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Attack of the Unstoppable Gorg!!!

Posted by :Meroka On : March 30, 2012
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Category: Indie Gaming, Reviews, Strategy, XBLA

At the farthest reaches of the Solar System scientists have discovered a mysterious tenth planet! The legendary Planet X! But unfortunately it turns out to be inhabited by the terrible Gorg, hell bent on eradicating the human race with the aid of flying brain monsters living on Jupiter. Sound like a plot from a cheesy 50’s B-movie? Good, because that’s largely the inspiration behind Unstoppable Gorg from Futuremark Games Studio.

I, for one, welcome our new tinfoil overlords

A lot of narrative is presented to you in the format of old cinema newsreels and robots frequently look like cardboard boxes or toasters with eyeballs. UFOs hang very obviously from fishing wire. Terrible special effects abound. If that sounds like something you’d watch over a takeaway pizza with a few cans of beer, this game might just be for you.

At it’s core, Unstoppable Gorg is a variant of the now (in my humble opinion) slightly stale genre of Tower Defence. A few hundred creeps are on their way to your base and you must build armed towers to eradicate them before too many get there. But wait, there’s a twist! Your ‘towers’ here are orbital satellites around the planet you have been tasked with defending. You’ll get a few different orbital rings at different radii and each has a few pre-set locations to build at. However, the entire ring can be rotated about the planet to reposition your satellites. In most tower defence games, strategy usually consists of forcing the creeps to take the longest path by blocking their routes and countering their individual weaknesses. In Unstoppable Gorg, you’ll find yourself having to deal with continually moving all your units to deal with your enemies constantly changing angles of attack. One creep slipped you by? Move your orbit to chase it down, but at the cost of opening up your defence elsewhere. It makes for a much faster paced game; very rarely is the occasion you’ll find yourself holding down fast-forward to make things happen.

Oh no! They got K9!

Unstoppable Gorg still has a lot of rock-paper-scissors type stuff going on: brains are weak to physical damage and resistant to energy weapons and other enemies have their own strengths and weaknesses so you’ll need a well balanced armament to counter them, especially if they team up on you. Tips learned from Plants vs Zombies seem to be relevant, too. That is to say, generate as many resources as possible because then you can buy the big guns fast. That’s actually pretty difficult early on and it does make some of the early levels a little more challenging than some of the later ones, but with practice, patience and persistence you’ll overcome most of your difficulties in this game.

Visit sunny Mercury!

The soundtrack isn’t extensive, nor is it the kind of thing that’s catchy enough to have you singing it days later. Nonetheless, it fits the cheesy sci-fi bill extremely well and will certainly have you grinning like a loon alongside the flying brains.

If, like me, you love finding the absolute worst films available just for a good laugh, and if you’re also not entirely sick yet of building towers to fend off creeps determined to march along a predetermined path until either they run out of guys or you don’t defend hard enough, then you should probably check out Unstoppable Gorg. If it had been the same old format I might not have enjoyed it quite so much, but the orbital format provides a fresh spin (gettit?) on the genre that stands it out from the crowd.

Unstoppable Gorg is available on Steam for both PC and Mac, iPad, and is coming soon to XBLA.

GLHF,

~Meroka

A Stackingly Good Adventure

Posted by :Meroka On : March 20, 2012
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Category: Indie Gaming, PSN, Puzzle, Reviews, XBLA

Take a dash of silent movie, a pinch of theatre, mix well with a Dickensian and Borrowers-esque world inhabited solely by Russian Matryoshka dolls and blend it all together with Tim Schaefer’s classic style of humour. Bake well at gas mark 6 and you’ll get Stacking, by Double Fine.

Oh, you wanted me to elaborate more than that? Fine, here goes. Set in the industrial age, you play Charlie Blackmore, the youngest child of a large family. Charlie’s father mysteriously disappears and the family falls into debt. In order to repay it, all the children are taken away to be put to work, with the exception of Charlie, who is considered too young to do any real work. You must set out into the world to reunite your family and as a convenient aside, put an end to child labour.

Shoestring budget productions presents...

Every single character in the game, including both people and animals, take the form of russian stacking dolls (hence the game’s title). Charlie, being so small has the unique ability to stack himself with any larger doll (which is pretty much everything but mice) granting him special abilities. Every character has a unique action; these can take the form of a wide range of things, from punching things, to sipping tea or breaking wind or shouting loudly. By combining the relevant abilities correctly you will solve puzzles allowing you to progress. Every puzzle has multiple solutions and whilst only one is needed to be found in order to progress the story, and it’s usually straightforward to manage at least one, half the fun is in going back and attempting to solve it via all of usually three to five different ways. For example your very first challenge is to break into an exclusive club. (MINOR SPOILER ALERT) This can be done by stacking with a nearby woman, seducing the guard then unstacking and quickly running behind him and into the club while they are occupied. Or alternatively, find a mechanic carrying a wrench, stack with him and use his wrench to remove the cover to an air vent then walk inside via the air ducts. There’s one more but I’ll leave it out here in order that some mystery should be preserved. (SPOILER ENDS) For the truly dedicated there are further challenges beyond the main story arc and a set of lesser challenges described as hi-jinks usually involving using a character’s action on specific other characters around the world. The cynical may say this is a cheap way to drag out the length of an otherwise somewhat short game, but I find they’re a fun little diversion.

Visually, Stacking is very charming and original. The Dickensian world is complemented by everyday objects like matchboxes and spoons making up the scenery making it feel as though it is all taking place within The Borrowers’ world, or perhaps more appropriately, an elaborate dolls’ house. Cutscenes are rendered in the style of a silent movie, but with theatrical backdrops and scenery being flown in from above and spotlights picking out characters as though one were watching it on a stage. So ultimately, yes, there’s quite a number of different themes and styles in there but they all work together to make this game something really unique.

I think he plays a key role somewhere

As with any title associated with Tim Schaefer, Stacking is also backed by an eclectic sense of humour. Anyone familiar with the likes of Monkey Island, Psychonauts, Grim Fandango or Brütal Legend will be right at home. The game is one of a number of titles to have been conceived during the development of Brütal Legend. The Double Fine team, in order to alleviate burnout from working on the title for so long, were given two weeks to work independently on anything else they wished. This seems to have been a very positive process as a great deal of originality has come from it.

At £11.49, it’s not the cheapest indie title you’ll ever find but the extra DLC mission, The Lost Hobo King, is thrown in for no extra cost in the PC version, which is always a nice bonus. If you burn through the story only bothering to solve each puzzle one way (which isn’t too hard) there’s a chance you might not feel the title’s worth the asking price, but for those who enjoy exploring and finding all the secrets there’s plenty to keep you entertained for a while.

Stacking is available on Steam, XBLA and PSN. The official site is here.

GLHF

~Meroka

All Zombies Must Die! Aka Resident Rising 4

Posted by :Scribble On : March 18, 2012
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Category: Action/Adventure, Indie Gaming, Reviews, RPG

I hate zombies, but only in the sense that I love killing them. There’s nothing I enjoy more than putting the dead back where they belong. So you can imagine a title like ‘All Zombies Must Die!’ doesn’t take much to persuade me to buy it.
I am however, picky about what constitutes a good zombie game. I believe there must always be an element of cheese and humour, some gripping no-hope suspense, a massive array of creative weaponry and mutant zombies of all shapes and sizes.. The plot doesn’t necessarily have to be original, it’s just has to not suck..

All Zombies Must Die! attempts to encompass all the major features of popular zombie games, with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor thrown in. It focuses on aspects such as the levelling and crafting system from Dead Rising, the way zombies like to swarm at you from Left4Dead and mutations from Resident Evil. And it has an Alien! So, from the outset it’s already got my attention.

The title comes from a mission that’s unfortunately not very common in the game. All Zombies Must Die! is the mission you get when you have to move your base to a different section of the map. It just involves killing everything in sight, any way you like. It’s definitely a simple pleasure.
And now that you’ve cleared that section, you’re free to use it as your base. This is where you craft new items, spend levelling up point, choose your primary weapon, get more missions and swap characters.

They should have just called it that.

Enemy types are pretty basic, there’s standard Fodder Zombies, SWAT, Enraged, Joggers, Mad, Exploder, Electrified, etc. They’re all self explanatory. The biggest change is when they come into contact with radiation, then the mutations kick in and they become giants. And depending on status conditions, say if they were maliciously set on fire or electrocuted, they will also have different status effects.

Standing between you and every section of the map, are Gates. Each gate has a little robot that’ll ask things of you every time you want to cross into the next area. They’re like mini-missions on the way towards your more plot driven goal. These get very tedious but by mid game they do start to let you bypass them. Although this feature is frustrating, they’re there to encourage you to experiment with and make use of the environment or elemental conditions. Because without these, you’re not forced to try out the many variants of Zed killing you have at your disposal. In between missions it’s easy to stick with your weapon of choice, but killing is nothing without variety!
Missions aren’t the most demanding. Generally if you can stun your opponents en masse, like with the standard shotgun, you can dance around your foes fairly easily. I’m biased, shotguns are my staple weapon in every game they’re available. Fact is, whether you like it or not you’ll be confronted with enemies close up and you’ll need stopping power. Rapid fire doesn’t stop your foes. It’s weaker, you’re only damaging one Zed at a time and you have to be more accurate. In other games where accuracy is key to cause extra damage to the cranium, fair play. But without the option of a head shot rapid fire hasn’t yet proven to be a viable option in this game, unless your trying to achieve status effects without destroying the weaker Zed.

No respectable zombie game is complete without chainsaws.

Crafting is a great way to up the stats and add status effects to your favoured weapons. It’s not a very imaginatively executed system, but then again, you do get the impression that the game is largely a piss take of the genre. An SMG and Fire Sticks are crafted together into an ‘Inferno Rager SMG’. Other materials you can craft with your weapons include; Spark Plugs, Megaphones, Paynekillers and My First Science Kit.
Finding materials for crafting involves being in specific sections of the map and killing pre-set numbers of Zed, usually with specific status conditions. This is fairly annoying if you haven’t been paying attention to where you find the items, or what status effects they need. Even worse when you don’t bring along the right character or gear, forcing you to back track. But it is something you’ll quickly become accustomed too, I certainly didn’t make this mistake more than three or so times..

Despite this game trying to break the fourth wall with humour, it doesn’t have me in stitches the way Dead Rising 2’s Chuck Greene in a ‘Mankini’ does. I don’t get the same satisfaction of mowing down masses of Zed running at me like in Left4Dead. And no zombie game can ever come anywhere close to Resident Evil’s creative variety of mutants.
But it is certainly an entertaining go-between while you’re waiting for your next major zombie title.

Play it here!

GFG

~Scribble

It’s 3am & I’m still dying in Limbo.

Posted by :Scribble On : March 10, 2012
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Category: Horror / Thriller, Puzzle, Reviews, Survival

This week I bring you another game to make your eye sockets salivate. A fantastic noir styled 2D puzzle platform from Playdead, it’s LIMBO. This game is made of soft focus, black and white, silhouette amazingness.

There’s very little plot to this game, and I gather that what little story there is to tell is mostly implied subliminally. Instead it excels in suspending you fully in it’s shadowy atmosphere. A nameless boy wakes up in a forest (give him a nudge or he will lay there for longer than is awkward) and with only the motivation to survive, he must work his way through a darkened and unfriendly world.

For most of the game you’ll find yourself alone, which is fine because any other living thing in Limbo wants your boy dead. From giant spiders and mind controlling larvae to trap setting children. But mostly you’ll be alone, very, very alone. With an unsettlingly minimal soundtrack (Fans actually requested that it be released on iTunes!) you will find yourself regularly in a state of suspense, even more so when you’re sat playing in the dark, which of course is the only way to play horror games.

Like with most 2D platforms you have the simple choices of left, right, jump, and interact with push and pull. This game doesn’t need complex controls to make it challenging, so very little time is needed to get to grips with actual playing.

Limbo is a world full of horrific ways to die. It does not fall short on impalement, drowning, decapitation, crushing, grinding, bear traps, electrocution, being burned alive.. Chances are, if it’s got pointy corners or you can fall in it you’ll have to figure out how not to die that way the next time. Because every time you make a mistake in Limbo, you’ll pay for it with your boy’s life. Thankfully, to ease frustration, you have an infinite number of lives to discard and the convenient check point system means you’ll never be more than a short jog away from where your boy was last brutally mutilated! So don’t be disheartened.

Explore the environment. The way forward isn’t always just running to the right, and it’s seldom ever backtracking left. Although the game has a beautifully seamless flow in the environment, the puzzles themselves are sectioned into very small, numerous challenges and obstacles, giving you enough space to figure out everything you have to work with to move on. But of course part of the challenge is figuring out exactly what you can and can’t interact with, and since everything’s in silhouette, finding that elusive mechanism for moving forward becomes less and less obvious as the game progresses. And also the order in which events have to happen in each puzzle become more and more elaborate, especially when changing gravity is involved..

This game prides itself on forcing you to think differently about each puzzle you encounter. Even in the early stages of the game you’ll be presented with challenges that seem bleak and impossible when first attempted, all because you didn’t notice you could interact with that scraggy vine or that small piece you could’ve move over there. Again, persistence is key.

I found it helps to gauge the distance your boy can jump, don’t let the game fool you. During your journey the camera will pan in and out, under the guise of letting you view more of the area, but being so absorbed in the surroundings can throw your judgement when it comes to the distance you think he can jump. If you’re not sure, take a running leap of faith.

Despite the sometimes horrific trials you’ll have to endure in Limbo, I’d recommend this game for people who don’t usually enter into the genre. It’s bold and different, it’s challenging and innovative and also it’s just plain fun. And even with its difficulties you can just put it down for a week and come back to it exactly where you left the room to find a corner to cry in..

So I say, enjoy the ambiance and animation, be daring with your jumps and above all, enjoy the wet squelchy noises when you inevitably run into something you shouldn’t have..

There’s even a free demo on Steam, you have no excuses. Play here!

GFG

~ Scribble

Well I meant to die there: Chapter 2- Tomb Raider Underworld

Posted by :Denandox8 On : March 9, 2012
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Category: PS3, Reviews, Well I meant to die there

Tomb Raider. Possibly one of the most iconic gaming series to have ever been released on a console. Even if like me you aren’t really a gamer, you will have at least heard of both Tomb Raider and the series’ main star, Lara Croft. Revered by hardcore gamers and hardcore perverts everywhere, Lara is without a shadow of a doubt a pop culture icon. So really as a new game in the series is scheduled this year, it was no real surprise the mystical being Roberto lobbed this onto my lap for me to try. I tried not to let the fact he was cackling unnerve me. Or the fact he wasn’t wearing trousers while he stroked the cover.

Now I do have to confess here, I have actually played Tomb Raider before. It was a simpler time, where HD televisions were a thing of fantasy and the use of 3D was merely constricted to those dinosaur magazines (remember those?). Yes, I played Tomb Raider 2. And yes, I remember absolutely nothing about the game. apart from the fact you could lock the butler in the fridge. Potential homicide aside, Tomb Raider 2 left no real impression on me. Thankfully its latest incarnation, Tomb Raider Underworld, did.

The story is basically this. Lara is trying to find out what happened to her mother, who went missing in a plane crash, when she was a child. Along the way, she fights octopuses, mercenaries, giant spiders and viking zombies. In terms of the story, I’m a huge fan of Norse mythology so I found that aspect of the game very enjoyable.

 

To be frank, like Uncharted before it, I found myself enjoying the game immensely. However, unlike Uncharted, I actually found Tomb Raider more challenging. Indeed, the RPG format offered a lot of flexibility within the game, combining aspects of shooting, puzzle solving and action adventure.  The puzzles, assuming you’re not cheating and using walkthroughs (like I would never do…*awkward cough*), will require some thought on your part and will keep you pretty engaged for a while.

 

The controls are pretty straight forward, meaning a non-gamer can pick it up fairly swiftly. For example, if you despise shooters, the game offers auto lock on your enemies. To a non-gamer like me, it made the challenge of shooting the bats hell bent to chew my face off a mere formality. As a whole, there’s plenty to like about this game.

That being said, this game is far from perfect. Namely, there was one main culprit of why I was unable to finish this game, and no it wasn’t the janitor in Scooby Doo. No, the mask was ripped off to reveal the true mastermind, the god awful camera angles. You see, gentle viewer, somewhere in Eidos, the man in charge of that aspect of the game got terribly confused. He made the somewhat understandable mistake of confusing the command “close up of where I want to jump” with “I want an extreme close-up of Lara’s arse”. Now I understand the idea of appealing to your market. However, when you’ve died for the 50th time and all you have to console you is the image of Miss Croft’s backside on your screen before she hits the floor because you jumped in  the wrong direction again, it can become somewhat tedious.

 

So what was my final impression of this game.? Overall, I think there’s a lot for the casual gamer to enjoy. However, for a first time gamer new to this series, I would seriously recommend playing an older Tomb Raider (particularly Tomb Raider Legend for this series) before inserting this game into your console. As this game can be picked up at your local CEX for less than a fiver, I firmly believe its worth the investment.

The upshot is this: you’ll be able to do it, and you’ll probably enjoy it, but be prepared to be frustrated. You’re going to die. A lot. But lets be honest, for a gamer overcoming the challenge is all part of the fun.

TTFN

Thackx8

It’s 3am & I’m still playing Machinarium.

Posted by :Scribble On : February 29, 2012
2

Category: Action/Adventure, Indie Gaming, Point and Click, Puzzle, Reviews

Set in a lovingly hand painted mechanical city, Amanita Design’s point-and-click-style adventure boasts a stunning array of scenes for you to indulge and drool over. Each frame allowing you to interact with seemingly unconnected objects which, when combined in the correct sequence of events, allows you to progress forward.

Your robot hero, Josef (named after Josef ÄŒapek) must travel through the outs and innards of a rusted city. Armed only with the ability to consume and regurgitate useful gubbins at will and extend or contract his body to reach objects and switches at different heights. The goal to is to combine all manner of resources to open ways to the next frame as well as to solve classic arcade style puzzles. Along your urban adventure you’ll meet a plethora of amazingly designed characters, each robot unique and all play a small part. Some you’ll aid by running errands and others you’ll thwart with cunning puzzle mastery.

Starting out in the game, you’ll have a simple introduction in how to interact with the world around you. If you can reach it, and it’s of importance, then pick it up or fiddle with it. No matter how seemingly useless that stick is or why you have to make that large extractor fan angry.. Just do it.. I didn’t find a single item or interaction pointless after discovering its use. And it’s all very entertaining watching everything fall into place, this game is filled with individual animations for everything Josef has to work with.

The games intriguing approach to story telling relies only on thought bubbles, there’s no pretending that these robots have any kind of limited facial expressions or ability to talk conventionally. But nevertheless, this unique take on story telling allows for a charming and simple way of conveying the plot. And the visuals more than make up for holding your interest. After all, what could be more simple or fulfilling than a robot struggling to save his kidnapped lady-bot and defuse a bomb strapped to the highest spire in the city. A timeless cliché that doesn’t diminish the games charisma or distract from the feeling of accomplishment on completing each puzzle.

The game’s inbuilt walkthrough feature is something I’ve not come across before. A locked book icon in the top right hand corner of the screen links you to a frustratingly slow and merciless mini-game in which you have to manoeuvre a key to shoot spiders and avoid crashing into bricks. Hitting either will force you to start again or give up. But once completed, the book yields the the steps you have to take to move forward. With the game’s curious style of puzzles this book can be a saviour if endured. There were a few times at 3am when my feeble mind couldn’t handle the complexity of navigating different sized lines or squares through mazes. And so turning to the book helped ease the progression and flow of the game somewhat. As menial as this feature is, it forces you to really think weather you need the extra help or not. Which is a step up from games like ‘The Secret of Monkey Island’s Help Button. But to be fair if you can complete that game without that button chances are you’re not very well equipped to deal with how banal the world really is.. As a bonus, when you unlock the book you get a lovely hand drawn step by step guide to what you need to do in the particular frame you’re in. Be warned though, if what you need to do isn’t in the frame your standing in, you’ll have to move on and start the mini game again in a different location.

My only real gripe with the game is how slow Josef walks from place to place. But that stems from years of playing fast paced hack and slash games, where if it’s not dead in two minutes you’ll be eaten alive.. But give this game some patience and you won’t be disappointed..

Developed over three years on a shoe-string budget of $1000, this game has been built with the care and attention of some astonishing people. To sum up, Machinarium is gorgeous. It’s delicious for your eyes, and a puzzling treat for your brain. Go play it!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/40700/

GFG

~Scribble

Well I meant to die there…..Chapter 1: Setting the Scene

Posted by :Denandox8 On : February 28, 2012
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Category: Action/Adventure, PS3, Reviews, Well I meant to die there

Okay, I admit it. I’m, what the French have termed, a noob.

Its been almost five years since I’ve completed a game on the PS2 (anyone remember that console?). I’m not sure exactly when I fell out in love with gaming and we amicably seperated with the PS3 taking my dignity and half my money. Maybe it was the pressures of university and being drunk through most of it. Maybe it was the harrowing depression that comes with dealing with the jobcentre. Maybe Uri Gellar did some form of mind control over me and I spent my time chasing squrriels in the park. Nethertheless, my gaming career appeared to be dead and buried.

Until the first week of February 2012, the last Button Mash event. While kindly making up the numbers in a stellar re-enactment of timeless classic “The Power of Love”, by Huey Lewis and the News, I managed to score O% on the guitar. No, thats not a mistype. A big fat zero, or for the eurovision fans amongst us, nil point. The taunting was merciless. And quite like Pop-Eye before me ” I had all I could stands, And I cant stands no more”. So naturally I grabbed a can of spinach and squeezed with all my might. After 2 hours and a bruised ego, I dropped the can and made the decision to dust off my PS3 and get back into gaming.

So, this is essentially the sit. Every week, a mystical being (known as Roberto), will pick out a game for me to try out each week and I’ll feedback to you on my progress. It wont always be pretty, hell the weeks I get shooters will be bloody depressing, but if you’re a first time gamer looking for new games to try, or a seasoned veteran who wants to laugh at the shortcomings of others, this will be an essential read.

So my starting point this the blog was a release from around 3 years ago, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Those in the know about gaming will recall the series is on its third game, and I have been informed I will review the next two in the series at some stage. The premise of this game is pretty simple. Drake is a treasure hunter, looking for a golden idol in El Dorrado. Along the way he faces hardship, mercenaries, cliffs and generally anything one might expect in games in this genre.

For me, the game was a good starting point in my development. The controls were pretty simple for a newbie to pick up and start playing immediately, thanks in part to the very easy level offered at the start. Okay sure, the dialogue is lifted from Indiana Jones and there are a few glitches in the gameplay (at one point, my accomplist decided to float over the edge of a cliff, when I tried I plummeted to my death), but the story is solid and doesnt require to much thought or investment to get into. As a matter of fact, I actually completed this game within the week, and trust me you wont be seeing that sentence crop up too many times.

The only real issue I had with the game was its decision to change the plot and genre of the game at the end. In one of those genius plot twists Hollywood tend to love, the game suddenly changed into a fight against zombies. Granted, its no aliens in Indina Jones but still quite the shock for a guy expecting something akin to Tomb Raider. Unless there were zombies in an obscure Tomb Raider I dont know of, and if that’s the case I humbly apologise. As the game essentially became a shooter, my television was subjected to the phrase “oh (insert relevant swear word here) many times. Now it didnt ruin the game for me, but if you’re gonna give this a try brace yourselves.

Ultimately then, Uncharted is a decent place to start for a non-gamer. Its not too taxing for a first timer, has a pretty good story, quick and easy to master the controls and will give you a few hours of enjoyment. Thankfully my journey to rewin gaming’s love has gotten off to a decent start. Granted we’re not at full blown reconcillation stage yet, but I’m excited to pick up the control pad again, and that’s not a bad thing.

TTFN

Thackx8

Free2Play Spotlight: Realm of the Mad God

Posted by :Meroka On : February 28, 2012
0

Category: Free2Play, Indie Gaming, Reviews

With the recent rise of the indie gaming scene, free-to-play games have matured somewhat beyond the (often Korean) pay-to-win grindfests and can now be viewed as a genuinely acceptable business model for a respectable game. In this column, I’m going to attempt to experience as many of them as possible to try to separate the wheat from the chaff and hopefully uncover some diamonds in the rough.

First up in the spotlight: Realm of the Mad God

RotMG has been around in a publicly available format for a little over a year at this point with the “official” launch on June 20th 2011 and an open beta prior to that. It very recently debuted on Steam, bringing it to a new audience of millions, myself included. Developed by Wild Shadow Studios and Spry Fox, whose previous notable works include Panda Poet and Triple Town, it brands itself as “the first ever cooperative MMO bullet hell shooter” which I personally think is a pretty good selling point to begin with.

Jumping into the game, the first thing that will strike you is the graphical style. All the player characters are 8x8px sprites with the enemies rarely much bigger. Each pixel is huge, however creating a fairly normal sized sprite with a very low resolution. Overall, it makes for a very unique visual style.

Maybe this will illustrate it a little better

You’ll quickly find yourself in the central hub of the game, the Nexus. From here you can reach a number of different game instances each of them containing a vast world to explore and capable of hosting 85 players at any time. Whether you chose to work with your 84 new friends to overcome hardships or just go it alone is up to you. Jump into whichever one looks most appealing, they’re all much the same and you’ll pop into the world, sometimes with other players, sometimes alone. It is, as described, a bullet hell shooter, so all classes have a basic ranged attack, even ones you’d expect to be melee, like the rogue. You’ll start out with your basic wizard though, who wields a fast firing magic missile spell and a much more powerful bolt with a large area-of effect. Quests are as basic as a map marker telling you where the next big baddie you should kill is. You’ll burn through stuff pretty fast, more so with other players as all xp is given equally to all combatants. You’ll start out basic killing elf magi and giant scorpions and crabs and the like and work your way up to Gods. Whilst in the world you’ll periodically hear the titular Mad God yelling about his lesser gods and guardians and things. At some point around level 15 your quest tracker will point you to one of these. These are significantly tougher to reach, much less kill. From this I can infer the ultimate goal must be to band together, reach the cap of level 20 and take down the Mad God himself, not that I’ve personally reached that stage. Still working on the getting to 20 without getting squished. Oh yes, minor detail, the game features permadeath. If you get in over your head and die, it’s back to square one. No spirit healers, no casting resurrect, no cloning, just thanks for playing, here’s your score and go reroll a new character. Playing a class to a certain level will unlock further and more advanced classes so at least you’re likely to have something interesting to try out when you get dumped back to your blank character select page. Silver linings, and all that.

So all in all, that’s the game. It’s fast paced, unforgiving, quite a lot of fun and definitely very original. There’s one elephant in the room, still though. How do they make their money? Of course there’s the standard alternative in-game currency that you’re never going to get without dropping some real money. 500 coins will set you back $5USD, with bonuses for buying larger quantities. What will that get you, then? A second character slot can be picked up for 600 coins and as you are generously given 100 to start with, that’s easily done for $5. Cosmetic improvements to your character from colour changes to patterns cost up to 200 coins. I can’t say for any certainty how permanent these cosmetic changes are in light of permadeath i.e: if I buy the stripy costume and die will my next character get to keep the stripy costume?

This is important to know

Admittedly there do appear to be a handful of functional items available for real money, however they seem to largely be convenience rather than pay2win gear; bundles of health potions for instance. They’re not going to hand over the Sword of a Thousand Truths to the person with the biggest credit card limit, so balance has been taken into consideration. As with ever increasingly more f2p games, the value of the paid items is pretty much what you make of them yourself. Am I content to buy skins in Super Monday Night Combat or hats in Spiral Knights? Yes. Am I prepared to buy a pattern to put on my pixellated wizard’s head? No, quite frankly. But if you enjoy the game and end up playing long enough you might place more value on it. Each to their own, as it were.

So is it worth playing? Are you nuts? It’s free and it’s a 39MB download. If it sounds anything other than awful to you, you might as well have a look. Fans of MMO’s and Shooters alike should definitely give it a go even if just to see a fun twist on both the genres. The class progression and roguelike permadeath elements definitely give it plenty of replayability too, if you find yourself enjoying it, which I think is pretty likely.

‘Til next time, GLHF

~Meroka