Recent reviews by Corgi in a cup

Personally, I think even though point and click games are outdated and became a niche genre, 2020 Steam Spring cleaning was nice to bring me to this brilliant masterpiece.
Puzzles were understandable to head-banging hard, look up a guide if you get stumped. The story unfolds the further you progress the game, revealing philosophical and metaphoric storytelling.

Samsara Room is short, simple, and free, give it a shot, point and click indie titles are an underrated game genre that deserves more attention.

Thanks to this game, I will look forward to play more of Rusty Lake's games.

Music is fitting for a game targeted towards toddlers and young children. Songs have no real lyrics and are just speaking gibberish. Artbook is neat with pop culture references, also details the development of Chuchel, and the process of turning him from black to orange as well.

The first Dawn of War brought RTS new elements such as cover, squads, morale, sync kills, everyone was amazed. Winter Assault brought new factions and 2 new campaigns. Dark Crusade gave Dawn of War a new flavour with a meta map playing like Risk but maps are fought in RTS. Soulstorm's only new features are 2 new factions, flying vehicles, a new campaign, and retweaked gameplay elements.

There are 7 playable factions in Dark Crusade, Soulstorm brings in 2 new factions; Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle. All factions have their own advantages, disadvantages, significant playstyles, and starting abilities. Upon defeating an enemy stronghold, your playing faction will gain said defeated enemy ability in the single player campaign.

Chaos
Advantages: Diverse Infantry, Strong morale, chaos magic, morale depleating abilities.
Disadvantages: Expensive buildings, some infantry and vehicles are more expensive.
Significant Playstyle: Diverse infantry allows for very versatile playstyle.
Starting Ability: Collect all resources from every territory regardless of connection.

Dark Eldar
Advantages: Fast moving infantry and vehicles, invisiblity, buildings self build, anti morale attacks, regain morale abilities.
Disadvantages: Buildings take up plenty of space, infantry and vehicles are relatively weak.
Significant Playstyle: Hit and run tactics meaning strike key locations rather than mass infantry/vehicle assaults. 3rd resource; souls for powerful abilities that regain morale, damage enemy morale, or cause widespread damage.
Starting Ability:Travel through any webway gates in meta map.

Craftworld Eldar
Advantages: Fast movement speed, teleport via webway gates, or ability, invisibility, thin narrow buildings that take up less space, inexpensive infantry and buildings.
Disadvantages: Weak infantry and buildings.
Significant Playstyle: Hit and run tactics, fast movement speed and high damaging weapons encourage great use of playstyle.
Starting Ability: travel up to 3 captured territories per turn on meta map.

Imperial Guard
Advantages:Useful attatchable commanders, inexpensive infantry, fast renforcements, use of building as bunkers, arguably best and most versatile vehicles, and best relic unit; The Baneblade.
Disadvantages: Weakest infantry units, weakest morale, low hardcapped elite units not effective without commanders, large numbers, or vehicle support. *BLAM!* CALLING IMPERIAL GUARD WEAK IS HERESY!
Significant Playstyle: Mass infantry, attrition assaults, vehicles are a staple.
Starting Ability: Anything bought with meta map requistion is cheaper.

Necrons
Advantages: Most durable Infantry, strong morale, fallen units may be revived, some units can teleport, commander has special abilities to mix and match, some units are free.
Disadvantages: Only builder units can capture strategic points, slowest moving faction, slowest production and renforcements, vehicles are weak and difficult if improperly used.
Significant playstyle: Only one resource is used, capturing points reduced production time, durability and good morale is suited for attrition.
Starting Ability: some garrison and honour guard can be recovered

Orks
Advantages: Fast production and unit renforcement, good durability and morale, cheap infantry, strong melee, most buildings have machine gun emplacements.
DIsadvantages: Least accurate ranged units, unintelligent units won't fight unless ordered, must build plenty of banners, Relic unit; the Squiggoth is not very manuvarable, weak againt most relic units, and painful to use WUT ARE YA TALKIN' BOUT HUMIE GIT? DA SQUIGGOTH IS A MIGHTY BEAST DAT WILL KRUMP ALL YA HUMIES, POINTY EARS, SPIKY BOYS, AND WUT ELSE. NOW LEAVE, YOU AIN'T GUD ENUFF FOR OUR LIST!
SIGNIFIKANT PLAYSTYLE: WE BUILD WAAAGH BANNERS FOR MORE BOYZ, WHEN WE GETS MORE BOYS, WE GET DA NOBS FOR A STRONGA ATTAKK AND DAKKA, AND DEN WE FLOODS DA HUMIES, ELDAR, METAL BOYS, TAU, WITH DA GREEN TIDE! WAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!!
STARTIN' ABILITY: WHEN WE CAPCHUR A PIECE OF LAND, OUR GROTZ AND BOYZ WILL SLOWLY COME TO GUARD DAT LAND AND DEFEND!

Sisters of Battle
Advantages: Mix between SM and IG; cheap infantry, fast reinforcement, good durability and morale. Versatile and powerful vehicles.
Disadvantages: Relic unit; Living Saint is not powerful in damage, use more as support unit. Commanders have mediocre health but make up with faith abilities.
Significant Playstyle: Flamers and meltas are a staple, morale destroyer with flamers, melee units are powerful, 3rd resource is faith; generated by buildings and some units, to use as abilities offensively, defensively, or support.
Starting Ability: Forward base, set up a base before attacking a territory.

Space Marines
Advantages: Diverse and Versatile weaponry to properly counter your opponent, strong durability and morale.
Disadvantages: Expensive infantry, vehicles, and buildings.
Significant Playstyle: Versatile and customizable squads and vehicles allow for versatile gameplay. Attach commanders to squads for full effectiveness.
Starting Ability: Deep strike; get additional units to start with in a battle.

Tau
Advantages: Best range in the game (obviously), kroots, vespids auxilleries to make up for melee, invisiblity, awesome gunships, and powerful battlesuits.
Disadvantages: Worst melee in the game(even more obviouse) No turret/landmines.
Significant Playstyle: Shoot at a distance, elite tier units can either be a more battlesuits and an elite gunship, or better kroot units and upgrades.
Starting Ability: Moon Cannon that weakens defenses.


The story in Soulstorm is almost a carbon copy of Dark Crusade, we have an array of factions flooding to a system with the intension of getting rid of all other factions. The Imperium of Man is at each others' throats again (even the inquisition). The story has some lore contradicting themes such as the 3 factions of the imperium using xenos technology; webway and tau moon cannon, craftworld eldar not tricking enemies to fight eachother, sister of battle fighting aliens and demons despite being the armed wing of witch hunters etc.

Comparing Dark Crusade, there were some major downgrades, character dialogue interactions during stronghold assaults are gone, some voice actors not returning, 4 planets make meta map awkward, and wargear choices are very goofy looking even by 40K standards such as Vance Stubbs holding the plasma gun sideways like a gangster.

Despite Soulstorm being arguably the least impressive of the 4 first Dawn of War games, what made Soulstorm memorable were the memes it spawned; yes the voice acting was bad, but it was so bad it's good, Indrick Boreale has a very laughable accent that made him speak weird. "Batul Brothas!" (Battle Brothers!), "Spehss Mahrens" (Space Marines), "Blud Rehvens" (Blood Ravens), "Empra" (Emporer), "Steel Rehn" (Steel Rain). Not to mention being the baldest and fewlish man in the imperium. Firaeveus Carron screaming "METAL BAWKSES!" when he sees Rhino Transports. Vance "Motherf***ing Stubbs being a fan favorite in Soulstorm because he is the only likable characters other than Gorgutz, and being hailed as the manliest Imperial Guard member 2nd to Sly Marbo, and also sending away 100 baneblades out.

Modders have created mods such as Ultimate Apocalypse for Soulstorm featuring more units, more factions, and bigger battles to fight.

Despite fans wanting the canonical victor to be Imperial Guard, Orks turned out to be victor according to Dawn of War 3- WE'Z BAKK HUMIE, NOW SKRAM YA GROT LUVIN' GIT!!! BEEKUZE WE'Z DA KANON VIKTA OF DA GAME, AND NOT IN DARK KRUSADE, OUR BIG BOSS GURGUTZ TOOK DA NAMES DAEMONKILLA (chaos), GHOSTKILLA (Craftworld Eldar), GUNSMASHA (Imperial Guard), DEATHKILLA (Necrons), BLOODSPILLA (Blood Ravens Space Marines), RAGESCREAMA (Tau), NOT TO MENSHUN PAINKILLA (Dark Eldar), AND BITCHSLAPPA (Sisters of Battle).

Play the first 3 Dawn of War games first before playing Soulstorm.

If you were wonder why is the first Samorost not on Steam, that's because it is a free to play browser game on Amanita Design's official website. The first game was phenomenal for the time it was released at (2003). Blending drawings with photographs of nature and technology creating beautiful graphics. Such art design is unique for this series.

Now with Samorost 2, it still has the unique art style of nature, technology, and cartoons. The game is longer, there are more puzzles, a new story, and better music. Puzzles were difficult at times but can be solved.

If you like point and click games, unique art styles, short games, and/or you played the first Samorost, you should buy this game when it is on sale for a low price.

Edit 05/11/2020
Today an update was released for the 15th anniversary. Glad to see Amanita Design still acknowledges this masterpiece. Better graphics, better interface, remastered sound, and 60 FPS to match up with the other games by Amanita Design, also easy unavoidable achievements.

If you've played Half Life, you know it was the dawn of an incredible FPS series. If you played Half Life: Opposing Force, you know it gave us new weapons, gameplay elements, story, and lore. Now with Half Life: Blue shift, you get to see the events of Half Life from a new perspective; through one of the security guards Barney Calhoun. This time, with less variety of weapons, shorter story, simpler puzzles, Blue Shift isn't really as big of a banger than the original Half Life, nor Opposing Force. But still, it introduced us to a new character, Barney Calhoun who will be a reoccuring character in future Half Life titles.

Thanks to Blue Shift and Opposing Force, Gearbox Software got kickstarted to bring us good quality games, however only a few games such as the Borderlands series is magnificent. Thanks to Valve, they are going to bring back Half Life with Half Life: Alyx. It's not what the fans asked for, we wanted Half Life 3, but we will take it. Finally after 12 years, Valve is back to working on Half Life.


Edit 18/05/2020
Valve released Half-Life:Alyx, if Half-Life 3 were to ever be released, Valve stated themselves they want it to revolutionize the video game industry so we all have to be patient.

If you played the original Half-Life, you would really enjoy Opposing Force. An expansion for the already revolutionary Half-Life following a new protagonist, Adrian Shepherd. Opposing Force introduces new gameplay elements such as new weapons, a grappling hook, squad interactions which was later inplemented to Half-Life 2, etc. Story was a focus on the marines' perspective during the events of Half-Life. Also got more hints and story to the mysterious G-man in the last game. Definitely a must play if you enjoyed the original Half Life.

Some annoying issues with the game is the glitches, dated AI, and crashes, but we can all ignore that.

Thanks to Half-Life Opposing force, it helped kickstarted Gearbox Software that later gave us Borderlands Series but sadly, Borderlands and a few other titles were really excellent games and other titles such as Duke Nukem Forever, Aliens: Colonel Marines, Battleborn were quite crappy. Finally Valve is taking development to Half-Life: Alyx which hopefully would bring Half-Life series back from the dead, and hopefully we could see a future story with Adrian Shepherd.


Edit 18/05/2020
Valve released Half-Life:Alyx, if Half-Life 3 were to ever be released, Valve stated themselves they want it to revolutionize the video game industry so we all have to be patient.

When I was told to buy Counter Strike: Global Offensive, I decided to buy the Counter Strike collection because it was a Steam sale. It came with Condition Zero, Deleted Scenes reminded me alot of the original Half-Life obviously because Counter Strike is a mod for Half Life. 7 hours of campaign fighting terrorism across the globe. Anybody who likes Goldsrc counter strike if they don't mind playing a campaign instead of multiplayer, half life players because this is obviously similar should play Deleted Scenes as well.

Detention ("Back to School"返校) is a point and click horror game made by Red Candle Games. The story takes place in Taiwan during the "White Terror" era in Taiwanese history where the ruling Kuomingtang (Nationalist Party) imposed strict martial law because of communist mainland China. This is an interesting time period to use as it is rarely depicted in popular culture. The main character Ray gets waken up by another student Wei, they must get out of their school.

Gameplay is your average point and click adventure game, collecting items, solving puzzles, just like point and click flash games I used to play when I was younger. Puzzles were sometimes difficult, but most of the time they were understandable.

Plot and atmosphere were the main selling point of Detention. Atmosphere was eerie, creepy, nerve wracking. The monsters that appear in the game are that from traditional Chinese culture and fairy tales. To get past monsters, you need to hold your breath and hope they don't notice you. This can be seen as parallel to what Taiwanese citizens have to go through when around government officials. It was scary walking past/being around both, holding breathe represents not talking taboo subjects/wrongthink around Kuomingtang members.

The plot was not given canonically but was revealed one by one in cutscenes, atmosphere, collectables etc. The plot was very interesting and good to give as little spoilers as possible. Play the game for yourself and you will see why.

Replay value is limited to an alternate good ending and achievements so replaying is not really fun when you know the story already. Speaking of achievements, the achievements are easily obtainable and can be collected in 1 or 2 playthroughs.

Overall, Detention is very symbolic, atmospheric, horrifying in a good way, shocking, and a job well done for portraying the White Terror era of Taiwan and traditional Chinese/Taiwanese culture to western audiences.

One last thing is about Red Candle Games' latest release "Devotion". On release it was a huge success, but there was an unintended easter egg about Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh. Because most of the fan base is in mainland China, they quickly gave Devotion negative reviews. When Red Candle Games patched it out and gave a public statement it was unintentional, people were still mad. Then Devotion was removed and the review bomb got to Detention. I personally condemn review bombing of genuinely good games and everyone who's intelligent would agree.

Now with the issue of Red Candle Games having not come out and, would only re-release Devotion if people would forgive them and give them a second chance. That most likely would never happen, so the most likely way for Red Candle Games to re-release Devotion is when Xi Jingping passes away, the CCP loses all power, or when Xi realises censoring Winnie-the-Pooh makes him the biggest snowflake who has ever lived and uncensors Winnie-the-Pooh.

Even though Red Candle Games is almost dead at this point, the new Detention movie based on the game is released, people have enjoyed it, and I will be looking forward to view the movie once the English sub/dub gets released.

First of all, what I liked about the game is that it reminds me of the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books I read a few years ago. Each action could lead you to your death which puts you back to the beginning to continue another adventure. The game is in a fantasy world where a plague is destroying the land, you are a farmer who is going to save the land. The game is dark, and the pictures are drawn black and white in creepy yet beautiful sketches which reflects on the dark themes of the game. I like the multiple endings which some I had to look up a guide, the easy achievements which every ending gives.

If you ever read and loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were younger, like visual novels, dark atmospheres, short games, and easy achievements. This game is for you!

All I can write is that people are angry about Epic Game Store buying exclusivity rights to Borderlands 3 and review bombing the current Borderlands games. I want to say I would thank GearBox Software for giving me a free remaster of Borderlands GOTY edition, for making a great series, but no thanks to Randy Pitchford for giving exclusivity rights to Epic Games Store. I will be writing a better review in the future when I fully finish the game.