Hello, fellow Escapists!
In this topic I will post all of my reviews of PC games up to date, so the don't take up space. My reviews are centered around answering just one question - is the game I'm reviewing worth your time, money and devotion. I hope I help someone with my reviews! All critiques, suggestions and whatever other comments are welcomed!
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LIMBO
Ok, now this is a indie game and it's quite different, because I believe it sets it's bets in the atmosphere department, while most games focus on visuals or gameplay.
So, what's LIMBO? Well, it's a 2-D platformer with puzzles. We have a lot of those now, don't we? Well, this one is worth a look actually.
Why?
Because its heart is truly in the atmosphere it offers. Some say that the game has an overall depresive look, but I find that dissproven in my mind. If anyone tells you that the game is "depressive" - don't listen, those words can only come from the mouth of a person with no artistic thought what so ever.
Visuals:
Well the game looks amazing. Probably the people who say it looks depressing think so because of the style of the game; as some of you may already know, is full-out black and white, with stylish shadows that work to bring out a major sense of atmosphere (wow I need another word for atmosphere...) which helps a lot for the player to get along with the few bits of story that we are offered. And when I say few I really mean few.
5/5
Story:
Well there practically isn't any story to this game. *SPOILERS* You wake up in a foresst and must survive. *SPOILERS END HERE* We don't know who the protagonist is, where he came from or why he's here. We just go along with the events and try to not die (a lot). WAAAAAIT! Wiat, wait, wait... it turns out that our dear friend Steam want to tell us something about the story of the game through it's description. Quote: "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO". Doesn't that clear everything up? Well, no, it doesn't. First of all there are really few people who would even notice this (and no, the fact that YOU make an exception doesn't dissporve this) and second of all - seriously - all we know of the story is that a Boy goes to look for his Sister in Limbo a.k.a. a forest, inhabitted by giant bugs and the kids from Lord of the Flies, which (<-forest) somehow built upon itself a factory, despite the fact that no one is there, except the mentioned above residents. It's not impressive at all and it will soothe players that are used to old-school games in which there isn't much of a story. The game tries really hard to explain some form of a story as the player progresses through the game, but the overall lack of certainty in this department has given freedom to the "internet theorists" who have their own theories of the game's story, most of which most likely have nothing to do with what the game's writers intended in the first place.
2/5
Sound:
It works. It's there, you don't notice it. Sometimes you can get jumped by
a sudden loud sound, but still nothing special. Sometimes you will hear a chord or two that sometimes work to set the mood, but again - nothing special.
2/5
Gameplay:
As a puzzle platformer Limbo, oh excuse me - LIMBO does it's job quite nicely. Most of the puzzles are really easy to figure out, but are sometimes hard to execute, because almost all of them require your timing to be on 100% accuracy. Frustrating, but not hard.
3/5
Worth:
Limbo is worth aprox. 10 dolars on Steam. For a game that is 2-3 hours (thats 3 if you're really tired or retarded) long, mostly repetitive, but beautifull... it's not worth it. If I knew it was what it is I wouldn't have bough it. Personal opinion: it should cost 4.99, then it would be 4/5 on this, but...
1/5
Overall: 2,5
LIMBO made the mid on my personal scale. I was really looking forward
for this title, but it dissapointed me - I expected more gameplay, more interesting events and a more overall "lively" game. By the end of the game I couldn't wait for it to be over - impressive visuals and atmosphere can't do everything on their own and the game gets repetitive by the mid point of the second part. The ending is cool though.
It's still a good game though. You should give it a try. It's just not worth the money it costs.
My advice:
If you happen to be rich and like how this game sounds - buy it. If you're not rich, but you and a couple of friends share a Steam account - gather money and buy it and play it together. If a friend owns the game - go play it at his place or ask for his account for a while. The game is worth some portion of your time and deserves a peek if not anything else. It's a really nice try at something different and if it just had a little more to offer it could have been a great game.
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Bastion
Yet another indie game... surely there are a lot of indie games nowadays, but how many of them are actually worth your time and money?
So, well, what is Bastion? Bastion looks like a Diablo clone, but it is not, and I want to asure you in this, because this is most peoples first impession - yet another indie Diablo clone, but no, Bastion has proven to be much more and quite different than our favorite classical action RPG.
Why?
Because Bastion has style. It has it's own thing going in every aspect - different visuals, different sound, different goals for an RPG and a different method in telling the story.
As a whole it's an experience worth seeing.
Visuals:
Bastion's visuals come closest to Braid's visuals. Most of the game is hand-painted and looks quite beautiful. Some have said that it's heavily inspired from anime style animation - totally not true, this has nothing to do with anime.
Bastion's style is more of a fusion between a couple of bright and colourful styles that build up a nice contrast in the overall presentation of the game, that I for one like.
The only downside of the visuals is that it's sometimes hard to figure out where can you step and not fall and where you can step and fall, but painted visuals will do that to you, it's quite inevitable for the prespective and style that is used in games like Bastion.
4/5
Story:
Well, I'm actually still being torn appart about the words that I'm writing here. At first Bastion's story seems nothing special - something went kaboom and you have to fix things because you're the protagonist of the game (duh), but the more you carry-on with the game, the more the story unreveals itself and sucks you in even more.
Since you know almost nothing at the beggining of the game every thing that is said to you is of intrest to you and that's quite a nice move on story-telling, for it keeps you waiting and interested untill the very end.
Also most of you probably already know that Bastion has a reactive narrarator. The whole story is presented through the Narrarator's voice and narrarations (plus a couple of immages representing "cutscenes"), but the interesting thing here is that during gameplay he continues to narrarate and narrarates only that which you chose to do as an action. (example: if you brake something, he will comment on that, if you pass it by he may keep silent or say that you hurry towards the goal, hence the "reactive" in the frase).
The main protagonist is The Kid, of which we are being told as we play. Still one can say that his character developement is not at a satisfying level, but in my opinion that's a good thing, for it gives us the room to relate the character and if you are not an emotionless robot, by the end of the game you will feel The Kid as if he were your close friend.
Yet I can't say the same for the other characters, which I believe is to be the only downside of the story of Bastion. There are very few characters aside the Kid in this game and surely they could have been expanded upon at least a bit more. Sure, we get to know some of their past, how they've expirienced The Calamity and ofcourse how they've gotten to the Bastion (that one will be a shock to all), but we know very little about their overall personalities and we're left guessing.
If there was only a bit more character developement the story would have been perfect for a video game story.
4/5
Sound:
The soundtrack of Bastion lies somewhere ammidst amazing and different. Its surely different, in most action-RPGs we either get a generic medievil soundtrack or some generic rock-techno crap, but Bastion yet again builds it's own style in the sound department.
You should do yourself a Favor and get the OST - it's worth the money and by the end of the game, if you have an ear for good music, some tracks will end up on your MP3 player. With that being said - it works great in the game, doesn't slow the action up and it suits the overall style.
5/5
Gameplay:
For an RPG it sure strange for Bastion to put it's bets on collecting power-ups and upgrading, rather than on leveling up, but it guides you really well through everything and gives you enough of a taste from everything it has to offer so you can find the style that best suits you and start wrecking stuff in the way you like it.
Bastion's gameplay is nothing new, somewhat different, but in a good way. It's loads of fun, even when you're given a new and un-upgraded weapon if you take it as a challenge, and not a set-back you are bound to have fun. (PS: if you do see it as a set-back this game is probably not for you anyway)
The only bad thing I have to say about the gameplay is not so much about the gameplay, but I don't know where to put it, so I'll just say it here - the game's autosave feature works, but in a really stupid way. It saves only when you come back from a mission. Meaning that if you do a mission, come back, upgrade and then leave, you're upgrades will be lost and you will have to do them all-over again when you start-up the game next time, because it saves ONLY when you get back from a mission (and no, you can't "cheat" on the game and go to a mission and then return again - it has to be a succesfully completed mission).
But still this doesn't disrupt the overall fun you have during playing the game itself, so...
5/5
Worth:
The game is worth approx 15 bucks on Steam, and I dare say that it's worth every peny. It's rich, has tons of replay value, it offers a lot of things to have fun with while playing and it's just different from most of the things we've seen, so you should definetely give it a try - at least play the demo. The only setback is that the OST of the game is not included in the game itsself and is offered as DLC to the game, which is kind of stupid and unfair, and for that reason 1 point shall be taken from Bastiondore's score.
4/5
Overall: 4,4
Well, that makes Bastion a high-scored game on my list and certainly it will remain as one of my all-time favorites.
My advice:
Get the game. Or gather money with a friend and buy it in a shared account and play it. It's worth the time and money.
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Beat Hazzard
When a rhytm/music-based game is mentioned Guitar Hero or Rock Band comes to mind, but there are some indie attempts at this genre too.
One such is Beat Hazzard - a Steam musicl-beat-rhytm-based-shoot-em-up-with-arcade-action. Personally when I think of Steam and Rhytm games I think of games that use Last.FM [whatever it actually is, because aside from the site that proclaimes almost everything of being emo I can't think of anything else...] and how they FAIL to deliver what they promise, because in most cases the song that you're supposed to be playing has nothing to do with what yo are playing.
But for some reason Beat Hazzard isn't like this.
Why?
Because you get to listen to your favorite music while you make stuff go boom with style - it's meant to satisfy, but how good does it do it?
Visuals:
The game's visuals I can best describe as hypnotizing. I'm actually having a really hard time trying to rate them, because the models themselves look rather ugly, but all of the shiny effects on the screen are able to hypnotize the player and exhaust his eyes to the maximum. Just seconds after you start the game... um... song, the screen will be filled with flashing and sparkling colour changing forms and shapes that move fast and beautifully fill the screenwith intense action to the point where you have no idea what the hell is going on and you start screaming "WHY DID I DIE?!".
And here enters the only problem the visuals of this game have - the screen is filled with so much shiny and sparkly things that sometimes you can't even see the projectiles coming towards you to kill you. Otherwise the visuals are nothing special, but they work so well that I am breaking my own judgement method and giving the visuals of Beat Hazzard...
4/5
Story:
Haaaaah... Interesting. No story. Carry on.
1/5
Sound:
Well since this game offers to turn your music into gameplay, guess it's fair to say that the actual soundtrack consists of what you want to play, so however you look at it - you will like it. Except if you don't like music. Then why are you reading this?!
5/5
Gameplay:
I started the demo and just 4 hours later I found myself having bought the game and being somewhere amidst beating all of the songs of In Flames' discography with a pefect score. It's fast-pased, simple, addicting and just plain fun.
It doesn't waste your time with crap, it just gives you the action you need.
The downpoint is that sometimes the game gets confused or something like that and either doesn't spawn enemies untill the middle of the song or just spawns 3 bosses at the beggining and instantly kills you because you can't have any way of expecting something like that. [Happens rarely though, mostly on slow and melodic songs, but that's logical so it's somewhat ok]
4/5
Worth:
This game costs approx. 7 bucks on steam, BUT there is a catch to it. You see... if you buy the game on this price you don't actually get the full game. Some parts of the game remain locked except if you buy the 10 dollar version of the game/upgrade the 7 dolar version to the 10 dolar version.
This is quite the cheap act that is just plainly unfair that they try to sell one game in parts just to get more money. The game itsself isn't worth the 7 bucks it costs, let alone 10 for a "full" version (oh excuse me I mean ULTRA version)
3/5
Overall: 3,4
My Advice:
Wait untill there is a price drop and go for it. I got it at the last midweek madness for approx. 2 bucks, so it was worth it all the way. It's not worth your money like this, especially if it's in parts.
Otherwise it's a great game to just sit back and have mindless fun while enjoying your favorite musical pieces.
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Terraria
When one says Terraria most people think of Minecraft - 50% of them say "This is a cheap rippoff, I won't waste time with it", the other 40% love Terraria even more than Minecraft, the other 10% still don't have personal lives, but just live in a cave doing some real digging, unlike us surface-dwellers.
Well, let me tell you, mr. Part-of-50% - Terraria is nothing like Minecraft and is not as much as a ripoff, than a expansion upon a simillar concept, but in an entirely different way.
Why?
Mainly because Terraria focuses more on combat, than on survival, and that for one makes a contrast between the two that cannot be forgotten. For example - in both games torches are vital. In Minecraft you get materials and craft them - nothing exciting. In Terraria you fight for gel so you can make them or you fight even more for money so you can buy them - your funeral choice.
Visuals:
Terraria has a really wierd style of pixel art that works really well. The models are delightfully pixalated and the game is somewhat nostalgic at points.
At times I even get amazed at how much pixels can offer - it's creative actually!
The only downside is that the blocks are sometimes hard to focus on, because they are quite small.
4/5
Story:
Well the story is simillar to that of Minecraft - there isn't one. But since the game is based on creativity - you either don't need one to have fun, or you have already made your own version on the story in your head, so this gets a 3/5 just to be fair.
3/5
Sound:
All of the sound effects work great. Even the sound of digging changes according to what instrument you are using! But the music on the other hand... you either love it or hate it. I personally don't like it and find it more annoying than entertaining, but that's just me, so I won't let my personal opinion affect the overall score.
3/5... 4/5
Gameplay:
Now this is where Terraria really shines. You can spend hours upon hours just digging in a direction - it's relaxing and exciting at the same time.
Then you get topside, build a giant fort and realise that you need to make a flying house just for yourself because the residents of the city that you have not built yet decided that you should have built it by now and just took a group descision to live at your fort untill you don't give up on trying to make them leave.
You can always discover something new or get enough materials to help a friend out and watching him get happy over his new toilet is just so satisfying that you even get a warm, fuzzy feeling.
The downside is that once you get the most powerfull items and find everything there is to find you really don't have what to do in the game, except help out friends (if you have any left from all of that digging) and wait around for a new patch so you can get Dr. Who's clothes, so you can create new worlds and decorate them as different parts of time so you can pretend that you can actually time-travel... Just me? Whatever...
4/5
Worth:
The game costs approx. 10 bucks on Steam which is a perfect price for a game that offers so much content and so much fun. Not to mention that there is a Four-pack for 30 bucks which is perfect, because games like Terraria are best played in parties, so gather your family (because your firends probably have left you because of your Minecraft addiction for now), gather money and buy Terraria - it's worth it!
5/5
Overall: 4
My Advice:
Seriously, you should try this game. If you like Minecraft, but want a bit more action - Terraria should be perfect for you. It has the excitement of discovering new stuff on a regular basis plus the intense action of times when giant skeletons hover over you taking up the whole screen.
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I'm going to be posting my reviews in my ScrewAttack blog [ http://screwattack.com/user/Stako/posts ], and if there is intrest - I'll post more of my PC reviews in this topic. I will update this post whenever another PC review is out, so if you want to read more of my reviews - subscribe to this post!
In this topic I will post all of my reviews of PC games up to date, so the don't take up space. My reviews are centered around answering just one question - is the game I'm reviewing worth your time, money and devotion. I hope I help someone with my reviews! All critiques, suggestions and whatever other comments are welcomed!
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LIMBO
Ok, now this is a indie game and it's quite different, because I believe it sets it's bets in the atmosphere department, while most games focus on visuals or gameplay.
So, what's LIMBO? Well, it's a 2-D platformer with puzzles. We have a lot of those now, don't we? Well, this one is worth a look actually.
Why?
Because its heart is truly in the atmosphere it offers. Some say that the game has an overall depresive look, but I find that dissproven in my mind. If anyone tells you that the game is "depressive" - don't listen, those words can only come from the mouth of a person with no artistic thought what so ever.
Visuals:
Well the game looks amazing. Probably the people who say it looks depressing think so because of the style of the game; as some of you may already know, is full-out black and white, with stylish shadows that work to bring out a major sense of atmosphere (wow I need another word for atmosphere...) which helps a lot for the player to get along with the few bits of story that we are offered. And when I say few I really mean few.
5/5
Story:
Well there practically isn't any story to this game. *SPOILERS* You wake up in a foresst and must survive. *SPOILERS END HERE* We don't know who the protagonist is, where he came from or why he's here. We just go along with the events and try to not die (a lot). WAAAAAIT! Wiat, wait, wait... it turns out that our dear friend Steam want to tell us something about the story of the game through it's description. Quote: "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters LIMBO". Doesn't that clear everything up? Well, no, it doesn't. First of all there are really few people who would even notice this (and no, the fact that YOU make an exception doesn't dissporve this) and second of all - seriously - all we know of the story is that a Boy goes to look for his Sister in Limbo a.k.a. a forest, inhabitted by giant bugs and the kids from Lord of the Flies, which (<-forest) somehow built upon itself a factory, despite the fact that no one is there, except the mentioned above residents. It's not impressive at all and it will soothe players that are used to old-school games in which there isn't much of a story. The game tries really hard to explain some form of a story as the player progresses through the game, but the overall lack of certainty in this department has given freedom to the "internet theorists" who have their own theories of the game's story, most of which most likely have nothing to do with what the game's writers intended in the first place.
2/5
Sound:
It works. It's there, you don't notice it. Sometimes you can get jumped by
a sudden loud sound, but still nothing special. Sometimes you will hear a chord or two that sometimes work to set the mood, but again - nothing special.
2/5
Gameplay:
As a puzzle platformer Limbo, oh excuse me - LIMBO does it's job quite nicely. Most of the puzzles are really easy to figure out, but are sometimes hard to execute, because almost all of them require your timing to be on 100% accuracy. Frustrating, but not hard.
3/5
Worth:
Limbo is worth aprox. 10 dolars on Steam. For a game that is 2-3 hours (thats 3 if you're really tired or retarded) long, mostly repetitive, but beautifull... it's not worth it. If I knew it was what it is I wouldn't have bough it. Personal opinion: it should cost 4.99, then it would be 4/5 on this, but...
1/5
Overall: 2,5
LIMBO made the mid on my personal scale. I was really looking forward
for this title, but it dissapointed me - I expected more gameplay, more interesting events and a more overall "lively" game. By the end of the game I couldn't wait for it to be over - impressive visuals and atmosphere can't do everything on their own and the game gets repetitive by the mid point of the second part. The ending is cool though.
It's still a good game though. You should give it a try. It's just not worth the money it costs.
My advice:
If you happen to be rich and like how this game sounds - buy it. If you're not rich, but you and a couple of friends share a Steam account - gather money and buy it and play it together. If a friend owns the game - go play it at his place or ask for his account for a while. The game is worth some portion of your time and deserves a peek if not anything else. It's a really nice try at something different and if it just had a little more to offer it could have been a great game.
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Bastion
Yet another indie game... surely there are a lot of indie games nowadays, but how many of them are actually worth your time and money?
So, well, what is Bastion? Bastion looks like a Diablo clone, but it is not, and I want to asure you in this, because this is most peoples first impession - yet another indie Diablo clone, but no, Bastion has proven to be much more and quite different than our favorite classical action RPG.
Why?
Because Bastion has style. It has it's own thing going in every aspect - different visuals, different sound, different goals for an RPG and a different method in telling the story.
As a whole it's an experience worth seeing.
Visuals:
Bastion's visuals come closest to Braid's visuals. Most of the game is hand-painted and looks quite beautiful. Some have said that it's heavily inspired from anime style animation - totally not true, this has nothing to do with anime.
Bastion's style is more of a fusion between a couple of bright and colourful styles that build up a nice contrast in the overall presentation of the game, that I for one like.
The only downside of the visuals is that it's sometimes hard to figure out where can you step and not fall and where you can step and fall, but painted visuals will do that to you, it's quite inevitable for the prespective and style that is used in games like Bastion.
4/5
Story:
Well, I'm actually still being torn appart about the words that I'm writing here. At first Bastion's story seems nothing special - something went kaboom and you have to fix things because you're the protagonist of the game (duh), but the more you carry-on with the game, the more the story unreveals itself and sucks you in even more.
Since you know almost nothing at the beggining of the game every thing that is said to you is of intrest to you and that's quite a nice move on story-telling, for it keeps you waiting and interested untill the very end.
Also most of you probably already know that Bastion has a reactive narrarator. The whole story is presented through the Narrarator's voice and narrarations (plus a couple of immages representing "cutscenes"), but the interesting thing here is that during gameplay he continues to narrarate and narrarates only that which you chose to do as an action. (example: if you brake something, he will comment on that, if you pass it by he may keep silent or say that you hurry towards the goal, hence the "reactive" in the frase).
The main protagonist is The Kid, of which we are being told as we play. Still one can say that his character developement is not at a satisfying level, but in my opinion that's a good thing, for it gives us the room to relate the character and if you are not an emotionless robot, by the end of the game you will feel The Kid as if he were your close friend.
Yet I can't say the same for the other characters, which I believe is to be the only downside of the story of Bastion. There are very few characters aside the Kid in this game and surely they could have been expanded upon at least a bit more. Sure, we get to know some of their past, how they've expirienced The Calamity and ofcourse how they've gotten to the Bastion (that one will be a shock to all), but we know very little about their overall personalities and we're left guessing.
If there was only a bit more character developement the story would have been perfect for a video game story.
4/5
Sound:
The soundtrack of Bastion lies somewhere ammidst amazing and different. Its surely different, in most action-RPGs we either get a generic medievil soundtrack or some generic rock-techno crap, but Bastion yet again builds it's own style in the sound department.
You should do yourself a Favor and get the OST - it's worth the money and by the end of the game, if you have an ear for good music, some tracks will end up on your MP3 player. With that being said - it works great in the game, doesn't slow the action up and it suits the overall style.
5/5
Gameplay:
For an RPG it sure strange for Bastion to put it's bets on collecting power-ups and upgrading, rather than on leveling up, but it guides you really well through everything and gives you enough of a taste from everything it has to offer so you can find the style that best suits you and start wrecking stuff in the way you like it.
Bastion's gameplay is nothing new, somewhat different, but in a good way. It's loads of fun, even when you're given a new and un-upgraded weapon if you take it as a challenge, and not a set-back you are bound to have fun. (PS: if you do see it as a set-back this game is probably not for you anyway)
The only bad thing I have to say about the gameplay is not so much about the gameplay, but I don't know where to put it, so I'll just say it here - the game's autosave feature works, but in a really stupid way. It saves only when you come back from a mission. Meaning that if you do a mission, come back, upgrade and then leave, you're upgrades will be lost and you will have to do them all-over again when you start-up the game next time, because it saves ONLY when you get back from a mission (and no, you can't "cheat" on the game and go to a mission and then return again - it has to be a succesfully completed mission).
But still this doesn't disrupt the overall fun you have during playing the game itself, so...
5/5
Worth:
The game is worth approx 15 bucks on Steam, and I dare say that it's worth every peny. It's rich, has tons of replay value, it offers a lot of things to have fun with while playing and it's just different from most of the things we've seen, so you should definetely give it a try - at least play the demo. The only setback is that the OST of the game is not included in the game itsself and is offered as DLC to the game, which is kind of stupid and unfair, and for that reason 1 point shall be taken from Bastiondore's score.
4/5
Overall: 4,4
Well, that makes Bastion a high-scored game on my list and certainly it will remain as one of my all-time favorites.
My advice:
Get the game. Or gather money with a friend and buy it in a shared account and play it. It's worth the time and money.
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Beat Hazzard
When a rhytm/music-based game is mentioned Guitar Hero or Rock Band comes to mind, but there are some indie attempts at this genre too.
One such is Beat Hazzard - a Steam musicl-beat-rhytm-based-shoot-em-up-with-arcade-action. Personally when I think of Steam and Rhytm games I think of games that use Last.FM [whatever it actually is, because aside from the site that proclaimes almost everything of being emo I can't think of anything else...] and how they FAIL to deliver what they promise, because in most cases the song that you're supposed to be playing has nothing to do with what yo are playing.
But for some reason Beat Hazzard isn't like this.
Why?
Because you get to listen to your favorite music while you make stuff go boom with style - it's meant to satisfy, but how good does it do it?
Visuals:
The game's visuals I can best describe as hypnotizing. I'm actually having a really hard time trying to rate them, because the models themselves look rather ugly, but all of the shiny effects on the screen are able to hypnotize the player and exhaust his eyes to the maximum. Just seconds after you start the game... um... song, the screen will be filled with flashing and sparkling colour changing forms and shapes that move fast and beautifully fill the screenwith intense action to the point where you have no idea what the hell is going on and you start screaming "WHY DID I DIE?!".
And here enters the only problem the visuals of this game have - the screen is filled with so much shiny and sparkly things that sometimes you can't even see the projectiles coming towards you to kill you. Otherwise the visuals are nothing special, but they work so well that I am breaking my own judgement method and giving the visuals of Beat Hazzard...
4/5
Story:
Haaaaah... Interesting. No story. Carry on.
1/5
Sound:
Well since this game offers to turn your music into gameplay, guess it's fair to say that the actual soundtrack consists of what you want to play, so however you look at it - you will like it. Except if you don't like music. Then why are you reading this?!
5/5
Gameplay:
I started the demo and just 4 hours later I found myself having bought the game and being somewhere amidst beating all of the songs of In Flames' discography with a pefect score. It's fast-pased, simple, addicting and just plain fun.
It doesn't waste your time with crap, it just gives you the action you need.
The downpoint is that sometimes the game gets confused or something like that and either doesn't spawn enemies untill the middle of the song or just spawns 3 bosses at the beggining and instantly kills you because you can't have any way of expecting something like that. [Happens rarely though, mostly on slow and melodic songs, but that's logical so it's somewhat ok]
4/5
Worth:
This game costs approx. 7 bucks on steam, BUT there is a catch to it. You see... if you buy the game on this price you don't actually get the full game. Some parts of the game remain locked except if you buy the 10 dollar version of the game/upgrade the 7 dolar version to the 10 dolar version.
This is quite the cheap act that is just plainly unfair that they try to sell one game in parts just to get more money. The game itsself isn't worth the 7 bucks it costs, let alone 10 for a "full" version (oh excuse me I mean ULTRA version)
3/5
Overall: 3,4
My Advice:
Wait untill there is a price drop and go for it. I got it at the last midweek madness for approx. 2 bucks, so it was worth it all the way. It's not worth your money like this, especially if it's in parts.
Otherwise it's a great game to just sit back and have mindless fun while enjoying your favorite musical pieces.
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Terraria
When one says Terraria most people think of Minecraft - 50% of them say "This is a cheap rippoff, I won't waste time with it", the other 40% love Terraria even more than Minecraft, the other 10% still don't have personal lives, but just live in a cave doing some real digging, unlike us surface-dwellers.
Well, let me tell you, mr. Part-of-50% - Terraria is nothing like Minecraft and is not as much as a ripoff, than a expansion upon a simillar concept, but in an entirely different way.
Why?
Mainly because Terraria focuses more on combat, than on survival, and that for one makes a contrast between the two that cannot be forgotten. For example - in both games torches are vital. In Minecraft you get materials and craft them - nothing exciting. In Terraria you fight for gel so you can make them or you fight even more for money so you can buy them - your funeral choice.
Visuals:
Terraria has a really wierd style of pixel art that works really well. The models are delightfully pixalated and the game is somewhat nostalgic at points.
At times I even get amazed at how much pixels can offer - it's creative actually!
The only downside is that the blocks are sometimes hard to focus on, because they are quite small.
4/5
Story:
Well the story is simillar to that of Minecraft - there isn't one. But since the game is based on creativity - you either don't need one to have fun, or you have already made your own version on the story in your head, so this gets a 3/5 just to be fair.
3/5
Sound:
All of the sound effects work great. Even the sound of digging changes according to what instrument you are using! But the music on the other hand... you either love it or hate it. I personally don't like it and find it more annoying than entertaining, but that's just me, so I won't let my personal opinion affect the overall score.
3/5... 4/5
Gameplay:
Now this is where Terraria really shines. You can spend hours upon hours just digging in a direction - it's relaxing and exciting at the same time.
Then you get topside, build a giant fort and realise that you need to make a flying house just for yourself because the residents of the city that you have not built yet decided that you should have built it by now and just took a group descision to live at your fort untill you don't give up on trying to make them leave.
You can always discover something new or get enough materials to help a friend out and watching him get happy over his new toilet is just so satisfying that you even get a warm, fuzzy feeling.
The downside is that once you get the most powerfull items and find everything there is to find you really don't have what to do in the game, except help out friends (if you have any left from all of that digging) and wait around for a new patch so you can get Dr. Who's clothes, so you can create new worlds and decorate them as different parts of time so you can pretend that you can actually time-travel... Just me? Whatever...
4/5
Worth:
The game costs approx. 10 bucks on Steam which is a perfect price for a game that offers so much content and so much fun. Not to mention that there is a Four-pack for 30 bucks which is perfect, because games like Terraria are best played in parties, so gather your family (because your firends probably have left you because of your Minecraft addiction for now), gather money and buy Terraria - it's worth it!
5/5
Overall: 4
My Advice:
Seriously, you should try this game. If you like Minecraft, but want a bit more action - Terraria should be perfect for you. It has the excitement of discovering new stuff on a regular basis plus the intense action of times when giant skeletons hover over you taking up the whole screen.
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I'm going to be posting my reviews in my ScrewAttack blog [ http://screwattack.com/user/Stako/posts ], and if there is intrest - I'll post more of my PC reviews in this topic. I will update this post whenever another PC review is out, so if you want to read more of my reviews - subscribe to this post!