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.

Today I Smiled: Eurovision 2017

Ahh Eurovision - it's been awhile since I posted about it last but  this was definitely fun to watch last weekend. If you missed it, don't worry - I've got you covered! This year had male models (5th place), yodeling (7th place), a dancing monkey (6th place), a guy in a horse mask (14th place), some dancing Moldovians (3rd place), an anime kid who is pretty damn good (came 2nd place, worth a watch) and these guys (10th)...

Can you guess why I liked them? :P

My faves of the more "normal" variety included a trio of chicks who blend really well (11th), the UK songstress (15th), this happy moon guy (16th), and this jolly Croatian with a great vocal range (13th). I have no complaints about the actual winner though.

I didn't understand a word of his song yet it was fantastic. You can tell how awesome it is when other competitors are crying while listening to it. He even earns bonus thumbs up for letting his sister (the one who composed it) take the stage and sing it with him in his encore.

Hope you enjoyed at least some of those links, if not here's something a little more mainstream. Similar to D&D devils, if you sing someone's song there's a small percent chance they will appear for an impromptu duet! :P

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

You might have noticed a large gap between my last post and the one before it, and the main reason for it is this damn game which really brought out the kleptomaniac in me to collect and do all the things! Well, most of the things anyway. I've always liked the Assassin's Creed franchise but have missed a few after Altair and Ezio (up to Brotherhood). That didn't matter as Black Flag picks up a new protagonist in pirate Edward Kenway who is pretty much motivated throughout most of the game by greed, which sits well in both the setting and the available side activities which are done so well that they don't feel like side activities at all!

Privateers don't attack their own country, so... pirate fits better!

As a "Creed" game it has all the familiar stuff of climbing about, jumping into haystacks, hiding from guards occasionally and generally being a near unstoppable killing machine in combat. If you've played any of the previous games this is all the same. Fortunately it also only comprises of maybe 30-40% of the game (which is most of the main story).

What they've added here and added well is a pirate game. You sail your boat around the huge map (which is conveniently littered with fast travel points you can unlock) and can go fishing, treasure hunting and pillaging like the scoundrel you are. You'll find quickly though, that out at sea you -will- get your ass kicked if you don't upgrade the boat. No matter how good Kenway is at swordplay or his personal gear (which you can also upgrade) it won't matter against a cannonball or mortar shell. Even when you've finally upgraded fully there are a few set legendary ships you can try go after and wow, the Spanish ones especially proved quite challenging.

The only downside to some might be the shanties your crew sings but I found them really cool and was eventually humming or singing along to some of them (yes I played too much), but those can be turned off with a simple setting. Speaking of settings, you'll want to have your subtitles on so you can understand (even if Edward can't) what people are saying when they speak in Spanish, French, Portugese or bad olde English.

The modern day stuff (a standard in AC games I think) is interesting too with little hacking games (of frogger) but generally you'll be wanting to hook into the Animus for the most part to keep following Edward's story to its conclusion, and a fine story it is too. As usual the graphics are great though the camera can do some wierd things at times especially in melee. Not that it matters since the bad guys (erm, good guys?) need all the help they can get in that aspect.

Obviously if you don't like sailing games (or sailing games that don't go into depth of what rigging you put up or the build of your mast) or the Assassin's Creed series in general, this probably isn't the game for you. I found it mesmerising and fantastic, and despite it crashing on me every 30 minutes or less I give it 4.5 out of 5 cannonballs.