First Impression: House Flipper (PC – Steam) ~ Renovations On Top

Steam store page – Official website

Sometimes, you just need to give a game or a concept a chance. You’ll never know if it grows on you or not. When I got a Steam key for House Flipper by being a subscriber to Humble Bundle’s Humble Choice, I was intrigued and interested on how this game is going to work. Are we going to flip the houses ourselves or are we going to run a company that does house flipping? Well, it’s the first. We are going to do the house flipping and decorating. And today, I want to take you on a journey with me to talk about my first impressions of this game in my usual Game Quicky format. Where I first mention the good things, then the bad things to wrap up with a conclusion at the end. Oh, and any comments on my work on this article and/or the game are welcome in the comment section down below.

No need to renovate

In this game, you play as a handy man who cleans and renovates houses. The skill set of your character goes from being a painter, electrician, plumber, interior decorator, carpenter… And your character does everything which for some jobs a (whole) crew does.

Honestly, I knew that I wasn’t too good at interior decorating, and it shows. There are several Christmas levels where you have to decorate the house with a lot of decorations. In a lot of cases, my end result often looks like a quickly thrown together mess. But, here is the strange thing about it. I enjoy decorating the houses.

In terms of difficulty: if you want a challenge, look elsewhere. The focus of this game isn’t in being difficult or providing some challenge. It’s more a sort of sandbox-ish type of game where you have to do certain jobs for people and if you want, improve their houses with for example new furniture or nicer decorated walls. Also, the price you earn goes up depending on the materials used and the amount of upgrades you did to the house. This doesn’t mean that the game isn’t rewarding to play. The before and after pictures you get after a job well done are so enjoyable and rewarding.

There are a lot of things you can do around the house. At the start of the game, you’ll unlock each and every skill by tutorial jobs. After these tutorial jobs, you’ll be able to use these skills in your own house and other jobs. The game can get somewhat repetitive if you don’t use the skill/perk system.

The perk system is a great system that helps you do certain tasks more efficient and faster. Image being able to paint three sections of wall at the same time instead of one. Or being able to upgrade your broom to clean faster (To be honest, I wish cleaning worked similar in the real world. Just heaving to wave a mop in the direction of the mess and voilà). Each skill/category has 9 perks in 3 sections. Each time you preform said skill/category a certain amount of times, you get a skill point with which you can unlock an upgrade. Compare it to the skill tree in Skyrim. This system actually compelled me to 100% each job since that made me get closer to new skill points making the next jobs go more smoothly and faster to do.

The controls of this game work flawlessly. This game also works with a controller, but I honestly prefer the mouse & keyboard combo for this game. I find that I have way better control over the game with the mouse and keyboard compared to the controller.

Visually, this game looks amazing. The game looks somewhat realistic while keeping your typical “game” look. Sadly, there are just a few things that look a bit unrealistic, but these don’t really destroy the illusion too much. Something I really like is how this game takes certain possible phobia’s in consideration. There are cockroaches in this game. But if you suffer from Katsaridaphobia, you can disable them right before you see/hear them for the first time. You can change them in glass shards. And to be honest, I find that the mechanic to clean up the glass shards works better and is a bit easier compared to cockroaches, but that’s such a minor detail.

The music and sound effects in this game are quite relaxing. I feel right at ease and relaxed while I’m cleaning and renovating houses. It fits the game like a glove and the sound effects as well. I wish there were more sound effects for some things like for cleaning, placing wall tiles… But that’s always a delicate balance if you put more sound effects in your game or less. Since, too many sound effects can be overwhelming and make the game “too busy”.

There are two styles of gameplay. You can either do jobs where you have a certain requirement of things that need to do be done. This is sort of the adventure mode of the game. Honestly, I have spent most of my time playing this game with the job system. Since, you can use that access money with the other mode. In this mode, you can play on the housing market and really buy, renovate and sell houses. You always have a list of potential buyers and trying to match a house to their needs with their live reactions at the side is a real interesting puzzle.

Now, if you are interested in this game and want to get even more out of it… Well, you can expand this game with additional DLC. You can access most of the main content without the DLC and I can still tell you that this game is still a lot of fun without the DLC. Every DLC adds a handful of missions, new items and new mechanics and expand the game even more. The only negative I have is that the DLC’s are a tad bit expensive in my opinion. I would find a more fair price to be €9,99 instead of €12,5. But oh well, it’s clear that a lot of effort has been put into them and if you are really enjoying the game, I think the DLC is worth it.

This game auto-saves at the interval you set in the options’ menu. And if you leave in the middle of a job, you can continue it when you boot the game back up again. There are some bugs with the cloud saves, but one of the main forum threads has a solution for that. But, the amount of options and things like that in this game is just amazing. You can set almost anything to your hand and I love it.

Something I also really enjoy in this game as well are the achievements. They add additional challenges and charm to the game. They add some replay value, and they even make some jobs unique. Since, if you only stick to the requirements to finish the job… Some achievements can be easily unlocked by later jobs.

Now, something that is amazing is that this game also supports the Steam Workshop! So, if you don’t find what you are looking for in the base game or DLC… You can visit the workshop and look at the over 16000 items on it.

Renovations needed

Overall, the UI is close to perfect. But, at this moment of writing, the text entered into the tablet has some minor delay. It’s also not easy to remove everything at once. Something like a blinking cursor in the search field when you want to type in it would go a long way. Sadly, there are other minor things like that in the visuals. For example, the long grass at your home stops at a certain line. Near the hedges, actually. Another thing in terms of visuals and UI is that sometimes, it’s a pain finding the exact spot of e.g., dirt on the mini-map. In very rare cases, the task list or the mini map is saying that there is still stuff to do while there actually isn’t.

This game is translated in a lot of languages. I love this fact, since it makes the game a lot more accessible. Maybe, I might be extremely strict on this, since I’m an editor for the Dutch/Flemish translation of WordPress… But, the Dutch translation has various typos and inconsistencies. From wrong use of verbs to not using capitals in menu’s. Thankfully, the English version of this game works extremely well and still, I find it extremely impressive that this large game with so much text is translated in so many languages.

The overall quality of the translation is fine, but I honestly think that in an update, they should let various language experts go over the translation since I think there is a lot that can be polished up and improved. Since, if you aren’t well versed in English and know what everything means or what different objects are called, you might have problems with this game.

Overall, the camera works perfectly. Since, this is a first person game, you have full control over it. Sadly, in some montage sections, the camera dips quite weirdly. These moments are thankfully extremely rare and are mainly caused when you do the assembly in a different order. Knowing what the next steps are or going out of the assembly process and going back in usually fixes these minor camera goofs.

There are some minor things that could be communicated to the player better. The best example I can give is in the painting. In a lot of cases, like in the assembly process, you hear a little sound effect when you are finished with a step. You don’t get that with painting. When your wall is done, you don’t get a small notification in the corner or something. Of course, this might be because of the perk that you don’t waste paint on already painted walls but still… It should have more communication.

Like how tasks disappear way too quickly from the small to-do list on the right side of the screen. Give the player some time to see and realize which task they just completed. The task disappears when the jingle of task completed plays.

But the biggest offender of not communicating is the demolition. It’s not easy to fully destroy a wall and know what’s going to disappear or which pieces are waiting on you to hit with your hammer. I honestly think this should be improved upon since it makes this game a tad bit annoying sometimes. A great start should be unable to build a wall in that spot and have the offending still to destroy bricks flash or turn in red or another color. A similar fix would be helpful if you are unable to find that last dirty spot on the windows. Since, the lighting there sometimes makes it extremely hard to spot sometimes.

Sadly, some mechanics are a bit too finky sometimes. If you buy a shelving unit and try to place items on it without a ladder… Oh boy, it’s no easy to put items higher than eye height. Or that if you pick up tiles, and you want to change to different tiles, you first have to remember to lay the remainder down. Thankfully, as soon as I got “used” or knew my way around these little quirks, these problems didn’t annoy me that much anymore.

The invoice – Conclusion

I never expected this game to be so much fun. It’s an enjoyable relaxing time waster that fans of casual games, simulations should give a shot. I’m quite certain that if you enjoy building aspects of games, you’ll enjoy this game as well.

Now, this game isn’t perfect. There are some things that should be polished up. It’s such a shame seeing this amazing title with some rough edges. Especially when there is so much love and soul put into this game. And it pains me that most of the negatives are almost nitpicks. I think that an update where things are polished up, mechanics are made more consistent with the other mechanics… That would be a very welcome update.

Overall, this game is a relaxing enjoyable game. It’s mindblowing how the game handles so many combinations and mechanics so well. The expansiveness of this game is so broad that I can see myself coming back from time to time after a stressful day at work to wind down. (By doing chores in a way, but hey…) While the game has its problems, some textures, and models looking a bit too out of date… There are a lot of other things like two different game modes that more than make up for it.

It’s quite clear that this game is a passion project by the developers and the love and attention to detail is shown in the game. When writing this first impression/review, I had a really hard time finding actual negatives in this game apart from several technical things that can be improved by a few patches.

I found this game at the perfect moment. I was looking for a more relaxing game I could play to wind down when I’m over stressed or had a busy/hard day at work… And then booting up this game and hearing the calming music and being able to let my creativity flow and create and improve houses… If you got interested in reading this article or looking at gameplay video’s, give it a go.

If you enjoy games like the Sims or building in Minecraft or more relaxing games, I would highly advise this game. While I totally understand that this game isn’t for everyone, it did click with me, and I’m still so surprised that this €20 game has so much value and polish. Now I’m so curious to see where the active developers are going to take this game next.

And with that said, I have said almost 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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Game Quicky: One Person Story (Switch) ~ Reflexes At Work

Official Nintendo subsite – Drageus Page

Just like the title of this game, this blog is mostly a one-person story. Most of the articles you can read on this blog are written by NekoJonez, now with that said, I think it’s high time we focus on the game that this article is going to be about. It’s One Person Story by Lampogolovii Leric and ported to the Nintendo Switch by Drageus Games, who provided me a review code for free for this review. This article will have me 100% honest opinion of that game and feel free to leave your opinion about the game in the comment section down below about the content of this article and/or the game.

The good

This game is a puzzle game where you have to guide a square through a pathway. The only control you have is switching between two states of the level. While there isn’t a lot of interaction with the game, the game is rather calming and relaxing to play. It’s a perfect game to wind down or to relax.

Visually, the game is pretty basic but pretty nice to look at. The visuals don’t get too much more involved than what you see in the screenshots but it does the job perfectly. It adds to the atmosphere and the relaxing feeling of the game.

Together with that, you have rather calming music and sound effects. The audiovisual presentation has been nailed in this game. It’s a joy to play and listen too. The music doesn’t restart between levels, which is a great plus. I have seen games that have a similar price point that makes that mistake.

The UI and options menu is just perfect. While you have only one other language to play around with, you can adjust the music and sound effects. The is no way to enable or disable the voice acting, but that’s no big deal. Since the voice acting is pretty decent. I’m able to overlook the fact that there is only one other language in this game, which is strangely enough: Russian. Adding too many different languages would increase the scope of the game and the amount of work as well.

Now, there isn’t a lot of story in this game. It tells the story of how life is. The moments when life is painful, joyful, blissful, annoying, irritating… Losing friends and working together. It’s quite relatable even when my life is far from the same as yours.

It’s amazing to see that this game barely needs any time to load. Thanks to that, you can easily restart a level when you died. You restart right away like in games like Super Meat Boy.

The bad

Now, this game is a rather pleasant game but I don’t think that the Switch is the correct platform for this game. This game is rather repetitive and it would be better suited for the mobile market.

That said, the game also introduces unique mechanics that would be quite interesting for more complex puzzles, but the developer only chose to use them for one or two levels. After that, new or other mechanics get introduced. There is barely any depth in this game or anything else besides pressing the button to move the obstacles out of the way at the right time.

I’m under the impression that this game could have done so much more with the concept but choose to stay this minimalistic. It stays true to the atmosphere and the feel of the game but the game became repetitive and dull for longer play sessions.

There is a sort of level select in this game but it’s rather limited. You can only choose to start at a chapter. It’s quite unclear when a chapter starts and ends. To make matters worse, when you choose to start at a certain chapter and you leave the level… Well, you are in for a nasty surprise. It overwrote your autosave file! I was at level 33 and I was messing around with the chapter menu for this review. When I choose the beginning; before the level even started, I left the level. Then I choose “Start”, fully expecting that I would be able to resume my level 33 progress. But nope, it started me at the beginning.

I can be pretty short about this, but I find this a minor negative worth mentioning. The credits just list the name of the original creator and then that the port has been created by Drageus Studios. But who developed that port in that studio is unknown.

Conclusion

This is a decent game on the wrong platform. This is an excellent game to play in short bursts since the levels can be solved quickly and easily. It’s a perfect relaxing game to play on the bus to school or on the train to work. But, I don’t think that the Switch audience is the correct audience for it.

The game is just too basic, too repetitive for my liking on the Nintendo Switch and that makes it quite difficult for me to recommend. If you enjoy casual games or games that tell a unique story in an easy way, I think that this game might be right up to your alley.

If the game interests you after reading this review, I would say: give it a go! It’s only a few bucks, so it isn’t that expensive. If you didn’t get interested while reading this review, I would skip this game.

Personally, I’m glad that I gave this game a chance since this game pleasantly surprised me. But, I’m quite sure that not everybody will be able to tolerate this kind of casual games. Even while the game shows a lot of promise and just needed a bit more mechanics and polish.

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

Score as a Switch game: 60/100.

Score, ignoring that its on the Switch: 70/100

Gamer’s Thoughts: NekoJonez VS his backlog

So, I would be lying if I said that I don’t have a backlog. I do have a backlog and it’s rather huge. To be honest, I stopped keeping a list of the games that are on my backlog and I just started playing the games that I wanted to play or that are in my collection. If I have to guess, I think there are over 500 games in my backlog. Do I honestly care that there so many games in my backlog? Not at all, I love it! Because that means I always have a game that I could be playing when I’m feeling bored. And for those who don’t know why I have so many games on my backlog, that’s because I’m a game collector and I collect games left and right. Almost every week or two, I add a game to my collection so I rarely have time to finish a game. Now, why am I talking about this? Because LaterLevels and LightingEllen are doing a collaboration with a lot of other bloggers talking about their backlogs and I felt like joining in. And before I continue, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the backlog, your backlog and/or the content of this article.

NekoJonez’s Backlog

Now, in my introduction, I said that I had given up on keeping a backlog. This is quite true. I have piles and piles of games in my room and in my digital libraries begging to be played. Yet, I keep playing the same games over and over again.

But are there really over 500 games on my backlog? Well, because I don’t keep track of that much depth, I think that’s the best answer. When I just look at my 800 games large Steam library and cross off all the games I have finished, I think we get close to that 500 games mark. And at that moment, I haven’t started counting all the games I have for my consoles and handhelds.

How did it grow so out of hand? The first reason I already explained in the introduction of this article. I’m a game collector. Every one or two weeks, a game gets added to my collection. And it’s quite rare that I buy one single game nowadays. Apart from newly released games of course. When I’m looking for new games to play, I go to thrift stores or garage sales to buy them for a really cheap price. In other cases, coworkers, friends, family just give them to me because they don’t need those games anymore since they are left unplayed.

A second reason is one that you are reading right now. This very blog. Because I like writing so much, I try to write an article every week about a different game. So, that means I talk about give or take 50 games each year. A more realistic number would be 35 – 40 different games each year. So, when I have written an article on a game, I have already moved on to another game to write about. Even when I quite enjoy playing a game, I place it on my backlog to finish later when I have a bit more time. Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that I get requests from developers to play their games and write an article about them.

This brings me to my 3^rd reason why my backlog is so big. Because I’m a game collector for multiple systems, I often switch between systems while playing games. For example, I’m in a PS2 – Switch period lately. The result is that I have posted quite a lot of PS2 and Switch articles lately. Now, I got a few Gamecube games for my birthday, so that might mean that I’m going to play a lot of Gamecube, Wii and Wii U games in the near future. But, I’m also really interested in the new Challenge Tombs that are getting released for Shadow of the Tomb Raider. And once I open Steam, I see that bundle of games I bought at the Lunar sale that I wanted to play. This is exactly what I mean when I say in an article: “I got distracted by other games.”

A fourth reason is one that started during my teenage years and now carried over in my twenties. I dislike focusing on one or two games. For example, I’m playing Resident Evil 4 and I get frustrated because I’m unable to beat a certain section. Instead of getting frustrated and fed up with the game, I just stop playing the game and take out another game to play. The main reason I play games is to have fun and talking out of the experience, my performance in games gets worse when I have to repeat a section over and over again. Now, it does happen from time to time that one game is so much fun, I ignore all other games for a while. During the last Christmas holiday, I have played so much Rollercoaster Tycoon. To the point, I have almost completed the original campaign and half of the campaigns in the expansion packs.

Now, what is your backlog actually? Are these the games that you have started and never finished or the games you really want to play? Is it a combination of both? Well, I think it’s a combination of both those things. But, can you scrap a game from your backlog? When it has been too long on your backlog or when you feel you don’t want to beat it? For example, I have never beaten the original Pokémon games BUT I have gotten extremely close. It’s the final rival fight that I’m unable to beat. Now, would you say that these games are on my backlog until I have beaten them completely? Well, now I’m totally overthinking it. Whoops.

I might have said it a few times already in this article but do I honestly care that my backlog is so long? No! I don’t care at all. The big advantage of this is that I can pick up a console or boot up my PC and just pick a game I feel like playing and have a great time. It also means that I always have a game to play when I’m in a certain mood. On top of that, it makes for a great reason to finish or replay games when I want to write an article about them.

The questions

Now, LaterLevels and LightningEllen have a few questions in this collaboration. Let get to answering them.

The game most likely never to be played

That’s a thought question. Since in most cases, there is always a time I pick up a game I have bought ages ago. For example, a few years ago, I added Final Fantasy X and X-2 to my collection and I started to play those two games for a short while during my summer holiday in 2017. Another example is more recent. When I started playing Resident Evil 4, I saw that I have a few other Resident Evil games in my collection so I’m trying those out in between Resident Evil 4 sessions.

If I really need to answer this question, I think it is the Football Manager games I got in a pick-up but then again, I might start playing them in a summer break when I want to play something unique and different that I haven’t played before.

I could cheat and tell talk about Lego Fever. It’s a game I played a lot when I was younger, but it refuses to work on newer systems. Plus, it’s quite rare to find, since there are no physical copies of and yeah.

In addition to that, I have technical issues with getting the game to run on my computers so it’s unplayable for now. But then again, I just need to take some time out of my day to figure out what’s causing the error and just try to get it working on one of my retro gaming machines. Oh well, one day this will happen.

Shortest game

Ace Attorney 6 – Spirit of Justice

I don’t understand why this keeps happening. I have bought all the DLC cases and I haven’t finished the DLC case yet. I’m such a big fan of the Ace Attorney series, it battles my mind that I just start playing this case and get distracted by other games and leave this one on the backlog.

The case sounds quite interesting to me as well, since it does something different and makes old characters return. Maybe it’s a great sign for the future of the series… (hint hint, subject of another collab). So, come on Jonez! Put aside an afternoon during the weekend and finish this game!

Longest game

Ehrm, I’m sorry… But I’m not going to list all these games I just played the first couple of sections to test out how the game plays and haven’t finished yet. If you just look at the first impressions series on my blog, you start to get an idea of how many games I haven’t fully beaten yet. Now, I have beaten some of these titles, but I haven’t gotten around to writing the review yet. So, you could say that I even have a review backlog.

But, if I really have to put a game here… Let’s pick one at random and let’s say… PopoloCrois. A while back, I said I was considering writing an article about this game. But, my PSP decided to delete all my save files of this game and I lost so much progress… I got so annoyed I actually stopped playing this game and I haven’t picked it up yet again. But, I was having so much fun. So, yeah. I need to change that.

The game which has spent the most time on the backlog

Oh dear. I’m honestly unable to answer this question because I collect retro games and I just play games I find in the wild or strike my fancy while browsing the eShops. Like I said earlier, some games I only play for a few minutes to test the games out. For example, I have started up so many Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games… I know for a fact that some people are going to dislike what I’m going to say next but I haven’t finished a Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Witcher, Metal Gear, The Elder Scrolls, Dragon Quest, Sonic, Mega Man, Castlevania, Metroid, GTA, Assassin’s Creed … game. Yes. I haven’t played a lot of BIG and popular titles.

In addition to that, since I started reviewing games 8 years ago, I stopped keeping track of the games on my backlog and just enjoy the games in my collection and picking the game that suits my fancy at that moment so I can’t even tell for how long I own a certain game. Expect when I got it for as a birthday present or when it holds a special memory. So, I’m sorry, I’m unable to answer this question.

The person responsible for adding the most entries to your backlog

Would it be cheap to say, my wallet? Because I buy so many games in bulk, it happens frequently that games get on my backlog. Now, the actual answer to this question should be the person who gives me tells me about the games I should be playing or the games that are interesting.

And to be honest, there are a lot of people who give me advice or suggestions in terms of the games I should play. From fellow bloggers to YouTubers I love watching. A few examples spring to mind: NitroRad, AVGN (yes, like a TON of other video game reviewers), SomeOneCallMeJhonny, Eruption, Scott The Woz and Lazy Game Reviews. There are a lot of retro video game reviewers out there and I just keep watching them discover new games. Outside of the YouTube space, there are bloggers like Hundstrasse, The Well-Red Mage and Insert Disk. There are so many people I could name. And I shouldn’t forget the countless other collectors inside the Facebook and Discord groups I’m a part of.

Besides that, I love browsing RetroWareTV and browsing websites like eBay and local second-hand websites to check what they have on offer.

So yes, I don’t have one person that is responsible for adding the most entries to my backlog since a lot of people give me ideas, suggestions, and series to look into. It’s extremely difficult to keep track of that.

Oh, and I shouldn’t forget that I often get coworkers, friends, and family that donate or just give me games after a spring cleaning or something amongst those lines.

Wrapping up

With all the questions answered, I want to thank you so much for reading this article. It was an interesting article to write since I see my backlog in a totally different way than your typical definition of the word.

To me, my backlog is more of a suggestion log. A suggestion log of games I could play and/or take a look at. If the game interests me enough, I’m going to continue to play it. If it doesn’t interest me, I remember it to try it out later or I just give it a nice spot in my collection.

Now, surprisingly, even to me sometimes, but not every game that I play becomes an article. That’s because I have an article backlog and when I write an article about a game, it’s quite possible that I already forgot about a few games. But all of that is for another article.

With that said, I want to thank you again 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, have a great rest of your day and take care.

NekoJonez – The Versatile Blogger Award #2

Every so often, I receive something that I call “a tag award”. These tag awards are a special way of other creators to show recognition to each other. It always puts a smile on my face when I get selected for these “tag awards” since I’m able to answer some interesting questions or talk about something interesting. This time, I got the Versatile Blogger Award from TwoTall4uFool. An award that I also got in 2013 and the rules haven’t changed since then. So, if you want to read up on the rules, you can read them in that article. So, it’s time to get into this award.

TwoTall4uFool

If you are interested in reading articles about newer games and various accessories, I highly recommend that you give his blog a read. His blog mostly focuses on the gaming and tech niche, like myself, but there are also articles on movies and other subjects. Here is a link if you want to check out the amazing writing of TwoTall4uFool:

https://twotall4ufool.com

The seven things about NekoJonez

So, I have to tell 7 things/facts about myself. To make it a bit more interesting to read, I picked 7 different things than in the 2013 article. So, here we go!

I enjoy wearing watches

A comment I often get is either: “As a tech guy, why do you still wear a normal watch” or “As a tech guy, why don’t you buy a smartwatch?”

Well, the reason I still wear a “normal” digital watch is that I find it easier to keep the time instead of pulling my phone out of my pocket and looking at it that way. Besides that, I’m rarely at my desk at work and just having a watch is handy when I forget my phone on my desk.

Besides that, I have been wearing a watch since I was a kid and I honestly never stopped wearing a watch. On top of that, the past few plays I was in, I was able to use the fact I had a watch. For example, I had to play an irritated and annoyed waiter in a tavern and I was able to use my watch pretty well then.

The reason I haven’t bought a smartwatch yet, well, that’s quite simple. I don’t find any benefits for it for me personally. So, just to buy a smartwatch to use as a gadget… Nah, I rather spend my money on other things.

I call my gaming style: “Expert casual”.

In my collection, you can find a game in almost every genre. Even in the genres I dislike playing or in genres, I’m not too skilled in. My least favorite genres are racing, rhythm and fighting games. My favorite genres are an adventure, RPG and visual novel games. Besides that, I enjoy playing (grand) strategy games, tycoon games, action games, casual… You name it.

So, because of this, my playstyle is what I call the expert casual. I rarely play games to have the most efficient or most challenging experience. I rarely to never play on the hardest setting. I just play games to enjoy myself and have a great time.

It really shows when you ask me to play multiplayer. For example, I’m a real pushover when it comes to Pokémon battles to other players. I’m terrible at remembering meta gameplay. But, I don’t mind that I’m not that good at that. The actual experience is what counts for me, having fun with my friends talking about games and creating memories is what counts.

That is a big benefit of my playing style. Because my playstyle is “jack of all trades, master of none.”, I have played a LOT of games and had some many different experiences, I can talk about almost every style of game.

Evening person

I’m a very big night owl and an evening person. I feel more creative and productive in the evening. That’s why I always write my articles after 5 or 6PM. At those moments, I find that I can write more easily than in the morning.

I especially noticed this when I was writing the write up for my final project this year. I noticed that a lot of sections I wrote in the early parts of the day had more mistakes or had more structural issues than the parts I wrote in the afternoon or during the evening.

I also have trouble waking up. I always have several alarms programmed in my phone to make sure I actually wake up. And when I have to go to work, I wake up an hour before I have to go to the station, so I can wake up calmly and prepare myself without rushing myself. I hate rushing myself in the morning because I know that it’s something that makes me cranky for the rest of the day.

Other media

My biggest hobby is playing video games. Apart from that, I tend to write this blog and I’m also a hobbyist actor in one of my local theater groups. Now, sometimes I get the question to give my opinion on a recent novel or in a recent movie. More often than not, I have to pass on those questions.

As a child, I also loved reading books. But, since I discovered the power of visual novels, I have stopped reading books. I feel that I get more pulled into the story when I’m able to either interact or visually see the story. Something I hated while I was reading where the long, and in my opinion boring, descriptions of how people actually look like. When I write stories, I rarely spent time in describing how the world or the characters look like. I love leaving it up to the readers’ imagination.

Now, I have periods of time that I play a lot fewer video games and I tend to be more interested in watching movies and series. I mostly watch anime when it comes to series. I feel that those more appeal to my style of humor than other shows. But, I also watch other series outside of anime; I love watching police series like CSI or other similar shows. A show I also adore is Relic Hunter since it reminds me of a lot of my favorite movie series Indiana Jones.

A TV-show I watch every year with my family is “Wie is de mol” (Translated: “Who is the mole?”). It’s a game show that is quite big here in Belgium and the Netherlands. I have linked the Wikipedia page of the English version if you want to read more about it.

Yet, I find myself mostly enjoying video games. I think it’s because in video games you can interact with the world and makes the experience more personal for me. The only difference in experience when you read a book or watch a movie is how you interpreted it. Maybe that’s a bit of a weak argument but it’s what I think.

Motivation

Now, at the start of the year, I have been chosen as a creative director in a dream development team by LaterLevels. How am I able to work full time, write an article on a new game every week, be a part of an acting group, taking care of live stuff, collecting video games, improving my tech skills… without burning myself out?

Honestly? I have no clue to be quite honest. I just found a workflow that fits me and helps me to get things done. I also try to be as efficient as possible. For example, I never take notes during my play sessions to avoid breaking my flow and to avoid that I focus too much on the smaller details in my review instead of the overall game. Another example is that I play a lot of the games I want to review during my travel times to and from work.

Besides that, I mostly focus on the things I’m passionate about. It’s obvious when you read my blog that I adore playing games and that I seriously enjoy writing. The fact that people actually read my work makes me proud. Even when my article gets read by only 5 people, I’m happy.

Reading

An extremely strange fact about me is that I don’t read that often. Here and there, I read other people’s blogs or various articles on things that interest me but I get bored easily if I have to read a lot of text on a screen. Something that makes this even stranger is the fact that I love playing through visual novels that have long bits of dialogue.

It has been a year since I actually started reading a book. It was a book about cybersecurity and how you can protect your network against malware and phishing. The last time I read a novel was 4 years ago, I read a police thriller about a murder in an online roleplay.

If the text doesn’t catch my interest, I just stop reading. Even when it’s about a topic I’m really interested in. I do have moments where I sit down and read things but they are quite rare. And most of the time, they are other people’s blog posts of authors I know to bring an interesting point of view on the subject.

Rapid-fire facts

Let’s give a few facts that don’t need to have a lot of explanation/story to them:

My favorite color is the color that the metal silver has. I’m really drawn to that color.

I highly dislike swimming. When a pool uses chlorine, I get very itchy and sometimes even sick.

I use my right hand to write. My handwriting is a mess and it gets even worse with my left hand.

My mother tongue is Dutch (well, Flemish actually… But, not everybody knows the difference between Dutch and Flemish. It’s a bit like you have British and American English.), besides English I can also speak French. I also have a basic understanding of German.

Besides games, I also love collecting old computer software. I just love messing around with old computer programs to learn about the history of computers and just because it’s fun.

Something I have a love-hate relationship with is the trackpads on laptops. I dislike using them but I love them whenever I’m somewhere that doesn’t have room for an actual mouse.

Nominations

Now, here are the 11 people I nominate for the award and invite to write an article about this. I’m so sorry to all the friends I leave out.

Reaper Interactive

Sheikah Plate

Triform Trinity

Ambi Gaming Corner

LaterLevels

Adventure Rules

Drakulus

The Well-Red Mage

OverThinkerY

LividLightning

Games With Coffee

Wrapping up

So, thank you for reading this article. Thank you, everybody, for the support that my blog gets. I’m extremely thankful for everybody who talks to me about games that I have talked about on my blog. Thank you for leaving a comment and or liking a post. It really makes my day when I see that somebody enjoyed reading through my article or my blog and maybe discovered a new game to play.

I can spend hours thanking everybody, but I think I made my point. Thank you 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!

First Impression: Prey (PC) ~ Pew Pew – Indian Style.

Wikipedia entry

Usually, I rarely play shooter games. There are the odd exceptions like TimeShift and Prey. I have never talked about this game haven’t I? That’s simply because I actually started playing it just recently. I got my copy when a friend of mine got this for his birthday but he doesn’t like to play shooters. Since he knew I collected games and played a lot of them, he gave it to me. I think I own this game for over 5-6 years now and I never played it. I’m quite surprised I didn’t, since yeah. It’s worthy to get an article! Anyways, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on my article and or the game in the comment section. 

Pew Pew – Indian style

So, why did I choose for the title “Pew Pew – Indian Style”? Since this game is at it’s core a shooter. The game also borrows some elements from horror since at certain moments it keeps you at the edge of your seat. But believe me, while there are some moments that hint at horror, it is no horror game.

That explains the first of the title, but not the second. It’s simply that this game also has an Indian theme. While there is in America a game called Police and Robber, back in the day I used to play Cowboy and Indian…. You guys too? Anyways, that’s why it’s so crazy to me that a shooting Indian is the main character in this game.

As the standpoint of a writer, the story is actually pretty neat. It’s a story of somebody who doesn’t want to accept his family roots and he wants to save his girlfriend after being kidnapped by aliens. There are some flaws in the consistency actually. Suddenly you can see the translation of the alien writing and the can suddenly speak English. Maybe this gets explained but I was rather confused when it happened. Oh, let’s not forget how our hero is able to suddenly fire alien weapons, quite strange.

But the story isn’t perfect. I feel that some characters aren’t used at their full potential. Also, there is barely any development in the characters as far as I have seen. And I have played I until somewhere in the middle of the game. I have just beaten a boss.

Alien scum

So, let’s look at the other things in this game apart from the characters. The setting of this game is an alien ship. I’m so pleased that they didn’t went for a stereo-typical design.

The creatures all look alien, a bit scary and out of this world. Sadly, they look humanoid. This is something that I don’t really like, since then my mind wonders off sometimes that it are mutated humans, like in Half-Life. Oh well, the curse of my creative mind I guess.

 The weapons are actually quite fun to use. While it’s not clear if some weapons do more damage then others, I just enjoy using them. The fact that they made such animated guns is just amazing.

The level design is extremely linear. You go from point A to B. But the game is challenging. Some obstacles come back and can catch you off guard quite easily. This game is one of the few games where I see that weaker enemies from earlier levels come back. This gave me the feeling that the ship was somewhat alive and that you were at an actually alien ship. The atmosphere can be easily broken if the enemies only get stronger and stronger. The game gets more difficult, but doesn’t only rely on new strong enemies, they get more crafty with them.

The gameplay is just one of a kind. There are quite a few games where you are able to change into someone to solve puzzles, but the take Prey took is quite unique. You can actually leave your body to attack enemies unseen. Also, barriers won’t stop you and you can’t die while in spirit mode.

I haven’t seen the game over screen yet, since if you are quick and you can shoot moving targets quite well, it’s impossible to die. Does this take the challenge away? Not really, it makes the game more accessible to non-veteran shooter players as myself.

Just wow

So, the game controls quite nicely. If you press the button, the happens on screen. Something that amazed me is that this game still recognizes the additional buttons on my gaming mouse. For a game this old, I wouldn’t have imagined it would work.

Also, in some parts you can walk on walls and such. The camera follows you excellent. Also, the voice acting in this segments is just excellent, it’s just how you would react yourself. One minor nitpick is that the voice for the grandfather sounds a bit too young to me. But that might be just me.

Through-out the game, you can play mini-games. When there is a slot machine in a bar, you can actually stop your adventure and play a round. That’s some attention to detail there.

Oh, I’m almost running out of time. The final thing I wanted to talk about is the music. It sets the mood so nicely. The orchestrated music makes me tense and on my toes. You would expect from horror games a more slow, creepy soundtrack. The soundtrack for this game is anything but. It gives a Two Steps From Hell-vibe. It’s quite nice.

In any case, I think I’m going to close off this article right here. I haven’t said everything I wanted about this game but I think these things are better said in the review. You may be sure that I will write a review of this game when I have beaten it. I’m enjoying this game quite a lot. I only wish they didn’t cancel the sequel. I just cross my fingers that they return one day to make a new game in the series.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed writing it. Have a great rest of your day and hopefully until your next visit!