You know, I’m starting to wonder a lot about myself. Last year, I loved playing a serial killer in Party Hard, and now here I am mostly loving Shakedown: Hawaii, a game about an evil CEO learning to embrace his inner mobster. If not for the end game, this might have even been a 5 star review because I loved being evil, which makes me wonder: dudes, what the hell is wrong with me?

But let’s start with the plot. The CEO of Feeble Industries is watching TV when he sees a report that his empire is failing. His CFO Ron explains that streaming is killing his video stores, online shopping is killing his retail empire, and most of his other enterprises are falling behind as new technologies supplant the things he’d invested in. So this CEO decides to get “aggressive” to return to prominence.

I think the best part of this story is how many times the CEO discovers how modern business models are forcing him to pay more for bullshit like convenience fees or HD streaming, and he’s mad, but not because they’re fleecing him. No, he’s mad because, as he says, “Why aren’t we doing this kind of con already?” Continue reading

I think that as a lot of us gamers get older, we tend to forget that games are meant for the young. We romanticize the challenges of our first games while downplaying all the games we played that were more accessible. Yes, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, and Ghouls N’ Ghosts gave me many sleepless nights trying to finally beat them. But there were many other sleepless nights because I’d gained so many free lives in Pac-Man that I couldn’t lose, or spent late nights with Super Mario Brothers, Bionic Commando, and Castlevania, games that I had beaten many times, but I just wanted to do it one more time.

In that particular mindset is where I want to talk about The Spirit and the Mouse. Its story is simple and straightforward, the controls easy to understand, and the challenges within are easily surmountable with only a few harder challenges here and there. It’s a game meant to welcome the new kids, yes, but it’s also ready to offer some nostalgia to the older gamer not married to their hardcore pride. Perhaps best of all, it’s short, done and dusted in a few sessions. It stays around just long enough to be fun, and never overstays its welcome.

The story is introduced in a few minutes. A mouse living in a small village in France decides it wants to help people be happier. It sees a woman lose her favorite scarf and gives chase to retrieve it. Instead, it climbs the highest metal pole in the village right as a freak lightning storm delivers a guardian spirit. The mouse receives the spirit’s power and is tasked with making people happy, so it would seem that fate has smiled on the little furry dude. Continue reading

I know, I know. “Again? Aren’t you tired of this game already?” Well, as long as Poncle keeps putting out both free and paid DLC, probably not. Additionally, while I was on the PC grinding through the last free update, Space 54, and the latest paid DLC, the Contra homage titled Operation Guns, I was also digging in to complete all of the base game content on the phone version of the game.

So, here we go again. First, tucked in Space 54 is a new weapon that looks dinky for the first few levels, Phas3r, but both at level eight and evolved to Photon Storm, this thing can clear the screen of all enemies. It can do this even on a single weapon challenge run with the adorable new character Space Dude. But if you add his gun to any other character, it’s an instant win. One the right build, it can even kill the grim reaper at the end of a run. Yes, it really is that powerful.

Then there’s Bat Robbert, whose weapon is bats. They fly in at angles, and at low levels they can be quite frustrating by not going where I need them. If Bat is hit by an enemy, another stream of bats will go to that enemy’s location. (Which again, at early levels isn’t great because by then, said enemy is elsewhere.) Bat’s big deal is that at regular intervals, getting him to critical health will give him an increase in max health. You have to get back to full health and level up before doing it again, but when pairing this with Hollow Heart and Metaglio Left, Bat can eventually get so much health that he can tank hits from the grim reaper and kill that dude. Plus, once his weapon, Pako Batiliar, evolves to its final form, Bat can walk through mobs of high-level enemies like I do through a warm spring rain. It’s good stuff. Continue reading

Back in the far distant past, which is to say last year, I got sucked into the browser version of Suika Game. Despite being very simple to play, I could play it all day even as the wonky physics drove me bonkers.

Well now there’s a game called POOOOL, and it’s like Suika Game, but with balls on a pool table instead of fruit in a jar. Hitting two white ball together makes a red ball, hitting two red balls together makes an orange ball, and so on until you connect two giant purple balls to clear them from the table. Simple, right?

No, not quite. Every ball entering the table is on the same spot, so unlike Suika Game, you can’t aim for a better shot elsewhere. Using a mouse to first click on the table and hold it while pulling the mouse in any direction determines the angle and power of the shot. So there’s a bit more to consider than just dropping fruit in a jar. Continue reading

Tower defense is a genre I don’t have any strong opinions on. I’ve played a few and liked them well enough, but not so much that I go out of my way to find new entries. I saw Bloons TD 6 was on sale on Steam stupidly cheap, and I vaguely recalled it had been released on Netflix. So I figured it would be good for a Versus series post.

I mostly focused on the PC version, for reasons that I’ll get into later, but let me start of by saying this is a mobile game, complete with microtransactions, paid for currency, and painful grinding baked in to encourage spending. As usual, I was able to ignore all of that to just focus on the game itself, but if you have trouble with spending too much in mobile games, this probably isn’t for you.

The story is easy enough to cover. Bloons (balloons) have invaded the land of monkeys! Gather your forces to repel the invasion!

Yep. You don’t get much simpler than that. Continue reading

Oh, this game, y’all. I am glad I got it on sale, at a steep discount, and before I get to the actual review (with spoilers, so this is your only warning), I need to offer you full disclosure. I have sunk eighty hours into Hades. In that time I have beaten every boss with every weapon available, except for the eponymous end boss. I’ve beaten him two times, once with the gauntlets, and once with the spear. I’ve unlocked every ability from the magic mirror in Zagreus’ room, and fully refurnished the house of Hades.

But I have not beaten Hades, because the grind finally soured me to the point that I would rather do anything else beside play this game. What kills me most is that this is Greek mythology, which has been my jam since I first started borrowing books of parables from the public library at nine. Not even my love of Greek mythology can see me through to the end.

Here’s the plot in a nutshell: Zagreus is the defiant son of Hades, who learns that his birth mother is alive and well on the mortal plane. With help from his adoptive mother, he makes plans to traverse Tatarus, Asphodel, Elyisum, and the labyrinths that divide the afterlife to the mortal world. Each room he clears reveals a new gift from the gods, who are eager to help him ascend to Olympus. If at first he can’t succeed, he can die, and die again. Continue reading

Dread Delusion was brought to my attention on BlueSky in the Discover tab by a fan announcing that it had come out of early access. They described it as Oblivion-like, but with PS One-styled graphics. I went to Steam to check out the trailer, and it intrigued enough that I bought it and downloaded it the same day.

Before I get into the nitty gritty bits, I would like to say that what I really appreciate about the game is that it does retro nostalgia right. Yes, the graphics are clunky and similar to the PS One era, but the controls and camera are designed with a far more modern sensibility. I never once suffered with to trying orient myself even in tightly walled areas. I never struggled with the controls, even during more frantic bouts of combat. (Well, with one short exception, but that comes later.) There’s two different versions of fast travel to make tracking and backtracking less tedious. This is a game that wants to tickle you with nostalgia, but knows that not everything from the past was all candy sprinkles and Pop Rocks.

Starting out on a tutorial island of sorts as a faceless and nameless prisoner, player creation amounts to mixing three historical backgrounds that determine starting stats. Choosing one will make a character better at lockpicking or bartering, while another might make them better with physical damage or magic spells. No matter what is chosen, the first weapon given is a rusty sword. If you want to cast spells, you have to hunt them down later. Continue reading

Metroidvanias are a hard sell for me, existing well outside of my preferred styles of game. The problem is mine, as I have little patience for hitting a literal wall and having to backtrack to find the new tool I need to make progress. Once I do have the needed upgrade, I struggle to remember where I was supposed to backtrack in order to use it.

Islets won me over with its whimsical animation style and combination of side scrolling platforming mixed with bullet hell aerial boss battles. But what kept me playing until the credits was its willingness to cater to my needs at every step of the journey. For instance, when I got lost, I could go to an NPC and pay a small fee to have my current goal marked on the map. Be it a new upgrade, a boss, or whatever I was struggling to find, having a little question mark on the map made it possible to avoid getting lost. There were other accessibility features, and I’ll cover those later.

Let’s get into the story first, which is about a floating island made up of several smaller islets that drifted together and created a perfect biome. A group of industrious critters decided to keep them held together with huge electromagnets, as the combined island was perfect for promoting biodiversity. Some unsavory varmints conspired to shut down the magnets, and the islets drifted apart, making each biome more barren and hostile as a result. Continue reading