Jamie Parry-Bruce
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GameSpew Latest Reviews
But there is an unexpected bright side to Hidden Dragon Legend. It’s obvious just from looking at the game that its developers really cared for it. Someone loved it and tried to elevate it from the cloying mediocrity of its bland and tepid gameplay with some really rather good art, menus and UI. The conceptual design of the game, it’s art and the supplemental features that never usually get talked about are, in this case, the stars of the show. The same can’t be said for the graphics, though, which are – you guessed it – mediocre at best.
Thimbleweed Park’s problems all stem from the fact that it’s a Kickstarter game that is not afraid to please its fans. If it’s anything at all, Thimbleweed Park is a brave game. It’s a standalone adventure with no sequel tie-ins. It’s a self-contained story with interesting characters and an intriguing mystery to solve. It’s unafraid to embrace its heritage and it’s not afraid of modernising to improve on the old formula. Possibly bravest of all, though, it’s an old-school point and click graphical adventure game. As a fan, it’s everything you could want it to be; *BLEEP* everybody else.
Everything won’t be for everyone. Some people probably won’t find it terribly engaging. Some people will probably think it’s trying to be preachy or they’ll bemoan the lack of stuff to do. But Everything wasn’t made for them. It was made for people like me; people who want to experience something cerebral and emotional when they play a video game, people who want profundity and philosophy in their lives, people who don’t solely get off on gun-toting, ass-kicking violence. People who can be given something with little instruction and told, simply: ‘Play’.
On the game’s Steam page, the writer welcomes you to Metrico+. They also hope that you’ve got what it takes to beat it. I, unfortunately, don’t, I think. But, to be honest, I’m really not that bothered. If you really want a challenge, try putting a Fredde workstation together without looking at the booklet. I dare you.
Speaking as a fan of a more relaxed paced games, as an owner and backer of both Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen and as a wannabe Minecraft survival-mode architect, I find it incredibly easy to look past No Man’s Sky’s admittedly rough exterior and see the brightly shining diamond beneath and I think I’m going to playing it for a long time. But I won’t hate on you if you don’t – it’s your $60, and I won’t tell you how to spend it.
It might rub some people up the wrong way in light of the current sensitivity surrounding US law enforcement, but it should be said that, while it might exhibit less tact in dealing with some of those situations that hit closer to home, This Is The Police still gives the player the ultimate choice: they can choose to do what’s morally right or… not.
See? I completely forgot to mention “tower defence” at all. But it does need to be said – at its core, Space Run Galaxy is a glorified tower defence game: you have a “base” to protect, waves of enemies coming at you in often unpredictable patterns, different tools that you can use to stop those enemies and ways of upgrading your gear so that you can take on tougher challenges as the game progresses. However, Space Run Galaxy really is much more than that. The open-world mission system, the way you can buy ship schematics to try and change up your layouts and tactics, the way it lets you determine whether or not you want to split up mission-critical cargo into more manageable (and defensible) chunks, the seamless inclusion of multiplayer contracts and trading and the fact that it feels quite unlike anything else out there really pushes it into a whole other dimension. One with space pirates and awesome guns.
Adr1ft‘s PC debut was delayed from a 2015 release to coincide with the launch of the Oculus Rift VR headset and features full Occulus Rift support. As I don’t have access to a Rift headset, I played the standard edition of the game and, while I had a lot of fun with it, I can imagine that VR adds a whole other level of enjoyment to teetering on the edge of space that you just can’t get from a monitor (not even of the 4k variety). That being said, Adr1ft isn’t the game that is going to make me want to go out there and drop a little under £500 on an Oculus Rift. While Adr1ft isn’t the most engaging or thrilling game you’ll play this March, its unique perspective, stunning graphics, challenging platforming mechanics and, director, Adam Orth’s very personal and metaphorical story make it a definite choice for those amoungst us who want a slightly slower paced game, without all that faffing about with health bars and weapons, that allows you to take your time, explore the game’s devastated setting and put together the pieces of an intriguing story that makes you question who’s to blame and whether you’ll ever...
Fans of the original really won’t need any sort of encouragement from me to go out and grab Day of the Tentacle Remastered (although, if you do, I’ll refer you to my closing sentence) – it’s basically exactly the same game you’ve probably played a hundred times but, if you want to, you can turn on the shiny new full-screen graphics; not to mention unlocking a bunch of new Steam achievements. For the uninitiated among you, I’d urge anyone with a little spare cash to head on over to Steam and grab Day of the Tentacle right now. Sure, I’m already a fan and of course I’d say that about a game that I love but I think that, in this case, I’m not just speaking as a fan. As a critic, there’s very little to dislike about the game or its remaster. It’s as engaging, challenging and hilarious as ever, not to mention being one of the best made games of all time. Do yourself a favour and “go back… to the Mansion!”.
While the game might not portray mental health care institutions in the best light, it seems obvious that the developers have tried to make something that accurately reflects the people who have to reside in them. It reminds us all that these kind of problems aren’t always evident at birth – the majority of them can strike at any time and are indiscriminating when it comes to whom they affect. This isn’t just a game about a young woman. It’s not just a game about a scary insane asylum. It’s a game that tries, and almost succeeds, to open people’s eyes (gamers’ in particular) to the very real problem of mental health by experiencing it through the journey of a woman who never asked for the life she was given or that that life be taken away. I urge you, please, to play The Town of Light and uncover Renee’s story, and a greater understanding of the cause for it, for yourself.