- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Voidsayer is a monster catching, dark fantasy RPG inspired by, you guessed it, Pokemon and Darkest Dungeon. The premise is that the world has been overrun by all manner of horrors. As one of the last few people standing your job is to head out into the wasteland, capture some of the alien entities and utilize their powers to defeat the rest of their kind. And if you fail, humanity is almost certainly doomed, so you know - no pressure!
And much like most of these types of games, Voidsayer begins in the most classic way imaginable - a strange old man corners you and forces you to take one of three deadly critters off his hands. In this case a dragon, a bad pun, and Cthulhu. Naturally I immediately went with the dragon, because it's a friggin' dragon, though I would've also been fine with Cthulhu. If you actually decide to go for the cabbage cat in this scenario, I'm sorry about the direction your life has taken you and I sincerely hope that things get better for you in the future.
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Labyrinth of the Demon King is a grim and dreary survival horror RPG inspired by oldschool classics like Silent Hill, Resident Evil and King's Field. You play as a lowly footsoldier on a foolhardy quest avenge your fallen master – and it sure as hell feels like it. Your weapons are rusty and half-broken, horrific monsters inhabit nearly every corner of the world, and even the non-hostile characters are about as helpful as a punch to the gut. And yet, despite how awful everything is, actually playing Labyrinth of the Demon King is a lot of fun!
But before we begin, I just want to say that Labyrinth of the Demon King is so retro that it exclusively runs in a 4:3 aspect ratio! In order to spare those of you on smaller screens I'll be stretching out my screenshots and footage to a more comfortable HD resolution. Now usually this would be a big no-no given how much it would ruin the image, but considering how grainy and blurry Labyrinth of the Demon King is on its own, it's thankfully almost unnoticeable.
You Should Try Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days – A Tense and Highly Atmospheric Zombie Survival Game
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days, besides being a needlessly long title, is a curious case of what happens when you mix This War of Mine with zombies. But even as someone that loves both of those things, I must admit I was genuinely surprised by how much Our Darkest Days ended up gripping me.
A lot of it comes down to the perfectly executed atmosphere of stress and hopelessness - where every single excursion outside your safe zone feels like you're a hair's width away from death as you sneak through hordes of gurgling, twitching, and utterly disgusting zombies. It's all incredibly stressful - but the good kind of stressful!
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Historically, tie-in games have been a flaming pile of garbage, so when I saw that Guardians of the Galaxy is getting its own tie-in game around the same time the Guardians of the Galaxy 3 movie was starting production, I immediately wrote it off as yet another cash grab.
But then the strangest thing happened. I was browsing through my collection and I just found it sitting in my account. Usually I'd just go "huh, that's odd" and move on with my life, but this time around I actually decided to listen to that little gremlin rampaging inside my head and give it a try. At worst, I could just have a few laughs at its expense and that would be it.
And you know what? I did laugh, and quite often at that! But not because Guardians of the Galaxy was something to mock, but rather because it was an actually well written, creative and unique adventure that did justice to the larger-than-life characters and the bizarre world they inhabit.
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Desperately climbing away from an all-consuming ooze doesn’t sound like a jolly good time, yet somehow, White Knuckle makes it ruthlessly addictive. Thanks to extremely tight controls, a slew of challenging-but-fair obstacle courses, and a dystopian world so bizarre that I need to know more about it, White Knuckle has completely devoured my past few days. And now, like an estranged uncle in a cheesy horror movie, I'd like to rope you in as well!
Easy to learn, hard to master
At its core, White Knuckle is an astonishingly simple game. You can jump, you can sprint, and you can grab onto things with either hand in order to climb. If you're feeling particularly spicy, you can even latch onto ledges with both hands to hoist yourself up faster. What you can't do is hold on forever as your titular white knuckles will quickly start turning bright red, thus warning you that your stamina is running out and that your grip is about to fail. To avoid a grizzly fall you'll need to either find a perch to rest up on, or if safe haven is nowhere to be found, alternate between each hand to buy yourself just enough time to crawl to safety.
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
Tell me, have you ever wanted to be a house? No? Strange... How about a haunted house? Perhaps one with a mean streak a mile wide? If the answer is still no, I think I have a game that can make a pretty good attempt to convince you otherwise. Greetings and welcome friend, I'm Ash and today I'd like to introduce you to Deck of Haunts - a roguelite deckbuilder that's all about expanding your house of horrors by tormenting and consuming scores of hapless investigators and exorcists.
Building the house of your nightmares
It all starts off very innocently during the daytime. This is where you get to purchase various room fragments and upgrades in order to construct the house of your dreams... or, well, nightmares! The goal is to create as many distractions as possible between your house's entrance and the very vulnerable heart that is the source of your power.
However, this is not as simple as building one long corridor and calling it a day. The further away from the heart you build the more essence it'll cost you each day to keep those rooms under your grasp. To succeed you'll need to compromise and utilize the entire length of your house to create something that is as maze-like as possible, while still sticking to a somewhat humble budget in order to be able to afford future enhancements. As it turns out, even eldritch abominates are not except from the horrors of the housing market!
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
In order to distract myself from the hell that is the real world, I figured I'd put on my rosiest glasses and indulge in a bit of nostalgia. And since the Crash Bandicoot series represents a big part of my childhood, I finally decided to give Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time a proper bash. A Crash Bash if you will! (Though don't actually go play Crash Bash, because that one's kinda bad!) And you know what? I deeply regret not doing this before because Crash 4 is astonishingly good... as long as you don't actually try to complete it!
I'll go into more details about that nonsense later, but to begin let's answer what Crash 4 is even about. To put it simply, it's a moderately to fairly challenging action-platformer with a heavy emphasis on gathering collectibles and completing a variety of tasks in each level. If you just run through the levels ignoring all of the side objectives you can probably finish the whole thing in a couple of hours. It'll be incredibly boring and not worth your money, but you can definitely do that - the same way you can totally go to a football game purely to sample the hotdogs and then go home before the match even starts.
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
"You Should Try" is a series of articles where I'll showcase you a game I really enjoy while explaining what exactly makes it fun. This can be any game, new or old, indie or AAA, the only requirement is that it has to be something I've found myself greatly enjoying and in need of sharing with the world.
Today I think you should try Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition - a combat orientated RPG that is so good it practically ended up creating a genre of its own. It features an expansive and interconnected world, plenty of viable playstyles and weapon choices, a difficulty curve that will always keep you on your toes, and just the right amount of frustration to make each victory feel all the sweeter!
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
"You Should Try" is a series of articles where I'll showcase you a game I really enjoy while explaining what exactly makes it fun. This can be any game, new or old, indie or AAA, the only requirement is that it has to be something I've found myself greatly enjoying and in need of sharing with the world.
Today I think you should try Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, which besides having quite possibly the worst name ever conceived by mortal man, is an exceptionally good kart racer, and in my humble opinion the very best one. It features a charming and unique cast of characters, a bunch of well-designed levels and power-ups, memorable music, complex gameplay mechanics, and most importantly, AI opponents that actually manage to offer up a real challenge without resorting to cheating or rubber-banding!
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
"You Should Try" is a series of articles where I'll showcase you a game I really enjoy while explaining what exactly makes it fun. This can be any game: new or old, action or strategy, indie or AAA. The only requirement is that it has to be something I've found myself greatly enjoying and in need of sharing with the world.
Today I think you should try Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - a complex, open-world RPG that will truly make you feel like you're exploring a land filled with monsters and excitement at every turn. Since nearly every single encounter requires special tactics and equipment you're most likely going to find yourself dying fairly often, but that overwhelming feeling of satisfaction once you finally succeed in bringing down a giant beast is exactly what makes Dragon's Dogma so compelling. So if you're up for an epic journey that will see your character grow from a lowly fisherman to a nigh-unstoppable dragonslayer, come and join me as I briefly go over everything that sets Dragon's Dogma apart from the rest.