Monthly Archives: November 2017
7 Days to Die Review – How survival games should be
7 Days to Die Review
Gameplay:
You start out on a road near a town if you start out in Navezgane however you can choose to start out in a randomly generated world as well. There are 4 bars which are hunger bar, thirst bar, health bar and stamina bar all of which are for the respective resource.
You can collect materials from the environment by breaking certain parts of it for example rocks, trees and buildings. The main enemy of the game is zombies which tend to roam in packs, can be difficult to kill, are attracted by light and noise and are very fast at night.
The crafting system has plenty of uses such as making weapons, building materials or food. When exploring the world there are dangers other than zombie namely things like hypothermia, overheating, food poisoning, dirty water and falling structures. Food can be gained via either scavenging or farming and water can be obtained by using lakes or scavenging.
The game also has an exp system that allows you to level up various stats by repeating certain actions such as repairing, building, crafting, running, shooting guns and many others. Once you get enough exp you may gain a skill point which can be applied to many different skill trees to improve some of the previously mentioned actions in handy ways by making them more efficient.
Music:
The music doesn’t tend to play much during the gameplay and when it does it is usually only okay.
Graphics:
The graphics are decent for this type of game and the time it was made.
Story:
The zombie apocalypse has broken out in the small area known as Navezgane. You are not told anything about Navezgane directly when you start. However you can find some things like newspapers on the ground which subtly tell the story of the world.
Score: 8/10
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Minecraft Review – A classic pixelated world
Minecraft Review
Story:
The game doesn’t have a story to speak of however at the end credits there are two beings talking to each other. Because of the lack of story you are intended to make your own adventure.
Gameplay:
The goal of this game is not very well explained however you can reach the end credits by defeating the final boss. You start off with nothing at the beginning but can destroy blocks and use some of them to craft items. An element of this game’s enemies is that they will spawn when there is not any light nearby. So that means that during night time enemies will be everywhere unless you light up your surroundings. You have both a hunger bar, health bar and armor bar which show how hungry, hurt or how much armor you have on you.
The default mode is survival mode. However there is a mode which is just like it except that you are locked into the hardest difficulty and dying is permanent. There is also a mode in which you can’t die, instantly destroy blocks, can fly and have unlimited access to any blocks you want called creative mode. There are 4 difficulty options Peaceful, Easy, Normal and Hard. The difference between these options is that in Peaceful difficulty your health regenerates faster, and there are no hostile mobs. In the other difficulty settings the only difference between these ones is the amount of damage the enemies do.
Some examples of the enemies include Creepers which are green creatures that explode when you get near them, Endermen which attack when you look at their faces and hate water and Witches that throw potions at you.
Music:
The music is composed by Daniel Rosenfeld. For the most part is one repeated track over and over again.
Graphics:
The graphics are simple 3d pixel art cubes.
Score: 7/10
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Rogue Legacy Review – A Rougelike done right
Rogue Legacy Review
Story:
The story is up to interpretation for the most part except for some diary entries you can find throughout the game.
Gameplay:
In Rogue Legacy you play as a knight who enters a castle. The goal of the game is to defeat the 4 bosses to also unlock the giant door at the start of the castle. Every time you die your character is permanently dead. However their heir heads to the castle hence why the game is named what it is. Any gold you gain inside the castle gets given to the next heir when your character dies.
The castle is randomly generated each time you die however you can use a service run by the Architect who will lock the castle in place so it does not randomize it’s self on the current attempt. However your gold earnings will be decreased if you do so. Throughout the castle you may find rooms which contain fairy chests which can only be opened if you complete the rooms challenge without failing.
Runes are attachable upgrades for your character that will be applied to a specific piece of your armor. As a result of choosing a now heir they will have randomized abilities and classes such as a sorcerer.
One of things I find the most noteworthy in the gameplay is the variety of enemy types.
Music:
The soundtrack is composed by Gordon McGladdery and Judson Cowan. It has a nice amount of variety throughout the whole game. Examples of the musical variety include themes of the final boss, the maya, the dungeon and the forest.
Graphics:
The graphics are 2d pixel art which has a lot of detail put into all of it and because of this ends up fitting all of the locations quite well.
Score: 7.5/10
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Spelunky Review – How to make randomness fair
Spelunky Review
Story:
The story is that the main character has left their home behind to search a cave filled with Mayan relics to look for treasure.
Gameplay:
Spelunky is a 2d roguelike platformer in which you explore levels in order to reach the end. The default character is a nameless adventurer with clothes that look somewhat similar to Indiana Jones. You are also able to chose from other characters after unlocking them in the levels by finding coffins. Your starting items are a whip, some bombs and some ropes. You also start out with 4 hit points that you can gain more of by rescuing damsels and then bringing them to the end of the level.
Each level has 4 parts before you can move on to the next world. In the levels you may find crates which contain items for you to use such as more bombs and rope or machetes, shotguns and jetpacks. In each level you may come across a shop from which you can use the treasure you have earn so far to buy various items. The game’s levels layout is randomly generated each time you play and if you die you go back to the start no matter where you were at.
Music:
The game’s music somehow doesn’t become repetitive and is mostly made up of Jazz tracks.
Graphics:
It is a 2d game with detailed backgrounds.
Score: 8/10
The game does surprisingly well at making it’s randomness feel fair by keeping some of it’s elements the same each time an example of which is the enemies you can encounter. It’s price to buy it is also reasonable for how long you are likely to play the game. For anyone who likes a good roguelike platformer that has fair difficulty and a good amount of content I would say it is a good game to buy.
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Super Meat Boy Review – 2D Platforming Done Right
Super Meat Boy Review
Gameplay:
Super meat boy is a 2d fast paced platformer in which the goal is to reach the end of each level. The controls are quite simple, the only things you are required to do are jump, run and wall jump. Your default character is meat boy. However you can unlock other ones later on via collecting the games collectable items named bandages or by completing character warp zone levels. Each level also has a dark world version which is harder than the original version. The game contains extra levels that can only be accessed by dying multiple times in a level. If you complete these requirements you will be sent to a glitch level of the world you are on. These levels are rather like a harder versions of the warp zones you may come across in various levels.
Music:
The music is fitting to whatever level you are playing at the time and is very well composed.
Graphics:
The games graphics are simple but very detailed for a 2d game.
Story:
The plot is at the start there was Meat Boy, Bandage Girl and Dr Fetus. Dr Fetus hated both Meat Boy and Bandage Girl so he kidnapped Bandage Girl and now Meat Boy needs to save her.
Score: 9/10
Overall I would consider Super Meat Boy worth picking up because of it’s fair difficulty, wealth of content to play through, how fun it is to play, how well made it is in general and it is quite cheap for all of the content that it has. The only things that are not that great are that it is too non-user friendly to customize your controls. There are sometimes glitches because of this you may find it annoying and some levels are more well made than others.
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Crash Bandicoot 3 Review – How Crash became amazing
Crash Bandicoot 3 Review
Story:
Crash bandicoot is now trying to stop Dr Neo Cortex, Uka Uka and Dr Nerferious Trophy from collecting the 25 crystals in the past to rule the world.
Gameplay:
You play as Crash Bandicoot going through levels looking for crystals and gems. This game is a 3d platformer in which your goal is to beat the five levels in each world to get to the next world. Within each level is one crystal and a various amount of gems to collect. You must collect all 25 crystals to finish the game however if you also collect all of the gems you get an alternate ending to the game.
Within the levels there are boxes that do different things when you break them for example some may give you a tiki mask named Aku Aku that gives you an extra hit before dying. Other boxes may give you extra lives or wumpa fruit when broken. If you can break all of the boxes in a stage you can collect a gem at the end of the stage.
There are hidden warp zones within regular stages which teleport you to a secret warp room when you use them. Aside from the regular gems there are also colored gems that create alternate routes through stages and in those routes you tend to get either extra lives or more boxes to break. When you defeat a boss you get a permanent upgrade to Crash some examples include a double jump, fruit bazooka or a powerful spin attack.
Music:
The music is quite different throughout the game with many different music themes for each time period such as the ice ages, medieval age and the future.
Graphics:
While the graphics may seem a bit primitive to people nowadays they were quite revolutionary for the time and quite varied depending on the levels.
Score: 9/10
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Crash Bandicoot 2 Review – What made Crash Bandicoot Great
Crash Bandicoot 2 Review
Gameplay:
You play as Crash Bandicoot going through levels looking for crystals and gems. This game is a platformer in which your goal is to beat levels in each world to get to the next world. Within each level is one crystal and a various amount of gems to collect. You must collect all 25 crystals to finish the game. However if you also collect all 42 gems you get an alternate ending to the game.
There are boxes that do different things when you break them some may give you a tiki mask that gives you an extra hit before dying. Other boxes may give you extra lives or wumpa fruit when broken. If you can break all of the boxes in a stage you can collect a gem at the end of the stage.
There are hidden warp zones within regular stages which teleport you to a secret warp room when you use them. Death routes that can only be used by not dying in a stage if you finish the route you get a gem. Aside from the regular gems there are also colored gems that create alternate routes through stages and in those routes you tend to get either extra lives or more boxes to break.
Music:
The music is quite varied throughout the game with many different music themes for levels such as the ice levels, ruin levels, jungle levels and technology levels.
Graphics:
While the graphics may seem a bit primitive to people nowadays they were quite revolutionary for the time.
Story:
Crash bandicoot is trying to collect crystals for Dr Neo Cortex so that he can save the world. However Crash was fighting against Cortex before so can he trust him?
Score: 8/10
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Sonic Secret Rings Review – A game that had potential
Sonic Secret Rings Review
Story:
The story is sadly nothing much to write home about. By this I mean that it is not bad however it doesn’t stand out much either.
Gameplay:
This game is a 3d platformer in which you control Sonic the Hedgehog to reach the end of each stage. This game’s controls revolves around using the Wii Mote to move Sonic by tilting left and right to strafe to that direction, shaking the Wii Mote to activate the homing attack, the 2 button to jump, the 1 button to brake and the control pad to activate special abilities such as time break or speed break. Moving through levels is done automatically by the fact the game is constantly making sonic move forward.
Within the levels you can find rings which can be used for if you get hit and if you do get hit you lose the rings you acquired but as a trade-off you don’t die instantly, fire souls of which there are three in each stage and collecting them gets you extra content in the party mode, pearls which fill up your soul gauge that can then be used to activate time break or speed break. Each world has many missions which are what most would call levels an example of a mission is to get to the goal however there are various other ones like collecting dinosaur eggs, not getting hit once in the stage, not dying once in the stage, race against a spirit and avoid pearl for the whole mission.
Music:
The music is very Arabian themed for the most part however when the stage changes to something like Evil Foundry or Skeleton Dome it changes it’s music style dramatically.
Graphics:
Everything in the game has a very smooth look to it especially for a Nintendo Wii game.
Score: 6/10
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Rayman 3 Review – How to do a sequel well
Rayman 3 Review
Story:
In the beginning Rayman and his friends lived peacefully until red lums started transforming into black lums which then transform into the hoodlums. The hoodlums then end up causing problems in Rayman’s world. The leader of the hoodlums known as Andre gets the idea of trying take the energy of the heart of the world. Andre then decides to attempt his plan however due to accidentally being swallowed by Globox he fails to reach the heart of the world. At this point Rayman must try to save his world by taking Globox to 3 witch doctors to remove Andre and stop the hoodlums.
Gameplay:
Rayman 3 is a 3d platformer. Rayman’s moves consist of being able to punch, jump and helicopter glide. In the levels there are various kinds of power-ups some of which include vortex punches, hook punches, metal fists and the helicopter helmet however you must use these to progress through the level. There are no yellow lums any more however you can still collect red lums to heal Rayman’s health.
The level themes will switch up quite frequently examples may include a swamp, tower or land of the dead. The main enemy you will encounter is the hoodlums whose attacks are almost always shooting projectiles. They can mostly be defeated by Rayman throwing his fists at them a few times.
The games bosses all have a gimmick to their fights. Some examples being underwater another is about using a bosses’s weapon against them and an enemy wave boss fight.
Graphics:
The graphics are quite well made and works great with the in-game cutscences which are used to tell the story.
Music:
The music in this game is similar to the music in Rayman 2 and is composed by Plume, Fred Leonard and Laurent Parisi.
Score: 8/10
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Rayman 2 Review – A re-released classic
Rayman 2 Review
Story:
In the beginning Rayman and his friends lived peacefully however the robot pirates whose leader was known as Razerbeard started to enslave and take over Rayman’s planet. While this is happening Rayman and his friend Globox are captured as well and then thrown into the prison ship. Because of Globox bringing a silver lum to Rayman they are able to escape. At this point Rayman must try to save his world and defeat the robo pirates.
Gameplay:
Rayman 2 is a 3d platformer. Rayman’s moves consist of being able to punch, jump, helicopter glide and swing on purple lums. In the levels there are a certain amount of yellow lums which can be used to progress to the next world if you have enough of them open the next door. You can collect red lums to heal Rayman’s health and because there are cages to break the levels it is possible to increase your max hp.
The level themes will switch up quite frequently to keep the game varied for example one level may be water themed another might be fire themed or based around riding rockets. The robo pirate minions are the main enemy you will encounter however their attacks tend to mostly be focused around shooting or using their hooks as melee weapons. They can mostly be defeated by Rayman throwing his fists at them a few times dispite having invincibility frames. The bosses end up revolving around finding an alternate way to attack them like making a stone fall on them. You need to acquire the four masks to awaken a being able to destroy the robo pirates.
Music:
The music was composed by Eric Chevalier and goes from orchestral grandness in the final battle to ominous in cave of bad dreams.
Graphics:
The graphics differ depending on the version you are playing. Because of this it will likely be either be a bit archaic or nice looking for the time.
Score: 8/10
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