Community Awards: The Real Neat Blog Award – December 2019

WordPress Community Awards are always amazing. It’s a great feeling to get various community awards since it feels like recognition of other bloggers for your work and it also allows you to create interesting articles. Today I have the pleasure to receive the Real Neat Blog award from Sanato1 over at his website. He writes amazing pieces on anime, music, games and many other things. Here is a fun fact, we both started blogging around the middle of 2013. Well, I was writing since 2010, but I only started to write in English a few months before he did. Something that’s quite cool is that he’s an attorney and writes about al those various subjects. It’s a really interesting read. Anyways, let’s get into the actual award and the Q&A that’s attached to it. 

The usual stuff

Here are the rules once again:

1. Display the logo
2. Thank the bloggers for the award.
3. Answer the questions from the one who nominated you.
4. Nominate 7 to 10 bloggers.
5. Ask them 7 questions.

The questions

1) Is there a game, book, or other work that you’d like to experience but that you can’t because it’s untranslated, not ported, or otherwise inaccessible?

That’s an interesting question. It would be extremely easy to look at various animes or games that didn’t get translated into English.

Of course, various works got subtitles but I’m too slow of a reader to follow subtitles and I honestly prefer works in a language I can understand since I feel that native jokes almost always get lost in translation. For example, if they use in a clever Japanese wordplay in an anime, they have to either translate it in the subtitles or let it slip by.

But, after some searching, I found something that you might not really suspect from me. There was this publisher in Belgium called Transposia. They used to localize games like Freddi Fish, Spyfox, Pyjama Sam, Putt-Putt amongst various other games to Belgium and the Netherlands. One of these series is Skipper & Skeeto which is originally called Magnus og Myggen in it’s native Danish language.

Sadly enough, Transposia wasn’t able to localize every game into Dutch. Various games only got realized in Danish.

Besides my native Flemish/Dutch language, I can speak French and English but I can’t speak Danish. While one of my blogging buddies is Danish, I think it would be a hassle to fully translate the whole game just to be able to play the game.

Surprisingly, some of these titles got translated into English, but those aren’t the adventure games. The translated titles are the edutainment games. But, they would be nice to add to my collection as well. But, that’s for when I have the budget to let them ship overseas from the UK.

2) What’s one work that really affected you or stuck with you in the last year, and why do you think it did?

If you mean 2018, well, to be honest… I have played so many amazing games, I can’t say one single game. Games like Death Mark or Shadow Of The Tomb Raider are two games that come to mind. Most games that stick with me have either an interesting story mechanic or have a really strong message.

Now, if you mean 2019, I honestly think you’ll have to wait until I reveal my top 10 games I played in 2019. But, if you have been reading my articles, I think I have given various hints about the games that are big contenders for the top spot.

If we are talking outside of games, that’s going to get tougher. Then I think I could say the Death Parade anime. Just the whole concept of the show is mindblowing and well written. The ending really touched my emotional strings. I also started watching it around the time that my pet cat Sparta passed away last year.

3) If you could revive one series of works that’s been abandoned or dropped by its creators for any reason, what series would it be and why?

That’s a tricky question and for several reasons. Sometimes it’s better left in the past to let the series or work end on a high note. Sometimes they ran out of ideas and it’s better to end it.

I could talk about animes like Log Horizon and No Game No Life. These animes have a lot of source material to create new season(s) but due to various reasons, haven’t gotten a new season. Now, I could also talk about my wishes for a new Indiana Jones game or a follow up to Time Hollow, Monster Tale, Stella Glow or Etrain Odyssey. But I’m not going to.

There are so many things that could be revived but they might never live up to expectations. I don’t want a sort of Duke Nukem Forever situation on my hands with the franchises I adore.

Besides, there are so many games, shows, music… out there, it’s getting insane. So, I’m the sort of guy the tries to experience as much as I can instead of trying to revive or keep a show alive. Yes, I vote with my wallet on what I want to see.

4) When it comes to music, do you prefer songs with vocals and lyrics or instrumental pieces, or do you have a preference at all?  If you prefer one type over the other, why do you think that is?

I don’t have a preference. But, I do notice that a lot of my favorite pieces of music have vocals and lyrics. Yet, I also have a lot of instrumental tracks that I adore as well. In most cases, these are tracks from shows or games that are quite nostalgic for me.

But, I think I’m going to talk a bit more in-depth in a future music article on this subject.

5) When was the last time you bought a magazine, newspaper, or another form of print media?

Now, if we also include physical copies of games; then I have to say the day of writing this article. I ordered two retro games for quite cheap online. If we are talking about things print on paper, then I have to say; past summer. When I bought an art book of a Wii U game and a strategy guide on a garage sale.

I used to buy gaming magazines often but my budget doesn’t allow that lately. So, I decided to save some money by not buying them anymore. It’s a shame since now that they are dying out, I might not be helping the cause by not supporting them.

6) Is there a holiday you don’t get to celebrate/take off because of family or work reasons but that you wish you could?

Luckily, I don’t have that issue. Since I work in schools, most of the holidays fall either on weekends or during school holidays.

And my family is rather small so we are able to celebrate almost every holiday together. And since this year, I can celebrate Valentine’s Day due to my meeting my soulmate this year.

7) If you had to create a new holiday, when would it be and what would it involve?

I would have a holiday to celebrate godfathers/godmothers and their godchildren. As a godfather myself, I find it a shame that a holiday doesn’t exist for that. Since I find the tradition and relationship extremely beautiful. Because it’s a sort of 3rd parent to the child.

Now, what would it involve? Something similar to Mothers or Fathersday? Where godchildren could make a small present for their godparents? And that the godparents could create/buy a present for them?

I tag and ask:

Now, as the rules state. I have to tag 7 to 10 other bloggers.

So, here we go:

1. LaterLevels
2. TriformTrinity
3. Well-Red Mage
4. NormalHappenings
5. BearedGamer82
6. LividLighting aka Lighting Ellen
7. KillerRobotics
8. VideoGamesNebula

And the 7 questions I want to ask you:

1. Did your view or look at games change since you started writing a blog?
2. Is there something you miss in the current gaming industry?
3. What’s your favorite part about writing a blog?
4. What’s something you wish you owned?
5. What’s something unique about your hometown?
6. Do you think that these kinds of tag questions should be themed?
7. How much time do you put into your blog daily, weekly, monthly, yearly?

I’m also looking forward to the answers of the other bloggers! While I could nominate a ton more of them, I think I’m going to leave it at those eight. Each of these blogs is an amazing read and I highly recommend them!

So, thank you so much for reading this article. 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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First Impression: Woodle Tree 2 Deluxe (Switch) ~ Let’s Explore For Tears

Nintendo.com microwebsite

I remember when ChubbyPixel asked me to review Woodle Tree Deluxe on the Switch in March. I felt like there could have been done so much more with the concept of the game. Recently, the company released the sequel to the Nintendo Switch. Woodle Tree 2 Deluxe. An expanded version of Woodle Tree 2: Worlds on Steam. Now, the asked me to take a look at the sequel as well. While a review key has been provided to write this review, I’ll give my 100% honest opinion on this game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Let’s explore for tears

The story of this game is a direct follow up to the original. In this game, you play as a son of the hero of the original game. Now, the powers of evil have taken over the Wood Lands as revenge. It’s up to you to save the Wood Lands and find the tears again.

The way the story is being told and paced is a lot better than the original. In the original, you have a small cut scene at the start and you got thrown into the hub world. Now, the whole world is the hub world and there is a central place that acts as a sort of overview place where you can buy upgrades and cosmetics.

Before you can go explore the whole map, you go through a sort of tutorial section. The tutorial is quite decent. It teaches you the basic mechanics of the game without being too punishing.

After you have saved the three first tears, you will be allowed to find all the other tears. Right on the map screen, you can see that the game is divided up in several area’s where you can find three tears each. Right there on the map screen, you can also notice that the checkpoints you activate also can be used as warp points. That’s pretty neat.

So, in each area, there are three tears and at least 80 blueberries. You can find your progress of that collection on the mini-map. There are also red berries but there is no counter for that on the map screen. The map screen is quite useful since it tells you where in the world you are and which level it is. The only thing I miss on the map screen is a sort of zoom-in feature that you can use to have a better idea of the current area you are in. Also, it would be extremely handy that you could move the cursor freely around without being restricted to only being able to choose the warp points.

You can bring up the map screen by a simple press of the (+) button. If you use the shoulder buttons, you can use the pause menu. The menu after the map screen is the options menu. Where you can adjust the camera sensitivity, the volume if you want to invert the X-axis or the Y-axis if you want or don’t want anti-aliasing and the language. The controls are listed in this menu, but you can’t change them. In the most recent update, the developers added a lot of languages!

The 3rd and final screen in the pause screen is a total overview of your adventure where you can see how much red berries, blueberries you have and how many tears you have collected.

Now, most of the story is being told through text bubbles. There is no voice acting nor are there any “voice noises” in the game. There are sound effects, but I will talk more on that later in this review. You can easily notice when somebody has something to say because there is a text box floating above their heads. Now, you don’t have to worry to approach them from the wrong side since the text box sort of follows your character while staying on top of the character that’s speaking. The only thing is that the character itself doesn’t follow you.

Wall jumps and double jumps

If you played a platformer or the original, you will be right at home playing this game. The idea is that through platforming, you find the three tears. In this game, Woodle has few new moves in their arsenal. You have a double jump and a wall jump. You can also use your leaf to float around and to catch water droplets to water dead trees. To easily find your way around in the world, you can also use a telescope. Sadly enough, there isn’t a run button insight.

It’s not that your character is moving slow, the world is a tad bit too big. It would be extremely helpful that you had a run button or some way to make traveling faster. Thankfully the warp mechanic is really fast, so once you unlocked the waypoints, it’s easy to get there fast. It also helps you out in a pinch. Just take a look at this tweet. Yes, I got stuck inside a house I wasn’t supposed to get into. Or the moment I was able to let the character do a sort of moonwalk.

Now, the reason that I called this section, wall jumps and double jumps are because I feel like there is some sort of conflict in the code. I found it a bit difficult when I wanted to use my double jump to get onto a higher ledge because I jumped away from the wall since a wall kick was used.

This caused me a few deaths. Thankfully, there is no life system in place. After a few hits, you respawn at the checkpoint you used last. Checkpoints are also used as save points. So, whenever you need to save, you can easily warp to a checkpoint and the game automatically saves your progress. Now, the game only has one save slot, so it’s impossible that two or more people have their own playthrough at the same time.

Overall, the controls are quite responsive. While I sometimes have to fight the camera, I don’t think that the controls are that bad. They could use some polish, especially in the above-mentioned wall jump mechanic. Now, the game drops the ball in two other areas.

First of all, the visual presentation is something that needs some work. Overall the game looks fine and the animations are decent. Visually the game looks amazing for being a budget title. But, there are multiple popping issues and in some area’s I even had some major frame drops when the area was loading in. And in some areas, the place suddenly totally changed like in this video/tweet.

The character is sometimes quite jittery, especially when you are floating down. You can attack during your floating down without losing height or momentum. Textures and models pop in and out. The leaf you use sometimes just turns white, like when you are floating down… The game needs polish in the performance of the visuals.

Speaking of the visual presentation, the lighting is extremely off. Now, I can understand that when the enemies come and attack you, the scene goes dark. It is the powers of evil after all. But, for example on the beach, the lighting is so strong… the yellow that’s used for sand was sometimes quite painful to look at. Besides that, I had different lighting in a similar area without any rime or reason. I also posted that in a video on Twitter.

A final thing in the visual department I think that could have been improved is the design of some enemies. At first, I wasn’t able to tell some enemies apart from NPCs. This was a problem during the tutorial since I was attacking an NPC that looked an awful lot like an enemy from the original game.

Now, a great thing about the visual department is how your health is being displayed. The size of the leaf is basically your health. How smaller it is, how closer you are to death. Unlike the first game, you can be hit multiple times in this game. This makes the game more forgiving and more fun to play.

It’s a shame really since the game is looking quite charming and fun to play. If only these issues with the visual presentation weren’t present, then the game could have been so much better. Sadly enough, this isn’t the only major issue with the game.

Spooky silence

The game itself isn’t too hard. When you get used to the controls and the mechanics of the game, you are able to find your way around quite easily. Enemies can be easily avoided and sometimes just buying an upgrade can make the game a literal walk in the park.

Now, the 2nd big issue with this game is the audio design. Don’t misunderstand me, the music and sound effects of this game are all quite well done but there isn’t enough. Some things are lacking sound effects like hitting switches or elevators. But the biggest issue is the music. The music is amazing but there are a lot of areas where the music doesn’t play and you hear silence. You only hear the sound effects of the game.

It’s a shame since each area has its own unique musical theme that really fits with the atmosphere of that area. But the area’s in between stay silent. But, sometimes the music just loops wrong as well. There are these flowers you can run into to get a speed boost. Each time you hit a flower, the musical jingle restarts. This is quite annoying in my opinion. I wish it just extended playing the jingle. And let’s not forget to mention that the animation is quite inconsistent with these speed boosts. In some areas, a roll animation starts playing and in some area’s it looks like you are gliding over the ground.

Should I be so harsh on this game? The game is fun, has a lot of love and creativity in it. The game costs 12 bucks and is quite often on sale. The developers are quite responsive and if you find a bug and report it to them, they fix it in the next patch. Even when another game has come out. Still, I see the potential that this game has and I just wish that the game was more polished.

Something that I’m quite content with this game is the fact that this game shows a lot of potential for the following games of the studio. I have been working with this studio since the first Suicide Guy game. I have seen the quality of each of their titles improve and grow. And this game impressed me quite a lot. I’m quite thankful that I got a key from them to review this game since I think that this game shows a lot of potential for the future.

Now, something that I would love to see in a sequel to this game is less technical issues and more things to do besides looking for blueberries and the tears. Expand the game and the universe. Maybe have a cross over with the Suicide Guy series, besides being it as an easter egg.

So yeah, I think I’m going to continue playing this game. The charm of this game really has won me over. I can recommend this game to other players, but keep in mind that this game has some technical issues in its current state. Maybe some future patches will improve on this, who knows.

And that’s for now, everything that I have to say on this game. 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.

Publishing: Suicide Guy gets updated AND a bundle on PS4!

ChubbyPïxel is writing to you to let you know that they are celebrating the 2 years release and the 40.000 copies sold for their latest game “Suicide Guy” on Steam with a new Update 1.60 and a 60% Sale!

Thanks to the support of the gamers, Chubby Pixel is able to continue the development with more content in the near future for the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/303610/Suicide_Guy/

The Update includes:

– Improved physics interactions with the items
– Better and more refined graphics
– Higher FPS and faster loading times
– Bugs and Glitches fixes

But wait… there is more news!

ChubbyPixel is also proud to announce that to celebrate the success of our 2 PS4 games Suicide Guy” and “Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply”, today Chubby Pixel is releasing a bundle of the 2 games!

https://store.playstation.com/en-gb/product/EP2659-CUSA11105_00-SUICIDEGUYBUNDLE

The games in bundle contains a total of 34 challenging levels for 6+ hours of gameplay!

Publishing: Suicide Guy – Sleeping Deeply now on Nintendo Switch

New lunatic dreams are waiting for you!

In this new chapter of “Suicide Guy” you’ll be challenged with even more insane puzzles, generated by the surreal dreams of the Guy. You’ll encounter the weirdest of living beings as you go deeper and deeper into his subconscious. This time, to wake him up you’ll need all your skills.

Release Date: Oct 25, 2018

No. of Players: 1 player

Category: Adventure, Puzzle, Action, Platformer

Publisher: Chubby Pixel

Read my review about this game here, the PC version.

First Impression: Questr (PC) ~ Smartphone Game

 Official homepage

Earlier this year, I played a game on my phone that’s a sort of back and forth texting adventure. In this adventure, you guided a character to the end of the story. But, it didn’t take long before I uninstalled that app on my phone since the mini-games were rigged in my opinion to encourage microtransactions. I still believe that the concept might work really well. So, when I came across the Questr, I was happy to see the concept return in a bit of a different light. Full disclosure, in order to review this game, I got a review code for free from the developers. Don’t worry, you will only find my opinion on this article! So, let’s go questing! And as usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article.

Choosing your party – Tinder Style

Your goal is to complete quests with a party you put together. Putting together a party is simple, you either swipe left or right. Just like on Tinder. Be careful though, each party member has his/her likes and dislikes. When you pair a house lion up with somebody who hates house lions, your party morale will go down. The lower your party morale, the more difficult completing your quest will be. There is one thing I would like to mention. The button to get new party people for 150 goal is broken. If you click on the card, nothing happens. Thankfully, clicking the heart button does the trick. Maybe something for the next patch?

Before I continue talking about the gameplay, I want to talk about the writing of this game. The writing in this game is pretty well done. It really captures the atmosphere of a group of adventures going on a quest. Expect, that all adventures have the attitude of the youth of today. The writing is full of charm, character and humor, it’s a joy to read and I always wonder how certain characters will react to certain situations.

During your quests, random events will happen. It’s up to you to choose who’s response is the best and will give you the best outcome. In most cases, you are unable to tell and it’s a guessing game. Sometimes this can be really frustrating since you know that another character had the right answer.

You lose party morale when you take the wrong decision and you gain party morale when you take the right decision. Party morale is extremely important since without it, your chances of survival and thereby the completion of the quest will get slim to nonexistent.

Tickets and contracts

If you think that, that is the only gameplay in this game, you are wrong. At certain spots, the game will give you the option to start with a ticket or a contract. The ticket will only be valid for the current quest and the contract will be effective for the whole path. With these, you can challenge yourself even more and tempt faith even more.

So, when you put your party together and you didn’t get cat fished or rejected, you can start your quest. Together with great visuals. The game has a pretty clean and colorful look. Everything has this nice polished polygon look to it. Something that I didn’t like about the visuals are some events cards. Like the card for a monster and a person doesn’t show at all a person or a monster. This is a real shame since I really like the artwork of the characters.

The other problem I have with the visuals is that sometimes a tutorial bubble can go over some important information. This very rarely happens but when it does, it’s annoying.

The quests you embark on are rather short and sweet. Whenever you have to quit the game in the middle of a quest, beware. You will lose your progress of that quest. But, this brings me to a point the developers could improve about this game.

I think a more clear “continue” option would be nice. To continue you have to start a “new” (notice the bunny ears) game and select the quest you left off to load your game. Now, it’s clear which path you are playing, since it’s right above the path. But, a continue option would be nice.

A nice feature is that you can spend your gold you earn during your quests to upgrades. These upgrades range from better matches during the party gathering process to better bonuses. They are all worth to invest in.

Early Access

Something pretty surprising is that there is a feature you can stream your game directly to Twitch from the options menu. While I haven’t tested this, I think this is very helpful for people who want to stream this game.

In the same options menu, you have a bug report button and a feedback form. This is a great feature to have in game, since this game is in early access. Now, don’t be alarmed, the developers are working on more content for this game and they are aiming to release it in the near future.

They are trying to release a new content patch in December, but the developers told me this might be pushed back a bit. I hope they are able to succeed and finish the new content patch without a lot of delays.

Now something I wish they updated as well in the new content patch is the addition of more music. So far, I  have heard only one music track in the game. While it not bad, I would love to hear more music in the game.

Speaking about the music, this brings me to the sound design. There aren’t many sound effects in the game, but the once which are, are pretty good and add to the atmosphere of the game. I think it would be more fun if some events have special sound effects. Like when the explosive scroll gets read, you actually hear an explosion. It would add just that bit of additional atmosphere.

Something I think the game lacks too is a back button. What I mean with this is, that when you are on a path and you want to continue a different path, it takes a click too many if you need to go to the options menu and then have a button “main menu” and then click on “Play Game”. It’s a bit too much clicking for a simple task.

That’s everything I wanted to say about this game for now. While I haven’t talked about everything, I have left a few things for you to discover like how the gold system works, how the quests are chosen, steam achievements and other things. I really recommend this game to casual players who are looking for something different.

I’m so happy that this game exists. It really fills the hole left by that game that was ruined in my opinion by micro transactions I talked about in the introduction. Currently, this game is 15€ on Steam. I highly recommend that you give this game a try. I enjoyed my time with it. Also, the developers are really open and listen to your feedback. So, if you find a bug, typo or something… Report it. Have a suggestion, go to the Steam forums and suggest it.

I thank you so much 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.

First Impressions: RollerCoaster Tycoon (PC) ~ Build Those Parks

Link to Wikipedia entry

So, lately I have been playing Rollercoaster Tycoon on my old Windows 98 machine. This was one of the games I played as a kid over and over again. I couldn’t get enough of it. I remember that I didn’t have the patched version and I didn’t have the expansion packs. So, I didn’t get all the content and I got one nasty bug. I was unable to load save files. And to make matters worse, my sister and I were only allowed a limited time on the computer. We always asked our parents to not shut down our computer so the scenario was able to finish. Meanwhile we were hoping that nothing happened so we wouldn’t lose the scenario. Because everything can happen. While I was playing the game the other day, I was so close in winning a scenario… When just before the deadline, one of the most reliable and oldest rollercoasters crashes and I lose the scenario. Anyways, enough stalling. It’s time to take a look at this game. But for this article, I will take a look at the whole package. So, the two added expansion packs and patches are installed. “Loopy Landscapes” and “Added Attractions Pack”. As per usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this game and/or the content of this article.

Build, build and build some more

So, in this game, there isn’t a story to speak off. Well, some missions provide some minor backstory to the park you are going to play. But it doesn’t go very in depth about it. This game is about building parks. You have to build the attractions, roads, stalls, manage staff and prices and etc.

In the original game, there were 20 missions. But, if you install the expansion packs, you more than double the amount of missions. Surprisingly, both expansion packs add a lot of content. Here in Europe, the first expansion pack is called: “Added Attractions Pack”. In the USA, you will know this game as: “Corkscrew Follies”. Which is a way better name in my opinion, since it doesn’t mislead the player. Since the “Added Attractions Pack” adds more then attractions alone.

In any case, each mission is more difficult than the last. I have currently finished 4 missions and I liked them. The first park is a nice small park to get used to the mechanics and the last park was a tiny beach side park I had to build. So far, each mission brings something unique to the table. I wonder how far they took this, since I fear that this might end up in similar ideas with different skins.

This game was originally released in 2000. Sixteen years later, this game still looks wonderful. It aged pretty well. The attractions looks colorful and bright. The only thing I would have changed is that some guests had a more female look.

When you aren’t happy with the colors of the attractions, you can choose from a pretty wide color pallet. Want to paint the supports white? Well, you can. And the best part is, it changes in real time. And you can change the color of almost everything. When you get the color drop down, you can make it the color at your heart’s content.

The animation in this game is top-notch. It makes the game come truly alive. The walking animation of the guests are really adorable in my opinion. The visual presentation and the animation of the rides and guests of your park give a certain charm to the game.

Learn on your own

While the missions have a set goal to reach like for example, have a rating of X and X amount of guests in your park before the end of month X. And then it’s up to you. This makes the replay value of this game extremely high. I’m quite sure, that no two parks are exactly the same. Every playthrough is different.

Here and there, there is some down time. When you are bored in the game. Mind you, that happened quite rarely with me. You can click the balloons the guests let fly to pop them or click the ducks to make them quack. Lovely attention to detail.

 

The most important thing you will need to play this game is a mouse. Everything is done in the UI. I really like how simple everything is set-up. The UI is so well designed, that I can pick up this game every time and I don’t have to look where everything was. There are a few keyboard shortcuts, but honestly, I rarely use them.

Play how you want

 

The game is can be unforgiving. When you fail your mission and you haven’t saved often, be ready to restart the whole mission. Some missions can take several hours to complete. A golden tip from me, save every few months. It will be easier when you need to roll back when you made a stupid mistake.

Something I really like is that even when your mission is finished, you are allowed to continue to play in the park.

I could talk for hours and hours about the gameplay of this game. Let’s just say that this game is pretty in-depth and has a lot of variety to offer. When you are bored with managing your staff, you can go build some attractions. Bored of managing the finances of your park, you can go and landscape your park. And so on and so forth.

But this game has a few problems in my opinion. The music is pretty nice to listen too, but I remember that when I played this game in the past without the expansion packs, I couldn’t let the rides play music. So, I ended up listing to my own music instead. The expansion packs added the feature to let any attraction pack a nice selection of music. Yet, some minor bugs stop me from enjoying it. When you let two rides play the same music, they play out of sync. And I had some music cut out on me when I just moved the attraction one pixel off screen.

Also, sometimes the game doesn’t save my settings or change them without asking me. Out of curiosity, I started up the tutorial and it changed the screen resolution. And I have to set the option: “Use real name of guests” each and every mission.

Oh, and there is not an easy way to go to the options from the main menu. You have to be in a mission before you are able to change any settings.

Something bugs me about the message to raise my entrance fee. When my entrance fee is already 30€, and some guests come only with 60€… Well, he spends more than half of his budget. Then, when I read the thoughts of my guests, I get complaints that rides and such are too expensive.

I also wished that there was a sign to stop my staff from entering an area. You have only a sign to stop from doing that.

Something I truly disliked was that, even when I put a security guard in the area; I still got broken benches.

In conclusion, I think that this is a very nice game is truly worth playing. I enjoy myself a lot while playing this game. It’s very well put together and challenging. There were a few things that could have been polished up a bit more. But the game we got is a real classic. This game is on Steam for 6€. It’s truly a steal for that price!

So, that’s everything I wanted to say about RollerCoaster Tycoon for now. When I ever finish all the missions or come close to it, I will write a review of the game.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in the next article, but until then; have a great rest of your day and take care!

First Impression: Bioshock (PC – Steam) ~New DNA

Official website

So, I have been through the usual “end of the year” articles. So, why did I pick this game? Does this game have a special reason to be the final article of 2015? Well, surprisingly enough, it actually has. If you follow my blog or know me in person, then you might know that I’m fascinated by stories that are about people staying people but getting superpowers. That’s one of the main reasons I love games like Majora’s Mask so much. Anyways, what’s the main mechanic in this game? Apart from the little sisters and their … ahum, big daddy’s? That are the plasmids. They allow you to attack your foes with electricity or fire. The concept is just amazing in my opinion. But back when it released, my computer couldn’t handle it. My CPU wasn’t strong enough but I had enough RAM. Then the game went a bit under the radar for me. I mostly got into adventure games like Broken Sword or RTS games like Age Of Empires series. In any case, I think it’s time to take a look at this game. Since in this Christmas Sale of Steam, I finally bought the whole trilogy and the DLC. So, yeah. Enough stalling, let’s dive into Rapture! As usual, feel free to leave a comment on this article with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

Story – Two kinds of them

So, in this game there are two kinds of stories. Depends on how you look at it. While the audio logs and the actual story of the game are kind of “one and the same”… I see them as two different stories. The audio logs are more a back story to the game. This is something I wished the game handled a bit better. I’m not saying that the audio logs or the story is bad. No, not at all. The main issue I have is that some dialogue of the audio tapes can overlap with the dialogue of the enemies. You could argue that you don’t listen to the audio tapes when you near enemies, but you can’t avoid that. But that isn’t a problem exclusive to the audio logs. I missed some story dialogue due to the enemies talking way too loud.

Because of this reason, I’m more fond of diary entries to build a world instead of audio tapes. While I’m a big story guy, I found myself skipping over the audio logs. The world of Rapture drew me in enough already. I wanted to fill in the backstory myself. Here and there I played an audio tape, but not every one of them. I think they were placed to close to each other and too many in one area. In nearly each and every section of the game, I recall finding 2-3 audio tapes.

The last thing I will say about the audio logs, is that you can re-listen to them. But, in some cases… It’s about something in the room. Or a hint how to continue in the game. Then the power of audio logs is lost since you aren’t in the right context anymore. (Unless you go back to the room you were in when you found the audio log.)

So, let’s talk about the actual story now, for what I have experienced (I’m mid-game), it’s a decent story. The build up is quite nice but I have to praise the voice actors for this game quite a lot. Since they did an amazing job creating this world. It’s one I get lost in.

Moral things

Something I really like is that this game has quite the replay value. Since this game offers a moral choice system. Do you harvest the little sisters or not? If you harvest them, you can buy stronger perks. If you don’t harvest them, you get here and there some really handy perks. Both paths have some really nice rewards.

Currently, I’m saving the little sisters. It’s an interesting path really, but I wish that the story reflected it a bit more. At the moment you get the first choice, a guiding character is telling you to harvest it. But, after you save the girl… That character doesn’t change in personality.

Let’s talk about the visual aspect of this game. Because that’s something that’s in my opinion, it’s good. This game shows some traces of early HD textures. The biggest issue is some humans look strange. Like the hands of some characters, the fingers are two blocks. While the world design is quite nice to look at, some minor polish on the details would have been welcome.

 

Negatives?

Now that we are talking about the negatives in this game… Why is there a warning on some parts of the option menu that you will lose your progress? I have that never happen to me. This message made me paranoid the first time.

Also, there is no autosave in this game. Well, there is; after you finished a level. I have to manually save. But after playing this game for a little bit, you will get used to it. At least, I did.

Oh, some things are quite unfair. When I was looting a present left behind by the little sisters I saved, an enemy threw a bomb while I was in the menu to put a perk in one of my character slots. The menu closed and I lost the perk. I had to reload my save file. This issue happened to me twice.

One other minor complaint is that the map was a little bit at the confusing side for me. Mostly when you switch between floors in the same room… It gets confusing since you jump to another map.

Oh, and here is a minor annoying thing… You can’t skip the harvesting/free-ing of the little sisters. At least, I’m not able too.

The last complaint I have is that the elite Big Daddy’s are a tad bit overpowered. What I mean here is, when they back you into a corner… There is a big chance you get stuck. This issue can cost you your life. It’s also seriously annoying when you hypnotize a big daddy and it gets in your way.

In conclusion, this game is a very fun and enjoyable experience. While some parts could have been improved and would have benefited from some minor polish. I realize that I haven’t talked about everything this game has to offer; but I have to leave something for the people interested in the game and for my review.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you on another moment on my blog. Have a great end of the year and until 2016! Take care~:)

 

Gamer’s Thoughts: The curse of being a critic?

I’m NekoJonez, 21 years old. I live in Belgium and I have been writing gaming related articles for over 5 years now. It has been quite a ride to be honest. But nothing prepared me for the curse that you get even without you wanting it. Yes, there are downsides in being a gaming critic. And not only the obvious ones. Believe me. In this article I will introduce my new series. In Gamer’s thoughts I will talk about a subject in detail that isn’t exactly 1 game. Look at it as expanded game quickies as well. So, that is a sub-series of this series of articles. Anyways, that blog update aside, let’s dive right into my thoughts on the matter of being a critic. Feel free to leave a comment on this article about the subject or what I have written. Thanks in advance.

The road to success?

What exactly do you need to do as a critic to be a successful one? Review the latest of the latest? Then you might have just finished an article about Watch_Dogs. Or should you go looking all over the internet for that one flash game that is so bad, it’s good and everybody should play it?

It’s a tough balancing act. This is a part of the curse of a critic. What style are you going to choose to write your articles, make your video’s … From experience, I have one thing to say on this matter. You have one of two different possibilities here.

One, you stick with one specific area in the gaming world. For example: Nintendo, EA, puzzle games… etc. You follow that company like it’s your life savings. Each new pixel revealed of their next game is like a bit out of your favorite food. These guys are sometimes, if not all of the time, the hypers. They create the hype for the next big triple A game.

And the other possibility is like myself. I honestly don’t care about staying true to one style of games. I play (too) much games.  While I admit that I enjoy Nintendo games the most, I think I have proven on my blog that I can enjoy a PC game or a PSP game as well.

I have proof as well. This picture here are my latest catch at the garage sale I went to before writing this article. While there is a ton of Gameboy games and Pokémon merchandise. I also got a few big boxed PC games and some Playstation games.

So, it’s always a challenge. What do you do on your channel, blog or site? The video’s of big names on YouTube always say: “Do what you want to do.” or “Do something you want to do.” While that’s important, there are people easily getting views of playing those games that are extremely hyped.

Ever noticed that the Let’s Plays of those series have a weird drop in their views? The first view episodes have a big number of views. The following episodes have a drop in viewers. Why is this? Well, that’s because some people look up footage before they buy. Be sure of that.

Social media pains

A real struggle for me is how time consuming the social media is. You need to update your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr… It piles up to a huge amount. Honestly, I can’t keep up with it.

In the past, I followed back all my followers. Now, one hot tip for the starting entertainers out there. Don’t do that. It’s just insanity waiting for you.

When I started unfollowing people on Twitter that either flood my feed with tweets, where in a language I didn’t understand or where inactive for years, I saw my follower number drop.

Now, you can argue that you should support your other small entertainers. But, is this really what you should do? Don’t get me wrong here, but we aren’t a publishing house. We are content creators. I write a gaming blog where I talk about the games I play or the gaming industry.

Only follow the people you find interesting. Don’t go following the big names to try and get attention. It won’t work in the long run. I wonder how many “dead subscribers” the big channels, sites and such have.

Do I care about the number of followers I have. Yes, in a way I do. But the most important to me is that I can interact with my followers. I hate people that just follow you to promote themselves. I don’t follow them anymore to avoid a messy Twitter feed. Now, I have a cleaner Twitter feed and I can keep myself up-to-date with the news I want. And this way I can be more efficient for my blog.

So you want to start blogging?

I haven’t fully finished talking about this subject yet. So, be sure that I continue this article with a follow-up. But before I sign off, I want to share some tips that I think are important when you want to start blogging. Since I have been blogging for 5 years. Maybe some of these things can help.

1) Don’t care about the numbers too much. Every start is rough. You will see highs and lows in the numbers. But don’t let it influence your writing. If one article didn’t do as well in numbers, it doesn’t mean it was a bad article.

2) Invite people to comment and don’t force it. Out of experience I have seen that the articles where I invite my readers to comment on my article, I see comments appearing. But don’t expect a comment on each article. Since the comment section should mean more to you, as the writer, then a place where people can “dump” their praise for the article. The comment section is meant to talk back and forth with the people who read your article. Try to use the comment section in that way instead of asking how they liked the article. You get better feedback this way.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this first bit of my thoughts on things. This article replaces a creepypasta I was planning. It didn’t quite work out, so I had to scrap it. But don’t worry, one of these days you will see a new one from me. Like I said before, I will most likely come back on this subject. But for now, this is all. See you in another article.

First Impression: TimeShift (PC – Steam) ~ Rewind

Wikipedia link

If I only was just a bit more to the left, I could have survived. That’s what I sometimes think while playing a first person shooter. And then Time Shift shows up in the Steam Store. I remember that I had a poster of it in my room. When I saw it, I was thinking about how the game could play. Shaping levels inside my head and drawing them. Anyways, I played the game and I’m still playing it here and there. Let me say, it’s a special experience. The people who know me, know that I barely play any shooters. But this is worthy of an exception. But is it a perfect game? Well, I’ll explain my first impressions in this article. Feel free to leave a comment on the content of the article and or the game. Thanks in advance. 

Scoring badly?

When I was researching additional facts for this game, I came across several reviews. Now, since I haven’t finished the game, I can’t review it. Yet, it surprises me that there are people giving this game mediocre points and high points. I didn’t read them but I think I know from where they are coming from.

I usually start my article with talking about the story. Now, this story asks a lot of the player. It’s quite possible that later in the game, the story gets explained in more detail but at the start… The story is just all over the place.

After more careful examination of the story, I came to a conclusion. It’s generic until the point I played. The issue is that somebody altered the future and it’s your job to fix it. At least, that’s what I make from it. How do I know? I had to piece those things together myself.

This actually is a reason why I don’t play the game each time I have the chance. The game doesn’t pull me in like other games can. If it starts to make sense, I will talk about it in my review.

Is that a bad thing? Well, yes and no. It’s a problem because it doesn’t draw you in as much as other shooters do. But it isn’t a problem because the player is allowed to make up the story a bit by themselves.

Slow-motion

Did you ever wanted to play with the bullet time of the matrix? Well, now is your chance. At the surface, TimeShift looks like your everyday futuristic shooter. What sets this game apart is that you can play with time.

As long as the blue bar has energy left, you can either pause, rewind or go in slow-mo mode. And the enemies behave as they would if such technology existed. You see the enemies die in slow-motion or they don’t move an inch when you shoot them when you paused.

Your powers are actually essential to survive. And here I have another complaint. The AI of the enemies is not bad but there are parts where you can jump down to get cover in a sewer pipe without the enemies following you.

Now, that’s cheap. This way you can recharge your powers and as soon as you need to “regen” you powers, you can go hide again. Maybe that’s different on the higher difficulty settings but hey, I’m no pro shooter gamer.

Now, I advise you to mess around with the settings so that they fit your play style. Not that there is anything wrong with the standard control layout, but I’m a gamer who uses the arrows instead of the letters to move. I’m weird like that.

The game looks extremely well made. While I was afraid that my laptop wouldn’t be able to handle the game, I was proven wrong after I updated my graphical drivers. The game looks amazing to run around in and to play. I love the design of the places. Each and every new area they throw at me feels polished and ready for a big fight.

More stuff

Now, the enemies can call for help. While I haven’t seen reinforcements arrive ever, I might haven’t played the game for long enough. That brings me to the sound design. That is a strong point in this game. When I’m playing with my headset, this game sounds amazing. I feel like I’m right in a real war zone.

With the great graphics and the good sound design, this game is really intense to play. I actually shouted a few curse words because I was drawn into the gameplay so much.

And I think that’s the strong point of this game. The gameplay. It’s really well made. While the story isn’t all that good, the gameplay is where it’s at.

Now, the music isn’t helping. It isn’t bad but it isn’t great either. I don’t remember many tracks of TimeShift. I’m crossing my fingers that this game gives me better music that I might keep listing to after beating the game.

This game has a “Field Of View” slider. And I’m so glad that they have that. Because I decreased my FOV, my laptop runs this game with a rather nice frame rate.

A big advantage of this game is that you can buy it for a rather low price on Steam. It’s only 15€. That’s quite a low price for a gem like this.

Now, this first impression might be tad bit shorter then the others, but I haven’t played it too much yet. I wish I had more time. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If I ever finish this game, I’ll surely follow this article up with a review.

Review: Alan Wake – American Nightmare (PC – Steam) review ~ The Teasing End?

Wikipedia entry

So, before I begin at this article, I have to mention something for my readers. I found out that I made a mistake in the numbering of my reviews. I was off by 2 from number 15. So, I had some work fixing them all. But don’t worry, none of my URL’s changed. So, Remedy has released a sort of sequel to their amazing game Alan Wake. I haven’t written a first impression of this game, but I had written way back a first impression of the original. To be honest, you may call this game more of an extended DLC mission then an actual game. But I’m going to review it if it were a stand-alone game. If that’s okay with you. And if that isn’t okay with you, I’m sorry, articles don’t rewrite automatically like Alan Wake can. My apologies for that. Man, I haven’t even started with the actual review, and I’m already making references to the game. Anyway, my best buddy MiseryLC has watched an LP of this game. He found that this game was pretty sweet. But do I agree with my best buddy or are there some things in this game that make me dislike this game? Let’s see. Oh, like always, feel free to comment on this article and or the game. 

Compare it to the original? 

Would it be wise to compare this game to its original? Well, honestly that isn’t the best idea ever. Because there are a lot of things different in this game than in the original. While keeping the same formula, this game is nothing like the original.

Let’s first talk about the story. The story is told differently this time around. Real life actors played some cutscenes. While in the original, if I remember correctly, only small parts has been done with real actors. The acting scenes are extremely welcome and add to this game.

The story in this game is rather interesting. It aids the gameplay quite well. But the end of the story of this game is extremely weak. It was an ball to the wall action story with some little twists, but I feel like the first game had a way stronger story.

Let’s talk about the graphics for a moment. While my laptop couldn’t handle the highest settings very well, the normal settings gave extremely neat settings. The dark feel is back full force in this title then in the original. With some attention to detail, I barely have anything to complain about the graphics.

But, the collision detection is a totally different story. Some objects that you know can move, don’t. Yeah, ever had a chair that doesn’t move a pixel when you run against it? Thankfully, this issue isn’t that big and isn’t present with the enemies.

Nailed it!

I’m so sorry for the pun. Wait, you don’t understand the pun? Let me explain, there is actually a nail gun in this game. Yes, a nail gun. Remember my review of the original where I said that the selection of guns wasn’t the best? Well, this game totally fixes that!  The interface for selecting guns is a ton better.

There is also a use in game for collecting the pages. I don’t quite remember if there was a use in the previous game for them apart from getting the backstory. In this game they are used for unlocking guns. Interesting.

This game has some changes to the gameplay as well. Foremost, the health system works quite differently. You don’t fully get your health back. You can have 3 hits from the toughest enemy, and you die. But your health bar is now in three parts. So, when it’s somewhere midway the 2nd part, it will only fill the 2nd again instead of the third as well.

Also, the compass is quite useful. It has a bit more icons than in the original. You can’t see the full picture as far as I know, but certain clear icons appear when you’re close to ammo or light to regenerate health.

This game has also various new enemies. While the design of the enemies is the same then in the original, the new enemies more than make it for it. From enemies that duplicate when you shine light on them to enemies that can divide themselves into birds. It made the game more challenging, and I quite liked that.

Flaws

So, before we continue this review, I have to admit that I haven’t played the survival part of this game. It looks like fun, but it’s not totally my gameplay type. Yet, it’s a must-have addition to the game.

Anyway, the flaws of this game. For starters, the final part of the game is a tad bit too hard. Think back at what I said earlier, the game has an incredible weak ending. So in other words, you get a little reward for that high input.

The biggest flaw this game makes is that it’s extremely short. According to Steam, I finished this game in 5 hours. While I honestly don’t believe that, I can’t deny that this game is rather short.

Another thing that might turn people off is that there are very few settings in this game. Due to the nature of the story, you will see some locations several times. The variety in this game is rather low.  That’s a sad part.

Also, I have noticed three times that the scenery moved for no reason. And it didn’t get explained either. Why does a big cinema screen suddenly move from one side of the parking lot to another side? I’m sure I didn’t get turned around or anything.

So, before we end this review, notice how I didn’t talk about the animation, music and sound effects. If you’re interested in the game, check them out for yourself. And if you want to know my opinion, they are great. I just like to don’t talk about certain things of the game, so you have some surprises after reading this review.

Conclusion

The bad:

– Short.

– Weaker story than the original.

– Some repetition.

– Some things got unexplained that should have been explained, Dues Ex Machina’s and scenery that suddenly changes.

The good:

+ Classic Alan Wake gameplay with some tweaks.

+ Nice bonus story (while not perfect.)

+ Amazing design.

+ Unlockable.

+ Additional game mode survival.

+ Great soundtrack.

+ Great sound design.

Final thoughts:

If you want to buy this game, buy it on Steam. The low price of €9 is actually totally worth it. Don’t buy it for a larger price. Since this game doesn’t offer more value than that.

At the start of this article I talked about how this game should have been an expansion pack instead of a stand-alone. This would have increased my final score.

If you liked Alan Wake, don’t pass on this game. It’s a great game, sadly it’s short.

Score: 70/100.

Score, if it had been an expansion pack/DLC to the original game: 80/100

And that’s all I wanted to say about this game. 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.