Review: Oh My Godheads: Party Edition (Nintendo Switch)

Posted on October 8, 2018 by geelw

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Prepare to get elbows in your ear from your couch-mates, folks,

You know the old saying “You can’t herd cats”, right? Well, one of the ten deities in indie developer Titutitech’s somewhat amusing Oh My Godheads: Party Edition ($14.99) just so happens to be a rather irascible Bastet who will go from a silent stone head to a snarling meanie who messes with your direction as you try to carry her around. While the effect only lasts a scant few seconds, it’s more than enough time for an opponent to KO your character off the map and gain that hissy prize for their own. At least the version of Zeus here is more of a friendly presence, blasting the opposition with occasional bolts of lightning as he’s toted around.

The game is a simple one to pick up and play, but if you’re going in solo, it’s best to run through all the tutorial stages because there’s a bit of complexity to all the mayhem. Timing is crucial to some moves such as the stun that requires precise pressing of buttons, or throwing assorted objects such as pies and bombs where a split second of aim spells the difference between hitting a target or whiffing completely. While you can simply jam on the attack button if you like, you’ll want to at least play those tutorials to keep the game from getting stale because you only know one move. That and you’ll soon see that the game has a few tricks up its sleeve that can keep you from some victories if you play with other skilled players or on some of the trickier maps.

The on;y way to get ahead is to… get a head! Or die trying.

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Review: Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr

Posted on October 5, 2018 by geelw

Neocore Games’ mighty, meaty Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr ($59.99) should have come with an advisory that if you like the game, you’re going to have to be completely committed to long-hauling it from the get-go. It’s a demanding and addictive time chomping experience that kicks off with an about 45-minute set of tutorial missions that ease you into the swing of things before it rips away most of its training wheels and lets you carve your own route through its astounding wealth of randomly generated missions. There’s a nicely spread out story here that has your Inquisitor of choice attempting to solve the mystery surrounding an ancient warship packed full of heretics, mutants, xenos and Daemons of the Chaos Gods. Detective work isn’t your sole task, thankfully. You’ll definitely get to do quite a load of daemon dispatching as you uncover assorted clues during your journey.

While you can indeed compare what’s here to Diablo III on a few fronts, the game feels like more of a throwback to Crusader: No Remorse, Origin Systems’ excellent PC (and later, console) classic from 1995. Partially destructible objects, alarms that summon packs of enemies and a few more familiar elements from that game appear here, but the game also has more than enough loot dropping, skills, upgrades and rewards to keep even the most jaded players quite busy. As with a few other games in my rather large backlog, I’ve held off doing a full review because the game really needed to be patched up so I could give a it a solid recommendation. The latest patch (1.0.5) now makes this one a greater (yet still flawed) game rather than a somewhat decent one that needed a lot more polish.

Get ready to do a whole lot of this, plus a nice bit of detective work. it’s like CSI with demons and a hell of a lot more weapons.

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Coffee Talk 2: Valhalla, Here I Come!

Posted on October 4, 2018 by geelw

Long story short: This stuff is quite good. Keep reading.

Coffee memory #162 (collect ’em all!):

“I like my coffee like I like my women… HOT!“

I think it was about 1991 or ’92. Had I walked into that diner and sat down a minute earlier, I’d have very likely done a spit take with a mouthful of freshly poured ice cold water as soon as I heard that cheesy line. Fortunately, it happened just as I sat down next to the grinning woman at the end of the counter who said it, then turned to me and asked if I liked a good cup of coffee. I recall answering something along the lines of “Uh, sure?” as an exceptionally cheery waiter appeared on cue with a sunny “Hello, what can I get you, love?” I recall she had an accent that made her sound quite like Joan Greenwood, which made me almost forget what I wanted to order because I just wanted to sit there and listen to her recite the entire menu.

“The coffee’s good” the voice to my right noted, so I tipped my head in her direction and replied “I’ll have what she’s having…” which made both women laugh and a few customers to my left at the counter turn and look to see what the joke was. I didn’t turn around to check out the other tables behind me, but I’d have guess that some of them close enough also looked up for a hot second before going back to their breakfasts. I’m guessing the two ladies took that as a When Harry Met Sally reference, but it was mostly automatic on my part.

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Fist of the North Star: Paradise Lost Launch Trailer: Sega, On a Roll With Everything

Posted on October 3, 2018 by geelw

I don’t know about you, but I think Sega has been having a few really awesome years packed with mostly high-quality releases, HD upgrades (Bayonetta and Vanquish on PC are superb must-buys) and yep, even Sonic the Hedgehog blazing and bouncing back to his former 90’s glory. The latest big deal game, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, is from the studio that makes the stellar Yakuza series and uses that game’s versatile engine to great effect.

I finally got around to playing the demo and yes, am currently downloading the full game as we speak. I’m still plowing through the enormously entertaining and borderline brilliant Valkyria Chronicles 4 (I should have a review up by Friday or Saturday) and I still haven’t gotten to the Sega Ages stuff on the Switch yet. Yeah, that will get sorted soon enough, but today, I’m going to be making some people dance for a bit (well, not quite like this, though):

Back in a bit.

-GW

Capsule Review: The Conjuring House (PC)

Posted on October 3, 2018 by geelw

Uh, mommy? Holy hell, The Conjuring House sure is scary when it needs to be (which is often). Developer RYM Games has a an almost killer game here that despite a few technical flaws (which are currently being addressed via patches that will hopefully improve the overall experience) is one near-total freakout of a game. Things get off to a scary start and the tension builds as the game follows the tried and true “Old Dark House filled with dreadful evil” formula with some pretty hefty psychological horror and jump scares. Unlike some more popular horror titles, you’re unarmed and have to try and avoid or run from enemies whenever possible, the game has intentionally distant save points and yes, this leads to a few too many deaths whether or not you’re careless. On the other hand, when when things click, you’re playing half under whatever you were sitting on when you started with one eye opened because the other has shut itself closed.

Nevertheless, in its current form, some elements of the game aren’t quite as solid as they should be. Changing the default video settings immediately makes the game too dark to see and that default setting uses a post-processing effect that seems to add too much blur to the movement. Some well-done but lengthy cutscenes do a great job of storytelling, but can’t be skipped at all, so if you die before one, you’ll need to watch the whole thing all over again. Add in those long treks and/or backtracking between those save points plus a single save slot and you get a recipe for frustration as well as fear of playing for some of the wrong reasons.

Your brain will look and feel like this decrepit room right from the moment you gain control of your hapless non-hero.

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Red Dead Redemption II Gameplay Trailer 2: Told Ya So (Plus Tax)!

Posted on October 1, 2018 by geelw

I’d seen a few folks online (and more offline) bemoan the lack of Rockstar pumping out more info or gameplay on Read Dead Redemption 2 and this past week and weekend telling a few folks not to fret and the push was coming. Well, lookie here, a new trailer dropping on a Monday without warning: Enjoy:

Also, the game’s cover art has been updated, so here you go (and yep, I’ll need to go back and pop this image into previous posts at some point:

Liking the updated cover art, as it recalls some fine Western classics.

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Review: V-Rally 4 (PS4)

Posted on September 30, 2018 by geelw

Sliding sideways onto retail and digital stores for consoles and PC some 16 years (!) after the previous installment, V-Rally 4 ($59.99) attempts to capture the spirit of the series’ somewhat floaty control system while adding modern HD visuals and online play. While everything didn’t quite work out as well as it should at launch (the reason this review is later than usual), some recent patching has fixed a number of the game’s issues. That said, expect to do a good deal of car tweaking for the optimal experience. Rally fans who want a game that demands constant fiddling with settings and plenty of pre-race practice just may find a decent to acceptable experience comes with that high level of patience the game asks for.

Developer KT Racing has made a tough off-road game that packs in a ton of content in its single player and online modes using real life cars on fictional tracks set in some very pretty locales across the globe. If you go in expecting a total pick up and play experience out f the gate, the mix of arcade and simulation elements may not quite jibe thanks to the default controls being a bit too loose (requiring the aforementioned fiddling) and the solo mode forcing you to pay to enter some races and then pay your in-game manager and crew for their efforts at keeping your small but growing garage of rides in racing shape.

“Slide, Charlie Brown, SLIDE!” A super-light touch is key to playing this game (or else).

That said, as with the still mighty V-Rally 3, and the still surprising Dreamcast version of V-Rally 2, at some point the more dedicated players who stick with the game will indeed snap into that zen-like state, get into the game’s squirrely handling and very likely enjoy the ride. Amusingly enough, it seems the developer knew the game would frustrate some players and yep, there’s DLC out that allows a career mode boost as well as a digital guidebook to its cars and tracks. Granted, the former is completely optional and the latter should have been included as part of the price (and seems to have been in a newer update), but these days optional buy-ins seem pretty much unavoidable in some games.

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Coffee Talk 1: The Daily Grind, I Guess

Posted on September 29, 2018 by geelw

Despite that name, no aliens were harmed in the making of this post.

I’m no coffee connoisseur, but I’ve certainly had my share of awful cups over the decades. Granted, I was never a badass brew-meister, but amusingly enough got my first gig making coffee at a law firm I worked at back in the early 80’s as a messenger/light legal clerk (or: a messenger who could pick up and deliver all sort of legal stuff from paperwork to banking related stuff). No one else in the small office could make a good pot of coffee, although there were two secretaries who did the basics with the office’s pricey Bunn automatic.

One day, one of the gals was out sick and the other kind of refused to make the coffee, so I figured “what the hell, it doesn’t look *too* hard”, only to discover one reason the guy running the firm wasn’t happy with the coffee was no one had EVER cleaned the darn machine. Ugh. I ended up hoofing it down to the nearest deli, buying a few cups of coffee there for the lawyer, rushing back and giving the Bunn and area around it a thorough scrubbing. At one point, the lawyer popped out of his office and saw what I was doing and was kind of floored that someone would go to all that trouble. Yes, he reimbursed me for the coffee I’d bought and told me that I was now responsible for getting that brewer brewing up his cuppa Joe. Pressure much?

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The Horror of Too Many Scary Games (is a Good Thing to Have), Part 2

Posted on September 26, 2018 by geelw

You’re either back for more… or you fell asleep reading that first part and just woke up in time for part two. Well, here you go, then. Some of today’s entries are coming out after October, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less frightening. Anyway, here are six more games to look forward to (unless you’re too freaked out to want to try some of the scarier ones, mua-ha-ha-haaaa!):

Home Sweet Home (PS4/PSVR/Xbox One) – If the trailer is any indication, this could be one of the downright scariest stealth/horror games of the year. I missed out on the PC version of this truly scary-looking Thai horror game from Bangkok-based indie dev Yggdrazil Group Co.,Ltd, but my pals at Mastiff Games seem voraciously intent on putting me under the couch with this upcoming PS4 and Xbox One port. The PS4 version will support VR as an option (I’ll take my scares flat, thank you much) and if you prefer your games on a disc, this one’s going to be a GameStop exclusive in addition to a standard digital download on PSN and Xbox Live. I may have to shell out for the disc version, as this one certainly looks scary enough to be a keeper. That and I want to have the option of maybe loaning that disc to a friend or two who hate horror games but are slowly coming around. Then again, I have the feeling that this might be one of those games that sends them back down the ladder to being too skittish to fire it up.

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Review: Nitro Ball (Nintendo Switch)

Posted on September 22, 2018 by geelw

Flying Tiger Entertainment has been dropping some awesome Data East arcade hits from the 80’s and 90’s across a few platforms, but thanks to my rather hilariously large backlog, I’m just getting around to playing my first title in the Johnny Turbo’s Arcade series: Nitro Ball ($7.99). This one’s a 1992 oldie that’s an instant classic in the form of a killer mash-up of Smash TV and a crazy pinball game without the flippers full of super busy rapid fire action that’s packing a heap of period pop culture references doctored up a bit but still very recognizable if you know your classic 80’s flicks pretty well.

I’d make a “Gun Ball Rally” joke here, but almost no one would get it.

I very vaguely recall this machine from my arcade crawling days, so getting the chance to see and play it again got me grinning immediately despite a wee bit too many deaths that followed. Things are quite chaotic right from the start and like any great arcade game, you’ll likely spend the first few minutes learning the ropes and figuring out how to stay alive in order to make it to the next part of a map. While it’s only got five stages (Strange Football, Combat Field, Ghost Town, Aliens World, Space Station), as you’d expect if you’re an educated fan of these types of games, it’s all about the replay value and the many laughs you’ll have while blasting through those maps multiple times. The difficulty ramps up in spots as enemy goons swarm in from all sides and yes, sub-bosses and bosses can be cheap (hey, they’re just doing their jobs!). But overall, I’d call the game pretty balanced.

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