Recent reviews by Carrionjr

Hades is an amazing roguelike RPG, and a testament to good game design. Its engaging, has a great story you tease out over multiple runs, great gameplay that doesn’t punish you unnecessarily and an amazing soundtrack and vocals. I can’t recommend this game enough, if you haven’t played it you should.

Story
You play as Prince Zagreus, son of the god Hades who is desperate to escape his father Hades, and his infernal realm. After the gods of Mt Olympus become aware of your existence they make contact with you, and offer boons in order to help you in your efforts to escape. Each run has different gods contact you and bestow different blessings, and slowly introduces a wider range of side characters you can interact with and explore their stories as you get closer to the surface and escaping. After my first escape (after many failed attempts) I thought it was a great story, only to find out that it’s really only the beginning of the story and as you complete more runs and converse with the NPC’s you expose all the secrets that gods have been keeping and start escaping to help avert a war between the entire pantheon. Most of the creature and locations lore entries are expanded by visiting or encountering them enough times, however NPC’s need gifts after a set amount of visits.

Gameplay
The gameplay while not being unique, is extremely rewarding. Essentially you start off in Hades palace where all the dead arrive, where you can converse with NPC’s (which moves their stories forward one conversation at a time), get scolded from Hades for being useless, trade items for rewards, spend money to upgrade the Palace and edit the weapons, perks and difficulty of the next escape attempt before setting off.

While every escape attempt is different, the premise is the same, with you having the clear 3 layers of the underworld and the temple of Styx you have to trek through, defeat their guardians and inhabitants who are being ordered by Hades to stop you. It’s a neat idea that by “killing” the inhabitants you are meting out the punishment they deserve, and that by stopping you they are ensuring the security of the realm (no dead souls have ever escaped), or in the Satyrs case killing the heathens who defile the temple of Styx and don’t venerate the gods.

Everything useful to you during a run is lost upon escaping (or death), and it becomes a balancing act of deciding picking boons that help you in the current escape attempt, or items (gems, darkness, gifts) that will be used for future upgrades or conversations with the NPC’s and various gods.

Replayability is very high and hasn’t just been tacked on as an afterthought as the whole story revolves around completing multiple escapes. The game actively encourages you to increase the difficulty (after a successful escape attempt) by limiting the items required for permanent weapon upgrades and different weapon aspects (each weapon has multiple forms that all change how they function) to only be awarded by each boss once at each difficulty level. When making runs harder you have full control over what setting you increase (it could be extra enemies, standard enemies have abilities, harder bosses, you lose boons as you progress ect), and you eventually get to a point where you need to have multiple of these selected. The game also keeps a record of the highest difficulty you have escaped with for each weapon, and the fastest attempt for those who limit to compete.

Each of the god’s boons can affect your primary moves in different ways (dash’s, attacks, magic casts, dodges and summons), and have different effects depending on which other boons are selected or what weapon is being used. Each of the boons have different tiers and levels, with a higher tier boon having better effects (say increase in damage %) over a lower but higher level boon. The Gods (while sounding friendly) are jealous and can offer to replace an existing rival’s boon with a higher tier one, or very rarely combine boons together so you get unique abilities that combine the best of both gods.

Graphics
For a game that’s essentially a display on family dysfunction the graphics are crisp and colourful in a way that cel shading exploits. Each arena has an abundance of hues that help define each layer of the underworld, with Tartarus having a darker dungeon setting, Asphodel being the traditional hell of bubbling lava and Elysium having softer blues and greens where the righteous live in dead. As the relationships expand you can tweak the house with different upgrades
Characters and enemies are all animated extremely well (enemies have tells to advise you of their attacks), and secrets are hidden in plain sight in the fishing games. The UI is minimalist so it doesn’t interfere with the action happening on screen, and each character really stands out. Traps aren’t hidden, though will catch you unaware if you don’t pay attention and the action can be quite hectic. The De-motivationals that usually play at the start of each run are hilarious (basically Hades musings on how you will fail, or why everything sucks).

Music
The vocals and music are amazing. They absolutely nailed the soundtrack for the game, with plenty of string and percussion tracks that align with the action happening on screen, with the more sombre music or tracks with vocals playing in resting areas or after certain events. The vocals are also amazing, with the dialogue between Hades & Zagreus being a standout. Hades put-downs are quite humorous to listen to (of you, when you change items around the palace and when he’s berating having useless minions or those in his court who displease him).

Achievements
Getting 100% achievements will take multiple runs through the game due to the random nature of stage rewards and conversations, but is highly worth it and nothing too strenuous, though time consuming

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To say Chrono Trigger is a good game is like saying water is wet. There a very good reason why it’s still listed in most top 10 JRPG lists nearly 20 years after it was released. It’s one of those rare games that has a really good story, interesting game mechanics and not requiring hours of grinding, having great graphics (for the time), multiple endings that actively encourage a second play through, and an amazing soundtrack. I can’t recommend this game enough, if you have any interest in RPG’s then you should play this. Being a repackaged version it includes majority of the Nintendo DS version enhancements, the Playstation’s AMV’s and other additional dungeons.

Story
Explaining the story would ruin the game, but it primary focuses on Chrono, his inventor friend Lucca and Marle as they are sent back in time 400 years after Lucca’s latest invention teleports Marle into the past. Being heavily focused on time travel you have to solve the paradoxes your party creates by visiting the past, and has a very decent take on fate vs self-determination. As you bounce through other time periods you party expands with an array of unique characters and becomes an epic quest to save the world (past, present and future) from a galactic threat that has been responsible for shaping the worlds outcomes for millions of years. The game has multiple endings depending on when you destroy the end boss, some of which are quite humorous and one that links it to its sequel.

Gameplay
For an JRPG gameplay is fairly unique. As the team grows you can effectively change membership as required (Chrono is a constant until just before the end and some areas require a character to play through). Characters don’t have set roles, through each has one of the four magic types and have fixed special abilities that are unlocked after acquiring enough technical points from battles. All battles award XP to increase character levels (which increase health, MP and other stats), and do so for a reduced rate for those who aren’t active (so your benched team members aren’t completely useless when you need them), however technical experience is only awarded for being an active member in battle. At set character levels team members learn dual attacks (or trio attacks) if all the prerequisite skills for members are unlocked, which helps encourage using multiple team combinations to see what works.

There are no enemies on the world map, and in stages there are no random encounters. A fair amount of fights can be skipped if you don’t mind missing out on experience and money. All enemies actively move around and if you get in their visual range or touch them combat will commence. Each stage or dungeon isn’t usually too strenuous to complete (usually 3 fights per screen), have lots of hidden items to find (usually consumables or the most current equipment your team members could wear), and save points to heal, especially before the boss encounters so a loss doesn’t require a full dungeon rerun.

Combat uses an active timer bar (like final fantasy), you can only attack when its complete, however this doesn’t pause the bar so enemies can also attack while you are selecting from your options. There is an option for auto attack (which speeds combat drastically), however it’s not long into the game where enemies are encountered that require different tactics (attacking either does no damage requiring magic to be used, or leads to a counter being performed by the enemy).

The control scheme is incredibly easy to use if playing on a controller, but there is a mouse and keyboard option, and both are customisable. The game runs nicely streaming to a mobile phone, however the AMV’s are blank screens when played like this. My only gripe would be that the auto run option seems to turn off sometimes when going into menus.

After completing the game, you open up all the extras which includes illustrations, all the music, the added AMV’s and all endings you have unlocked. The 2 extra dungeons are interesting, but only really offer a place to get better equipment and one of them has a lot of traversing the same mountain area multiple times, though the other is required for an achievement.

Graphics
Being a Super Nintendo release this game absolutely pushed the systems at the time to the limit. It still holds up today, though the higher graphics setting does smooth things out considerably. It does support widescreen now, but if you are expecting anything higher than standard resolution then you need to look elsewhere.

Music
The soundtrack is amazing. Again remembering that this was Super Nintendo release, it doesn’t get repetitive, and each track is distinctive and fits the area to where its linked. From the drums of the BC area, to the gloomy tunes of the destroyed future each tune fits the time its set in. I still think Frogs tune is the best.

Achievements
The Achievements are easy enough to get, all being linked to the hidden endings, so at least 2 play throughs are required, however most of the them will be unlocked in new game + mode where you are stupidly over-levelled against enemies.

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Jagged Alliance: Crossfire is a standalone expansion to Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, which uses the same engine and delivers a more tightly contained mission on a smaller map, but suffers from being abandoned by the devs as it has a fair amount of quality of life issues and buggy quests that with a little more work could have made this game better than marginally ok. It plays fine, but I’d only recommended it to those who really love the JA series or are planning on using 3rd party community mods as it really feels unfinished.

Story
After your glorious victory at Arulco, the nation of Khanpaa which produces a unique and rare ore is taken over by a religious zealot with ties to many influential institutions and countries. The UN is unable to intervene, but Khanpaa’s ambassador hires you through back channels to help liberate his country. There’s not much more to the story, and only a few people who are willing to help you (after you have performed a quest for them). One of the let downs with crossfire is you can’t create the custom Merc (you) and are stuck with the regular line-up of available Mercs, none that you will be able to afford.

Gameplay
Gameplay is challenging, primarily due to the complete lack of funds, lack of intelligence (with enemy and player controlled characters) and constant raids on your owned territory. Poor pathfinding, doors that you can’t open (are cosmetic only), non-existent drops and few poor UI choices as well don’t help matters.

Being a reskinned JA: Back in Action engine, it carries across few of its benefits, and most of its bugs. Control wise, the game is fine. All the series staples are there, with the game functioning in a real time mode (rather than strictly turn based), and at the beginning you have a few option you can change if you want that old school feel with the fog of war and unknown enemy locations. Shooting is marginally better, rockets don’t explode mid-air, but the shooting path is still very liner, with shots that you should be able to make coming up as impossible or blocked (laying prone on a hill shouldn’t make the shot impossible). The selection of guns and options is significantly less than previous games, and most of the good stuff is locked right to the end, or you miss it entirely as the game gives you its final challenge after you liberate the temple. Enemies hardly drop anything (their guns or ammo disappear into thin air, but they leave you their shoes), and there are few vendors willing to sell in the 10 maps. At least viewing all items in a sector is easy enough one you have cleared it, and recruiting the militia is easy enough, give them a gun and maybe some body armour and they will fight. You even have the option to disperse them (not sure why you would ever do this) or have them cluster around defendable control points, though they are still functionally useless unless upgraded a few times.

The AI is atrocious, with everything but the last (best enemies) ignoring cover and being able to picked off one by one, making it as difficult as shooting fish in barrel. Enemies are quite happy to ignore their dead comrades, making them easy pickings unless a few of them are in a undefined radius of the enemy being attacked, where they stay in an alert mode and never leave (though other enemies will be completely unfazed). The only thing stopping you is your own Mercs absolute inability to not team kill each other. Squad member lying in front, put a few bullets into them. Squad member next to you, turn and shoot them. Squad member hiding on the other side of a building, shoot bullets through, miss all the enemies and kill the squad member. Pathfinding is just as bad, with Mercs from both sides happily running through live mine fields (making sure to step on each one), or happily running into the view of a tank. They get stuck on buildings trying to get from A to B, or don’t see things as fences as obstacles or better yet when starting a map can be put in zones outside the map which don’t form path of the maps main paths, making them unable to contribute unless they leave and try again.

Graphics
The graphics options have to be set outside the game, you can’t change inside the game. Though you can scale the graphics up to higher resolutions, I had to set mine back to 1080P just to see things, and the game fails to show you the basics, like how to rotate the camera (I had to find it in the manual after finishing the first sector). While the Mercs clothing updates with what you equip them with, they are basically indistinguishable from each other.

The sector maps you fight over may be one of the best things about the game, as each is wildly different, are fully fleshed out, highly detailed and have plenty of hidden objects in each. There’s usually multiple levels, sometimes rises to look over and rain death on those below, or drains to infiltrate into a base. The only let down are the doors that look like they should open on buildings (as they look exactly the same as the ones that do), and inaccessible item locations.

Music
The music is ok, and likely the least buggy part about the game. It feels like there’s only a few tracks which cycle between combat music or non-combat music as the danger recedes. Each Merc has a few lines depending on what’s happening, and in what I’m guessing is another “feature” if Merc A gets shot or kills someone sometimes one of the other Mercs will talk as if they made the kill or are bleeding out. When NPC’s are talking their portraits don’t align at all to what they are saying and is really noticeable.

Achievements
Achievements are broken for Jagged Alliance: Crossfire, so don’t even bother. One of the items required for the good ending to the game is bugged as well, so even after playing you will likely only get a bad ending.

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There are casual, fun games that leave you feeling relaxed after playing them. Eldest souls is not amongst them. It’s been a long time since I have raged at a game, swearing at the screen and wanting to throw my controller through it, but Eldest Souls invokes that. Having finished it, I now have that stress free feeling, as I know I don’t have to endure that again. If you are into punishing pixel art or boss rush games that are totally unforgiving, then Eldest Souls is for you.

Story
The story starts out really well, and describes a world where gods and humans lived aside each other in harmony. The old gods are corrupted by one of their kind, and start a war and enslave humanity. On the brink after 100’s of years of servitude humanity fights back and imprisons the gods in the sacred walls of the Citadel, a fortress to house the gods where they can be contained not only from humanity, but each other, watched over by a standing army. The peace doesn’t last, and you are sent to reinforce the standing army and slay the gods, who have unleased another wave of ruin upon the land. The story briefly expands during the game as you meet a few surviving NPC’s or read logbooks, notes and piece the scrapes of information together that you find, but it’s fairly sparse. I did like that some choices that you make change the ending (all rewards come at a cost), and even then it’s not clear who exactly you are serving.

Gameplay
This is a game for those who want to be punished for misdeeds in their previous lives. It’s all about timing, and is totally unforgiving as there are no invulnerability frames when you get hit by an attack, mistiming means you can have multiple attacks hit you in rapid succession, all dealing damage (which is usually fatal). Some boss attacks can hit for 70% of your life in one hit, life steal is really low (which is the only way to recover health during a fight), and there aren’t any options to increase your health pool or increase the amount of dashes you have to escape attacks.

Each boss attacks differently and I feel some are really there to teach you have to play the game. You only have a very basic tutorial, and while you can somewhat flounder against the first 2 bosses, Eos the likely third boss (the game lets you wander the keep and pick who you want to fight at this point) is the boss that actually makes you learn the game mechanics and experiment, if you don’t just rage quit. The game actually feels harder to play at the beginning, as you have less mechanisms and upgrades to help you through certain boss fights. Each defeated boss drops a shard that can be slotted into either an active ability, enhance a dash or charge attack with an effect, or add an effect to your skill tree. Each shard is unique and does a different effects depending on where you place it, giving you a large amount of wriggle room in how you setup your character. Some of the gained abilities actively damage you when used, so again care needs to be taken when using them.

The games 3 skills trees are really well designed, with Windslide being focused on mobility and passive DPS, Berserker Slash being straight up high DPS, and Counter focusing on defending and technical play. They all play really differently, and what you have selected can drastically change how a fight plays out. I finished 4 bosses with Windslide, before switching over berserker slash and found my enjoyment increased substantially. You won’t receive enough skill point in one run, so the game encourages multiple play throughs if you feel like enduring the suffering a bit more.

Graphics
The Pixel art really works for the game. While the keep is ruined the artwork does a great job of invoking the idea that it must have been majestic, before it was corrupted from within. The game is fair in that nothing is hidden in the environment, items of importance shine to grab your attention, though its up to you to try and investigate what they might be used for. You somewhat channel the essence of Guts from Berserk (but with a red cloak), wielding a weapon that’s like giant hunk of steel in a nod to the series.

Each boss is fairly unique not only in its attack sequence(s), but in appearance. Each of the attacks are telegraphed, so if you are quick (and I mean really quick), and can remember each of the bosses attacks you have a good chance of preparing to either rush in to attack or get ready to dodge. While the game is totally unforgiving and absolutely punishes mistakes, there aren’t any cheap invisible attacks that other games love so much. After beating a boss, the environment changes and some other areas can open up for exploration.

The game doesn’t support many options for graphics, but what it does works well. you aren’t going to be playing this on anything higher than 1080p

Music
The music fixes the game perfectly. There’s a solid mix of percussion heavy tracks with chanting vocals, to somewhat more low-key, relaxing string based numbers for when you are exploring the keep and the ruin that the gods have wrought. During fights you don’t have time to focus on the music as you can’t pause. Other than the introduction, there aren’t any vocals in the game.

DLC
There is a free DLC that adds some extra bosses, and expands the story. Its free (which is great) and totally optional (you have to defeat the optional bosses before the last boss other start a new run.

Achievements
You would have to live for pain to want to 100% Eldest souls. I’m convinced anyone who has finished the game without dying, or using any shards or abilities is cheating.

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Ghostrunner is a slick, parkour based action platformer where you have to use your abilities and skills to defeat the enemies in your path and ascend the tower, where a single misstep leads to death. It looks great, has a well thought out and tight control scheme, a well-paced story and pumping synth soundtrack. I highly recommended it.

Story
Set in a dystopian future, the Earth’s ecosystem has been ruined by an unexplainable catastrophe, forcing humanity to live in the Dharma tower, the last bastion where humanity can survive. You play as a Ghostrunner, a cybernetically enhanced member of the elite security and peacekeeping force of the tower who were destroyed when Mara, partner to Adam who built the tower stages a coup and kills him, assuming control. You awaken 20 years after the successful coup by the architect, a copy of Adam’s consciousness who urges you to ascend the tower and finish what you started -defeat Mara and free the people of the tower. The story makes a late game twist, where characters motives aren’t what has been portrayed, and where some of the body horror elements start making sense, but fits the dystopian theme really well.

Gameplay
Gameplay involves you traversing each stage by running, sliding, wall running and zip lining while dodging attacks and hazards and defeating enemies scattered throughout each area. The game is forgiving as it saves frequently so deaths aren’t a large setback. Each stage is designed really well, and while there is effectively only one path to follow, the large spaces allow for different techniques and attempts at combat.

Combat is fun and usually challenging, with different types of enemies slowly introduced, each requiring different tactics or styles to fight against. It becomes frantic when versing multiple different types, while trying to dodge the attacks or traverse the environment where a single hit results in a death. The base games combat areas are forgiving in the sense that there are usually only a handful of enemies in each area, and only a few of the enemies seem to randomly change their behaviour. All the enemies fit the game, though I think the suiciding crawlers near the end seem to be out of place with their attack sequence (their body horror element fits perfectly).

Theres a matrix that slowly unlocks which allows you to add bonuses to your 4 skills, or enhance your existing abilities. Each enhancer fits onto the board like a Tetris piece, and it can become a game of trying to cram as many abilities onto it vs adding few that you really want. These can be switched and changed at any time, so if something isn’t working you can change and try something different at any point.

The game caters to those who want to speed run, as well as those who just want to experience the game for its story, by comparing your time and death count to anyone in your steam friends list who has played the game. There are collectables hidden through-out each stage, a few which explain how things to be where they are, but most are cosmetic or just add to the background story of the world.

The game lives and dies by its tight controls. And it doesn’t disappoint. The controls are simple, responsive and work well on controller or keyboard.


Graphics
It absolutely nails the cyberpunk feel of a future gone wrong. Humanity is crammed into tower, and like all good settings, the working class lives in the filth at the bottom, while things get progressively better as you move up. In somewhat of a divergence, the upper floors aren’t for the super-rich, but the scientists who made the tower possible.

Each of the enemies look great, and while they are carbon copies of each other they look great. There’s a fair amount of detail for each enemy. Depending on how you kill them or where you slice them they are bisected in different parts and spill apart differently.

There is a photo mode, where you can change the camera angles, colour gradients, remove the UI and add or remove other effects to create some impressive pictures.

Music
The synthwave absolutely raises this game from great to amazing. The music fits the game like a glove, and is one of those few tracks you could happily put on in the background and listen to (if sythwave is your thing). The voice acting is also great, and though there are only a few characters conversing, all of them sound professional and polished. In something that needs to happen in more games, if you die while conversing it continues from where the dialogue was, rather than restart. This doesn’t sound like something major, but hearing the same dialogue loops multiple times can become frustrating, and Ghostrunner completely bypasses that problem.

Achievements
If you are chasing 100% achievements, then you need to purchase the DLC and do a fair bit of practise. While most achievements will come naturally some require perfect runs or long streaks with no deaths.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Jagged Alliance is the original turn based mercenary game that that started it all, first released way back in 1995. This game is fun, difficult, but being nearly 30 years old and essentially the original game (and its sequel deadly games) running in a dos box emulator has some serious quality of life issues that you can’t patch around. While I think Jagged Alliance 2 the best one in the series (seriously if you haven’t played that, you should), you could do much worse than playing JA if you’re willing to put up with ancient graphics.

Story
The story starts off with your Merc company being contacted to help liberate the island of Metavira, where a unique sap that has medical properties is produced. One of the initial researchers of this sap has taken over the island by force seeing the profit that could be made, and the other research team wants you to help liberate it. Deadly games is a series of linked missions that removes the management of the world map, but takes you with more focused outcomes in each stage.

Gameplay
Gameplay has you operating from the last sector on the island not under Santino’s control, and from there you have to liberate the rest of the island and kill Santino (who is heavily defended and on the exact other side of the island). This involves picking your Merc team (you actually get enough funds to do this, but none of them will be top tier merc’s and you can’t buy additional equipment for them), and then set across each grid that correlates to a map sector. Missions are handed out by Jack (the head scientist who hired you) and while you can ignore them, its best to focus on them as they affect your pay and how well the locals think you are doing, and are issued either at the beginning of each day or when certain maps have been cleared. Missions parameters are only hinted at, which can really affect how you progress through the game (eg clearing out a waterway doesn’t actually tell you it’s 5 map sectors that need to be cleared (and kept clear) of enemies, and rescuing his daughter from one of 4 random sectors depending on which ones you have cleared with a set time limit before she is killed was brutal.

Income is fairly limited in the beginning, with you needing to clear sectors that have the fallow trees on them, and then assign workers to harvest the sap, or processing plants (to actually process the trees). Guards need to be hired on liberated sectors, as enemy patrols regularly attack them, and there’s nothing worse than having to backtrack and try and recapture something you already cleared or having workers refuse to produce sap as they feel unsafe. They can be moved around as you take control of sectors, but care needs to taken so they won’t cross waterways or they become lunch for giant eels that live in the water.

Ammo, equipment and Merc moral are the other biggest factors you need to manage outside combat. Some Mercs hate working with others and I swear they purposely shoot each other if one managed to get in front in a firefight. Ammo and equipment is limited, you can’t just go around the maps with a spray and pray attitude, and you need to loot and explore each map as you go through them to make sure you have everything you can loot of value. Equipment (guns especially) degrade when used or if submerged and there’s nothing worse than having a gun jam, or a grenade fail to explode (or explode in your hand) during combat. The game is unintuitive for searching as there no indication if the thing your clicking on (say a cabinet or desk) would normally hold anything of value. You can also end up with a bunch of keys that won’t open any doors. And inventory management is critical (there’s some hard choices in what is essential to take each mission)

Combat is challenging, but is usually fun. Each Merc in your team has a set amount of action points (AP), used for walking, running, changing positions, reloading or firing weapons. When firing at enemies you can spend more AP to take you aim, which increases your chances of hitting the enemy. Different guns and ammo types can have better damage output, range and offer better chances to hit, but the early weapons are all handguns which make the first few stages feel like the hardest.

The AI isn’t terribly smart, but knows enough to get into cover (and doesn’t have to worry about conserving ammo and loves throwing grenades), or will try and bait you to chase them when wounded. As long as you keep your Mercs in roughly the same area and in cover, you should be outnumbering any enemy you encounter and have an angle on them where you don’t miss every shot.

Graphics
In today’s world, the graphics are atrocious, but this was considered fairly detailed when released. Being a emulated copy, there’s little to no graphic’s support, and I had to play it in a window and change my scaling settings so it would display properly. Dropped items are nearly invisible on the ground (it’s easier to collect the items in map mode). Objects aren’t clearly defined, so it can become a exercise of trying to search everything to see if it might hold something of value.

Music
There’s only a few music tracks in the game which loop continuously (which is fine), a combat tune when fighting, and a all-clear music when there are no enemies around. Each Merc has a few lines of dialogue when they get shot or when initially hired, but other than a few lines spoken by the natives guides (if you take them) when entering a sector there’s not a lot of voice work.

Achievements
There’s no steam achievements for this.

For more reviews please visit https://gtm.you1.cn/storesteam/curator/31327216/

Per Aspera is a slow burn resource management/colony builder that was released in 2020. While it’s story pacing can be slow and it could do with a 32x speed booster to fast forward long periods of inactivity while you are waiting for research or special missions to finish, it’s fairly well designed and as long as you are paying attention to your base resources and don’t do something outrageously stupid you should be able to complete it without much difficulty. It’s not a must play, but it offers a solid experience, has fairly relaxing music and offers a few differing story paths to mix the game up at the end.

Story
You play as AMI, the AI in charge of base building and terraforming Mars. Everything starts off innocently enough, it’s just you and a planet full of resources to exploit (as Earth is fairly ruined at this point). You have mission directives to complete, which are broken up into broad categories such as melting the polar ice caps by heating the planet, creating an atmosphere with the correct pressure and mix of gases (who knew a planet with 70% oxygen would be explosive), introducing basic life and then reducing radiation. Colonists arrive to help with research and provide missions and points of interest that might be worth exploring. Then there’s the shadowy organisation you work for which never quite seems they are telling the entire truth (or the truth at all), the “enemy” alliance that that keeps proving convenient proof that you are being lied to and everything isn’t as it seems, and other points of interest on Mars to explore.

I found the story good, but it can be quite slow paced and progression stops until you explore parts of the map or set events happen. Right up until the last story act you are kind of coddled, where then you get to effectively make one of 3 choices which drastically makes the story and final missions diverge.

Gameplay
Basic resource management is handled really well in Per Aspera (as long as you are paying attention). There are basic elements you mine (iron, carbon, ice, ect), and a few different types of factories which you can convert them into other objects. As long as you manage your supply chains well, everything generally runs smoothly (eg have the factories near the mines, and storage depots for storing extra resources).

Power is distributed in a radius around each plant, and based on Mars’s cycle could see you with crippling power shortages (if you focus on solar only). Maintenance units are also required as the harsh environment erodes buildings quickly, and drone buildings are used for defence (there is fairly little combat in this game outside of a few story points)

There are building limits (that can be increased via research), and mines do eventually run out of resources). Research is completed by colonists, and as research is completed along each of the 5 techs trees better versions of buildings, highways, building limits and special projects are unlocked, which all help with the overall story progression, and some offer interesting choices in progression (like blowing up Deimos to increase the planets temperature, or nuking the polar caps to raise water levels).

Bases can be expanded by slowing building across to points of interest, or by starting “sister” cities that act as self-contained districts until they are joined up to the main bases supply network. The further in the game you get the more you have to manage, like atmospheric gas mixes or rising water levels, where the required tech can be years outside of your reach (like reducing oxygen) which can add an artificial difficulty spike.

Graphics
The graphics are good, and the UI is really well designed. All the resource types are shown on the screen, with a trending graph behind them so you can see if you’re going to run out or need to intervene. There’s a ton of different filters you can apply over Mars at any point, like power consumption, wind speeds, temperature, load maps for traffic distribution, and you can zoom in and out as much as you want.

If you really want to dig into information you can bring up a full list of every building which will advise its status, location, health which can be handy for finding mines that have run out of resources, or buildings that have halted production for whatever reason. The only gripe I have is on the main overlay there isn’t a visible list of mines that have run out of resources (you have to go into a few different filters to see this).

Music
The music is fairly calming and relaxed, which makes for a nice experience. The voice acting was good all around, though the cast is limited (I think 7 different characters in game) that your will interact with, and these chats are fairly infrequent.

Multiplayer
Multiplayer is an option, and I have no idea how it works in Per Aspera.

Achievements
If you are chasing 100% achievements then there’s a few things to note with a few being locked behind you completing the main story missions within 100 years, which really requires you to nail research quickly (otherwise do another play through again). Some are locked behind the Blue Mars DLC, but this does allow you to get many of the research stations that would be flooded and likely missed if not playing in the sandbox mode. There is a late game decision that splits the story down 3 separate paths, so a save before this point would also come in handy.

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Rover Mechanic Simulator is slow paced, repetitive simulator where you investigate and repair different rovers on Mars. I wouldn’t recommend you rush out and buy it, and I can’t compare it to others in its series but it was fairly relaxing, the rover models and components are full of facts and the UI is nice and user friendly. If steam had an ok rating I would place this there, this is really for those who are interested in moon/mars rovers, and I can’t say at this point what life skill you would be learning knowing how a rover is put together.

Story
You’re a mechanic on Mars, and select repair jobs as you see fit. Each of the missions has a brief description of what the operator thinks is wrong, and it’s up to you to print replacement parts and repair each rover. There’s no real story as such, but different operators leave different notes and dialogues.

Gameplay
The game is fairly focused in what you can do, though some tasks are simply there to pad time spent in each task. You start off with very minimal resources (money) and need to successfully complete repair jobs to earn more. While everything is simple enough to do, the game has a fair few tutorial missions to make sure you know how each of its major mechanics works before your set free to select from any of the 67 repair jobs.

After selecting a repair job, you have to grab the kit off the truck with the crane, move it to the required workbench, which is where the magic starts. When investigating each rover, you have a dismantle mode, where you remove each component, an assemble mode where you can install fixed or new parts, and an inspection mode, where you can diagnose the health of each part. This can be broken down further, by taking parts to the repair bench, where you can clean them (as dirty parts can’t be analysed until clean), or further dismantle/assemble to get to electronics inside which can be taken to a soldering bench to remove/replace broken parts.

All replacement parts need to be printed from your handy 3D printer, so there’s usually a fair bit of moving between different workbenches before each rover can be fixed. Once everything is repaired, there’s a short mini-game to reprogram everything, and then you can submit for completion which rewards extra resources and experience.

The experience earnt from repairs can be used to increase how quickly you either dismantle/ assemble parts, print replacements, clean dirty parts, solder electronics, analysis or reduce the amount replacement parts cost. There are a few other options, like removing the glitches from the crane camera, or autocompleting the mini games, but the ones that speed you up are the ones worth investing in. you can’t actually fully max your experience trees (there’s a hard level cap), but you get very close and can get all of the important skills from each tree.

Each repair job is divided into 3 categories which the ranking based on how much resources you will have to spend to complete. You really can’t go wrong doing missions, unless you either run out of money, or don’t check if you have completed a mission and try and hand it in. If you are interested, you can play some retro arcade games.

Graphics
The different rover models are quite detailed and have plenty of parts for you to pull apart and investigate. You can get quite deep into each of the rovers (like pulling apart its nuclear engine!) and its nice seeing that when you remove parts that have cables attached the cables are removed from the model as well. The graphics aren’t going to wow you, but the UI is very user friendly, and everything is colour coded once investigated.

Music
There is a radio, and it has I think a few songs from each of its different types of music available, but what you really want to do is dump a bunch of Mp3’s in a folder and listen to your own music. There’s no speech in the game, and the only real sounds are noises from removing screws which you won’t pay attention to.

Achievements
All of the achievements are fairly each to get, however for the 100% you are required to get the DLC. There’s a few hidden ones, but they don’t take much time at all to get.

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Lego MARVEL Superheroes is a child friendly, action adventure Lego game with a brand new story (that very loosely follows some of the existing marvel movie storylines) and sees multiple teams of different heroes join forces to stop Doctor Doom and Loki from using the Silver Surfers cosmic powers for nefarious reasons. It offers a good amount of kid friendly puzzle solving, free world exploration, races and plenty of collectables and characters to unlock. If you are looking for a suitable couch co-op game to play with a younger player you wouldn’t go wrong with this, and I recommend picking it up. Any kids who like superpowers should love playing with the custom hero maker, allowing them to fly, web sling, race or shoot their around the city, or watching dead pool dance.

Story
In a completely new story, multiple Super Hero teams (Avengers, Fantastic 4, Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men) come together and fight against a vast array of enemies from all franchises to ultimately stop Doctor Doom and Loki and return the Silver Surfers cosmic bricks. The story is quite good, very loosely following some of existing movie beats (like Doctor Doom stealing the Silver Surfer’s powers), and has nods to other events (like trying to recruit Duke\the blob from the gym) as side missions. Each of the side missions are small self-contained missions that are quite humorous and while short are enjoyable to play.

Gameplay
Gameplay follows most of the other Lego games, where you need to complete the stage first with the standard characters, before opening it up for free play mode where you can use any hero team. Each of the stages has mini-kits to find (which unlock a comic version of the stage), character tokens, and Stan Lee to rescue. Gold bricks are awarded for collecting the above, as well as a set amount of studs (money) in each stage. The missions are well designed, including a fair amount of puzzles for younger players, and the collectable objects are scattered in enough different locations that gives each stage a bit of replayability, at least until the red brick rewards are applied.

Outside of the stages there is New York City to explore, which has plenty of character missions, races, puzzles, and x-men sentinel robots to fight. This Lego game make you work for the red bricks, with them being locked behind separate missions that Deadpool narrates that only become available every 25 gold bricks. There’s no easy way to get studs other than to collect and do the missions (as the multiplier bricks aren’t the first ones you get), so there’s a bit of grinding and work to be done. Deadpool’s appearance is child friendly, and his lines and twerking are hilarious. He also acts as the guide to waypoints. The hero customizer is here, and there’s a very generous allotment for all the crazy mixed heroes anyone could make.

The game isn’t without issues however. Racing would be the worst part of the game, with the cars making you feel like you are driving a brick as they are so unresponsive and get caught on the slightest things. If you are going to do them, use one of the motorcycles if it’s an option. Flying is even worse, with it being easy for you to halt flying mid-flight, and with the added bonus of having the change in pitch going from very slowly to nearly vertical at a random point making it an exercise in frustration. I also experienced a few missions where something didn’t spawn when it should have, which requires you to exit the mission and start again. It’s not fun trying to explain to 2 young children why they have to do something again and makes what’s otherwise a really enjoyable experience disappointing.

Graphics
I thought the stage design and environment were really well done. While they aren’t all made of Lego objects, there’s a ton of different powers you need to interact with certain objects, the puzzles aren’t mind numbing easy but not too difficult for kids to work out and there are plenty of objects for players to smash along the way. Most of the Lego object you build are object that certain characters can use (like the lightning chargers that Thor can power, shield locks for Captain America ect), not the more random things that some of the other Lego games have you building. As most missions are divided into 3 “areas” the game is kind enough to show you which collectables you are missing from each part which significantly helps.

The New York city map starts off blank, and requires exploration to find extra missions, characters, races and puzzles. One gripe would be the mission select, which requires you to select a mission and then browse through the others to select the one you want to play. This is the same for the bonus missions, and while annoying it’s still better than having to go to a completely different area to select the missions. Most of the Heroes look close to their movie versions, however the guardians of the galaxy seem to have drawn the short straw and look nothing like their movie counterparts.

Music
I thought the voice acting was good, and the scripts for each of the heroes and villains really hams up each character’s personality. The scripts are quite funny, and it’s good to see there’s a fair amount of dialogue when the heroes are progressing through the stages. If you come from playing The Avengers spin-off game (or watching any of the movies), then the voice acting isn’t lifted from the movies so there could be a disconnect (as they do sound very different to the movies). The music is good, though again it doesn’t rip the music from the movies.

Multiplayer
This game was made of couch co-op. A second local player (no online play available) can easily join your game and take control of any of the spare characters. In story missions this is locked to who is available to play as, but in free play you can play as who you want. The screens split vertically, and merge together when both players are near each other. Both players can be anywhere in the city, but if anyone starts a mission or fast travels then both are teleported to the same location

Achievements
The achievements are easy to get, though many of them are a wink to long-time fans that would likely go right over the heads of the younger target audience. Many of them were quite well thought out, and aren’t just awarded for doing basic things.

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Necromunda: Hired Gun is a fast paced solo shooter that has amazing stage design, fluid movement and fun combat and is a great homage to the 40K (Necromunda) setting, though is a little rough around the edges and could have used some more polish to really make it shine. If you like fast paced combat, execution finishers or the 40K setting I recommend picking it up if you can get it on sale.

Story
As a fan of the 40K setting (and the Kal Jericho books), the story fits right in with that series. Set on the hive world of Necromunda (a massive city where billions live, separated into different strata layers) you play as a bounty hunter, taking on missions to earn your keep and survive. After accepting a bounty on the Silver Talon, the mission goes awry almost immediately and ends up with your team dead, you nearly being terminated and only surviving because of Kal’s timely intervention. Working with Kal and rebuilt with a range of new cybernetic limbs and parts, you hunt down leads on where the Silver Talon has fled to, while you are hunted by those who want both Kal and what’s been installed inside your head. I thought the story was good, and seemed like a good epilogue to the book series.

Gameplay
Movement and combat are the focus of the game, as you slide, grapple and wall-run around the spectacular environments, killing as you go. Staying still will get you killed fairly quickly, continuously moving is what the game is all about, and the game fully supports you in this as you can wallrun and kill with abandon. You have a grapple to get to out of reach areas quickly, can slide fairly long distances at speed, or can sneak (but this would be the most under unitised ability in the game). The environments are well designed for this, offering multiple approaches with loot chests hidden in difficult places that encourage exploration.

Combat is ultra fast paced and the game does a great job of making it interesting by having a fairly decent amount of enemies to fight, and plenty of weapon options, and “powers” to use. The game has light RPG elements, as you purchase upgrades to both yourself and your dog, which can do standard things like giving you more HP, shields, or energy, or unlocking other powers and better rewards. In a somewhat nod and wink to the table top games close combat is completely overpowered and with plenty glory kill animations, HP recovery and a fairly generous invulnerability windows that can mean when upgraded you can conga line from one enemy to the next with pure impunity. Some of the other powers just disintegrate enemies. You can call your dog, who will happily maul everything in the game (including the genestealers!) and acts as a great distraction magnet.

There are a large selection of weapons from the 40K setting, and they perform as their background suggests they should. Bolters make enemies explode when shot and sound great, lasgun’s can take limbs off when overcharged, stubbers actually feel powerful and shotguns do stupid amounts of damage. Grav guns fire black holes, and plasma guns obliterate enemies. The smaller guns (like pistols) are actually useful, and each weapon can be significantly modified (it’s not just boosting stats). You can take 6 into a mission (from 4 categories), but actually keep a selection of around 20 or so you can choose from.

You fight enemies from a few of the major gangs found in Necromunda, (Goliaths who generally favour the big guns and close combat, the female only Eschers and the tech heavy Orlocks). Each have multiple different types of troops, with their psykers (magic casters) being different, and Ogryns having both ranged and melee versions. There are Ambots, which act like giant robotic weapon platforms, and a genestealer cult to take on. While the enemy AI isn’t anything to gush about- most enemies rush towards you in an effort to blown apart or group together making group kills easier, the genestealers are stupidly fast, strike from weird places and they absolutely destroy you in combat before you know what has hit you. There are plenty of boss battles throughout the game, and these are surprisingly difficult. The bosses are absolutely bullet sponges, and are constantly receiving reinforcements and force you to use the terrain and all your powers.

All that said, there are some issues which reduced the fun. I had significant crashes to desktop until I re-installed the unreal engine redistributable that comes packaged with the game. If playing with a keyboard and mouse forget trying to use keys for any shortcuts, and use the mouse wheel instead to select your powers. The game doesn’t point out that its nearly pauses when you do this, so it’s much quicker when trying to use powers. I found in some instances when wall running the guns refuse to fire when aiming down past a certain angle.

Graphics
The stages are wonderfully designed and really capture the of the setting. From fighting through derelict cities, wastes, sewers, a power station, spaceships, a moving train, chapels and foundries it is quite unique and a lot of care seems to have been put into how the environment looks. That said, this game pushed my old 1080 to the max, and I had quite visible screen tearing issues when playing at ultra settings. Dropping the visual quality down to high resolved this. The game won’t win any awards for character models, but there’s enough variety to keep things interesting (and to be honest you are usually moving too fast to really pay attention). The animations and vocals from the doc don’t seem to be in sync, with the animations playing once, before the vocals kick in and the options menu appears.

Music
The games soundtrack features plenty of heavy metal, which amps up in combat before quieting back down in between firefights. This suits the fast paced gun battles. A stand out mission for atmospheric music would be where you encounter the Genestealer cult. As soon as you enter the area the music changes, and it actually makes it feel quite eerie as you are looking at what appears to be a massacre. You get the nod that something coming up (with tons of ammo laying around), and then nothing, and then when you think you are safe you start screaming as you are attacked from random places. The vocals were a bit of a letdown with each gang seeming to only have 1 voice actor and repeating the same lines for every enemy, though the NPC’s, Kal and the hired gun were serviceable.

Achievements
Easy to get 100% achievements, with only a few requiring some work to be put into them.

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