Recent reviews by TurtleSwift

First and foremost, this is a puzzle game. If you don't enjoy puzzle games, you won't enjoy Portal Constructor: Bridged. There is more to do with bridge constructing then there is placing portals. Frankly, you don't get to place portals - ever. You have two tools at your disposal and they both revolve around constructing bridges so paper cutouts of enrichment center workers can drive forklifts around the facility while they contemplate on the story of Shenmue.

Second order of business: Portal. This game does a fantastic job at recreating the Portal atmosphere - the comedic side of it at least. They have the real Glados, companion cubes, turrets, orange goo, blue goo, models and sounds from Portal and sometimes... there's... should I even say it?... cake. Everything is all faithfully represented here.

Third times a charm: I found the game fun all throughout my playing. I did not finish it but completed about 75% of it in my 9 hours of playing. I felt this was enough to warrant a positive review and don't feel like playing anymore would change the experience much. Its good at what it does and lacks only some final polish. I felt like some tools were missing like the ability to remove a whole section of a bridge. In later levels you are required to create very large bridges and when you eventually find out its not going to work, you need to go double clicking on every section to remove it. It gets tedious but I guess I'm just nitpicking..

Fourth and final warning: Puzzle fans only will enjoy this faithfully themed Portal game. The price is right and the product delivers. Glados runs a tight ship.

SteamWorld Dig 2 is a game where you dig. Can you dig it? Don't worry, it's not as cringe as I'm trying to be right now. If you've ever played the first game, I'm happy to report the sequel is more of the same without becoming boring or trying something new to appease the hip new crowds and widen its demographic. The recipe works, hopefully they won't beat that horse too much.

So, basically you play a cowboy robot stuck in a wild western town that has trouble coming its way. Now you get to dig down, collect gems, sell said gems, upgrade your gear and dig some more. Sometimes you will find gears that help you upgrade some more stuff and sometimes you will bump into evil creatures that lurk deep in the depths of the massive hole you've dug yourself into. These provide some simple combat with enemy variety being in the lower digits but the game isn't that long, so I'll give it a pass. The monotony of digging is also broken down with smaller challenge levels offering environmental puzzles and rewarding with upgradable gear and collectibles.

That's generally all there is to it. The main loop consists of dig to collect gems > return to town to sell & upgrade > return to digging. It's a simple formula that works well. It feels fun, the controls feel right and on point, visuals are sharp and colorful. The game world is open (limited to gear level) and the environments in it are diverse enough to not feel monotone. Levels designed to hide secrets that either offer gear upgrades or a secondary objective of finding collectibles - and a reward that goes beyond the overdone collect X items achievement.

I liked SteamWorld Dig 2. It's a sit back, relax kind of game. Plays wonderfully well on a controller, looks great and took me ~11 hours to beat.

In a dark hangar they stood, the three soldiers of time. Saying goodbye to what they hold dear to their hearts. For the day after, they will be gone. Gone from space, but not from time. Armed with powerful mechs, only they can prevent humanity's demise. Hold on for dear life and fight to the very last end, for you are humanity's last hope. Push on hard into the breach!

Ok, the game is not as corny as that, sorry. Into the breach is a turn-based combat game in which you control three powerful mechs with different abilities to defeat waves of enemies.
This is not your traditional turn based strategy mind you. The battles take place on small maps in a few rounds and are usually over under 5 minutes. Battles are connected in a series after which comes a boss battle. Win enough boss battles and go for the end game boss. After each battle you get to pick the map you will fight on next, which allows you to plan on the resources you will be fighting for in the battle. Said resources allow you to upgrade your mechs. I feel like this mechanic is used well here. The short battles do feel more like something you'd expect on a mobile platform. It is a far cry from the 40+ min dota games or even the 15+ min xcom battles. But it feels right. Battles never feel like they've overstayed their welcome. Environments change rapidly and each presents its own set of challenges. Smaller maps mean you do have the overview of the whole playing field and can explore every possible angle of attack. All moves are shown before you commit to an attack so you know exactly how each turn is gonna go down beforehand.

Mechs are presented as sets of a squad. Each of which has three mechs - usually one support, one ranged and one tank. There are 8 (+1 secret) squads available with each having its own play style. This is what gives the gameplay its flavor. Some focus on brute force kinetic energy destruction, some on disabling the enemies, some on pushing them out of harms way - or into harms way!

And yes, a passive play through is possible! Enemies come in similar colors, but usually focus on destruction - either of you or other objectives or buildings you are there to protect.
I don't want to make the comparison with FTL because it is a vastly different game and Into the breach is generally shorter with less replayability as well. The soul is there but it is embodied by a whole different game entirely. Into the breach relies on achievements as challenges to unlock different squads. This creates a circular dependency chain in which you 1. play the game - 2. earn achievements (beat challenges) - 3. unlock squads to play the game differently.

So how does it play? Like I said, the characters are the gameplay. Each presents its own restrictions and solutions to each problem. I've rarely encountered a problematic battle I couldn't solve - It happens, but if it does, Its usually your own fault. A little bit of logical thinking goes a long way.

Into the breach is a fun little gem. It took me 36 hours to complete 100% (though this time includes a lot of time wasting just to have some fun). This doesn't mean the game is this long, A full playthrough can be done in usually 30 minutes to an hour if you take your time. If you like turn based combat where thinking and planing out your moves is actually beneficial give this a shot. Its one of the best games to come out of 2018.

Shadwen is a 3rd person stealth game taking place in a medieval town in which you play the role of... well Shadwen, a female assassin tasked with getting a little girl out of there because she stole an apple. Ehh.. the story is a little lackluster and doesn't make very much sense. At least the gameplay is good right? Well, sort of. Graphics are good though.

There's a lot wrong with Shadwen (the game, not the girl). The art assets well reflect a medieval town drenched in rain and darkness with facades and town rooves matching the fairy tale like time period. But the setting is overused and uninspiring. Level after level feels like you are walking down the same cobblestone corridors, seeing the same crates and barrels and bathing in the same moonlight blue glow mixing with orange from fires lit to keep the town guards warm. The gameplay consists of hiding and if you want, killing guards. Shadwen uses a grappling hook to ascent onto ledges from which she can traverse most of the levels fairly quickly. The use of this mechanic is simple but is not without its hindrances. I found myself jumping over ledges instead of just grappling onto them more times than I'd like and I'd attribute this to just bad control design. The game does make this not much of a nuisance by freezing time when you aren't moving. When you jump, for instance. you stay frozen mid air and only make time move forward by pressing a certain button or making another action. In addition to this you are able to move time backwards indefinitely. Not as any powers Shadwen may posses but just as a godlike game mechanic. I think it fits well with the assassin like gameplay. So as mentioned before, guards are the enemies and you can either kill or distract them so your apple stealing thief friend can move past them. I found the lethal method to be the most fun and dynamic. You are given certain tools you can craft by finding items in levels and most of these tools are lethal ones like bombs, mines and poison darts. The non lethal one is basically just a mouse under a bucket let go to distract the guards. And even that one can be used to stick a bomb to it. It feels like the lethal approach was designed first in mind with the non lethal a distant second. Killing is done by one hitting guards in the back on close range and failing is done by being seen by other guards.

Making heavy use of gravitational physics and fairy tale like English accent (and setting), the game certainly has tokens of that Frozenbyte flair. Surmising, I can say Shadwen is a fun game but lacks any real depth in any of its gameplay mechanics or story. Albeit overused, it does feel esthetically pleasing. It took me 6 hours to beat once (lethal). I would recommend it at a reduced price so if you like assassin games, there is some fun to be had here, just don't set your hopes up too high.

There's something about Undertale... something one cannot ignore or forget. Indeed the community has been vocal about this particular title, putting John Lennon's immortal words of being bigger than Jesus to shame. Sorry John, Undertale now ranks above the lord. But just to put it back on solid ground: it is just a game with just a little out of hand fan base. Still an unforgettable experience mind you.

I will not go into much detail about what makes Undertale... Undertale, but a summation would boil it down to fantastic 8bit music, quirky lovable characters and the range of emotions it is capable of invoking in you. Gameplay consists of linear exploration of a 2D top down world, interacting with characters and battling it out (or not) in short bullet hell combat sequences. Writing is comedic most of the time, drawing influence from internet culture, but can be serious or more relaxed when there is call for it. The excellent background music fits each character interaction well and tonality of the situation and the character can be sensed from the music alone. Even before a new character says anything, the music playing will tell you their intentions. Visually the game may feel a little behind at times but you will be moving through the world at a steady pace, nothing will feel repetitive. The great thing about Undertale is that every interaction feels unique. You move to new locations with different climates portrayed in with different colors, meeting different characters with different traits, battling different ways and doing different things all while listening to different music. It doesn't get old. An impressive feat for an one man developer to achieve.

I'd recommend this game to anyone with just a little bit of an open mind. The music is great and you can expect internet culture referenced humor with a bit of an anime flair to it. Combat optional but bullet hell based. I did only one playthrough in six hours but apparently the more you do, the more you will love the game. I'd say ignore the fandom and judge the game for what it is. A high quality experience at an affordable price. And yes, expect the soundtrack to be making top ten lists for a while.

Never Alone is an adventure platformer consisting of some light puzzle solving and a blatant disregard for solid gameplay principles. It's hard to control but easy to love.

Built on the rich Inuit culture, Kisima Ingitchuna encompasses art, story, language, characters based on the history and folklore of those peoples. The presentation of this is mostly done in a solid manner. Inuit art and language are used for cutscenes as well as the story being a traditional Iñupiaq tale. By playing the game, unlockable videos also provide insight into some of the concepts and items behind the game.

The gameplay takes place in a 2D tundra world where obstacles provide the meat of the light puzzle solving where not too much thinking is required. The basic concept here being switching between Nuna and Fox where both have their own skills to help the other. The theory being when you move one, the other will follow (if you opened the path for them). This however does not always work as expected as I found myself having to switch between characters frequently as the other would just not do what I wanted and sometimes even killed themselves. The developers did include a local co-op mode so the second character can be controlled by a human. I recommend you try that.

Controlling the characters is a whole other can of beans. Characters feel heavy when moving, shooting the Bola is imprecise, swimming is.. well lets just say Mario would win gold in Olympic swimming on his day off after he had too much to drink the night before, Luigi would be second, Nuna and Fox would be disqualified for drowning. Controlling the kayak (DLC) is basically impossible.

Never Alone does a beautiful job of presenting itself. It has an unique concept tied to it and the execution of its artistic values are done well. Technically, it's a bit of a mess especially in the controls department. Gameplay is passable but too shallow for my taste. It's weak in puzzles and platforming and can hardly stand on its own adventure. There's no real depth to anything apart from the story if you can delve past the ambiguity of it. It's a shame because it is artistically very pleasing.

I don't think the game is worth the full price but you should try it just the same. If nothing else, it does provide insight into Inuit culture and hey, you can play as a fox.

Remember Me? Nope. Someone stole my memories. Who? I don't know... they stole my memories? Oh... k. What now? Imma steal them back. How? Gonna beat up random bums on the street.

Remember me is your typical third person action adventure game. The Beyond Good and Evil recipe of linear progression and button mashing fighting sequences with a lot of climbing in the style of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Maybe throw in some Mirrors Edge and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey for seasoning in there.

Souviens-toi de moi takes place in future "Neo" Paris where memories can be digitized and traded. Societal collapse ensured! People are trading their memories away (or stolen) until they have none left and end up living as empty shells in slums. Our protagonist, Nilin, has had her memories stolen and delves into the quest of getting them back. Luckily she can steal and remix memories herself and can hit harder than Zangief.

The gameplay mainly consist of traversing makeshift sheet metal homes of the Paris slums, lustrous apartments of the privileged few, old city rooftops, an industrious prison complex and futuristically furnished office spaces. The heavy linear progression is done in the style of running and climbing ledges and various other environmental objects. Exploration is not rewarded as straying from the path laid out by the developers usually results in death. Wonder what is hidden below this ledge? Let's see... hmm... you just died. This monotony is broken up with frequently occurring fighting sequences. Fighting is done with combo building button mashing kicks or punches. Button combos are fixed to four different ones (ex. one being : X-X-X) but can be expanded upon by adding abilities (called pressens) to them. Four such abilities exist; damage, heal, cooldown, link (multiplies the previous pressen). Meaning you can build a combo that damages more, heals you and cools down your skills. Pressens are unlocked by leveling up which is in term is done by fighting enemies. Skills are available to help in fights but are not upgradable. Fighting is fluid and landing combos not hard but can be frustrating when against large crowds as you will have to dodge hits and possibly mess up your combos. It works most of the time and is satisfactory due to needing to change your approach for different enemies.

On a small amount of story based occasions, you get the ability to remix memories. You enter the mind of someone and edit certain objects in a given memory to change the outcome of it and influence their actions in the real world. It is a fun way to explore the story behind Remember me and seeing different outcomes can be hilarious and sad. I feel like this was the strongest part of the game and it’s a shame so few of these sections are available.

My main problem whiles playing Remember Me is the janky movement and jumping, less than fluid control while climbing edges and pipes and a scripted camera that is all too willing to take control away from you. Looking at the story, I don’t see how any person would be influenced in such a way by such an insignificant event – in the grand scheme of things. A little more polish would have done this game good but some more time developing it, adding more choice based content would have changed it completely. Imagine if the remix sequences had different outcomes you could influence by changing memories characters have of certain events, therefore changing the outcome of the main story. It's nice to think of the what if but this is not that game.

All in all I was satisfied with my 12 hour playthrough. It can be janky at times but in the end its nothing game breaking. The game plays fine and if you liked any of the other games mentioned above, I see no reason you would not like Remember Me.

PS: Victoria Chase from Life is Strange is totally Olga from Remember Me.

To sum up SteamWorld Heist is not hard; worms style 2D turn based combat with a little bit of X-Com flair when moving. While at the same time staying its own game and taking only the steam punk esthetic from its predecessor, SteamWorld Dig.

So the game plays as follows: fly your ship between checkpoints in space - a map or hub area if you will. These may be space station bars where you get your drink on (what do robots drink anyway?), buy weapons and other equipment or hire other scrappy robots which can be used as units in battle. Other areas, enemy ships, is where you will be spending most of your time, battling it out and collecting loot to use or money to spend. Sometimes you may come across a lonesome space station selling hats at outrageously high prices...

So the bulk of the game is spent in battles and the combat system is well polished to make that time fly by. You enter a semi randomly generated map (station) with usually two or three teammates equipped with weapons and accessories of your choosing. Each round gives you a movement and attack phase in which you can either hide for cover or attack (sometimes both). Since step count is limited, it is important to find a location in which you will be hard to hit yet still easy to hit your enemy from. It is a simple design that may lack some depth. I would love to have the ability to have one of my teammates just defend a position and shoot whomever wanders into its line of sight but right now all a defending teammate does is cower behind a barrel and get hit if an enemy chooses show who has the biggest metal sack. Attacking is more engaging and rightfully more fun. An assortment of weapons is available all wealdable by its specific class of character. Your everyday pistols, scoped weapons offer bouncing bullets, high spread shotguns, high rate-of-fire multiple shot rifles, AOE line of sight RPG explosions, arching grenade launcher AOE explosion and metal to brass fists all offer different playstiles and entry points to each situation one may find oneself in. I particularly enjoyed scoped weapons which offere laser sights for their easy of use in bouncing bullets off walls to hit harder to hit enemies. Since headshots provide a higher damage output, these were particularly useful. A good combination of different characters with different weapon sets does the job fine while mixing it up just a little bit as to not get too monotonous while shooting only one tipe of weapon (as if it ever could). The reward for clearing out these outposts is usually more gear to use for the next mission or money to buy yet more gear OR a fancy hat or two. Hats are the money sink that makes the economy work as you will soon have enough money to have all equipment you need. It's an alright system that seems to work fine with most virtual macro economies, here being no different.

Each map sector ends with a boss fight in which all your skills will be tested against a fairly stronger enemy. The difficulty of these are nicely tuned and provide ample release of dopamine.

Esthetically SteamWorld Heist reminds me of Firefly (Tv Series, 2002) albeit with a cartoony overlay. Space ships looking like the scifi future movies promise swapped for coal powered furnaces and steam turbines. Ships held together by sheet metal and rivets. A world populated by robots wielding guns, wearing fancy hats and everything generally feeling like the wild west in space. The music consolidates this idea of steam punk wild west robots in space. Guitar, banjo, bass, fiddle and a strong vocal presence that tells stories of robots are exactly what one would expect from a world such as this. The Band Steam Powered Giraffe[steampoweredgiraffe.bandcamp.com] are personified as robots and can be found in any bar in the game playing their music. I sometimes visited just for the music.

SteamWorld Heist is a great game to relax with and not stress over too much. Core gameplay containing simple tactical turn based gameplay. It clearly defines goals and provides extra rewards for extra work / exploration. A pleasant to look at esthetic and guitar heavy soundtrack with some rather fine folksy vocals. It took me 17 hours to beat the game and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Hey, remember that game Doom? Remember how it was that one first game that gave you a gun and a first person view of you using said gun to shoot some things? Yeah that game. That game was great. This one is a lot like it.

So, we are back on Mars, some stuff has gone down and it's up to you to do the things you do best - shooting guns and boy do you shoot a lot of guns. Of course all the classics are back and they all feel absolutely fantastic. Fluid firing & reload animations, fast draw speeds, sufficient kickback all contribute to a great experience when using them. All weapons now also offer improvements by means of mods which alter how they work. The shotgun, for example, can have an explosive shot mod which can be improved further with smaller effects allowing you to use it in more than one way. Mods are acquired by reaching certain locations in levels and improvements can be bought with points you rank up through the game and completing challenges. Its all done in an indirect fashion so all these improvements or mods never get in your way and offer some extra fun along the way. Your suit also offers upgrades gained by collecting certain items that boost your passive abilities. Finally runes can be found in the game which port you to a small arena and give you a challenge to complete and on successful completion, unlock and offer you an ability to use (example: survive one deadly hit).

As you may have guessed, this is a first person shooter (no, really.) so core gameplay will revolve around shooting demons. Doom is about fast paced action and its gameplay reflects that rather nicely. You move hastily through levels, wield fast switching and responsive weapons and tear through demons like a hot knife through butter. Glory kills are a thing and reward players with ammo and health for grabbing unsuspecting demons by the head and stomping on them like one would stomp in a trash bit to make room for more trash. Headshots pop off heads, shotguns rip apart demons and the chainsaw makes you laugh an evil laugh you did not know you had. Level designs feature futuristic Mars base interiors, complex large maps that follow a linear path but stay open for the most part and open further where large battles take place. This recipe works and stays the same throughout the game but switches the Mars internal base esthetic for red rocks, red sky and hell fire on about 40% of the levels.

Doom is a bit different from its predecessor, Doom 3. Closed claustrophobic and dark corridors are instead replaced by large open well lit environments reflecting the nature of the fast paced shoot em up combat in contrast to the more horror theme Doom 3 was going for. Graphically it has improved tremendously: high quality models and textures provide a high fidelity experience while not necessarily too demanding on the hardware. On a mid range PC, I had the game running on 50-60 FPS on ultra settings at 1080p. Included is a map maker and an arena shooter multiplayer mode that feels as good as any arena shooter would with a coat of Doom on top. The campaign barely offers a story to follow but there is enough there to grease the wheels of this gravy train enough to get it going. 15 hours was my time spent with it.

The bits and pieces of this game work together to make the whole package feel great. 1. Fast paced movement and shooting trough large maps feel fluid. 2. Demon spawns are plentiful and kills reward the player with marvelous gore. 3. Aided by the soundtrack composed by Mick Gordon featuring fast tempo on lower tone guitars and heavy beating drums. I never thought I would like industrial metal so much. The screaming demons on my favorite track, BFG Division, always get me.

DOOM is an ode to the FPS of old, pays homage to its roots and upgrades itself with unlockable mods that only provide more action at the expense of nothing else. If you came looking for a story, look elsewhere. If you are here for action, there is no better place to be.

The light is dying, you are alone
stop your crying, you're in a safe zone.

Dying Light is a zombie infested open world action adventure game with RPG elements, a very fun combat system and a campaign story that drives it all forward. It has its frustrating faults but not enough of them to ruin the experience.

So, you are thrown into a zombie infested slum city and you need to survive. Do you pick up that tire iron on the floor there? Climb the tallest building, curl up in a ball and cry? Run like that one dude in that movie? It's up to you, Dying Light does not care how you play and just rewards you for doing anything but dying. There are three different progression systems: agility; level by running & climbing, power; points for killing things, survivor; helping people and progressing. All systems offer ability points to spend on passive and active skills that can sometimes be a hit and miss. Some improve the gameplay while others actually hinder your abilities (yay grappling hook, nay tic tac wall jumping).

The "agility" aspect of the game, a more passive approach, is all about running around zombies, climbing buildings assassin's creed style and general parkour shenanigans. While "power", a more aggressive play style, offers different ways to killing zombies such as ground pounding with heavy melee weapons or conjuring shrapnel explosives for maximum blood spray. While gunpowder based weapons exist and are plentiful later in the game, the meat of the action is melee combat. Light and heavy weapons weigh off speed vs damage and feel right when wielding. Katana swords swiftly cut through flesh and rotten bone whiles heavy axes bludgeon and crush skulls. Weapons do break and will have to be fixed (limited amount) and later replaced for better ones. Weapons can also be modified for extra damage, speed and conditional effects such as electricity, poison or fire.

Of course this would all be nothing without a zombie wonderland to explore. The campaign takes you around two different stylized maps: Brazilian-like slum ridden outskirts and a European styled old town. Both are large enough to get lost in and provide a handful of things to do. Quarantine zones - filled with lots of loot and zombies, different challenges based on the agility and power play styles mentioned earlier, safe houses to secure and side quests that can be fun (and some are fairly well written) but the majority revolves around fetch quests. A saddening fact considering the writers had such an unique world to play with. Luckily the main campaign story is more entertaining. You can of course forgo the story and play at your own pace. After all it is a sandbox at its core.

I played the game in co op and had a lot of fun doing it. 30 hours spent while I could easily dive in for more. If you like killing zombies, fast paced action in an open world with a sense of direction if only you need it, look no further.