hell it took me so long! Overall a great game if you're into the TellTale formula, probably the best ensemble out of their roster, an interesting story and well, an amazing Episode 5! During the "big fight" it had me literally crying out from laughing too hard! Now all we need is a spin off! Loader Bot and Gortys: The Ever After! <3
The Cave
The Cave is a puzzle platformer where you get to control 3 out of 7 possible characters at a time, leading them through the mystical "Cave", a place of mystery and desires.
The Cave consists of several unique "layers", some belonging to the cave itself and some unique to the characters you chose each playthrough that gives you a peek on the moment in their lives that turned them either evil or virtuous.
The levels themselves are not particularly hard, in most cases it's pretty clear what you have to do, although there are a few instances you might have to look up online to find how to proceed(damn parrot!). But for one they're all beautifully designed, each with its own theme and feeling.
Your roster makes up an interesting bunch, anything from a medieval Knight to a Time Traveller from the future, each with their own unique ability that helps you complete some parts of the game(besides their unique level faster). And for mute protagonists they certainly have a lot to say!
And speaking of voices extra props to the "Cave". Yes, it's a talking Cave. Only he doesn't talk to your spelunkers but to you. And he's absolutely hilarious!
Now for the bad.
The biggest issue I had with The Cave was the fact that even though it requires multiple playthroughs to fully complete it, it also forces you to replay the "regular" levels every single time. There's no "shortcut" even if you've already completed it 5 times before. So every time you go back to see the story of another hero or a different conclusion to one you've already seen you HAVE to go through the 4 "Cave" stages(getting the treasure, the Mines, the Zoo and the Hermit). And even knowing exactly what you have to do some of those can take a good chunk of time.
Also there were several cases where I really, REALLY, missed a button to call your other heroes to the location of the one you're controlling. As it is now even if everyone has to go to the same room you have to take them there one by one.
Even with those two minor annoyances though The Cave remains a very enjoyable game. Highly Recommended!
Glass Masquerade
Not much to say about this one.
It's a nice, relaxing game where you get to reassemble stunningly beautiful Stained Glass jigsaws inspired by different places around the world, accompanied by a very serene and relaxing soundtrack.
It won't last you very long since there's only so many jigsaws but it's a great game to launch when you just want a few minutes to unwind from a tiring day.
Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta - Episode 1 - Gold Edition
There's only one way to describe this one. What a mess! No wonder there never was an Episode 2.
Clearly a Tomb Raider/Uncharted inspired game, yet I cannot think of anything positive to say. The graphics are subpar, the voice acting merely decent, the dialogue cringy, the controls clunky, the plot boring, crashes quite a bit, barely 1h of content...
Oh wait! There is one good thing! For once we had protagonists from a racial group we rarely see as heroes and not terrorists...
Belladonna
My latest SG win.
It's a very short Point & click game where you take control of a reanimated young girl who can't recall her past. The game only has few rooms you can explore so puzzles are extremely straightforward and simple. The story is ok but nothing mindblowing and the artwork decent. An interesting game to play for an afternoon but doesn't offer much else.
Costume Quest
This game can be perfectly described by a single word: Fun!
It's a relatively short RPG where you play as a young kid who goes trick or treat with your twin, who very soon gets abducted by candy eating monsters, on Halloween Night. Now you gotta fend off the monsters from your town in order to save your sibling!
The battles are not your typical recipe though, instead it employs simple QTEs for both attacking and defending, which in my opinion makes the game even more kid friendly since practically any age can accomplish that, so if you got young kids this can definitely prove a great game for them.
What you can do in battle depends on the costume you're using. You can dress any of your party members in any costume you have acquired, each with it's own strengths, weaknesses and ability. Want to have an astronaut, a giant robot and a ninja fighting? Great! Want to have a Unicorn, the Statue of Liberty and a serving of McFries fighting? Yes, that can happen.
The game can get a bit repetitive but thanks to its length it doesn't really wear you out. All in all a very entertaining experience!
This Is The Police
I was really excited to see this as part of the latest Humble Monthly. Little did I know...
The game has some good points but it mostly disappointed me. You play as a 60something chief of police whose wife left him, in a city with a corrupt mayor and a coworker that practically forces you into a position where you have to work for the Mafia. Getting into the game I thought this would be a nice "Choose your own adventure" kind of thing with some management elements however in the whole game there's only 2 major choices that merely decide what ending you get. And sometimes there's quite a gap between any two story segments in the game. The vast majority of your time will be spent on the management side of things. Who to hire, who to fire, who should respond to a call, who to promote etc. Quite often your officers will ask you how to proceed in the crimes they are in the process of stopping. However that also falls down flat. You get 3 choices, one professional, one sloppy and one funny. So it's easy to tell what you need to pick every single time and has no effect on your story at all.
The management part of the game can be rather fun in Sandbox mode but there's one major problem with that. In order to unlock it you have to first finish the Story, something that requires a bit over 10 hours to do. So if you wanna sandbox you're required to waste that time on a wasted playthrough with mediocre to bad story since you can't continue with that one in sandbox.
The one great thing about the game is the music. There's a great selection of Jazz and Classical tunes you can get and listen to during your time as Chief of Police.
The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
Loved this one!
It's a Point&Click game where you play as multiple characters at times which are all tied to a string of crimes, from petty theft to murder, and is a pretty obvious homage to Agatha Christie's work. You literally start the game on the Orient Express with your first character being quite the Hercule Poirot, down to the mustache.
The puzzles are not that challenging and you often just have to talk to every single character to be able to proceed but the interesting cast makes this not a very big chore.
The game is however ravaged from quite the number of glitches and bugs so make sure you save often, you might need to reload a save file a few times you'll get stuck either in some obstacle in the environment or in a conversation that doesn't allow you to select anything nor exit it.
Dead in Bermuda
This is a nice game but damn, is it hard!
I did several playthroughs but I never managed to go past Day 25, in fact I only once managed to get past day 20. I don't know if there's some key point I've overlooked and I'm doing wrong but once things go wrong they REALLY go downhill. One bad decision like overworking someone just once, just snowballs into a huge avalanche of bad consequences there's usually no coming back from.
So I'm quite unsure what to do with this. I feel I've played enough of it to satisfy myself and just persisting with it would mean other backlog entries will have to get shelved again just so I can mark this "beaten". Do you think it's justified to mark it as such when I've not actually completed it but have played it enough to feel I'm done with it?
Epistory: Typing Chronicles
Now this is a beautiful game! The environments and artwork are absolutely stunning! The story also seemed rather nice for what I've played so far!
However I'm not sure I'll even complete this one. I'm not the best typist but I'm not that bad either. However whenever I exit this game, doesn't matter if I only played for 5mins or two hours, I always feel mentally drained. Those frequent points in the game where you're just swarmed with multiple waves of enemies wear me out immensely. However if you feel this won't be an issue for you I'd definitely recommend this game!
Scrap Garden
At first it looked like an interesting game however I just couldn't play for more than a couple hours.
The story is... okay but there's two very major problems for me. First the controls are clunky and in a platformer, especially a 3D one that's quite the dealbreaker. Can't even count how many times I should have been jumping to a certain height and never reached that cause the controls responded badly and instead blocked your character. Or the double jump not happening. Huge, huge dealbreaker.
And to make matters even worse there's no saving system apart from the autosave checkpoints, which sometimes are placed very badly. There was a particular point relatively early in the game where you have to complete three puzzles in order to proceed yet there's no checkpoint between. So if you fail one you have to redo all 3. And one of them required quite the precision with your jumping, something the control problems made extremely frustrating.
So even if there's much worse stuff out there I still wouldn't recommend this one.
Oh wow…lots of games I’ve played, have in my backlog, or want to get. =)
The Cave has been in my backlog for a long time, which is too bad. But it’s just not high priority enough. I’ve been trying to obtain Glass Masquerade via trade or from Tremor, but haven’t had any luck in either case. Someday. Unearthed is in the backlog, though yeah…it didn’t get the best reviews, and Ep2 is nowhere to be seen.
Belladonna was a cute little point-and-click (and an SG win) that I really enjoyed. Costume Quest was my favorite of the bunch here…one of the first games I played with/for my kids (when they were three); they called it “the trick-or-treat game.” We played CQ2 the next year. I still have a key for Dead in Bermuda laying around, but haven’t decided what to do with it. Besides, I would dig This War of Mine out of my backlog before playing this, I would think.
Epistory looks really fun also, though my gaming rig isn’t ideally set up for lots of quick typing (e.g., not at a desk). And I just finished Scrap Garden last month. Did you use a controller or kb+m? I didn’t have any problems with the controls using a controller (and this isn’t because of great skill) other that sometimes difficult camera angles when, say, you’re against a wall. But I never had a problem with wonky controls or double jumps not happenings. I’m not a big fan of checkpoints either, and it did mean we knew we’d lose some progress if we didn’t finish a section, but for the most part it wasn’t a problem. I’m not recalling the particular puzzle you’re referring to…but I can imagine if you’re experience control problems, that such a puzzle would be hard to deal with.
Thanks for the update!
I used an Xbox360 controller, works fine everywhere else so it’s not the hardware. The double jump not happening is usually because you hit an object, like trying to go over a wall that would require more than 1 jump but if you jump and practically rub yourself on it the second one doesn’t happen. But the most frustrating thing was that if during a jump you pressed A three times instead of 2 you just fell down like a paper weight, kind like blocking your character until you touched ground again. There was that one part where you have to cross some water by jumping on some mushrooms acting as trampolines that I just couldn’t do after 5-6 tries because of that “paper weight” issue so well.. fck it! :P
CQ was actually played so I can play CQ2 which is a SG win. Saved it for sometime next month though :P
As for This War of Mine highly recommending bumping it high on the backlog, great game!