Lifeless Planet – PC Game Review

Lifeless planet is a game available on PC through Steam or GOG, as well as the Xbox One home gaming console. The game is an indie title developed by “Stage 2 Studios“, and published by KISS Ltd. In fact, it is one of the better games published by KISS Ltd in my opinion. Most games that KISS Ltd releases, just aren’t my cup of tea, so it doesn’t really take much for me to consider a game to be one of their better games. If it doesn’t make me want to smash my head through my monitor, it’s one of their better games!

Lifeless Planet tells the story of an astronaut sent to a fertile green planet. Their pod crashes on the home world, and he has become separated from his crew. Even more confusing? The planet isn’t a forested green world like they were led to believe! It’s instead a barren wasteland void of any life! As you search for your crewmates, you begin to discover signs that you aren’t the first visitor to this planet!

So, what type of game is it you ask? It’s a mixture of game genres! It’s mostly a third person perspective exploration/walking simulator. You just walk, and as you journey the story begins to unfold around. You can follow the trail clearly laid out in front of you, or go off on your own and discover things hidden around in the game world. Be warned though, traveling off the beaten trail can often lead to danger!

The game also has platforming elements, where you are required to reach an area just out of reach by jumping from rock to rock, or crates, or anything that will boost you up high enough to reach your goal. It also has a lot of puzzles to solve! Between the platforming and puzzles, the game will really put your mind to work!

Movement is smooth, and the controls are very intuitive. At no point did the game ever leave me confused or frustrated with the controls! It was all pretty smooth sailing! If mouse and Keyboard isn’t your cup of tea, the game is also 100% compatible with the Xbox 360 USB PC gamepad! Which, was also flawless! Basically, no matter how you decided to play, controls won’t be an issue!

So, the game has an amazing and captivating plot, and great gaming elements and super spiffy controls! That’s all fine and good, but how are the graphics? Remember that the game is an Indie game! So, it’s not on par with other AAA titles. For an Indie game though? The graphics and animation is outstanding! The world even reflects in the visor of the astronauts helmet! It really is gorgeous, and very well done! There’s a wide variety of locals, from wastelands, to caves, to volcanic hotbeds! All very beautifully rendered!

Unfortunately, the game lacks any type of audio options. Making it impossible to lower sound in the game, or to disable the few voice overs that exist. A lot of the voice overs are russian, and hearing spoken russian dialog distracts me when I am trying read the “Auto-translated” text. Having a way to disable it, or at the very least turn it down enough so that it’s not a distraction would be ideal.

As far as glitches go, the game seems relatively glitch free! I did encounter one glitch however. What happened was, I picked up a rock and carried it onto an elevator and used the elevator button. This froze my controls and prevented me from moving or dropping the rock. All I could do was bring up the pause menu, but even then the “Restart from last checkpoint” option was missing. I eventually had to quit the game, and then go back into it. No other bugs or glitches were encountered, and the one that I did encounter? I was unable to duplicate it.

Overall I had a fantastic time playing this game! Which is good, because the last two games I played sucked so bad that I was about ready to give up on gaming altogether! The story was it’s self was so interesting that I just did not want to stop playing until I was finished! Kind of how like when you read a good book, you don’t ever want to set it down? I had a similar experience with this game!

Should you get it? Well, the game is 20 bucks, which is a bit expensive for what you get. I finished the game in 4 hours roughly,and the majority of those 4 hours were spent wandering around exploring. I imagine it could be finished much quicker for someone who is just rushing through the game. If I had paid 20 bucks for it, I would have been a bit upset! For 20 dollars, I expect a little bit more than just 4 hours. Thankfully I got the game(As well as several others) for just 4 dollars in a bundle deal from Indie Gala.

I would suggest that if the game sounds interesting to you (And it should, because it’s awesome!) that you wait for either a Steam sale, or for it to be included in another Bundle(It has been bundled several times, so odds are that it will be bundled again).

PROS

• Great plot
• Easy to understand Controls.
• Flawless Gamepad support

CONS

• No Audio Controls.
• Tad overpriced for what you get

Overall Score: 8/10

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Rise of the Tomb Raider – PC Game Review

I had been looking forward to playing Rise of the Tomb Raider since it was announced, and decided to pick it up on steam, because it was on sale for fairly cheap! I can’t remember the exact price, but it was cheap. Did it live up to my expectations?

Here’s the thing about ROTR: It’s very much like the original Tomb Raider. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table! In fact, the graphics are very similar to the graphics found in the original Tomb Raider PC Release(We’re talking about the reboot of course, not the very first original Tomb Raider game). This isn’t a bad thing! The graphics in the original were absolutely breath-taking! I am completely happy with the graphics in both games, but it does leave me confused on why ROTR requires such a beast of a computer to run! The game is currently one of the current higher requirement games out there, and I just don’t understand why. Granted, I am not a game developer, so there is probably much that I don’t understand.

As I said, a lot of the game is very similar to Tomb Raider. This statement also includes gameplay mechanics. There are very few new tools at your disposal, The few new tools that DO exist don’t even come into play til toward the end of the game, and even then aren’t that interesting. It boils down to the same Ledge Climbing, Rock Scaling gameplay as the original. Complete with sliding down snowbanks/waterfalls and having to move left and right to avoid obstacles.

What the game DID do right however was the storyline! It had a very appealing any interesting storyline the focuses on an artifact that can grant eternal life. It also has an evil group which is a secret society who is seeking the artifact for themselves, and a group of rebels who are trying to keep the artifact from falling into the wrong hands. It has some twists, Moments of betrayal, Moments of loyalty…It has everything you could want from an adventure story of this type.

One thing that might upset some people, is that Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn’t have a multiplayer mode. What it does have instead is an expedition mode.I haven’t really mucked around with expedition mode too much, but it seems to offer you a variety of different modes that let’s you replay chapters of the story, while also giving you the option to increase or decrease difficulty through the use of cards which can be purchased using an ingame currency(Or using real cash apparently). Personally, I don’t find the lack of a PVP based multiplayer game disappointing at all. I love the fact that a game company still focuses on the creativity and story based captivation of the single player campaign.

Don’t get me wrong, I like when a game has both a rich and full single player campaign as well as a PvP mode. It’s just that more often than not developers go the lazy route and just toss in some half assed single player campaign that is completed in a half hour and basically serves as a tutorial for the online game mode. Other developers even go the more incredibly lazier route and toss out the campaign mode all together and stick you with a multiplayer only FPS, that when the servers eventually go down, or people quit playing..you are stuck just running around shooting bots. At least with a campaign, you have that to fall back on when the servers are gone.

Speaking of rich storylines! Rise of the Tomb Raider is an incredibly long game! It took me 22 hours to complete it, and that’s just the main story. That’s not including all of the optional tombs and side missions. I did a few of them, but there’s still plenty more for me to go back and do! There’s also the expedition mode which as I said before I have only lightly dabbled in.

Now, this long storyline might be good or bad. Depending on your view. I loved the game and the story, but even I was getting to the point where I was wishing the game was just over. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing I suppose. Like I said, I enjoyed the game. but 22 hours is a long time to find out what’s going to happen. For me, the perfect length of a main campaign is about 15 hours. Any more than that, and my attention starts to wander. This is mainly due to my ADD, so it may not apply to you.

Overall though, it was an enjoyable game. If you were a fan of the last Tomb Raider game, or the Uncharted game series(Which the gameplay shares similarities with) then you will most likely enjoy this title.

PROS
-Gorgeous Graphics.
-Long and in-depth story.
-Many Side missions to keep you occupied.
-Decent replay value
-Flawless gamepad support
-Impressive voice acting & Mocaping.

Cons
-No PvP based Multiplayer
-Game might be TOO long for some players.
-Micro transactions.
-High system requirements

Overall score: 7.5/10

Silver Creek Falls: Chapter 1 – PC Game Review

Silver Creek Falls Chapter 1 is an RPGmaker title that serves as the first chapter/teaser for an ongoing game. It is available on Steam and is a free chapter. One thing to keep in mind, is this is an RPGMaker game, so expect your standard birds eye view, cutesy 16 bit style anime graphics and over sized headed characters. If you enjoy those aspects then yer set! Otherwise beware!

The game so far has been getting rave user reviews, however I am mildly disappointed..and I will tell you why!

First, the game has no guidance. While playing the game I first investigated 1 of the 3 crime scenes. After looking around a bit, it didn’t tell me what else to do. The car wasn’t allowing me to enter it. So, I remembered a sentence used by the deputy that neighbors had called the police the night of the murder. So, I assumed I would check in with the neighbors!

None of the neighbor doors were interactive so i tried the ones across the street. One let me enter, and inside was a tape, that essentially ended day one, and assumed I had visited crime scenes 2 and 3…which I obviously hadn’t! At first I thought “Well, maybe there wasn’t a crime scene 2/3 even though the NPCs were talking about evidence that I hadn’t encountered or seen.” However, when checking the Steam store front page for the game, in the screenshots area are screen captures of 2 crime scenes that I didn’t see. so, it’s a safe assumption that I accidentally skipped them.

The story seems disjointed, however that COULD be because it let’s you skip through a big chunk of the game(Seriously developer, you REALLY need to patch that and change the police station to a separate instance that doesn’t phase in until after certain objectives have been met, or at least add some guidance like “Ok, well….crime scene 2 is north of here, let’s check that out next”.

There is no combat in the game, at least in the chunks that I played, however the type of game isn’t really a combat game. It’s less RPG and more story driven adventure/interactive fiction.

Will I buy any future chapters? Not if this is any indication of what the future chapters will be like. The story seemed interesting, but the skipping two crime scenes thing? That’s a major flaw in my opinion, and is something that SHOULD have been prevented, and could have been with a little extra elbow grease.

Yes, I know it’s free…and for a free game it’s ok(Though annoying), however future chapters will cost $$$ and like I said, if this is the amount of effort the developers are going to put into them as well? I’ll pass.

Pros

• Interesting Story
• At least one scene with voice acting.
• Cute 16-bit graphics
• It’s free! DUH!
• Decent controls for a KeyBoard game.

Cons

• Bugged! Can skip half the game.
• Bad BAD voice acting. Not sure if sheriff is southern or from new orleans..or somewhere else.
• No controller support.
• No way to go full screen(That I saw?)

 

RATING: 3.5/10

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Firewatch – PS4 Review

 

Firewatch is a new game that was recently released on PS4, Windows, OS X and Linux. It’s brought by the developer Campo Santo, which has developed…well, just firewatch.

As I mentioned, the game is available on a few platforms, but the one I am reviewing is the PS4 version.

The game is a first person exploration/mystery/horror adventure game, that centers on the games main hero Henry, a volunteer fire lookout stationed in Shoshone National Forest in 1989(So yes, technically this is an ’80s game). His only companion is Delilah, Henrys supervisor who communicates with you via walkie-Talkie.

As the game advances forward you start to build a relationship with your supervisor, explore the wilderness and eventually discover strange things afoot.

Overall the game sounds interesting, and fairly original! Does it live up to expectations though?

Graphics: 8.5/10 – The graphics are beautiful and artistic. If you are looking for realism in your games graphics though, look elsewhere! The graphics are very cartoony, and appear slightly cel-shading. In fact, the graphics remind me a little of the cartoony nature of World of Warcraft. So, I can’t stress this enough! It’s not realistic looking, and it isn’t intended to be.

The textures are gorgeous, and to be honest, the game its self is a delight to explore. I enjoyed just roaming around the wilderness and looking at all the work that the devs put into this game, more than I enjoyed actually playing the game. So, the graphics are absolutely top knotch.

Voice Acting: 9/10 – The two main characters were voiced rather well! Sure, the sounds of henrys voice didn’t match up with your actions, but that’s because the game has no way to know if you are climbing a mountain, or jumping across a river when you are talking. So, you don’t get the vocal distrubances from movement. However the acting is well done! Rich Sommer and Cissy Jones did a very good job acting out their characters emotions and fears. I was completely impressed!

Controls: 6/10 – The controls, are a pain at first. Mainly during conversations and dialog options. It takes awhile to get used to, and the first several conversations I ended up coming across like an ass and just not responding to her because the time limit would run out before I remembered which button combinations allowed me to reply. Also, when you are out exploring the wilderness, and you have your map up, trying to get your bearings and a call comes in. You can’t reply without first putting your map away. The game doesn’t inform you of this, but your response timer still ticks down, so I lost out on responding to a few other early on calls due to this as well.

Other than dialog, the controls are pretty straight forward, but unfortunately..at least for me, the conversation controls really hit the enjoyment factor hard.

Final thoughts: The game is short as hell. For 20 bucks, I expected more gameplay. Instead what I got 5 hours of gaming, and a good portion of that was spent exploring the area. While most of the game was enjoyable, it ended on a sour note, with what could be the worst and most boring game ending that I have ever experienced.

Is there a reason to replay it? Well, the store description says your choices can impact the game, however I don’t see how anything you say or do, could impact the game enough to warrant a second playthrough. Normally I would say that if you are a completionist you could go back and try to gain missed trophies, however all trophies are earned just by advancing the game…so If you finish the story, you have 100% completion.

Overall, I would suggest getting the game, but only if it’s on a 50% or more sale. 10 bucks seems fair for this game. 20 is just a ripoff.

Overall rating: 5/10

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The Vanishing of Ethan Carter PC Game Review

Are you are looking for a first person horror/mystery game that feels like a cross between Alan Wake, and Murdered: Soul Suspect with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft thrown in for good measure? Then this might be what you are looking for!

First, let me talk about the graphics! The graphics are gorgeous! Right from the start when you find yourself standing on the train tracks at the end of a tunnel, surrounded by a dense woodland area. It’s probably one of the most beautiful games I have played. In fact you might spend more time wandering around the game world, looking at the scenery than you do solving mysteries. In my 8+ hours of playtime I spent 2 hours of it just looking out over oceans and frolicking around in the woods.

(Actual gameplay screenshot)

In terms of gameplay, the game starts off telling you that it’s not going to hold your hand, which it doesn’t. this is a double edged sword in my opinion. On one hand, you don’t have some clumsy UI detracting from the immersion of the game. On the other hand, the games definition of “Hand holding” apparently includes: Explaining controls, explaining your abilities, explaining why you are wherever it is you are, letting you manually save and letting you view an inventory(or notebook system….or map). So, in the end it’s kind of cool that you have a nice clean screen to enjoy the visuals of the game, but that also means that if you quit playing for a few days and forget what you have collected, or what you were trying to do, yer pretty much up a creek without a paddle.

-Pros-
Beautiful graphics.
Challenging yet logical puzzles(mostly)
H.P. Lovecraft vibe
Good voice acting
Excellent controls
Clear UI
Flawless gamepad support

-Cons-
No tutorial explaining controls
No manual save
No inventory/journal system
Insanely short(I beat the game in 6 hours with 100% achievment completion)

Back to the Future: The Game

Cover of Back to the Future

When I was a small little tyke, there were several movies I loved. These movies included such classics as Ghostbusters and of course Gremlins, however it also included the greatest time traveling movie ever written: Back to the Future. Not familiar with it? If you haven’t seen Back to the Future, then I really do feel sorry for you, because you are missing out on a major modernish movie classic!

However, the point of this blog post is not to sing the praises of such a glorious film, although it truly does deserve a song of glory! No, the point of this post is to talk about “Back to the Future: The Game“! Obviously, as you can tell by the title, the game is based on the Back to the Future film series. It takes place about 6 months after the events of the third film, and let’s you control Marty McFly in this time traveling jaunt through the chronosphere.

The game is a blast, though in all fairness, may not be appealing to everyone. It’s an inventory based adventure game, meaning if you despised games like Sam & Max or Sierra Games titles like Space Quest, Police Quest or Kings Quest, then chances are you will not appreciate this game. If however, you do like those types of games, then you are definitely in for a treat!

Back to the Future: The Game, is brought to you by TellTale games, and like its previous Sam & Max and Monkey Island titles, it too is episodic, meaning you will get to play once chapter a month, for 5 months. This will allow you to take your time, and not rush through the game. Savor the puzzles and enjoy the unfolding story.

The voice acting in the game is fantastic, especially the guy who does the voice of Marty McFly! He sounds exactly like Michael J. Fox! In fact, he may sound more like Michael J. Fox, than Michael J. Fox!

Also, Christopher Lloyd returns, and uses his voice to reprise his role as Doctor Emmet Brown!

The game is available on both PC and PS3 (Through PSN), so pick your platform of choice, and sit back, and play this marvelous game!