First Impression: We Happy Few (PC – Steam) ~ Pop Goes The Joy

Wikipedia page – Steam page – Official website

Being happy is a wonderful thing. Now imagine that you can take a happiness pill that makes you happy and joyful all the time. And on top of that, imagine that participation is mandatory, and you live in bliss… That’s the situation we have in We Happy Few, the game I want to talk about today. Now, to say that this game had a rocky release with a lot of bugs and glitches is an understatement. But, now that the game isn’t in early access and out for several years and the last update being from 2019, I think it’s the best time to take a good look at this game and if it’s really worth our time or that we should pop a Joy to cover up this game. Also, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of this article and/or this game. Ready, let’s go!

Pop goes the Joy

In We Happy Few, we take on the role of Arthur. Somebody who is working for the newspaper and censoring unhappy articles. When he suddenly sees a picture of his brother, he gets a lot of flashbacks that makes him stop popping his mandatory Joy. What is Joy? Well, like I explained in the introduction paragraph of this article, it’s a drug that makes people extremely happy and that’s mandatory to take or else you will be killed or exiled to the slums. People who don’t take Joy and don’t see the dangers of the world be camouflaged by the drug’s effects are called Downers and are shunned by all the Joy takers.

Now, how did the world get to this place? Well, that’s something for you to find out. The concept and setup of this game is excellent and I personally think it’s amazing. I feel like I’m playing a game like Bioshock or Prey again. Somewhat open-world yet linear-ish games that take you on a journey through a deep and rich story. And from what I have played so far, We Happy Few certainly delivers upon that front in my opinion.

Couple this with amazing voice acting that really helped me to get even more immersed into the world and the game, I don’t have any complaints about the story and the delivery. The pacing is also good. Everything gets some depth, but it doesn’t stay on one subject for too long. Some sections feels a bit too small in my opinion but thinking about it again, it would ruin the great world building that this game does.

I can forgive the fact that there are a lot of lines repeated when you talk to the townsfolk because the way the towns are populated adds so much to the atmosphere, and it makes the game even more immersive. The fact I can interact with every person on the street, and they play a random line with the accompanying animation, it’s delightful. If this concept is tried again, I think it would be great if it had a bit more lines and variations between the townsfolk.

Anyways, that’s more then enough about the story and the setting. Let’s talk about the other aspects of this game. It’s possible that even when this game has a nice story and setting, the game isn’t fun to play. Remember that I talked about various technical issues in the opening paragraph of this article? Well, I’m sad to say that there are still several technical issues. Thankfully, most of them are visual oddities but nothing game breaking anymore. I once had a dead enemy instead of dying, t-posing and following me around the map.

Only I time during a mission, I was afraid that my save file got cursed by a technical glitch, but exiting and restarting the game solved that issue with me loosing only 2-ish minutes of progress, since that isn’t too bad. The auto-saving in this game works miracles! And you can still manually save whenever you wish in 10 save slots just in case you want to experiment in this game. Or want to make a safety save or make a safe you can use whenever you want to also finish side quests.

Emotional Telephone Booths

You could play this game without using any Joy, but I highly recommend against it. Simply because it isn’t that much fun always running from everybody, and the stealth in this game isn’t that good to hide away. Since, when you are seen, you can’t hide until you are off the radar, and you find a good spot. And if you think, let’s fight the enemies then… Do think again. Since, when you get violent, people act like Zombie Pigman in Minecraft. They make other people around you hostile, and you quickly get piled up.

In those moments, it’s recommended you find a telephone booth to pop Arthur’s favorite strawberry Joy and try to go to an area where the folks people aren’t angry at you. Since, the Joy is a timed mechanic. At the upper left part of your screen, you see a sort of timer that indicates for how much longer you under the effects of Joy. When that meter runs out, you better find a source of Joy OR hide from the surrounding people, since not taking Joy is a crime. Oh, and don’t overdose on Joy either since that’s going to be a bad trip.

So, how does this game play like? Well, this game is more a sort of adventure game. You can pick up various items to either play this game more stealthy, or play like me and go all in and don’t care about what happens. The difficulty of this game highly depends on how good you understand the mechanics of this game. Do you understand the crafting system and where each item spawns or do you understand how to skill tree works and how to use your points to buy the best abilities…

Something that you will have to understand is how the compass at the middle of your screen works. It tells you a lot about your situation and nearby quests. You can even select which quest you are tracking, like in the Fallout games. I wish other games had that too, since in Prey for example… You have several tracks on the screen that all lead to your active quests. Sometimes markers even say: “multiple objectives”.

There are several other mechanics in this game like a hunger, thirst and sleep system. While those meters can deplete, they don’t affect the game too much, sadly. Most of the effects in the game you have from this system is that your stamina depletes a bit faster, and you have to attack more. It’s a shame, really, since it could be an amazing mechanic. It feels undercooked and it shows. The fact that finding food and drinks in the world isn’t easy, or beds for that matter.

So, when you lose all your health, you get set back at the latest checkpoint, and you can try again. Overall, the game is somewhat forgiving in my opinion. I have seen games that are more difficult. I personally felt I was able to breeze through the game somewhat and if I did die or hit a roadblock, just trying it again from another angle seemed to help. During my playthrough, I didn’t have a lot of weapons, so I had to improvise and running in the open fields with a quickly recharging stamina bar helped me quite a lot. Since, most enemies aren’t THAT fast.

Something this game does quite well in the UI. I find the UI spotless and to the point. You get a lot of information without it having too much information or getting confusing. Some things in the UI are a bit clunky, like how you can’t multicraft or discard multiple items at once when you are overburdened, but I got extremely quickly used to it.

While this game has some minor negatives, I find this game quite enjoyable to play. I really like solving the puzzle in taking just enjoy Joy and the right items to craft the right things, so I can survive another mission and encounter. Since, experiencing the humor and world building that this game provides is so fitting for the gameplay and so enjoyable.

To Joy or not to Joy

I could start and go nitpicking on how certain animations look a bit weird or how some bodies ragedoll extremely weird, but honestly, I think it doesn’t really matter because the art team of this game did an amazing job on this game. Not only does this game run smoothly on my 1050Ti, it also looks pretty good.

I really have to applaud the effort in the difference you can see if you are or aren’t under the influence of Joy. It looks very differently depending on if you take or don’t take any Joy. And it even looks different when you overdose or take drugs. Speaking of which, I really like the intrusive messages that discourage drug use in real life. It talks about how your combat abilities in the game are improved, but it has very negative and different effects in real life.

Apart from some very occasional nitpicks, visually this game looks great, and I’m sure it’s going to hold up for quite a while. The lush fields and the amazing cities with a lot of attention to detail are really commendable. No wonder that with so much visual stuff going on, that sometimes residents are sitting on the air in front of a bench. You can’t simply account for every edge case. If I can give one sort of nitpick in terms of the visuals, I think a bit more character models for the citizens would be great since once I tried to get the whole city to chase me and I did see a LOT of duplicates… I don’t mind duplicates, but if you have 10-ish of the same guy chasing you… ah well, it ruins the good character model just a bit.

On top of this great visual design, you have some amazing sound design. The sound effects in this game are great. They fit the art style and the atmosphere quite well, and it gave me the right information to assess the situation. And not only that, it helped to immerse me quite a lot into this game. The little sirens for example to let you know you are caught and people are looking for you are a great tool to know you have to escape and hide until the sirens stops.

If you have read my blog in the past, you know I find the music in a game quite important. And does this game deliver? Yes. Yes, it does. The soundtrack is quite pleasing and fits the atmosphere quite well. It wouldn’t surprise me that I’m going to add the soundtrack to my playlists after I have played the game a bit more or if I have beaten it. Actually, I think I might just add it to my playlists after publishing this article.

All in all, this game highly surprised me when I saw the trailer, and I was afraid when I heard the news of the technical issues. But, then I gave this game a try and I have to say that I really like this game. It has its quirks that I had to get used to but it didn’t take long before I was running around with the fluent and responsive controls. I might have to learn the combat system a bit more, but I panic too easily in those sorts of situations and I tend to “mash the attack button and strafe” mostly. Whoops.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, I do. I highly recommend this game to everybody who enjoys playing adventure games in the genre of Bioshock, Prey, Alice in Wonderland… but might want to have a bit less shooting action in the game. It’s a unique game that really deserves a chance. It won’t be a perfect, flawless experience, but it doesn’t matter. And no, I didn’t take a Joy to write this segment. I really do enJoy … sorry, lame pun. I really do enjoy playing this game and can’t wait to see how it continues. Together with Prey, this game is going to fill my summer quite nicely. A summer full of joy and amazing adventures, one in space but this one… it’s an adventure on earth were not following the norm is going to move you forward and it teaches some nice life lessons when you think about it in that way.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. I want to thank you so much for reading this article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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Preview: Spinnortality (PC) ~ Immortal Empire

Official website

Today we are going to take a look at a game that lets you build a huge empire. A game where you can become immortal and conquer the world. The game currently isn’t released to the public, but I got the chance to play the development version. The game will also release on Steam, since it got greenlight. I also want to stress that this article isn’t a paid review or promotion. In this article, you will find my honest opinion on the game. Also, beware, since this game is still under ONE MAN development, things I mention here might change and/or improve in the final version. But enough introducing of the game, it’s time to give this cyberpunk tycoon adventure a start.

The current planned release this is 31st August 2017, but this is subject to change.

Control it all

The goal of this game is to become immortal and conquer the world with your empire. In this game, you can control everything that your mega-corporation does.

Want to get a special law passed in a country? This game has it. Want to control media? Yes, this feature is in the game! Want to rig elections? Guess what, this is also a feature in this game. There is a lot more to do in this game, so it’s advised that you play through the tutorial.

In the press build, I think the tutorial could use some improvement. Since there is a lot you can do in this game, I honestly think that it would be better if you were able to replay certain tutorials. Basically, that you have a list of missions. Each mission is a tutorial. This way a player can replay a tutorial if they want more explanation about a certain part of the game or when they forgot how something worked.

After I played the tutorial sections, one thing was clear to me. This game isn’t for casual players. There is a lot of things you need to keep track of. Since this game is turn based, you could argue that you could play this game in short bursts, but I wouldn’t recommend that.

The gameplay of this game is simple on the surface but it’s very in-depth. The only thing you will need for this game is a mouse. You rarely need the keyboard, only to input your name at the start and/or the name of your save file.

Too much for me

My first few playthroughs of this game left me confused. I honestly think there is too much to do from the start in this game.

After some time, I got used the mechanics of this game. I learned how the game worked after replaying the tutorial for a few times. Again, read the tutorial carefully. I think this game would be improved if there is a “Help” button, where certain things are explained that were explained during the tutorial or like a “What does this thing do?”-sort of button. Where you need to click on and then you click on another button to get some explanation.

Basically, I think the biggest issue in this game is that the game is a bit overwhelming to new comers. If you don’t play a lot of management games, you will get lost in everything you need to keep track off in this game. The game is fun and well put together, but like I said, it isn’t newcomer friendly.

Also, you need to take your time to play this game. If you click on everything just to advance your turn, you will lose all your money before you know it. Take your time and think everything through while playing this game.

In the press build, there were a couple of bugs. But, I’m not going to hold this against the game since I told them all to the developer so he can fix them before the game launches. Most of the bugs were minor things that could be improved.

Spin that globe

So, now that I have talked about the gameplay, I think it’s time to talk about all the other aspects of this game.

I love how you can save and load your game at any time. This is very handy since when you made a wrong move, you can easily load an older save file to try and fix your mistake.

Visually, the game nailed its theme. The game looks quite good for being created by one man. I really liked the animation of the moon going around the globe, very well done. While there is a lot to keep track off, the UI is very well built too. All icons give a great representation of what options you could find where. The only thing I would improve is to make sure you can easily see what’s a clickable feature and what not.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the music. I really enjoy melodic music, and this game doesn’t have that. Is the music bad? No, I have heard and played games with much worse music. The music adds a lot to the theme and presentation of the game, but it isn’t my cup of tea. Some tracks were enjoyable like the menu theme, but some tracks used in this game weren’t to my liking.

During my play sessions, I had one idea I would love to see implemented in the game. When you start a new game, you can choose a region where you start. This will also decide your currency. You could take this idea even further with making it more tricky to change laws in other parts of the world. For example, a European based country has it more difficult with changing a law in the North America.

But, that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. It’s time to give my final thoughts.

In conclusion, at its current state, I don’t think it’s ready for release just yet. It needs some polish to be “easier” for non-management gamers to understand the game. Apart from some minor bugs, everything works pretty well.

The game is interesting and unique. Would I recommend this game? Currently, I would recommend it to people who enjoy games like Europa Universalis IV and games of that nature. Otherwise, this game isn’t for you and you might not enjoy this game at all. This game truly has potential to become a great game, but it still needs some work.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

Note: The developer told me that he will work on making the experience better for newcomers when the game is released.

Rant: First Impression: The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures (PC/Steam) ~ Major Letdown.

Steam Store link

As a big fan of online video of gaming like AVGN, I was really looking forward to a game of him. When I pre-ordered it on Steam, I tried to not hype myself up. This way I could go in with an open mind as possible. And when I saw that one of the YouTubers I follow posted a screenshot on his Facebook fan page, I knew the game released earlier than it was planned. And man, that’s maybe what the letdown of this game is. Perhaps I don’t get the humor that hold up this game, but this game has various flaws that really break the game for me and make it a whole let less fun. I’m even doubting if this is a game, rather than an ode to James Rolfe. With the game next to me, I’m going to do the article in a sort of “First Impression” style. But list it under rants. Let me as a Neko Nerd rant about this will ya?

Overload of AVGN.

I wouldn’t be surprised that many people will disagree with me and like this game. But hey, let me remind you that opinions differ. I might hate a game you like. But let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on this article and the game. The first issue that I have with the game is the terrible scripting.

If this is a game to honor the work of James Rolfe, I think they made a serious design flaw. But it was a difficult thing to do. Do you make a terrible game like the one James always reviews? Or do you make a great game with terrible games in it? They went for the last option but clearly, the execution is more leaning to the first.

I get that James is sucked into a shitty game, but that doesn’t excuse the  overuse of bad words that public television has to censor. Each one-liner is in this game. And without the voice of James Rolfe to give it character, the annoyance factor kicks in fast.

The first issue is already present at the option screen. This option screen is terrible to work with. Also, this game doesn’t offer any setting to customize your keyboard settings. And the lay-out is laughable. It’s a shame to admit that I have an AZERTY keyboard and I promise you, the lay-out of the keys makes the game even harder than it’s already now.  In addition to that, I have something to nitpick. “Clear Save DataX”. What in the name of game design is that “X” doing there? And why are the stats on that same page? -Sigh- This is going to be harsh.

Unpleasant feelings

It didn’t take long, or I finished the tutorial level. One thing I have to give this game credit for is the fact that this game is wonderful with its source material. But like I mentioned before, they gone way too much overboard.

Graphically, the immersion in the game isn’t really working. While this game gives off an 8/16 bit vibe, the exploding enemies and various other animations are more modern. Also, many things are changed as a reference towards a review of James.

This game is extremely difficult. I love myself some challenge, and I often play a platformer, but this game just isn’t my slice of cake. You barely have any room to move around or carefully plan your strategy. Everything goes way too fast. And the instant death blocks are just a pain in the ——! There are ways to many of them.

There is something I like though is the music. The is extremely well done. I love the soundtrack to this game and in some levels I even want to rip it from the game and put it in my music library. And the sound effects and all that are pretty great too.

But then I go back to the other stuff. While the controls are pretty responsive, the pause menu is a bit frustrating. When you open the menu, you can continue with the same button you opened it. But when you want to exit the level, you need to go to the option for it and press the action button instead of that menu opening key.

Dirty game

Be warned! There is a nudity level in this game. And it’s shamelessly using the games James reviewed in that one Atari episode. Playing it just made me feel unpleasant. Like the level design. It’s great yet way too full of enemies. Not clear which one you can kill and which ones you can’t.

And I was sometimes even able to kill an enemy and later in the same level, it couldn’t be killed. Like the bubbles. Well, that brings me to a major level design flaw in this game. This might maybe be just me but remember what I said about overdoing it? Well, the levels are named after some popular reviews of AVGN. That’s great. Just, you see more Mario type things suddenly appearing in a Castlevania level? What happened here? A game cross over?

Another plus is that the game doesn’t go back to the desktop when I clicked here on my browser to continue writing the review. I’m so glad they added that feature.

Also, I’m disappointed in the fact that everything is a platform level. At least, every 10 levels I played. There are other characters, but I have yet to unlock them. And I haven’t used the power-ups since I barely find them. Possibly that’s because I’m playing on a certain difficulty. At least there is level selection and check points so that makes my pain a bit less hard to bear.

In conclusion, I can say this. This game is a mediocre game. It’s not worth the current price. Nearly 15 bucks is a bit too high. The game isn’t that good quality for that. A price like 7,5 would be way better. This game needs some polishing. Like adjustable controls and a revision of the level design. Is a worth a play? Yes, it’s not terrible, I’m enjoying it, but even with the low expectations, I’m disappointing. I feel that they could have done a lot more than what is in the game. It feels lacking in terms of content. Since it’s only platforming. Also, the high difficulty might be a turn-off to some. But I’m sure that the nudity level is one of the biggest turn-offs! There is nothing wrong with nudity but a whole level and presented like that is just overboard.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this little rant of mine. I’ll do my best to finish and beat this game, so I can fully review it. But this game’ll not be beaten soon since I have a minor disliking for it like shown. But I’m starting to add to something I finished. Jonez out.

Review: James Noir’s Hollywood Crimes (3DS) review ~ A lot of cheese!

Wikipedia

Before I got myself the latest Professor Layton, I played this game on my 3DS. It’s one of the first games I finished on my 3DS. All over the internet, people find this a mediocre game. In this review, I will tell you if I agree or don’t agree. Let’s try to look at this game separate from Professor Layton. This game is created by Ubisoft, the guys behind a load of pet games on the DS and the very successful Assassin’s Creed. Did they create a great game here or are the reviews pulling at the right end calling it mediocre? Let’s solve this bad-boy and crack the codes. Time to review this game on the 3DS. Oh, the game has its own site, but I didn’t link it since it’s inside a collection site of all 3DS games Ubisoft made. But the Wikipedia article contains all your information needs. 

Loads of cheese

Let me tell you, this game suffers from a lot of cheese. Wait, you aren’t following me? Well, the story is extremely cheesy. It’s a story you don’t need to take seriously at all. The story was one I could predict nearing the end.

The voice acting added towards the story being cheesy. I’m glad to see that this story doesn’t take itself seriously and frankly, it helps in this game. The story feels a fresh change of pace instead of having a weak flat story that you barely remember in the end.

The consequence is that the story is somewhat memorable. It has been a few months since I played this game, and I still remember parts of the story. And that are signs of a well-crafted story.

I’m not going to lie or praise a bad story too much, but it isn’t too bad that it takes you out of the experience. The point I’m getting across here is that it does its job but doesn’t go beyond that to try to impress you. But what’s unique is that at the start of the game, you have to take a profile picture of yourself. And then when your character looks in the mirror, you actually get a live feed from the 3DS camera, which is an amazing idea. This pulls you in the game even more since you feel involved.

Creative, yet done before. 

This game gives me the impression to be a very creative one, yet I sometimes felt that some puzzles have been done before. This is mainly because of the unique use of puzzles. There are sliding puzzles and many classics, but there are also new puzzles I haven’t seen a lot in games like these.

Many puzzles are quite challenging. Like the puzzle in the screenshot, I even needed to take out a notepad to make notes. And if a game manages to make you do that, it’s a good game in terms of puzzles. I heard in another review that the puzzles feel fresh, and I agree. In the story, you play in a game show to look for a killer. And thanks to this, you can choose which puzzles you solve. This helps with the replay value of the game and when you don’t feel like solving a sliding puzzle, well, you can take other puzzles.

You also get fan mail and hate mail too. This is an extremely neat addition in the game. It feels a bit like the downloadable puzzles from Professor Layton, but you don’t need to do the effort to actually download them.

The amount of puzzles is great too. As far as I know, there are about 150 puzzles you can solve. And this will take a great deal of your time.

The 3D doesn’t add a lot to the game, but I think that isn’t such a big deal in these puzzle games.

Far from perfect.

Where does this game fall felt on its face? Well, that’s an easy question. The game repeats the story way too much. I rolled my eyes at the number of times the game got stopped where you got an overview of what happened. I have seen games that do this way better. Another Code: R, for example, has a small quiz at the end of each chapter and Professor Layton displays a summary before loading your save file.

Also, the graphics are where I think they made a wrong turn. While the backgrounds and the puzzles look great, the characters actually don’t look all that neat. They feel like early green screen and quickly pasted on the backgrounds. They feel somewhat out of place. And I don’t like it.

Another part of the game that doesn’t do a great job is the music. Normally I remember the music of each game I play but from this game, I can’t remember any melodies. Vaguely I might remember parts, but the music is a missed opportunity.

Also, there is an issue with the length of this game. It might have 150 puzzles, this game can be easily beaten in a few days. The game is short, way too short for this style of game.

And what’s a big shame is, yes there are typo’s in the game! And not one or two, there are a few. Almost like they forgot to proofread this game. An example is this screenshot you can easily find some grammar issues. “TOUCH tiles to highlight a path to cross the grid.” Yup, that’s this game for you.

I’m out of things to say about the game, time for my conclusion.

Conclusion

The good:

+ Unique puzzles.

+ Challenging.

+ Details like fan mail is a nice touch.

+ Your face in the game, man I have never felt more involved.

+ Great freedom in choosing your puzzles.

The bad:

– It’s over way too quickly.

– Graphically, the animation and characters feel dated.

– The music is generic.

– Typo’s in a visual novel?!

– Way too many times you get reminded of what happened.

Conclusion:

Is this a good game? Yes, it is. Is this a great game? No, it isn’t. The game has a certain charm that hasn’t been created in a long time. Yet, it’s too flawed to stand out. It also doesn’t do anything new. It’s just a puzzle game. I can barely bring up arguments to tell you why this game is better than the others.

Comparing this to Professor Layton isn’t doing it any good either. Then this game feels like shovelware. Yet, this game still has its moments. So, if you can pick it up for cheap, I would recommend it.

This game comes recommended as a snack, to play between two game releases you are waiting for. But don’t expect an amazing game. It has too many missed opportunities for that.

Score: 65/100