All images are screenshots from the game
I do want to mention that I got sent this game as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I will not let this influence my opinions. This will be my honest review of the game.
The Company Man is a 2D action platformer. It is available on the Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and PC. I played this game on the switch and enjoyed it both handheld and docked mode.
Take control of Jim as he climbs the corporate ladder to become the CEO. The path to the top isn’t easy as it is full of jealous coworkers, insane managers, and a lot of platforming. Will you have the stamina to make it to the top, or will you be another corporate slave?
I love the art of this game. The office theming is brilliant; you can tell that the creators got very creative with the enemy design. Each floor is themed after a different department and filled with monsters that play well off the theme. There is a story, but it acts more as a comedy than something you need to get invested with. This game pokes a lot of fun at the office work culture, and I was there for every second of it.
The gameplay is simple. You have a keyboard that acts as a melee weapon, and you get a ranged attack that gets upgraded after each promotion. Jim has a set life and ammo that you can replenish and upgrade as you play. You move through each floor, avoiding traps, fighting monsters, and platforming until you fight the floor’s manager. Enemies drop coins that you can use to upgrade your stats and gain abilities. If you die, you restart at your last checkpoint, but you get to keep any coins you’ve collected. Upgrades are well-balanced; I never felt like the game got too easy with them.
I’ll admit, I hate this genre the most. I am too impatient and am easily frustrated by these kinds of games. This is the only platformer I have ever finished. I’ll admit, I play all the games I review to completion, but I would have finished this game regardless. I played it in normal mode. Normal mode was very manageable for my skillset while still offering enough difficulty to keep me engaged. This was not a cakewalk. I did struggle, and I did get frustrated, but it was very satisfying when I earned my promotion. Veterans of the genre might find normal mode too easy, but there is a hard mode available at the start that might help with your enjoyment.
One tip I have for those who are looking to buy this game is to pay attention to everything. Monsters, traps, and boss fights all have
a set pattern that they follow. If you can memorize these patterns, you can beat everything.
I highly recommend this game, especially if you enjoy platformers. You can get it on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam.
Game Review: Beyond The Wire
All images are screenshots from the game
This game was sent to me as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I will not let it influence my opinion. This will be my honest review of this game.
Beyond the Wire is a World War I online multiplayer shooter that promises large epic battles. There are two map sizes, 50 vs 50 and 40 vs 40. The only game mode I was ever able to play was frontline. You capture the objective, hold it for some time, and the frontline moves till you run out of time or capture the whole map. Once in a game, you can create different divisions, each with its own unique roles and load oats. Teams are limited by the choice of load oats to promote teamwork.
This game aims for realism with its insane amount of detail towards authenticity. The uniforms, maps, and weapons have all been carefully curated to not only fit the aesthetic but to also be respectful to history. The sound is amazing. You can hear footsteps moving towards or away from you. You can hear the bullets cutting the wind as they fly by you. It is a frightening moment when you hear the bulet ricochet off the ground beside you as you try to find its source. I recommend you play this game with headphones for the full experience.
I had a lot of fun with this game when I could find a match. This game is starving for players. I was able to guess the pattern and hop on when there were people playing, but it was always a gamble. You are not getting the large battles that this game promised. My biggest match was 10 vs 10, but I was usually stuck in a server with high ping. You can always join an empty server and hope people start joining, but it’s never guaranteed. A big issue with this game is that if there isn’t anyone online, you can’t play this game because there is no story mode or bot matches.
I am not going to talk about the bugs I found because it is still in early access. The bugs I encountered were mostly cosmetic, but none of them was game-breaking. So is this game worth it? As of today, it isn’t. For the price, you should be able to pick it up whenever you want. Instead, you are bound to play with other people’s schedules.
When I was able to find a match, I had a lot of fun. I liked the anxiety I felt as I tried to find an enemy, and loved the satisfaction of finally getting a kill. I do want to send out my deepest apologies to those unlucky few I was matched with. I played terribly and never seemed to get better, but there was no flaming, and I never got kicked, and for that, I am grateful. Despite my poor performance, it was an experience I wanted to keep putting myself into.
I would wait till it goes on sale or hope that they give out a free weekend before making your decision. The population seems to be growing as of writing this. It seems to be getting easier to find larger matches, but it is still a gamble. The game is on sale now on Steam, you can decide if the discount is enough to hop on. The sale ends September 7.
Game Preview: Project F4E Beta
I got to play the beta for Project F4E this weekend, and I thought I’d share my experience. While it is too early to form a proper critique of the game, the beta offered a taste of what the full game has in store. Because the game is still in an early alpha build, I will not speak on the crashes and bugs I encountered.
Project F4E is a MOBA with some RPG elements to it. The objective is simple, kill the world bosses before the timer runs out. You are one of three players who roam a large open map, searching for bosses to kill. You can build some towers, or animate and power up large statues that will help you with the mobs and bosses. Although there is a direct path to take to the bosses, the world is pretty open. You can clear the mobs in any order, but be mindful of the ever-ticking timer.
The beta had four different champions to choose from: a tank, support, a ranger, and a healer. You start with a basic ability, and game stats and abilities as you level. At each level, you get a choice from the cards you draw from this deck. Each level offers you two cards to choose from. This mechanic offers some variety in the gameplay because it is unlikely you will pull the same set of cards twice. I enjoyed the randomness this brings to the game, but I can see it becoming unfairly broken. I can only hope that they can make the champions balanced.
You get rewarded for completing matches and quests, and bonuses for winning. The in-game currency is used to power up your abilities. Leveling up your abilities gives them permanent buffs. As you level your champion, you gain new abilities and boosts that you can use to change up your deck. As is the tradition in MMOs, there is also loot to be had. Matches and quests drop items that boost your character’s stats.
So what did I think of Project F4e? It was fun once I got the hang of it, but the gameplay got stale pretty quickly. Although I always had a different deck, the game felt the same each time. Matches were either a slow-moving escort mission to the world bosses, or they were an aimless and frustrating walk about.
The combat was ok, but it was stiff and slow. Most of the time I spent waiting for cooldowns or dying because the level-up menu would pop up at the worst times. The mobs in this game all felt the same regardless of what biome we ended up in. It got stale and repetitive pretty quickly despite having a random element.
This is a Moba, and strong communication and coordination are important. I lost a lot of games because we couldn’t coordinate correctly or someone wanted to solo everything. F4E at the very least offers a true MOBA experience. The gameplay is a bit repetitive, but it is too early for it to be absolute.
If you like MOBA’s but need a break from the toxic ones, you should at least keep F4E on your radar. You can find out more about the game on their official website. Don’t forget to sign up for their future betas.
Game Preview: Sovereign Syndicate (Review Code)
I got the Sovereign Syndicate demo as a review code. While I am very grateful, I will not let this sway my opinion. These will be my honest thoughts and opinions about the demo.
This demo is too short for me to form a meaningful opinion about the game, but it is long enough to at least get a taste of the gameplay. Sovereign Syndicate is a top-down cRRP that takes place in a steampunk fantasy version of London. The full game gives you the choice of three characters, but the demo had me playing as the minotaur Atticus Daley. At the start of the game, you are given the option of four classes that provide boosts to certain attributes. I played as each one, but I never felt like the choice made much of a difference gameplay-wise.
This game ran real smooth. The top-down view was interesting, and the city was nice, but there wasn’t much room for exploration. If the demo is any indication of what the game will be like, the setting is going to be dank, dark, and dirty. Most of the gameplay was in the form of dialogue. I got to speak with a couple of NPCs, each providing you with a choice of responses and the occasional skill challenge. Skill challenges are neat in that they are determined by picking from a set of tarot cards. Your skill points affect the kinds of cards you can pull, but the game was too short for choices to matter. The choices you make can provide buffs and debuffs, but mostly they affect the types of responses you get from the NPCs.
My biggest complaint about this game is the font. Some of the dialogue is written in an italicized font which was hard on my dyslexia. The writing itself is inconsistently flowery. Some descriptions are fine, but others are long and awkwardly worded. It wasn’t so bad that I stopped playing, but it is something that gave me trouble. It is also written in an English dialect I am not familiar with, but it offers definitions for certain slang words and phrases. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough gameplay in the demo to judge this game on its character and world-building.
I am very much interested in learning more about this game and possibly getting a longer demo. I liked the text-based choose your own adventure aspect of this game. I can only hope the full game will include meaningful choices that affect the story. I also enjoyed that the skill points are personified. Wit, for example, is an old woman who will give you advice on how to respond to an NPC. Each skill point will offer its suggestion, but the choice is always in the hands of the players. This is a neat little feature for people like me who can’t make a single decision. I will certainly be keeping an eye on this game.
The game is planned to release during the 4th quarter of 2023 for Xbox, PC, and Playstation. If you want more information, check out and wish list it on steam.
Game Review: SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech (Nintendo Switch)
If you are looking for a casual game that doesn’t require much commitment, check out SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech. This is a game you can throw on when you just want to chill and not have to worry about leaderboards or storylines. While there is a cute little story full of puns and silly characters, it doesn’t require your undivided attention. The story is a bit on the basic side as it hits traditional RPG tropes, but the gameplay is fun enough where it doesn’t matter.
If you like deck builders and RPGs, SteamWorld Quest is a casual entry into both. The game relies heavily on deck building and hero management, but I never felt it was very intensive. I am a terrible deck builder, but I was always able to find a deck that suited my playstyle. There are guides and lists out there if you ever get stuck, but I never felt the need to look them up. As far as variety goes, there is enough diversity in the card pool to keep things fresh without being overwhelming.
The game also has some simple RPG elements. There is exploration, loot, hero management, and a grind that you have to consider.
Exploration was simple. Dungeons are small with only one real path, but there will be secret rooms that will grant you loot and cards. You can always go back to a dungeon to get everything. I never did, but I never felt like I was missing anything important. Dungeons will have a few straightforward puzzles that are manageable if you have been paying attention.
Hero management is also pretty simple. You can buy or collect items and weapons that boost the stats of your heroes and give them special abilities. There isn’t much variety and you will find there is only one real combination towards the end. You can buy items and weapons with gold and upgrade your cards with materials dropped by mobs. There is a grind to consider for this game, but it isn’t terrible. I never felt the need to spend hours in an area, but you can be under-leveled for certain fights if you rush too quickly.
Combat for this game is interesting. You choose your party of three heroes from the six total you collect along the way and create a deck with the cards specific to those heroes. The combat itself wasn’t difficult, although it isn’t something you can do too passively. If you aren’t paying attention, you can die. The RNG will screw you over, but it is rare when it does. The bosses were all unique, but they do feel like sponges towards the later part of the game. There is enough variety with the enemies that you will never use the same deck. I was constantly adjusting to counter enemy resistances and immunities, and it kept the gameplay from growing stale.
You should play this game. It is a neat and chill little card game that is fine for the whole family. I played it on the Nintendo Switch, but it is also available on Steam.
