The Other 99 Returns: Killing Time Gets A Few Good Tweaks

Posted on March 7, 2017 by geelw

It’s baaaaack… Thanks to input from its Early Access player base and critics, UK developer Burning Arrow has been hard at work fixing up its survival game The Other 99 with a number of big changes to the formula and a brand new opening that reveals a bit more about how your character ended up on that deadly island:

Corrections and improvements include :

– New Starting Area.

– Massively reworked Balancing.

– Better interaction for survival with the world (e.g. now you can drink water from rivers, etc..).

– Rework of the Survival Guide (Hunger & Thirst related).

– Overhauled the island with new props populating the environment.

– Rework of the combat.

Hmmm. It looks as if I’ll be diving back into this at some point soon, as those improvements were needed and publisher Deck 13 has been great at keeping me posted on these updates. My poor backlog is killing me, but this one is getting pushed up a few notches because it’s got some decent replay value going for it.

-GW

Busload of Horror II: Time to Kill? Sure, Why Not?

Posted on October 18, 2016 by geelw

Back for more, are we? Well, then. Let’s amp things up a notch with some scary stuff that has you killing or being killed in gratuitous or thoughtfully gratuitous means. Or something like that. I guess what’s here is kinda NSFW unless you work at some place like your friendly neighborhood abbatoir, morgue, or cemetery and/or have a morbid sense of humor, hee-ho!

UNLOVED: Yikes. So, you want to run around in the dark (perhaps with up to three others) equipped with a handgun and flashlight looking for better weapons, armor, and colored keys while trying not to to get keelhauled by some fast-moving, ugly as sin monsters? Good. This game’s got your name, number and full address stamped all over it.

Nope, it’s not 1993 all over again, but UNLOVED sure rocks it like it is. Paul Schneider took his original Doom II mod and completely remade it using Unreal 4 to great, gory effect. As a solo or multiplayer experience, the game is wickedly fast, controls as expected (yes you can have at it with k+m or a controller if you like) and definitely not for the squeamish or easily startled. Or perhaps it IS, as it’ll surely prepare you for anything jumping out at you in the real world.

There’s an interesting rewards system at play as well where you can sell off gathered trinkets for assorted useful goodies. That said, a bit more character customization would be nice, as other than outfit color, EVERY player model is some generic white guy with sunglasses, making playing with others look like a Falco video with assorted guns set in a carnival horror house. But even if you just come for the scares and enjoy the ride (and dying a lot), this is quite a rush worth the $14.99 cost.

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The Other 99: To Live And Die In Hell’s Way

Posted on August 25, 2016 by geelw

The Other 99 is a deadly first-person action-survival game. Ripped from your ordinary life you awaken on a desolate, windswept Hebridian island with nothing but a single note that reads, “The only way off the island is through The Other 99”.

The Other 99 will stretch your humanity to breaking point as you fight to gather food, water and weapons on an island where you have nothing, where you are nothing. You are not special.

It is up to you to make yourself into something. Will you brutally murder all those who stand in your way? Or will you move silently through the forests, eliminating anyone that crosses your path? Just remember each person is unique and has their own story to tell and their own pieces of the jigsaw that makes up The Other 99.

How far will you go to survive?

Who doesn’t love a good murder mystery? Well, The Other 99 kind of figuratively cuts to the chase by ditching the cheap detective stuff and makes you the one who has to figure out how to get the hell of an island full of other killers and back to civilization. This slice of harrowing, not for the kiddies survival game arrives today on Steam courtesy of UK developer Burning Arrow and publisher Deck 13. Condemned meets Battle Royale meets Manhunt with a dash of And Then There Were None (times ten, minus one), the game changes each time it’s played and if it’s done right, should provide some interesting replay value as well as plenty of conversation fodder.

Somewhat stabbier launch trailer below the jump for those of you not into the painful looking art of digital dispatch.
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Lords of the Fallen “World” Trailer: Not Quite 100 Places To See Before You Die (In Them)…

Posted on August 28, 2014 by geelw

My own hands-on time with a build of Lords of the Fallen reveals it’s a pretty damn hard game in the Dark Souls vein and developers CI Games and Deck 13 have cooked up a nasty little next-gen gem that’s going to test the best players to defeat some pretty crafty creatures. Like the Souls series, monsters lurk in both plain sight as well as in choice hidden spots, they’ll hunt you down once they spot you and are pretty relentless overall. Of course, you can use the environments to your advantage, knocking away some boards to create a death drop pit you can lure what was chasing you into or using magic for ranged attacks as a wee or over-sized beastie is closing in for the kill. And yes, blocking and dodging are skills you need to master, as these monsters aren’t playing at all.

The game is coming to PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on October 28, 2014 and looks to be the first next-gen (or is it now current-gen?) chase & chop of the more cerebral kind. I only saw ONE person get close to defeating the demo Bandai Namco had on display and that guy was using every once of skill he had. Looks as if this one’s going to be one of those sleeper keepers for those who can play it. I predict a few broken controllers among those who may have missed out on FromSoftware’s series and have CI to blame (and their own lack of skills) for those formerly functioning chunks of plastic and components. be brave and fight onward, I say. You only have the fate of some fantasy world on your chosen customizable character’s shoulders…

Lords of the Fallen Gameplay Trailer: Been Around The Block Much Lately?

Posted on April 23, 2014 by geelw

A-ha-ha, little joke there. I figure if you’re going to be playing Lords of the Fallen, you’ll probably want to consider learning where the “BLOCK” button is on that controller or keyboard and learn to USE it wisely so you don’t end up like our poor test subject above. That, and knowing when to dodge or roll away from blows will more likely than not keep your character healthy and breathing for as long as possible.

Of course, the Dark Souls/Dark Souls II crowd KNOWS this, but this isn’t that game at all, just the same publisher getting out a game that will have some making the usual comparisons just to waste time before they actually play it (if they actually get around to playing it)…