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video game reviews

Game Review: Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2

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I want to start out by saying that I got this game as a review code and while I am grateful for the opportunity, I will not let that sway my opinion. This will be an honest review of the game.

Lovecraft Untold Stories 2 is a 2D isometric dungeon crawler for pc based on Lovecraft lore. You start off choosing from three playable characters: the witch, the professor, and the detective. Each character has its own unique abilities, armor, and weapons. You control your character through randomly generated dungeons as you try to solve a mystery.

All pictures are from screenshots.

I was very excited about this game. I liked the art, I liked that the cutscenes were comic-like, and I had fun at the intro level. But once you get out of the intro mission, the game becomes frustratingly unplayable. Movement becomes clunky and slow in the cluttered rooms. I was constantly getting stuck on boxes, holes, and trees, making kiting enemies virtually impossible. To make matters worse, I was getting stuck on the invisible boundaries of boxes and trees. The witch has a cool teleport ability that could pass through enemies but would get stuck on invisible artifacts. I died so many times because my teleport was constantly being canceled by nothing. There are instances where I would teleport only to be trapped in between an inescapable grouping of trees. When the environment is more deadly than the enemies, that is bad game design.

I thought the randomly generated dungeons were cool at first, but that view quickly turned sour. I quickly learned that the room generation was quite unbalanced. Some rooms were laughably easy, with only two enemies standing in my way. Others were impossibly hard, with too many enemies and no way to escape. There was one room I couldn’t even complete because there was a wall blocking the exit. I love the randomness of life as much as any other gamer, but this experience was frustrating. 

The insanity mechanic is nonsense. If you get hit by an enemy, you slowly get stacks of insanity. If you get too many, you die. The problem is, there is no clear indication of how much insanity you have, nor is there an easy way to clear it. Because the environment made movement difficult, it was impossible to clear a level without getting stacks of insanity. You either got killed because you got stuck trying to run away, or you died because you gathered too much insanity. This poorly designed mechanic made this game harder than it should be. 

I was beyond excited about this game because it reminds me of the Arkham Horror board game. I have been desperately trying to find a group to play with, and I believed this game would be my only chance. The disappointment I collected from this game was so painful, I couldn’t muster the strength to finish this game. I forced myself to play as much as I could, but I can only be so patient. This game is broken to the point where you won’t get any meaningful enjoyment out of it. Lovecraft Untold Stories 2 isn’t worth your time as a free game, let alone the $25 it is asking for. But if you don’t believe me, you can buy it on steam.

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video game reviews

Timemelters: First Impressions

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I got sent the Timemelters demo as a review code, and although I am grateful for the opportunity, I will not let it sway my opinions. Since this is a demo, this will be less of a review and more of my first impressions. You can download the demo on Steam today, and I recommend you try it out.

Timemelters is a first-person tower defense-like game that I had a lot of fun with. It reminds me of the Orcs Must Die! series but with fewer traps. In Timemelters, you control a single character and run around a large map setting traps, killing mobs, and turning back time. There is a bit of strategy involved in this game, but it shouldn’t be a problem for most people. I am not very smart, but I managed to brute force myself through eventually.

All pictures are from screenshots

This game is incredibly polished for being made by such a small team of three developers. It runs smoothly, looks beautiful, and is a lot of fun. The concept is simple, but the range of abilities and the pacing of the mobs kept the game fast-paced and exciting. 

I can’t speak on the story because the demo doesn’t explore it too much, nor can I speak on the diversity of the missions. The demo offers a great tutorial and a few missions that provide a fantastic taste of what it has in store. I never felt lost or overwhelmed by the information and was only limited by my skill level,

The game fully launches on Steam on October 12th. This game deserves a lot of love. I am vastly impressed by how much this team of three was able to accomplish. If you like tower defense games with some RTS elements, give this game a try. The demo is free, and it is available on Steam!

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video game reviews

Game Review: Way of the Hunter

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I want to start by saying that I received this game as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I will not let that sway my opinion. This will be an honest review of the game. I stream every game I review on my Twitch and Youtube. Check out my Twitch for an up-to-date schedule. 

All images are screenshots from the game. There are no animals because I am a terrible hunter

I played this game on PC, but it is also available on PS5 and Xbox. Way of the Hunter is a hunting simulator game that aims for realism. You can track animals, pick up job requests, and there is an overarching story that you unlock as you play. It is easy to get lost in this game because it is so beautifully immersive.

The graphics in this game are pretty solid, but it is a few updates from being perfect. I encountered a few visual glitches like floating rocks and trees that affected immersion, but none of them was game-breaking. Someone in my twitch chat mentioned the art was too grainy, I didn’t have a problem with it but keep that in mind. My only issue with the visuals was the grass would get too busy, and I would lose myself trying to find the kills. My playthrough is littered with countless unclaimed carcasses because I couldn’t find them in the brush. This seems like a personal problem, but it is something to keep in mind.

The game has a story, but it acts more as flavor. You can also accept jobs to make more money that requires you to hunt specific animals. Gameplay isn’t limited to quests. You have free reign to hunt whatever you like, granted you have the right equipment. Make sure you use the money you earn to purchase the appropriate tools. 

The map is huge and will involve a lot of driving and walking to unlock all of it. There is fast travel available to keep you from making the long treks twice. My favorite part of this game was the sound. It is incredibly immersive. You can hear bugs zip by your ear, the babbling brooks, the birds in the trees, and other animal calls in the wild. I now know what a mule deer sounds like, and I can track it by just its call.

Hunting is fun, but it requires a lot of patience. If you spook the animals, you will have to spend time tracking them down or waiting till they come back. There is a detective mode that helps with tracking, but a spooked animal can easily disappear in the tree line. I have zero patience and as a result, this game became a hiking simulator. This isn’t a criticism because I enjoyed my virtual hikes. I had a favorite spot I would go to just to listen to the stream and the birds while I waited for prey. It is easy to get lost in this game as you relax and enjoy it for what it is.

My one complaint about hunting is that not all of the AI is perfect. Some animals are smart, and tracking them is fun. Others will get stuck running loops or stop making them easy targets. Some animals didn’t leave blood splatter or trails, making them impossible to track. These cases were rare, but they are something I can’t overlook.

Way of the Hunter is one of the most relaxing games I have ever played. I recommend it if you like simulator games and don’t mind waiting around for hours. I am very impatient and still enjoyed every minute. One of my favorite parts of this game is the tips you get as you play that give the players practical hunting advice not just for the game but also for real life. This game goes out of its way to teach sustainable hunting practices, and I appreciate the effort.

This game isn’t for everyone, but it is worth consideration. Check it out on Steam, PS5, and Xbox.

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Video Game Review: Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed

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I want to start by saying that I received this game as a review code. While I am very grateful for the opportunity, I will not let that sway my opinion. This will be an honest review of the game.

Destroy all Humans 2: Reprobed is an updated version with new art and updated graphics. This Reprobed edition includes new locations, new missions, and new weapons to make the game feel fresh and modern for veterans. You play as Crypto as he wages war against the KGB for blowing up his mothership. This crude chaotic third-person shooter is perfect for a gamer looking for a chill and relaxing game to add to their library. It’s even better for those wanting to relive some nostalgia.

I had so much fun with this game; I have never laughed so hard gaming before. I haven’t played any other games in the series, but I have always heard good things about it. I thought this was a great introduction to the series. I never felt alienated by the lack of knowledge bout the lore as the events were kept rather neatly within this story. I am sure those who have played since the beginning will have a deeper appreciation for the game, but do not be intimidated by starting at number 2.

I loved the freedom this game gives you to explore the major cities while you prepare for the next story mission. The game does a fantastic job at encouraging exploration by hiding trophies, Easter eggs, and materials to help you level your weapons around each city. This game has enough going on to keep the completionists out there happy. Each city has a series of side quests that also help you level your character as you prepare. The main story was hilarious, full of crude jokes and innuendos that have you crying from laughter. The voice acting in this game is fantastic. I recommend this game just for the voice acting.

The upgrades in graphics were very much appreciated; this game is beautiful. It was very satisfying to rain down chaos on the streets of San Francisco. The gameplay was good for the most part. As Crypto, you had a choice of various weapons and alien powers that always kept the mayhem refreshing and new. Crypto also has access to a jet pack and skateboard that made movement around the city incredibly fun. The only complaint I have with this game is with the saucer levels. You unlock a saucer early on, and the levels that force you to use it are frustrating. The movement was sluggish and inconstant. The saucer never moved where I wanted it to, and aiming with its weapons was an equally terrible experience.

I played this game on normal difficulty, but I recommend playing on anything harder. I found that the AI on normal was very dumb. You can breeze through the Crypto levels easily if you can figure out a way to trap the NPCs. I assume the saucer levels suck at any difficulty.

I had a lot of fun with this game regardless of the saucer levels. If you prep enough beforehand with the exploration, side missions, and leveling, the story should be manageable at any difficulty. If you are a fan of the originals, there are probably a lot of jokes in this that you will appreciate a lot more than I did. I recommend you get this game if you are on the fence.

I played this game on Steam, but it is also available for the Xbox, Playstation, and through the Epic Games Store.

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video game reviews

Game Review: 60 Parsecs! [Review Code]

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I got this game as a review code. While I am grateful for the opportunity, I will not let that influence my opinion. These are my honest opinions about the game.

 60 Parsecs! is a space-themed taxed based survival game. You and your crewmates must survive the cold vacuum of space with your limited resources and some ingenuity. The gameplay is pretty simple. You get two optional actions and one mandatory. Each turn you can use the crafter to create, repair, upgrade, or recycle items you need for space travel. You can also feed, entertain, or heal your crew to make sure they survive the voyage. You don’t have to feed or craft every turn, but eventually, it becomes a necessity. Each turn you are given a random scenario that offers some sort of skill check. These checks can offer rewards or grant depuffs that will make space travel more difficult. The more time you spend in space, the more complicated the situation gets. You run out of supplies, people get sick, or you go crazy. I suggest looking up guides because while the game looks simple, it gets really hard. The choices you make matter.

The game has three game modes Survival, Voyager, and missions. The core concept of remains the same for all three, you must survive. Survival is a random mode where you are assigned random materials and crewmates. Voyager is sort of the game’s story mode. You are given 60 seconds to gather crew and materials and shot into space to survive with whatever you gather. Choose wisely. Mission mode offers different scenarios that add another layer of difficulty to your survival.

I enjoyed this game a lot. The art is fun and whimsical despite how grim it gets. The game offers a decent challenge, and every game offered enough variety to keep things interesting. I liked that my choices made an impact. People would die, I would run out of food, or I would get people hurt if I wasn’t careful with my choices. I enjoyed the anxiety I got from having to make choices even if there is no time limit to make them. This game has a lot of replayability and is definitely worth the price. If you like survival games like Don’t Starve, this is a good one to try out. This game is available on Steam, IOS, and Android.    

video game reviews

Game Preview: Project F4E Beta

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All images are from the screenshots I was able to recover after my hard drive died

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.

video game reviews

Game Preview: Sovereign Syndicate (Review Code)

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All pictures are screenshots from the game

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.

video game reviews

Game Review: Noel the Mortal One (2022)

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I received Noel the Mortal Fate as a review code. I want to thank Playism for the opportunity to review this title. That said, I will not let this sway my opinion of the game. This will be an honest review of the game.

Noel the Mortal Fate is a visual novel with some minor gaming elements to it. This is a book, and any gameplay, whether it be puzzles or boss fights, is a railroad you to a certain ending. The choices you make and any exploration available don’t matter. The puzzles and boss fights are simple, as the focus of this title is to tell a story. If you like manga or anime, this is a solid revenge plot with a lot of the anime tropes you are familiar with. I had a lot of fun with this title, but I understand that it isn’t for everyone.

Noel is a young prodigy pianist who has lost the most important piano competitions in her town. Angered by the loss, she is tricked into making a deal with the devil. Unbeknownst to her, the deal will restore her honor at the cost of her limbs. Caren, the devil she summons, takes pity on Noel and promises to help her get her revenge on the person who tricked her into making the deal. The game then follows Noel’s journey toward vengeance. This is a game full of interesting characters, epic fights, and devil pacts. Will Noel be able to exact her revenge? You will need to play to find out.

Gameplay-wise, this is a book. There is a lot of reading and no voice acting. The reading is occasionally broken up by puzzles, fights, and light exploration. I enjoyed the story, but I am speaking as an anime fan. The characters are unique and interesting, although some of them are anime archetypes. I loved the style of storytelling. Most of the story exists in 2D animated sprites, but they make it work. The use of flashbacks, fight scenes, music, and comic strips all come together to tell an engaging narrative. Boss encounters felt epic, character growth was exciting, and the flashbacks were woven in nicely. My only complaint would be with the translation. I noticed some grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, but none of it was unplayable. 

I played this game on the Nintendo Switch and loved it. Undocked, the game runs great. The letters are easy to read, and the maps were very visible. When docked I used a controller. It was nice to have a bigger screen, but it isn’t necessary. In both modes, I preferred the d-pad for movement because it allowed for more control. Movement in this game is awkward, and I often overshot targets. The d-pad offers more control over the movement, but it isn’t perfect. The awkward movement added unnecessary difficulty to the puzzles and boss fights.

Overall, I enjoyed this game a lot. I liked the story and loved the music, but I wish the game offered meaningful choices to give it replayability. It would be nice to have multiple endings instead of being railroaded into one. Some of the gameplay feels like padding, like when you control a character to walk through a hallway. That said, I still enjoyed it. There was enough world-building where I wasn’t lost or overwhelmed. The characters were interesting and memorable. I ended up becoming very invested in the narrative, often rooting for the heroin’s success. 

This is a niche game. If you like anime and visual novels, this is a solid one. If you are curious about the genre, Noel the Mortal Fate is a nice starting point. The story is interesting but easy to follow, the characters are unique and well developed, and it isn’t overly sexualized. Just know that you aren’t buying a game, but a novel with gaming elements. 

It is available for the Nintendo Switch, Sony Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Links lead to respective store page.

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