Recent reviews by Slade

I'm going against the grain on this one.

Cloudpunk sees you as an illicit delivery driver, roaming around a cyberpunk inspired world, picking up a variety of items from point A and delivering it to point B. This ranges from simple packages, organs to people. The world is quite vast, and very detailed, with a huge variety of different buildings to view. However, this detail is quite shallow as well. There's no exploring any buildings, no using the rail network, and up close, the blocky graphics partially ruin the experience. Add to the minor grief that the rain runs through everything, including buildings, makes for a less than perfect experience.

The voice acting is a mixed bag, and you can easily tell that it was recorded over a period of time in various locations. Given that the same words are pronounced differently by different people. For the most part, the voice acting is quite good, but there are a few of the voice actors that just "phone it in" and sound bored with the lines they're reading. Heck, one of them sounded stiffer than a viagra erection.

The music is quite good, however it never stops, so after a few hours, it's turned off. In fact, that'd be one of the games biggest faults. It never shuts up. Either the music is blaring away (even on low) or someone is talking, or both at the same time. Give me a break for a while. Let me just roam around the city, taking it all in. This also leads to the issue that often you're racing from one point to another and someone is still talking so you're waiting for them to finish their monologue so you can continue the game.

Story wise, there isn't much to it. You're a courier. You move things around the world, people are happy with you or not. There is the talk of an entity called Cora, that is thrown around, and well, it pops up on a limited scale (so far), but is generally dismissed by the protagonist quite quickly. Who then goes back to delivering packages. The game also wants you to make all these moral choices. No. Please. No. I just want to play a game, not decide whether the 3 orphans on one track or the 4 rich CEO's on the other track have to die. This happens all too often. Pick one crap option over the other. And from what I can tell, it doesn't make a huge difference anyway.

On that note, the game does get a little bit preachy, which some people make not like, and also makes the same mistake almost every game designer makes. They choose near identical colours to represent different options. I've been colourblind for 50 years now, it's not going to get any better, so feel free to use a tiny yellow and light green square to represent different choices. It's a frustration when playing that I'm virtually guessing which option is the one I want.

Those little markers that point out your destination need fixing too. On the timed missions, which are tighter than a fishes bum, you run towards a marker that keeps showing 1-3m despite nothing being around. So, you can easily fail those missions, because finding your destination is nigh on impossible at times.

Driving around the city in a hovering car, like Blade Runner or Back to the Future, should be fun, but the game gets this quite wrong as well. The Hova is a challenge to control. The driving feels, spongy, with a lot of "spring" in the movements, in that you can float up or down, but the car will bounce a bit, and settle at a different height to where you expected it. Then traversing between sections of the city, sees the Hova move right into the centre of the traffic, with the camera skewed to a side profile and the Hova not moving. Great, timed mission? You've just lost 2-3 seconds, which you don't have spare.

It's not all bad though. The game is usually quite relaxing, you can take your time picking up and delivering packages, meet quite a few different NPC's, pick up the very rare side quest, and generally just explore.

However, overall, the frustrations with some missions, the poor handling of the Hova, the non stop talking, immersion killing parts of the world and even the lack of optimisation (with the game eating well over 6Gb of ram) just make me think that the game needs work. You may enjoy it, and I have in parts, however, for $30AU, the price doesn't feel justified.

Final thought: How do I save my game?

I forced myself to finish the game, just to see the ending. It was weak. Fortunately you get a 'free roam' mode afterwards to finish off some side quests, but you may well miss some achievements if you're not quick enough on some timed missions, the first time around. Play time 12-13 hours.

Buy it on sale.

I'm at a bit of a loss on how to review this game. Like a lot of games in this genre, it has its good points, but it's significantly marred by the bad points.

The game has a pretty average story line, you're some woman who can absorb the essence of demons and use their abilities against them. So, you're here to destroy demons, conjured by some entity to cleanse the world. Y'know, same old, same old.

The game is, for the most part, your average or standard Metroidvania. You run around a massive map, going from room to room, killing baddies, absorbing demon essence, gaining new abilities and making progression. Except, there is little in the way of direction. You are, essentially, left to your own device. Just wander around and hope for the best. Sure, there are some hints here or there, with some NPC's providing a minor amount of help, but for the most part, the game just leaves you on your own.

This, coupled with a few annoyances, really drags the whole experience down. Like the map, as an example, you really don't get much information. None of the bosses have icons, none of the NPC's have icons, in fact, the only icon you see are the chests. Really? Then, in my opinion, comes the biggest frustration of all. Instant respawning enemies. Yep, if you leave a room, turn around and go back in, the enemies are there, again. And if you accidentally take a wrong exit and have to go back again, you have to fight your way through the "bullet sponges" that are the enemy. Some more modern takes on this genre often have timers on enemy respawn. That way you have a little reprieve if you take a wrong exit and turn around again.

Graphically, the game is fantastic. You can see that the developers put a lot of effort into that part of the game. I can't fault any portion of the game graphically. Sound... Yeesh. The main character says the same 2-3 words over and over again. It'll drive you mental, if you play for a long time. I found myself turning the volume down, just to get a break from it.

Overall, the game is fun, with a huge set of caveats, that detract from what could have been a massively brilliant experience. Sadly, it's a just pass. 6/10.

Buy it on special.

This game is weird. It's part puzzle, part walking sim, part management sim.

Strangely enough, I'm not a huge fan of walking or management sims, however, here, it's done well enough that it's not a huge imposition to the game play. The game boils down to a side scrolling train sim, where you're tasked with moving your locomotive to the end of the map. You'll need to pick up fuel in the form of things to burn, manage your speed, steam levels, fuel consumption and wind. Along the way you'll pick up upgrades which make the game slightly easier, and yet harder too. The water canon introduces fire and with the "welder?" comes breakdowns.

You'll be forced to stop on occasion to complete a light puzzle, which usually involves pushing a red button somewhere to continue. Some puzzles are a little harder and may leave you stumped for a few minutes, but nothing is really that headache inducing. You can't fail a puzzle, and there are no time specific requirements either.

Graphics are very nice throughout the entire game, although I felt far too much of the game was spent at night in the dark. It detracted from the enjoyment not being able to experience everything. I get the day / night cycle, but this felt over done.

Audio is nice although very basic. There is no script, spoken or written words anywhere. The game relies entire on the visuals to convey a very basic story line. Which, to be honest, I'm not sure what is was.

Overall though, the game is very zen, and can be completed quite quickly without too much stress. If you find light puzzle and walking sim style games enjoyable, then this one might be for you.

A short review, for once.

Like all games, there are positives and negatives. Graphical and audio is great, even the included music is quite good. The game play is fun, and for the most part, not super challenging. The puzzles are very light on the brain matter and usually easy to figure out what to do. However, some puzzles are more challenging than they should be due to some of the game play aspects. Jumping onto the magnetic balls is a bit of a nightmare, and trying to chop the balls down to make them explode is pure frustration most of the time.

Some of the bosses are a bit weak, with a lot of time spent just waiting for them to become hit targets, whilst you dodge their attacks. Jumping and attacking does nothing during some phases of their attacks.

However, overall, I did enjoy the game and recommend picking it up if you can get it during a sale.

I picked this game up in a bundle, and honestly, that is the saving grace. I did not pay a lot of money for it. Please note, these are my own person views and yours may differ.

The game is, essentially, a poor mans clone of The Room series of games. You are tasked with looking over various pieces of alien tech on each level, and trying to get it working, or something to that effect. Each level has you opening a puzzle box before you get to the actual item to decypher.

The puzzle boxes themselves are quite short and generally easy to open. The machines, well, those are a mixed bag, and where the game falls over significantly. Firstly, if this is alien tech, then someone needs to talk to the aliens, because this tech is S##t. If it honestly takes that long to get a space suit helmet working, then no wonder they're all dead. Are they all dead? Don't know... The is very little in the way of actual story. Just a few boxes that pop up. No speech, just a little bit of light reading.

The nasty side of the puzzles are that some are very vague, with no clue as to what do it, and the game relies, as usual of this genre, too heavily on colour puzzles and sliding puzzles. I'm colour blind, so colour puzzles are an instant NO from me, and sliding puzzles have confused me since I was a child.

It's not all bad though. Some of the puzzles are fun, and some are very easy, and the game is relatively short. You could easily complete it in a few hours (2-3) if you're smart enough.

Sadly, for me though, the reliance on colour puzzles just irks me into a negative review. A little more thought from the developers on puzzle types and this could be great for people with colour deficiencies.

Wow. There are very few games that I will play and finish, but this one had me hooked.
Ignore the play time, it didn't take me that long, I just left it running for a few days.

Ministry of Broadcast can be described as a platform puzzle adventure game. Graphically it's simplistic, with pixel art, and very few options. Full screen or not. If you choose to have it not full screen, the window is tiny. Other than that, the graphics are serviceable, and in most cases, quite good. Would I like to see a higher res game? Yeah, sure, but these work and work well.

Sound wise, the game is quite good. The audio really enhances the atmosphere of the game, and if you turn it off, you can really notice the difference. The game feels bland and boring without the audio. Which brings me to the one issue - you cannot separate the music from the rest of the audio. It's all or nothing. And pausing the game means the music plays louder than it does in game, because the background "noise" has stopped. It often meant pausing, turning the audio off, doing something else, then coming back to the game, turning the sound back up and resuming the game. Minor issue, but an issue none the less.

Game play is where the game shines. You control a new contestant(?) on a game show, and you're tasked with completing the levels at the start of each day. You run, jump, push, climb and fall your way through each level. There are puzzles and obstacles in your way, these include guards, dogs and NPCs. One thing to know, you're going to die. A lot. The game does rely quite a bit on trial and error. However, the game doesn't get frustrating. If you die, you usually only have to redo a few seconds to a minute of game play. And you generally realise very quickly what you did wrong. Then it's just a matter of adjusting what you did or trying something different and you get by.

Rarely have I played a game to completion in recent memory. I often get bored, run out of time, or find it gets beyond my skill level to continue. This game was not like that. The difficultly gets harder, sure, but never to the point of "%#!^ it, I'm out".

My one final gripe, are the controls. They're basically perfect. Use the analogue stick or digital D pad to move, A to jump and X to "use" and the triggers to run. Any work and they work well. Except to reset you press the 'Play' button and to pause you press 'Back'. I reset so many times trying to pause it was not funny.

Overall, aside from a few minor issues, this game is a hell of a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it.

Can I be disappointed that a game doesn't have DLC, yet thoroughly enjoy it anyway?
Yes, I can.

The game is, essentially, a 3D jigsaw puzzle. You're provided with all the pieces to build a diorama, a little scene, that once complete is interactive, but only just.

To start with, there are 6 dioramas to build, with pieces ranging from the high 200's up to the mid 400's, depending on which diorama you decide to build. You can't choose to make the puzzle harder by having more or less pieces, that is up to the developer.

You can, however, decide if you want the "hint" system on. This provides you with a see through or ghost image of each piece on the scene. This can be for each level (in height) or the whole scene, or completely off. If you have the hint system off, you're running almost completely blind. You'll have to work out where each piece goes. Fortunately when you move your mouse across the build plate, ghost images of a piece will show up in their corresponding places.

Even in this mode, you can only place pieces for that level. You have to, just like in real life, build the diorama from the ground up. I haven't tested the full hint to see whether you can place any piece at any time, that feels a little bit too much like cheating. I quite like the 'no help' mode as it gives you the greatest challenge. Flicking between these options can be done at any time, so if you do get stuck, a click of the mouse, and the items become semi-visible.

The sound is pretty basic when building the diorama, just little beeps, pings and buzzes. Nothing amazing, and certainly not award winning. I turned the music off, as I always do in games.

Graphically, the visuals are nice. They're a little blocky, by design, but there is an amazing amount of detail in here. And when you finally finish a diorama, you can "play" with it. Open doors, turn lights on and off, fire the tanks turret (it's very basic, you just click the tank). Many of these unlock hidden achievements, if you're into that sort of thing.

It's not all perfect though. Some scenes will have minor graphical glitches. I saw a few in the WWII scene, where some textures will flicker. Sometimes when switching between visible "meshes" (the help system), you can have it set to level, so you can see the level items, but for some reason, some items are still hidden. Other times, some of the pieces are so dang tiny you do wonder where they go. And lastly, the camera isn't perfect, because you can't look up. These are all minor hiccups that don't spoil an otherwise great game.

Overall, this is a fun, relaxing and really good way of building your own scenes. There's no penalty for putting down the wrong piece, just a "buzz", and you can find the right piece. There's no time limit, and no score. Take your time, relax and enjoy.

Bring on the DLC - Please !

I played the first game, and whilst not great, it was fun enough.
This one is nowhere near as fun.
It's just slide and push puzzles, one after the other after the other.
If that's your idea of a good time, then have at it. I got most of the way through before getting bored and annoyed.

This is a relatively simple point n click puzzle game. Graphically it's well done, with nice enough sounds and music. You are limited in that you cannot separate the music from the spoken audio and background sounds, however overall this isn't a huge problem. Most of the puzzles are simple, however there are a few that just seemed to be almost random. At least I couldn't figure them out. There are a few slide or push puzzles, which I just find frustrating, and the game seems to stop short of the story line. It's like there's should be a chapter 5, but it never got written.

Pick it up on sale if you're interested in puzzle games.

This game has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It should be avoided at all costs. The fact that this is Zack 2 should terrify any parent with the though that their child may have been subjected to a Zack 1.

Everything runs via the keyboard, and mouse. All good, right? No. You using the mouse to rotate the view, but you use the keyboard for everything else, including attack. Which is bound to the J,K,L keys. So, to play, you'll need three arms.

The graphics are terrible, the sounds are generic, the guy runs as fast as he walks, with the legs just moving faster and sliding on the ground. I didn't play long enough to experience anything, and I'm not going to try.

Don't bother. Hide this in your steam library and never speak of it again.