Author - Judgeman

Reef Shot – A Review (PC)

2013/03/15

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Nano Games has released a new underwater exploring and photography game called Reef Shot. In Reef Shot, you are part of an expedition that is following the legends surround the lost city of gold, El Dorado. Before I get into this review, a little bit of disclosure is in order. In a former life, I actually worked as an archaeologist and spent many years studying New World archaeology, especially the contact period of the Spanish Conquistadors. As much as I tried, I could not keep my archaeology training out of this review, so I will have to discuss where Reef Shot went horribly wrong in terms of actual history and factual evidence. The issue with Reef shot is that when you stip out all of the historical intrigue that the game tries to build around certain myths, then the game is nothing more than an updated version of Pokemon Snap.

Story:

You play as Scott Burton, an underwater photographer that is working with an exploration group, consisting of a biologist named Renee Santone and her mentor, Professor Manuel Rodrigo Hernandez. The focus of the team is the expedition of Lope de Aguirre, who was searching for the famed city of El Dorado throughout South America. According to Reef Shot, de Aguirre disappeared mysteriously in 1561 and the team feels that his location and trail can be picked up on Isla de Robinson Crusoe on the western edge of Peru.

While exploring Isla de Robinson Crusoe, the team comes across some artifacts, beginning with a downed World War II Mustang fighter and leading to a sunken Mayan Temple. In hopes of finding more artifacts, the team begins searching the remainder of the island and discovers the remnants of an ancient Mayan civilization that is connected with the 2012 apocalypse myth.

Ok, here is where I will warn you, fair reader, of my incoming archaeology rant. I knew that the developers were going to frustrate me from the very beginning when they started the game with Lope de Aguirre’s mysterious disappearance. Lope de Aguirre did not disappear, he was killed by his own men in 1561 after he lead a rebellion against the King of Spain while on expedition along the Amazon River. Anyone who has done any type of research in the history of El Dorado would know this, so this expedition would have never gone to Chile with this information in hand. Secondly, Isla de Robinson Crusoe is so far from where the Mayan Civilization was centered, that the use of the Mayans in this game was nothing more than a blatant grab at the 2012 Mayan fervor surrounding the apocalypse myth. Since this game even missed a 2012 release date, that makes this attempt that much more pathetic in my eyes.

I know what the developers were trying to do, bend historical facts to make an interesting and captivating game. This has been done before in smaller amounts, but in games when history is the center idea, it just comes across as bad research and writing. The sad part for me is, after going through all of this in my head, the rest of the game was bland and not even remotely to play.

Game Play:

Reef Shot centers around the various dives by Scott Burton in discovering the various artifacts that his team is searching for. You swim from beacon to beacon, with tasks to complete at each stop. The tasks are just photography tasks, asking you to snap shots of various organisms for the biologist or Mayan artifacts as the game progresses. When you snap a picture, the game will score your picture based on how it is centered, is it an action shot, and the detail that you can see in the photograph. This score translates into points, which you can spend later.

The user interface is very simple, but is effective for what you need it to be. You have your oxygen tank on the left side, your camera reticule in the center, with pictures remaining and your current score, and a compass to find your next waypoint.

As your dive progresses, you unlock new skills that you can buy with the points you’ve earned with your photographs. These points can buy more pictures, more oxygen, or added tasks to finish before you head up.

There is nothing special here in terms of game play, at all. Once you get past the storyline, everything else is barebones and just flat out boring to play. If you can buy into the storyline of Reef Shot, then I can imagine the game becomes more fun to explore because you never know what puzzle piece you will discover next. However, with my utter contempt for what Nano Games did to the storyline in regards to archaeology and basic historical fact, the game play had no chance to save the game for me and quickly became apparent just how much there wasn’t here.

Aesthetics:

Reef Shot is an interesting game to look and and to listen too. The music actually fit the mood of the game, in creating a very relaxing atmosphere while you are diving underneath the waves off the coast of Chile. The voice acting was serviceable, but the dialogue was just about as bad as I have heard in a long time. Renee, who is pretty much the only one talking for most of the game, never comes across as a professional biologist, but more as a goofy tour guide at a wild safari park.

Final Thoughts:

Reef Shot may be one of those games that was doomed from the beginning with me, even before I played one second of the game. After years of training as a New World archaeologist, it is almost impossible to separate my training with creative license that the developers tried. As I played Reef Shot, all I could think of was all of the historical inaccuracies that are in the game, and this took me right out of the entire experience. All in all, I have played worse games in my lifetime, but Reef Shot could have easily could have been counted among them. Just steer clear of this game, it isn’t worth your time.

March of the Eagles Review (PC)

2013/03/08

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

The historical based strategy wargame has an interesting place in my heart. On one hand, as a trained historian and archaeologist, I love trying to either recreate or change history through my actions. On the other hand, I have never been any good at these games since I cannot seem to micro-manage the economic systems, while supplying my troops, and fighting a war on multiple fronts. This is similar to my love/hate relationship that I have with real time strategy games, but I am far more interested in the historical aspects of the wargame. This time around, I take on the Napoleonic Wars period of 1805-1815 with Paradox Interactive’s March of the Eagles.

Story:

March of the Eagles begins in 1805 with the start of the Napoleonic Wars. The Napoleonic Wars involved almost the entirety of Europe as Napoleon Bonaparte tried to expand the French Empire, mostly by trying to conquer the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom responded by gathering allies from all over Europe to form coalitions, seven of these by the end of the wars. The end result of the Napoleonic Wars was the removal from power of Napoleon Bonaparte and the strengthening of nationalism throughout Europe, eventually leading to the rise in power of both Germany and Italy by the end of the century. All of these is portrayed in March of the Eagles in one form or another, though for most individuals, it will be quite overwhelming.

The story line of March of the Eagles doesn’t play out in any type of narrative sense, like most games. There aren’t any talking heads nor cut scenes to show you what is occurring on the other side of the continent. The narrative is completely driven by your actions and what nation you choose to begin with. If you choose France, then the objective is fairly simple: Conquer Europe. If you choose any other nation, then the story will change as will the objectives based on your decisions. As Russia, do you choose to ally yourself with France, setting up a massive pincer attack and crush Central Europe between two armies, then defeat the United Kingdom? Or, do you ally yourself with the United Kingdom and try to march your armies across several hostile countries to join the fight against France? It is entirely up to the player and the decisions the player makes. The implementation of historical events in a game such as March of the Eagles is extremely tricky. You have to have the artificial intelligence react accordingly to player decisions. I felt that Paradox Interactive did a good job in recreating the political tension and setting for the Napoleonic Wars.

Game Play:

In a word, the game play of March of the Eagles was overwhelming. I felt that I had too much to keep track of in too many menus, but this is a personal critic of the game. Die hard fans of the strategy wargame genre may feel completely opposite, however, I definitely had issues with this. Fighting back my fear of menus and information overload, I got to see what March of the Eagles had to offer, and it is solid.

After choosing your nation, you are immediately thrown into the conflict. Since most nations already had wars, enemies, and allies ongoing before the start of the Napoleonic Wars, you have some immediate decisions to make. Russia, for instance, is already entangled with Persia to the south before I even make one alliance to involve myself in the greater conflict of Europe.

Decisions made for your nation are presented and completed through menus. Decisions involving Diplomacy, Research, and Manufacturing are all presented in extensive and detailed menus, which quite frankly gave me information overload. However overwhelming as it was for me, having this information is beneficial for those that take their wargame simulators seriously.

Aesthetics:

March of the Eagles is not a pretty game, at all. The icons for all troops are those of infantry, even if the troop type is cavalry, which makes it hard to identify troop types at a glance. Animations are at a minimal and the map, while showing detailed topography across Europe, isn’t attractive at all. The good news in this regard is that March of the Eagles fully supports user made modifications, and there is already a mod in works from the community to make this a more visually appealing game. Unfortunately, I see that has a huge strike against March of the Eagles. When your customers have to fix your product to make it more appealing, then you haven’t done your job right.

The sound of March of the Eagles wasn’t memorable either. Since there is no voice acting, no conflict sound effects, and very little ambient sounds, I don’t have much to review. The music works, however, isn’t something you will find whistling at work later in the day.

Final Thoughts:

March of the Eagles is a very strong contender in the historical wargame genre. This historic era is under-represented in today’s video game market and is a fantastic change of pace from playing games based on either World War II or conflicts centered in the Middle East. This game is not for everyone! You must constantly micro-manage your finances, diplomacy, research, and troop movement in order to remain a contender in the Napoleonic Wars power struggle. Information is your best friend, and worst enemy in March of the Eagles. You can see almost everything with a click of the mouse button, but this could lead to information overload for those of you that are not wargame veterans. The aesthetics of March of the Eagles leaves much to be desired, but that has been the case in most historical wargames. I hope that this style of game will continue to be made in the future, however, I hope developers start borrowing ideas from other developers, like Blizzard, and start putting more into how the game looks and sounds. Overall, March of the Eagles is a very strong game for those that have the desire to rewrite history in a strategy game and you get a lot for the $20 price tag.

[easyreview title=”March of the Eagles Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]

NZXT Avatar S Gaming Mouse – A Review

2013/02/08

Judgeman

News, Peripheral Review, Peripherals News, Reviews

Today, we look at the Avatar S gaming mouse from NZXT, who is better known for their PC cases and cooling systems then for their mice. The Avatar S replaced my trusty Razor Starcraft II Spectre mouse for this last week, as i tested it on games like DMC, World of Warcraft, The Secret World, and Team Fortress 2. I was interested in seeing how the Avatar S would behave with this set of games, along with my usual internet and writing duties that I complete in a normal week.

Features:

•	Precision and Flexibility: 1600 DPI laser sensor with 1600/800/400 DPI settings out of the box
•	Tracking speed of 30 inches per second and acceleration up to 20G
•	Hardware DPI switch allows for driver-less DPI switch while in game without the hassle of drivers
•	16Kb Onboard Memory stores 1 profile of macros, dpi settings, and LED settings for gaming on-the-go
•	Narrow and medium size ideal for users that prefer a thinner and lower profile form
•	Ambidextrous design ideal for both left and right handed users
•	LED on/off settings
•	Teflon feet for effortless gliding on any surface
•	5 Key programmable mouse
•	Immense customizability: Ability to modify default DPI settings individually, setup in-game macros, media keys, and X-Y sensitivity options
•	Polling rate of 1000Hz

Design:

Let’s start off with the look and the design of the Avatar S. The Avatar S is a very sleek mouse, longer but narrower then the Razor Spectre that I normally use. This, at first, made the mouse feel much to small for my hands. As the week went on and testing continued, the Avatar S began to feel much more natural and right in my hands. I think I prefer a mouse that is wider in design then the Avatar S, but that is my own personal taste. The Avatar S has five buttons, located in a standard ambidextrous configuration, allowing people to have access to all five buttons regardless of whether you use your left or right hand. With five buttons, the Avatar S is designed more for casual gaming and less for the hardcore gamer that needs more buttons for macros. I have a tendency to lean towards mice that have less buttons, relying more on keyboard buttons for my macros, so the Avatar S button configuration worked just fine for me.

LED lights give the Avatar S a nice blue glow to it, matching the blue glow on my keyboard and making it just look cool. My only complaint about the design of the mouse is with the USB cord itself, it isn’t braided.

This may be more of a personal preference issue then an actual performance issue, but I have always preferred my cords with the extra protection that the braided cord gives, and how the braided cord has a tendency not to kink on me. While I consider this a complaint and a negative against the Avatar S mouse, it isn’t a deal breaker for me and did not impact the performance of the mouse at all.

Performance:

For me, either a mouse works well or it doesn’t. The Avatar S has the ability to switch between DPI settings and allows the player to set up macros and settings, just like other mice on the market, but you can also switch between DPI settings on the fly. Running the Avatar S at the 1600 DPI setting, I hit my weekly gaming session. While I have the ability to get technical with some hardware in the PC world, with mice I prefer to keep my reviews in the realm of the layman. For me, either the mouse works and is comfortable or it isn’t. With the Avatar S, the feel of the mouse grew on me as the week progressed. The Avatar S performed through my series of games quite well, allowing me to track accurately and quickly. Switching from a first person shooter to a role playing game didn’t change how the mouse performed at all. Hardcore gamers may miss some of the extra buttons on the mouse, however, I did not. I pretty much only prefer to have five to six buttons on my mouse, even for World of Warcraft. The only negative I can see the Avatar S has versus the Razor Spectre is the lack of alerts that the Spectre has for Starcraft II. Seeing that the Spectre was designed for that game in particular, this is a negative I can safely ignore.

Final Thoughts:

The Avatar S from NZXT performed quite well through my week of testing, through hours of role playing games and first person shooters. The Avatar S felt small in my hands, at first, but the size began to grow on me as the week went on. While I can switch between DPI settings on the fly, I prefer to operate my mouse at the 1600 setting and played all of my games with that setting. The negatives I have seen with the Avatar S really falls into my own personal preferences; the lack of a braided cord, the overall size of the mouse, and the the weight. The Avatar S is a light mouse, and for me, I prefer a mouse with a little more weight. What the Avatar S did do right is perform well through my series of weekly gaming sessions, and general PC use. The Avatar S mouse from NZXT retails for about $40, which is on the cheaper side for gaming mice. If you are looking for a new gaming mouse, that is a straight forward functional mouse and one that will save you a few bucks, check out the Avatar S gaming mouse from NZXT.

[easyreview title=”NZXT Avatar S Gaming Mouse Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]

White Noise – A Review (Xbox 360)

2013/02/07

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Xbox 360 News, Xbox 360 Review

Milkstone Studios has released their latest title through the Xbox Live Indie Marketplace, named White Noise. The premise for White Noise is simple, you are stuck in a grave yard, collecting eight tape recorders while being hunted by a vile creature. What you really get with White Noise is an almost exact copy of Slender, but for the Xbox 360. Milkstone Studios just changed the pieces of paper to tape recorders, some of the structures that you wander through, and Slenderman to a fairly generic looking supernatural creature. If you ever wanted to play Slender from Parsec Productions on your Xbox 360, White Noise is the only way to do so. For the rest of this review, I will focus solely on how White Noise is as a game by itself, and not how it compares to Slender. Just know, if you have played Slender before and what that experience on the Xbox 360, White Noise is your game.

Story:

White Noise has very little back story in the beginning of the game prior to game play. You get a small little text page about how a colleague of yours is helping you complete some paranormal research is a grave yard nearby. Your colleague went out during the day to place eight tape recorders throughout the grave yard, in hopes of capturing the voices of the dead through the white noise that the recorders pick up. However, your colleague has yet to return and you need those tape recorders, so you set off for the grave yard to recover them, armed only with a flash light. Once you arrive at the grave yard, you almost immediately become hunted by an eyeless creature that will just stay out of flashlight range, long enough for you to see it.

That is the extent of the story for White Noise, there is nothing more that adds to this narrative during game play. None of the tape recorders will play, nor do you find any hint of your colleague or what is happening in the grave yard. White Noise, in terms of story, has the bare minimum. Milkstone Studios sets up the narrative and then just lets the players play the game and create their own narrative throughout actual game play. Normally, this would almost completely ruin a game for me, because I have always felt that games truly need us to care for the characters and the story for it to become truly a great game. White Noise is one of those exceptions, you don’t need to have any type of growing narrative, because the game play sucks you in immediately with its atmosphere that you no longer care why you are collecting these recorders, only that you need to get all eight before the creature kills you.

Game Play:

Since White Noise has the bare minimum of story, it must survive on game play alone. Games with a great story line can hid game play issues behind characters that we care about or events that draws us into the game. On the flip side of that, games without a great story must have game play mechanics that is fun and immersive enough for us to forget the lack of depth in the story. White Noise falls completely into the second category, with solid game play that just makes you come back for more.

The controls for White Noise is incredibly simple, you have a button that controls the power to your flash light, a trigger that allows you to run for short distances, while the sticks control your movement and look capabilities. The battery only has so much life to it, so turning it off when you don’t need it will allow the battery to last longer, and keep you alive.

Game play is centered around the collection of eight tape recorders, yes, tape recorders. I guess using digital recorders would have made the models too small, but I found it funny that the developers decided to use old style tape recorders for White Noise. As you collect these tape recorders, you discover that there is a creature hunting you. The entire object of White Noise is to collect all eight recorders before being killed by this mysterious creature. Keeping an eye on the creature with the flash light will keep it at bay, but the creature will circle around to cut you off from the other parts of the grave yard. You are completely defenseless against the creature, with no offensive moves nor weapons. You can only run, and that is what adds to the intensity of White Noise. The creature will stalk you from afar, causing a slow burning panic through the game. If you don’t keep a close eye on the creature, it will sneak up for an instant kill, giving you a close look at it before the world goes black.

Aesthetics:

This is where White Noise really gets creepy – its visuals. The entire game is based on the environment and atmosphere that Milkstone Studios creates to draw you in for the scare. The grave yard is suitably dark, especially if you have your television set correctly for the game, forcing you to rely on your flash light for guidance. As you search the grave yard, you come across ghosts that are wandering through the headstones. These ghosts don’t attack, nor do they have any bearing on game play, but add another level to the ambiance of the game. More then once, I mistook a spirit for the creature that was hunting me, just by seeing a flash of a human form on the edge of my screen.

The sound of White Noise also adds greatly to the game’s atmosphere. The silence of the grave yard, with only the sound of your footsteps echoing off of the mausoleums, the sudden scream when you see the creature, and the sound of static as the creature gets ever so near. Interestingly enough, the use of static in White Noise makes more sense than it did in Slender, since you are collecting tape recorders that are trying to collect this static. Well played, Milkstone, well played.

Final Thoughts:

White Noise, at the end of it all, is nothing more then a Slender port to the Xbox 360 with enough changed to keep the lawyers at bay. It is, however, a damn good port of a damn good game. The controls feels right as you move through the grave yard, and game play is unchanged essentially from the original Slender. It is the aesthetics of White Noise that wins me over. The game can be outright unnerving to play, with the slow burning tension that builds as you find more and more tape recorders. While I wish there was more to the game then what there is, that isn’t a knock against Milkstone Studious, but more with the original game Slender. Overall, if you are looking to play Slender on the Xbox 360, this is your only choice and it will do just fine.

[easyreview title=”White Noise Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″ ]

DmC: Devil May Cry Review (PC)

2013/01/25

Judgeman

News, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Capcom, long-time publisher and developer of the Devil May Cry series, decided a few years back to do something different for its fourth installment. Instead of doing another sequel, Capcom wanted to reboot the series from a more Western point of view, thus giving the title over to English developer, Ninja Theory. Long time fans of the series protested this changing of developer, worried that a new group of people would not handle Dante and the mythos of the Devil May Cry universe correctly. Well, I am here to tell you that those fears are unfounded and that DmC: Devil May Cry is a game worthy of its lineage. Ninja Theory understood what made the Devil May Cry series a hit and successfully made this reboot with an engaging story, fantastic aesthetic designs, and great game play.

Story:

The story begins with Dante, the hero of the previous Devil May Cry games, waking up from a hangover in his trailer near a theme park. He is warned by a witch named Kat that a demon is hunting him, unfortunately this warning comes just seconds before the demon pulls Dante into Limbo. Once Dante escapes the demon and returns to the world of the living, Kat takes Dante to see the leader of The Order, a group of individuals fighting to better the world that they all live in. The leader of The Order, Virgil, explains to Dante that he and Dante are offspring of a union between angel and demon. Being Nephilim, half angel/half demon, means that Dante and Virgil are the only two individuals that can save the world from the grasp of Mundus, the demon that has enslaved the people of Earth. Learning this, Dante sets out to defeat Mundus and avenge the fate of his mother and father.

The story of DmC: Devil May Cry is well written and paced. I found myself gripped from the very start, wanting to play the next level just to see what happens in the plot. The character of Dante is updated considerably, starting the story off as an individual who doesn’t care about the world or its problems. As Dante learns more and more about his past, through unlocking lost memories, Dante begins to feel a driving need to avenge the death of his mother and the banishment of his father at the hands of Mundus. He becomes a driven individual in pursuit of a goal, while maintaining some of his “devil may care” attitude. The other characters that are involved in the story are just as interesting as Dante. Virgil has come to grip with his place in this battle at an earlier age then Dante, and serves as a guide for what must be done, while Kat is a capable accomplice with a past that haunts her to this present day.

While not perfect, the story of DmC: Devil May Cry is incredibly engaging and interesting to follow. Seeing this world through the eyes of a Western developer, such as Ninja Theory, helps make the story relate better to Western audiences. Time for a little disclosure here: While I did play the other games of the Devil May Cry series, I never felt that these characters or story lines were perfect. When I heard that a reboot was in the making, I was one of the few that was optimistic and excited to see what direction a Western developer would take. That being said, I truly prefer the story of DmC: Devil May Cry over any of the older versions of it. This story just sucked me in and kept me up later than I had planned to be up.

Game play:

DmC: Devil May Cry is a hack and slash game at heart, with some minor role playing game elements thrown in. Dante uses a variety of weapons, some angelic in nature, some demonic, to destroy Mundus’ army. Each weapon has different qualities to them, and can be upgraded with different move sets through the RPG system. Dante collects souls as he progresses through the levels, and can spend these souls at various shops to unlock new moves or increase his health. Dante can also collect special lost souls, health upgrades and keys that unlock doors that lead to special battle events. There is plenty to search for in each level of DmC: Devil May Cry.

Playing on the PC, you have the choice to go with the standard keyboard and mouse interface, or go with a game controller. I played DmC: Devil May Cry with the keyboard and mouse since I busted my last game controller for my PC in a classic rage quit. The keyboard and mouse interface worked perfectly for this game, though I can see where the game controller would have been much easier to use. Hitting the Shift key to dodge while pummeling enemies was a little harder then I would have liked it to be, but overall the keyboard and mouse combination works just fine.

DmC: Devil May Cry has its standard difficulty settings at first, then you can unlock different modes for your next game play, some of these modes are incredibly hard. To find everything in the game is going to need at least two play throughs. You unlock certain moves and weapons that are needed to reach or open doors during the progression of the story. You keep these moves and weapons when you begin a new game plus, allowing you to reach certain doors and areas previously unreachable in your first game play.

Aesthetics:

I love the design for DmC: Devil May Cry. The city looks appropriately menacing, with larger then life design elements, similar to Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham. The world gets even more interesting when Dante gets pulled into Limbo, when the buildings get a little more twisted and you can see the shades of people still wandering the streets in the real world. Occasionally, as you are running through the level, words will appear on the street or plastered across the buildings, as Mundus is giving orders to his minions to stop you. It is a simple little aesthetic design, but I thought that really helped give me an idea of the influence that Mundus has in Limbo, plus just give DmC: Devil May Cry a really cool design.

The music in DmC: Devil May Cry just plain rocks. The designers used more of a heavy metal sound for the music, and it really helps keep the action feeling frantic and fast paced. I got myself a few times really getting into some of the fight sequences, especially when the music came over my headsets loud and fast. Voice acting for DmC: Devil May Cry was just want it needed to be, not perfect but not over the top nor cheesy. The characters each had their own personalities and these came through their voice acting sessions admirably.

Dante’s move sets and jumping ability have been designed to give fighting sequences a very fluid design that flows from one combatant to the next. The only breaks occur when the game introduces a new type of opponent. The screen will freeze, and zoom in on the new opponent, showing the demon’s name and framing the demon in a picture so you can get a better look.

Final Thoughts:

With Capcom giving design of their precious Devil May Cry series to a new developer, Ninja Theory, many people were worried that this would be the end of their beloved franchise. I can safely say, it is not the end. In fact, this may be the beginning of an even better set of games. While the original Devil May Cry series was an outstanding set of games, I have always felt that some of the story gets distorted in it’s translation from an Eastern developer to a Western game player. With DmC: Devil May Cry, we have a Western story for Western players and it feels like a much more complete experience, for me, this time around. The game play is solid in it’s simplicity of button mashing combos, but with the addition of new moves and four choices of weapons in the earlier stages, gives the player a possibility of depth and various tools to dispatch demons with. I loved the aesthetic design choices for this game, and felt that the world was truly interesting to wonder through, especially the Limbo sequences where the world takes on a particular bend and twist. If you have never played a Devil may Cry game, start here. For fans of the series, rest assured this game is a spiritual successor to the originals and, in some areas, far more superior. DmC: Devil May Cry is a must play for anyone who plays video games.

4 out of 5 Stars

Primal Fears – Review (PC)

2013/01/22

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

DnS Development has brought us yet another game about the end of the world, named Primal Fears. Primal Fears is an isometric shooter that pits you against wave after wave of monsters after the world has completely collapsed. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything here in Primal Fears that I can recommend. The story is almost non-existent, which makes the world less interesting to play in, and the game play itself is extremely frustrating due to the toughness of the enemy. You end up spending more time backtracking, shooting swarms of monsters and trying to survive, then you do actually exploring your surroundings and learning about what has transpired.

Story:

Primal Fears is another game about some sort of apocalypse here on Earth. Life as we know it has ended, and it is up to you now to survive the aftermath of the complete collapse of civilization. This time, civilization was brought down by the love child of the Flood and some sort of zombie-vampire hybrid. I have no idea what these things are actually supposed to be, because the game never once sets up the story line for Primal Fears. The game literally just drops you off into an area, and then sends swarms of these monsters to eat your face. Occasionally, you will find newspaper clippings, but these don’t add much more then just hints to what has happened since you can only read the headlines. These headlines, by the way, are way to vague to be of any use in piecing together any type of narrative for Primal Fears.

Any type of narrative that Primal Fears has must be inferred by the player. This leads to way too many questions during game play about the story. I have no clue what these monsters where, who my character was, why I was even in these maps instead of some place else, or what my objective was. This complete lack of narrative really took me out of the game from the beginning, and just continued to loose me all the way through. You can have games with little to no narrative, and the game will still be fun due to great game play, but Primal Fears even failed on that level.

Game Play:

Primal Fears is a shooter in the same vein as Smash TV or Loaded from the original PlayStation You control the character by using the WASD keys for movement and the mouse for aiming your two guns. You begin the game with a shotgun and a semi automatic rifle, along with two grenades. As you kill monsters in the map, you gain cash. This cash can be used to upgrade your weapons and by ammo at various vending machines located through the map. During playing Primal Fears, I kept wondering where these naked monsters were keeping this cash that I kept picking up, and why the hell did a hospital have a gun vending machine in it’s lobby. In today’s current gun control discussions, I had a pretty good laugh imagining gun vending machines being located throughout our cities today and the outcry that would cause.

What was really frustrating about Primal Fears was the insane amount of damage these monsters could take. Even the little ones on normal wouldn’t die until after four shots from the semi auto rifle, and these things usually came in wave of three or four. The game would also have set event pieces where it would literally surround you with two swarms of about fifteen of these little guys, with a couple of their bigger and badder older brothers. You end up running backwards the whole time, trying to put space between you and the enemy as you slowly kill them one by one. Inevitably, your blood will cover the floor as they just take you apart, and this was just inside the first room of the first level that this would happen. I am all for hard games, I have finished Ninja Gaiden and Dark Souls, so hard games don’t turn me off. However, for people to return to a hard game time and time again, there has to be a draw to it. In those two examples I mentioned, it was the story that would bring me back for more punishment, in Primal Fears, there isn’t a story line so there isn’t anything to bring me back to try again.

Aesthetics:

Primal Fears looks mediocre at best when it comes down to it. Your character has a flashlight that helps add some ambiance to some of the darker rooms, but besides that there isn’t anything special about the visual aesthetics. The technical graphics are middle of the road, and the design of the game is pretty generic. Sound direction and quality of Primal Fears is actually the best thing about the game, especially if you are wearing headsets. I can hear the swarms coming from different directions, which adds to the survival horror feel of the game, but then the game play kicks in and I’m left feeling frustrated and looking to head to a better game.

Final Thoughts:

Primal Fears by DnS Development isn’t a bad game, it just isn’t a good game. Primal Fears commits the video game sin in believing that the game itself did not need a story to save it and relied on the game play to keep players coming back. However, the game play of Primal Fears is just as frustrating as the lack of any type of narrative and really put me off of the whole experience. I spent way too much time running backwards, emptying out my gun on enemies that just would not die. Each map was at least some what interesting, however, a lack of any type of objective left me wondering why the hell I was visiting these places to begin with. If you are looking for a shooter that is similar to the good times you had with Smash TV, I would just recommend replaying Smash TV and leave Primal Fears alone.

[easyreview title=”Primal Fears Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”2″ ] Our Rating Scores Explained

A New Beginning – Final Cut Review (PC)

2013/01/02

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Daedalic Entertainment originally released A New Beginning in Europe back in October of 2010, then released it in the United Kingdom in 2011. The game was met with mediocre reviews in both markets. A New Beginning – Final Cut has been released here in the United States through Steam a full two years after its original release, and not much has changed since then. The game still feels unpolished in many areas, with spelling mistakes and bad voice acting abound. The only addition here that makes this version the “Final Cut” is that Daedalic Entertainment added achievements, localization for seven languages, and Mac OS X support. It’s unfortunate that Daedalic Entertainment didn’t take some of the criticism from two years ago and tried to change the game for the better for the US release, because at the heart of it all, A New Beginning is a solid adventure game with great visuals that is just ruined by the dialogue itself and its delivery by the actors.

Story:

Gamers are used to playing games that center around an “end of the world” scenario. Usually this scenario comes from large, disgusting aliens with even larger weapons starting some massive galactic war. A New Beginning takes us down this over-tread path differently, by creating this apocalypse through a climate change in the Earth. The story follows two characters, a time traveling radio operator named Faye and a retired, severely depressed scientist from today named Brent Svennson. The catastrophic climate change occurs in the future and destroys the entire planet, almost completely ridding the Earth of human life. The remnants of human culture create a plan to send back people to the past, in order to prevent this climate change from occurring. However, through a miscalculation in their studies, the team is sent first to 2050, to a point in time during the actual destruction of Earth’s climate. Faye, now knowing that 2050 is too late, time travels again to 2010 to meet with Brent Svennson, a scientist that studies algae, to enlist his aid in preventing the 2050 climate change and thus, preventing the future from happening.

The overall story line for A New Beginning starts off as very preachy when it comes to environment issues. Luckily, that tone does not stay throughout the entire game, and what you get in the end is a solid, eco-thriller that centers itself around algae. What completely ruins the story for me in terms of writing is the dialogue. A New Beginning was originally presented in its native German language, so the issues with the dialogue must have been generated in translation. Since I don’t speak nor read German, I must deal with what is presented to me, and this version is just poorly translated. The dialogue feels broken in many parts, with sentences that feel disjointed and the entire dialogue just doesn’t flow very well throughout the game. Spelling errors also helped to knock me out of the story, even faster then the bad translations of the dialogue did. Daedelic Entertainment took two years in bringing A New Beginning to the United States, that was plenty of time to clean up and polish the spelling found in the game, and to make sure the dialogue was translated better than it was. In the end, these issues completely made what good have been a great adventure game, just mediocre and one to forget.

Gameplay:

A New Beginning is, at heart, a point and click adventure game that presents a series of puzzles for the player to solve in order to progress the story line. Players will control one of the characters as they move through the world, searching for answers to the current puzzle. Players can point to objects in the world and click on them, to either pick them up, interact with them, or to move your character to that point. Holding down the left button will also bring up an interaction wheel, that will give characters other options when suitable. A New Beginning does nothing to shake this mechanic up or to add anything new that hasn’t been done in hundreds of other point and click adventure games that has come before.

What is satisfying about A New Beginning, is that the puzzles presented during game play are actually logical and, in some cases, skippable if you get stuck. The biggest downfall for me in point and click adventure games is when the designers make their puzzles have illogical solutions that, unless you are lucky or insane you would never think of doing. With A New Beginning, the puzzles presented have logical solutions, ones that make complete sense. The game play and puzzle mechanics of A New Beginning are solid and done well, if not ground breaking.

Aesthetics:

Visually, A New Beginning is stunning in its presentation. Daedelic Entertainment went with a graphic novel style of presentation, where the cut scenes are created to mimic a comic book. This works like it did in Max Payne all those years ago, but feels out of place here in A New Beginning. The graphic novel style just does not come off as the best choice to present the player with for cut scenes. The in game visuals, however, are fantastic to look at and make up for any downfall in the cut scenes. A New Beginning looks entirely hand drawn and this aesthetic looks fantastic to me. The entire game looks as if you are actually playing in a comic book, with smooth visuals and a cool look.

The sounds of A New Beginning is the biggest source of frustration for me, next to the dialogue, for this game. The music is well done, and helps to increase the dramatic feeling of A New Beginning, where game play restrictions could not. The music helps build up an apocalyptic tension that sets the tone for the entire game. While the voice acting is absolutely dreadful. The actors all sound completely bored with their lines and characters and deliver the dialogue, which is already badly translated, with the enthusiasm of a corpse. The voice acting, coupled with the dialogue, is what truly killed A New Beginning for me.

Final Thoughts:

Daedalic Entertainment took a full two years in bringing A New Beginning to the United States, and in those two years all they added were achievements, Mac OS X support, and localization for seven languages. Those two years could have gone into improving the overall quality of A New Beginning, pushing the game from mediocre up to a great example of a point and click adventure game. The story line, an eco thriller about the end of the world via climate change, is well presented and passed quite nicely, albeit preachy in some areas. The game play mechanics and puzzles are also solid and logical, keeping the game moving along with little or no interruption from players becoming stuck on an impossible puzzle. What keeps A New Beginning mediocre is the lack of aforementioned polish, especially in regards to dialogue and voice acting. The translation from native German to English was poor, with syntax errors and spelling issues in both the written and spoken translations of dialogue. This, coupled with bored voice actors, helps make A New Beginning feel unfinished and almost painful to play. Especially when the translators try to insert terms that are there just for the American audience. I had a hard time making it through the dialogue of Faye and Brent talking about “pimping out” Faye’s plasma gun. Those words had no place in any conversation between a radio operator from the future and an old, retired scientist. If you have played every other point and click adventure game on the market and must play another one, then A New Beginning will entertain you until something better comes along. Otherwise, I would completely avoid this one, and focus on one of the other better games that are currently on the market.

Torchlight 2 – A Review (PC)

2012/12/26

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

Three years ago, Runic Games released an action role playing game that felt like the spiritual successor to Diablo 2, with Torchlight. Torchlight had many gamers and critics clamoring on about how Torchlight made them remember the countless hours that they spent on gear runs in Diablo 2, and seeing how Runic Games rose from the ashes of Blizzard North, these comparisons make perfect sense. Last September, in the wake of the disappointment that many felt in the release of Diablo 3, Runic Games released their sequel, Torchlight 2. While not perfect, Torchlight 2 feels right in so many ways and easily gives Diablo 3 cause for concern.

Story:

Torchlight was extremely light on story, and Torchlight 2 is only slightly better in this department. The story of Torchlight 2 begins with the corruption of The Alchemist, a playable character in the original Torchlight, and the destruction of the game’s namesake town. The Alchemist has been corrupted by the Heart of Ordrak, the original villain from the first game, and has now set upon a path to destroy the balance between the six elements. As the hero, you are setting out on a quest to prevent The Alchemist from realizing his plans and to uphold the balance.

The story of Torchlight 2 is presented to the player as it was in Diablo 2, through cut scenes and in game quest dialogue. While not as fully rendered or as technically impressive as the cut scenes from Diablo 3, I found that the art used to portray these story arcs fit well with the overall aesthetic of the game and gives Torchlight 2 it’s own presence. All dialogue boxes are fully voiced by actors and helps the player to feel like the story is progressing, but each dialogue box is at most a paragraph and it’s hard to balance deep story telling by using this method, with just flat out boring the players. All dialogue boxes can be skipped, so if you are only in it for the loot, just bypass the story.

Gameplay:

Torchlight 2’s game play is entirely reminiscent of Diablo 2, and that is not a coincidence. You begin the game by selecting one of four character classes; The Outlander, The Engineer, The Embermage or The Berserker. You then set out into the world to stop The Alchemist, along the way collecting items from fallen enemies. It is these items that fuels the addiction of Torchlight 2. Items are set up just like they were in the original game, with varying statistics and qualities. Items can be unique, or a part of a larger set, or just fit to be sold at the vendor. Items are randomly created in Torchlight 2, so you can see different items through different play throughs. Torchlight 2 does make it easy to send items to other characters by giving the player both a shared storage box and a unique storage box for each game.

Character progression in Torchlight 2 is done in a similar vein as it was in Diablo 2. As you level up, you earn skill and ability points that you can allocate to whatever stat or ability you desire in your progression tree. The stats are exactly as they were in Diablo 2, strength, dexterity, magic and vitality. Each class has different sets of abilities that they can invest in, with three different trees to select from. These abilities fall into two categories, active and passive. At any time in game, a character can only have two active abilities to choose from, and you must switch between these two. For me, this was both a breath of fresh air, and extremely binding at the same time. I love the simplified game play of having only to choose between two abilities, but this does hamper your ability to adapt to any circumstance in game. Deciding what two abilities to keep active during a fight becomes very important to your life and limb.

Torchlight 2 comes from the old school video game mindset, meaning that any decision you make to your character will be permanent. There are no respecializations in Torchlight 2, so plan accordingly. Torchlight 2 adds different ways to play through the game, you can play offline, online, or through a LAN. Yes, you can play Torchlight 2 offline, with no internet connection at all. Those of you out there that were mad as hell about Diablo 3’s requiring an internet connection, I hereby give you an alternative with Torchlight 2. You can also continue to play the game after the main story is finished with a game plus, or choose to retire your character all together. Torchlight 2 has an option for everyone and easily will give you thirty hours of game play in your first game.

Aesthetics:

Ok, I am a sucker for slick art design and different looking games. I still hold Team Fortress 2 as the greatest example of what good art design and aesthetics can do for a video game, and should take precedence over technical specifications any day of the week. Torchlight 2 delivers an aesthetic that I love due to its simple nature and unique looks. The overall feel of Torchlight 2 tends to be on the side of cartoonish rather then realism, which is ironic given the darker nature of the game’s story line. The design of the game, the characters, the world and the cut scenes all fit well together and makes Torchlight 2 feel unique. The characters themselves, which have almost no personality through dialogue or voice acting, must be given this personality through the design of the art. Unfortunately, after hours of game play, your character will be covered in enough gear that any type of personality that was showing through the art direction will now be hidden underneath armor.

The music and sound of Torchlight 2 gives the game that much more of a feel that is akin to Diablo 2. Each non player character is fully voiced for the dialogue, with accents that sound real and well placed. The sound effects from the abilities make using those abilities that much more satisfying. Hitting the ground with my hammer and hearing the fire erupt and huge waves of earth move outwards from my character, made the game that much more fun to play. The music of Torchlight 2 is dead on and adds much more to the story then any character dialogue in the game. The music fits with the theme of Torchlight 2 and also changes with the environment as you explore the world.

Final Thoughts:

I played countless hours of Diablo 2 when it was released, and for many years afterwards. Diablo 2 had something special to it, that made players not want to stop playing. The entire gaming community was ready for the same feeling when Diablo 3 was announced, but the release was far, far below expectations. With complaints such as the itemization, the requirement to be online at all times, and just how much different it felt versus Diablo2, Diablo 3 did not garner as much love as it should have. While Torchlight 2 does not try to innovate the genre, and is technically less impressive then Diablo 3, Torchlight 2 is so much closer of a spiritual successor to the legacy that is Diablo 2. The game play feels exactly like it did in Diablo 2, the items feel right and you can play Torchlight 2 without an internet connection if you so choose. While I will not go as far as saying Torchlight 2 is better then Diablo 3, I will say that I had more fun with Torchlight 2, and if you miss the days of Diablo 2, so will you. Torchlight 2 is available now through Steam for $19.99.

The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles – Review (PC)

2012/12/17

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

King Art Games has brought us the prequel to last years point and click adventure game, The Book of Unwritten Tales, aptly named The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles. This prequel focuses primarily on how Nate and the Critter meet up and begin adventuring together. Significantly shorter then the original game, The Critter Chronicles still packs in a lot of humor and solid point and click adventure game play that will make fans of the original game glad they came back for seconds. Having reviewed over thirteen point and click adventure games within the last two years, I am getting a feeling for what makes these games good, great or just plain awful. The Critter Chronicles fits solidly into the great category for this genre, and actually makes me want to hunt down a copy of the original game to check out.

Story:

The Critter Chronicles picks up right in the middle of a chase scene as Nate is embarking on his new life of adventure, with a floating airship that he won in a poker game. Of course, the last owner is a little less then reluctant to let Nate get away without a fight, and has hired an Orc mercenary to hunt him down. The result of this chase is that Nate crash lands on a floating iceberg and is captured by a yeti. On this same iceberg, is a group of space faring aliens that are stranded on this planet, trying to make repairs. These repairs keep going wrong thanks to the ineptitude of our Critter, that isn’t all that bright. Critter is told to go away and leave the others to complete the repairs to their ship, and in his wanderings, meets Nate and saves him from the Yeti. So begins Nate and Critter’s adventures that leads up to The Book of Unwritten Tales.

The world that The Critter Chronicles inhabits is a very interesting world, filled with great characters and environments. The Critter Chronicles takes place in a fantasy land of orcs, elves, steampunk technology, and magic. This world allowed the writers to blend in space aliens with a wizard and make it all work out in the end. The character Nate, who is the main focus of the first chapter, is a perfect introduction for the player to understand the world that the game takes place in. Nate believes himself to be an adventurer, but isn’t very good at it. He had to cheat to win the airship he pilots in the beginning, and loves to narrate his own life as it happens. The Critter, who is the focus in chapter two, is a little less interesting for me, mainly because he has to emote most of his thoughts and behaviors due to not speaking English. This works well enough, but worked so much better in games like Magicka.

Point and click adventure games live and die by the story and the worlds that the writers create, and The Critter Chronicles does a fantastic job in getting the player into the game. The story has a great sense of humor to it and the plot, while short, has a nice pacing. One never gets bored because of the story line.

Game Play:

The Critter Chronicles plays exactly like a traditional point and click adventure game, nothing new or different here I’m afraid. You move the individual you are playing as, and inspect your environments to discover clues and objects that you can use to move past the puzzle that is blocking your story from progressing. The Critter Chronicles has two difficulty settings, Normal and Hard, with the main difference between the two is the amount of puzzles one must solve. The puzzles in The Critter Chronicles do a good job in being hard enough to make you think without being too hard so that you want to toss your PC out of the nearest window. Some puzzles do need to be interacted with in order to solve them, not just finding how the pieces fit together. The lock picking puzzle in chapter one requires the player to wiggle a paper clip into a lock and to set all the tumblers so the lock will open. Puzzles like this are a nice change of pace, but only occur every so often in Normal.

The player has an inventory at the bottom of the screen, that only appears when you drag your mouse to that area. Items can be used on the environment, or might need to be combined first with other items. The game will tell you by the user interface whether or not a certain item can be interacted with, and will even give you hints if you drag an item from your inventory over the screen. This will help those of us that are not puzzle gurus from getting too stuck for too long.

The game play for The Critter Chronicles is neither broken nor innovative. It does the job needed by the developers to tell the story and does it without getting in the way of the story. Since point and click adventures games are mostly about the story and character development anyway, then this game play works out just fine for The Critter Chronicles and does the job admirably.

Aesthetics:

The visuals and art design of The Critter Chronicles works very well with the story. While the technical specs of The Critter Chronicles won’t push your PC to it’s limits, the art design is fantastic and interesting to look at. The environments are brightly colored, even when you land on the iceberg, and filled with items and people to interact with that gives the world a much more real feeling. Everything from a figurehead that is sentient in the captain’s cabin to a woman who is obsessed with saving the penguins from humanity, there are interesting conversations to be had everywhere.

The sound also works well for the game, but I ran into several sound glitches that, though were not game breakers, were extremely annoying. Sounds like the engine’s whine, would play louder and continue into the next scene, where the engine isn’t supposed to be heard. A simple shut down and restart solved this problem, but it occurred three times throughout my play through of chapter one. Other then that, the voice overs for The Critter Chronicles were fantastic and really helped to flesh out the characters in the world at large. The only one I found not on par with the rest, was the voice over for the Critter, but it’s easily overlooked.

Final Thoughts:

The Critter Chronicles is a short prequel to last year’s The Book of Unwritten Tales, and easily fits in one of the best point and click adventure games I’ve played within the last two years which is considerable. The Critter Chronicles puts together a nice blend of great storytelling, interesting characters, vivid environments, and solid game play that will make fans of these types of games smile and have a good time. The Critter Chronicles isn’t perfect, it is shorter then the original game and does have some sound bugs, but is close enough that I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a point and click adventure game with a great story line. The Book of Unwritten Tales: The Critter Chronicles is available now from King Art Games.

Air Buccaneers Review (PC)

2012/12/17

Judgeman

News, Reviews, Windows PC News, Windows PC Review

There seems to be a brand new genre brewing in the game community that centers around airship to airship combat. Ludocraft, a game design team from the University of Oulu in Finland, has brought us our second game of this type in Air Buccaneers. Similar to Guns of Icarus, Air Buccaneers centers around traditional first person shoot game types, such as team death match or conquest, but involves the use of air ships to wage war. Air Buccaneers is set in an alternative past, where Vikings and Buccaneers fought over land and resources using these airships that are basically just cannons and a steering wheel on a plank strapped to a hot air balloon. This game play made for some interesting gaming moments, as well as some very frustrating ones, so let’s see how Air Buccaneers fared with our review.

Story:

The basic premise of Air Buccaneers is that a group of Buccaneers are invading Viking lands for resources and material wealth. The Vikings are rising up to defend their homeland against these invaders, and join battle in the skies amidst floating islands and cannon platforms. The story is told through short excerpts during loading screens or short little paragraphs in your character modification screen. Besides these little story morsels, there isn’t really anything else to the story of Air Buccaneers, so if you came here for a good story, you will be vastly disappointed.

Characters in Air Buccaneers are all exactly the same looking guy, with only modifications that you earn during your leveling process. There is no character personalities that shine through, just the same guy copied over and over again, with different items attached to the model based on what you have unlocked so far. I understand the reasoning behind this due to the ability to change classes many times during game play, which I will get into more in the next section, but using different models would make the experience that much better. All I could keep thinking about during game play in regards to the characters, how great it would have been to have character similar to Team Fortress 2 in this game.

Game Play:

With a severe lack of story line or interesting characters to play as, Air Buccaneers has to rely on solid game play that is fun and challenging. I really like what Ludocraft has going on here with Air Buccaneers, even if it could a little more polish. You select a side, either Viking or Buccaneer, then set off to defeat the enemy through airship to airship combat. When the game begins, you jump into a small glider, that will take you to the nearest airship that needs a crew member. There, you take over one of four jobs, which you can change on the fly. The four classes are; Captain, Gunner, Defender or Guerrilla. The Captain essentially steers the airship and gets the crew into position, the Gunner fires one of four cannons on the airship, the Defender helps keep boarders off the airship and fixes the airship when needed, and the Guerrilla boards enemy ships with grenades when the ship is close enough. Switching between these four classes is as easy as interacting with an item, or just by scrolling through your tools you spawn with. Similar to Battlefield 1942, this allows you to play multiple roles in one life and never get board with your loadout.

I played my games mostly as a Gunner, and that was a blast, literally. As a Gunner, you have three different types of loads that you can choose for your cannons; cannonballs, rockets, or flames. Using these loads will depend on how much damage you are looking to do, and at what range your enemy is at. When you fire the cannon, you use your movement keys to align your cannon with the enemy, then press fire. The fuse will be lit, then when the powder is ignited, the cannon fires. This takes about five seconds to happen, which means you must keep your cannon tracked on the enemy during this time, and that is hard to do! Determining range is rather difficult too, since there are no crosshairs, either on the user interface or on the cannon to aim. You just have to use your previous shot as reference, but since both you and your enemy are constantly moving, that is not easy to do. All of this, though, is done well. The game doesn’t track kills by players, because it is so difficult to aim properly, but you do earn points per hit, per kill, or performing jobs well.

As you play these games, you earn experience points for doing your job well. These points go into leveling up your character to unlock additional items to customize your character. You also gain class experience while you do a particular job, and this experience unlocks the class Perk and Flaw trees in the character section of Air Buccaneers. The Perks and Flaws Trees flow in a very similar way to a traditional skill tree, with each branch requiring a set amount of experience to unlock that talent. However, Air Buccaneers also put in Flaws that you must take if you select a Perk. Perks can be a shorter fuse time on cannons or extra grenades for a boarder, but come at the cost of a Flaw, like Eye Patch with cuts your screen down by 25%. Seriously, it will black out a quarter of your screen. The downside of these Perks and Flaws is that it takes quite a bit of experience in these classes to unlock and enjoy. If you happen to be running around, doing several jobs during a game, this unlock process will take even longer.

Air Buccaneers is fun to play and the game play is unique enough for me to keep coming back to it. It will take time to get used to, but if you put that time in, you will see the fun to be had. The biggest downside is that Air Buccaneers is an online multiplayer game only, that means no offline content nor single player game play. Even worse, is that I have only seen, at most, eleven servers to choose from with only two being populated, one in Australia and one in Ireland. So, actually playing this game depends on if there are games happening, and what your connection speed is, because connecting to Australia can be tough with a weak connection speed.

Aesthetics:

The aesthetics of Air Buccaneers didn’t strike me like some of the other games out on the market. The aesthetics just didn’t feel as polished as I would have liked, but are not bad in any sense of the term. The worlds are vast and well designed, but due to the nature of the game, the only time you ever pay attention to the environment on the ground is as you are plummeting towards it. I like the way Ludocraft does inject environment into the air battles, with floating islands and flotillas that double as cannon platforms or capture points. One battleground even had a massive tornado that would cause the air ships to be sucked in and could be used for an extra speed burst. The models of the characters are all the same, except for customization options which, at later levels, really add more of a contrast to the game. The actual graphics were a little below par due to various glitches and bugs that I ran across, and, again, suffered from a lower budget compared to other games on the market.

Sound was bare bones, with the same voice actor for every character on a particular side. You can issue voice commands through the UI to your team mates, which is a nice touch but it is the same voice over an over again. Customization of your characters voice would have been a very nice touch, but would have required more actors. Music is just background noise and quickly forgettable, and the sound effects do a great job in making the battles sound like battles.

Final Thoughts:

Air Buccaneers from Ludocraft is one of Steam’s Greenlight games that are available now. Steam’s Greenlight project lets gamers vote on the games they want to see be made available to them through Steam, and Air Buccaneers is a nice addition. While lacking a certain amount of polish that is seen in higher budget games, Air Buccaneers does what it does right. Airship to Airship combat feels right and, though at a slower pace then most gamers are used to, offers up some challenging game play that will keep people trying new things. I love how the game allows players to swap classes quickly and at a whim, though requiring class experience points to unlock the Perks and Flaws system does have a tendency to prevent players from doing that. Air Buccaneers is available now through Steam Greenlight and is a very solid entry into the new airship genre that is popping up.