Demon's Tilt and City of Brass

It's all about your score?

Demon's Tilt

This is a very odd multi tiered pinball game that makes use of pixel graphics and bit tune type music. Unlike conventional pinball, you get all sorts of odd stuff blocking the ball here - like flying eyeballs, fireballs from an evil mage and many more.

Since there are in built gutters (where you have no paddles) and the gap between your paddles is big enough for the ball you have the additional control of "tilting" the game, which basically just moves the ball over a little bit in the direction of your choosing. An odd one for sure, but since it's just about getting a high score its not one I stuck with for very long.

City of Brass

In this first person game your goal is to get through each randomly generated level of a cursed city as quickly and with as much treasure as possible while dealing with the many traps and undead within. Unfortunately the combat (which there is plenty) feels very off, and worse this is a roguelike which means if you die you get to start all the way from the first level again. The only thing you get to keep is a score to remember how well / poorly you did previously. Not my cup of tea at all.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free XXI

Continuing freebies from last time... the one in bold is the best of this set.

Agent of Chaos: A top down action game where you are an evil spirit that must stop waves of heroes. Terrible camera angle mixed with poor controls make it a poor game.

Bubble People: An odd find the spot game where you must "pop" objects in the scene. Good thing right click lets you know what you need to look for, because some of the items are pretty hard to find.

Crystal Maidens: An adult game (which opens with an H-scene) where you must recruit a band of maidens to fight the dark wizard who has also recruited a band of maidens? Whatever, the combat missions where your girls mostly auto-fight actually does have some interaction, the art is pretty nice and there's actually a point in "getting to know" your team (using currency) as it ups their stats. It's actually a decent setup, but it is very cash shop heavy - and is one of those games where you need "energy" to do stuff.

The Debug: Um. I think you are a tripping turtle who is meant to flick moths off a tall tree. Very WTF.

Ice Demon: A pixel fighting platform martial arts game which I didn't get into at all.

Idle Pins: Definitely an idle game. Also boring. Bleh.

Priest Simulator - Heavy Duty: This is the one of the most WTF Polish first person shooter games I ever played, and is also one of the best given the graphics quality and humor. I especially enjoyed the exorcism section. Recommended!

It's time to smite evil!

Space Merchant: When its not spitting errors at me, it's clearly a mobile port of a semi idle game - or at least a game with a lot of waiting. Bleh.

Squadron 51 Prologue: A Portuguese side scroller where you take the role of a combat plane taking the fight against some UFOs. Uses live action video which is pretty cool, and while the game certainly is shiney (in a black and white / dated kind of way) the game play isn't anything out of this world.

UEBERNATURAL - Prologue: A pixel side scroller game that pays homage to the TV show, Supernatural. Wish it had a better checkpoint system though.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free XX

Continuing freebies from last time... the one in bold is the best of this set.

Chernobyl Liquidators Simulator Demo: Super long load until forever. Doesn't even start. Zzzzzz.

Kingdom Fall Dawn of the Druid: You play an archer in a pretty 3D world which is devoid of life, save for the bad guys that portal in when you get close enough. Kill of all them to level... and... stuff. Bleh.

ROG CITADEL XV: Has nice graphics but takes forever to load and goes absolutely nowhere. Garbage.

Sea of Roses: A hand drawn exploration game with loads of reading and a fair dose of backtracking. Pretty good, but not for me.

Silent Dream: RPG maker style horror with lots of text where you probably won't react fast enough and have to start again. Stupid.

Siren Head Awakening: First person horror where you must find car parts in the dark before slenderman Siren Head gets you. The low quality graphics help Siren Head blend into the trees.

Siren Head - The Siren's Forest: A higher quality version of the above with a more story based approach which leads to a better game, even if its more on the rails.

Submorse: Basically an education to learn and memorize morse code. Good if you are interested in improving that skill.

Summerland: A first person find the spot game with nice graphics and a good story. As a bonus the spots aren't that hard to find either. Thumbs up!

A modern hall of trials.

Zolaris: First person shooter with decent graphics where you must take on a cult of crazies. Unfortunately the epic music doesn't match the tedious walking / exploration segments where nothing is happening and since it wasn't made for keyboard it gets frustrating fast.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free XIX

Continuing freebies from last time... the one in bold is the best of this set.

Dark Fracture Prologue: A first person horror walking simulator set in a morgue. Didn't quite make it to the "horror" part as I couldn't find the first item - your lighter. Looks well rendered but for me find a spot games are much better when the spots are more obvious.

Eternal Dreamers: An RPG maker type game with a heavy focus on combat. As in, any time you go out of the home base there is no map. It's just waves of combat. That's... different and certainly makes things go faster. Definitely designed for those who like turn based combat and nothing in between.

Liquidators: A first person exploration game where you play as three of the guys (one at a time) sent in to delay the meltdown at the Chernobyl reactor. Graphics aren't the best and the game play mostly relies on player pathing memory / knowledge (LOOK BEFORE ADVANCING) but good premise and since the well designed compact map is surprisingly small it's definitely worth a try. Bonus points on playing archived footage from the real thing. Expect to have a few attempts at it though. Might not be for everyone, but I think it's excellent!

Down down to reactor town.

The Little Red Lie: A nice hand drawn side scroller where you are Red Riding Hood returning to the forest. Pretty good.

Little Traveler: A cute puzzle platformer where you play a tiny wingless fairy who must navigate around a kitchen. Can get frustrating if you jump into things you can't get out of, or can't work out where to jump to next.

Lycanthorn II Reign of Beasts (comes with Lycanthorn I): Retro first person shooter in the style of Hexen mixed heavily with Castlevania. Pretty cool just for the music. The straightforwardness of Lycanthorn I is an good place to start.

Puzlkind: A game that's all about solving jigsaw puzzles, either alone of with friends. You can customize how many pieces to break the picture into at the start. Decent controls too but just not for me.

Shrine and Shrine 2: A retro first person shooter much in the style of Doom II, almost to the point of being able to tell what was could simply be reskinned. Ok for what it is, and the second game improves the pickups to make them easier to understand instead of red fire for health, green fire for armor, red fire for some sort of ammo etc.

Suspicious Downpour: A game where you do nothing. Bleh.

Veneficium: A cute 3D platform puzzler where you are a witch running around on floating islands. Your fire, ice and storm spells can interact with a variety of things to temporarily alter the map to remove hazards or add platforms to stand on. It's ok.

Steam Discovery Queue - Crusade of the Free XVIII

Continuing freebies from last time... the one in bold is the best of this set.

Cognition Method Initiation: First person puzzler with high quality graphics, but takes really long to load.

It's very pretty.

Crystal Call: A decent, student made first person parkour game.

Destiny Island: An odd walking simulator experience. Bleh.

Digital Zoo Gallery: A walking simulator through either a jurassic or underwater zoo or a plain gallery of art. Little interaction with anything though. Bleh.

The Dream Libra Had: A very odd adventure game that lets you pick up loads of stuff to use as decorations later. Kinda strange but also kinda good.

DreamWatcher: "A gamepad is required to play this game." Fail.

Forgotten Journey: A decent platform puzzler set on a different planet. Some camera vs direction annoyances though.

Frame of Mind: A strange and artsy first person puzzler. I really liked the art but the puzzles are a bit out there.

Hello Guest, Hello Neighbor 2 pre-alpha: An interesting and well produced demo of a first person... shift worker? I wish there was more instruction on what we are actually meant to do but it's a nice concept.

Lightblue: A first person horror where you must find items in the dark (as usual) while avoiding the bad guys, or in this case - using a crucifix and praying to the Lord for (temporary) protection. Bleh.

DARQ Stubbs Among the Sleep

A horror trio? Well one's more like a comedy.

DARQ

This puzzle game sees you traverse the realm of nightmares where you must sneak past horrors. They aren't the problem though - its the puzzles that involve requiring walking on walls and ceilings. Excellent art, easy controls and puzzles that aren't too hard (or too easy) made this game very enjoyable for me. Recommended, I give it three and a half wheelchairs out of five.

Some really strange stuff in here.

Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel without a Pulse

This action comedy sees you take control of the titular Stubbs in unleashing a zombie apocalypse upon an unsuspecting "futuristic" town full of idiots, most of whom are men. Police men. The dialogue and the powers you have are pretty funny - and I particularly loved the dance-off boss fight - but alas the majority of the game play is super repetitive in areas far too big with nothing interesting to do in them. Some even make you back track. Lol. Not recommended, I give it one and a half brains out of five.

Among the Sleep

In this first person horror game you are a two year old child that basically needs to find his mom while avoiding the many nasties lurking about. A talking teddy bear keeps you company throughout this, and somehow he's somewhat scary too! Very different from your usual horrors, and the puzzles are nice an easy. Thumbs up, I give it three bottles out of five.

Superhot

It's not, really.

This minimalistic VR shooter is more a puzzle than an FPS as its gimmick is time doesn't move unless you do, and since a single hit can kill you - you are required to memorize patterns of movement to evade bullets, grab guns and kill all the bad dudes in each scene for a perfect "SUPERHOT" run.

Can't really plan since looking around advances time.

The lack of a HUD is slightly annoying for ammo count purposes, but more annoying is the plot which more than subtly suggests to stop playing the game. So I did. I give this 1 thrown gun out of 5.

Insight: In the "chat" parts, hold down the right arrow to type.

A Story about my Uncle

If you want to be happy, don't read the signs.

In this first person platformer, you play as a curious boy who finds himself in a strange land full of floating rocks. While you are given solid controls, nifty gear, and many many checkpoints to help traverse this place expect to die a fair bit (hence the many checkpoints).

Really fun while also really challenging!

While most of this is just about traversal, there is an ok story happening too complete with voiced characters. Strangely, the main characters voice acting is the weakest. Also, be warned this is a short game - I finished it in just under 3 hours, but missed many of the hidden collectibles. Still, if you like platformers - especially first person platformers, I would recommend this one. I give it 2.5 eyeballs out of 5.

Project: Snowblind

Featuring a very acrobatic protagonist (in cutscenes only).

It is the year 2065 where graphics have a dated blocky look and villains still have stupid plans; providing many "save rooms" for protagonists to thwart them from. Apart from those anomalies, this is a decent shooter by Eidos. Enemies have decent AI and the maps seem to always have a stealth / alternate option to get through.

Some parts have no option but mass slaughter.

The augments and gadgets you get as the hero - cybernetically enhanced due to a "mishap" in the tutorial - are also cool. You can hack turrets and battle bots and make them work for you. There are also bigger mechs and vehicles that you (and the enemy) can freely pilot. That's on top of being able to see people through walls, turn on semi-invulnerability for take and hold missions, total invisibility for get from point A to B tasks, etc.

If it sounds like you are a walking cheat code it is because you are and the game does get easier as more of those powers become available to you. It still is a fun ride though, and one that might interest old game FPS enthusiasts. I give it 2.5 EMP grenades out of 5.

Legendary

Do you like Griffons? You won't anymore.

Bad stuff first: The silent protagonist is not very likable since he was either stupid or greedy enough to open Pandora's Box. On the plus side, he gains an interesting quasi-vampire ability that lets him absorb energy from dead monsters to heal himself. The abrupt cut scenes also take some getting used to. Lastly, a massive, game breaking clipping bug near the end requires fiddling in game files to fix to progress to the climax, a sure sign of lack of testing.

Maybe the tester got turned to bird feed before he reached that spot.

Other than those, this is a solid first person shooter which has a decent line up of mythical beasts to fight against with some really good ideas behind them. The wall climbing werewolves need to be decapitated to be permanently slain, the fire lizards are stuffed if they get hit by water, and so on. Of course there are also bad guys with guns too and all the AI is quite passable.

Special mention must go to the maps, which while linear as expected from a FPS are quite sprawling and nice to travel through. I liked this game, and the difficulty does ramp up through the missions so those accuracy and dodge timing becomes very important. I'd recommend it to people who like shooters and can are ok to fiddle with files to fix that end bug. Still, such a bug cannot be overlooked so I only give this 2.5 evil fairies out of 5.

Hotel Inferno

[Post #10 of the Blaugust Challenge]

Yet another offering from Necrostorm (who made Adam Chaplin and Taeter City), this movie is entirely shot in the first person perspective of a hitman which is VERY cool. A simple assassination task in a hotel goes very weird, slightly scary and very violent when it turns out that the hotel is actually crawling with psychos and a demon. Plot wise it's pretty interesting and the lack of acting skills don't really matter here as most of the acting comes from the protagonist who you never actually get to see and his off screen contacts so it's really just voice acting which in the dubbed version anyway, is good enough.

One of the worst places for a vacation, that's for sure!

While the gore is still higher than your average movie I believe it's been toned down a tiny bit from the previous two movies. Strangely what lets it down are the FX. It doesn't do as good a job as its predecessors in tricking your brain that said person got smashed with a hammer or got exploded, though they are brave to do some of this in broad daylight and otherwise well lit areas.

Much like other first person horrors some people might experience motion sickness while watching this, but where this is different is that while the protagonist is running around he manages to kill a LOT of the baddies chasing him. Score wise I give this two and a half bullets out of five. If you've seen the Doom movie, liked the first person segment there and can stomach a bit of blood then this is probably for you.

Blaugust Bonus: Air pistols and air rifles are the extent of my firearms knowledge and experience. Tried a .22 once and the recoil made every shot miss so I didn't really get into higher caliber weapons. I really should try that again now that I'm stronger and a fair bit older. I got a firearms license before I got a drivers license!

Blood Dragon - Tasty Retro Goodness!

I've never played FarCry 3 though I've been meaning to - however since I'm very stingy with the moneys I instead went for its cheaper throwback version called Blood Dragon and man is it a blast to play! It takes place in a post apocalyptic future where everything is neon (even the wildlife, because neon = future) and when you have mission objectives like "punch the nuclear reactor", you understand what type of game it is. Michael Beihn does a great job voicing the numerous one liners as the protagonist and there are a ton of places I was laughing my ass off while trying to complete objectives. The old school, lacking in animation cutscenes and questionable plot work well too for those of us who remember the old games that used that and the soundtrack really fits into the theme. The gameplay itself however is not old school at all, it is a polished and well-performing modern first person shooter with many sidequests to keep yourself busy for a few hours.

They shoot lasers out of their eyes!

It isn't perfect though - in my case it didn't like my graphics card meaning every 10 or so minutes it would crash out to desktop. This isn't too bad since you can save the game in most parts... EXCEPT when doing main story missions which uses the checkpoint system (and all checkpoints are wiped on reboot). My usual tactics of being sneaky had to go out the window to compensate for this, meaning I had to rambo my way through each as fast as possible. This brings me to my second problem, and maybe one that's only a problem for me: it's too easy. I was playing on the hardest mode, ramboing through everything (cover? what's cover?) and died maybe 3 times in the whole game. Then again what kind of 80's action movie didn't have an overpowered protagonist anyway? :P

Even with all the sidequests it is a pretty short game, but still definitely worth it for the low price - and I highly recommend trying it out!