Recent reviews by DeathMaster

One of those games you might already own but completely forgotten about, yet is well worth your time.

The Magic Circle is a rather trippy road down memory lane for those who've been playing games from the early days up to this day, where you're part of a team working on a game stuck in development hell. Spoiling more would be a disservice to you, as this is a very story driven game. Not quite a walking sim, and all the more enjoyable for it.

Highly recommended for the slightly older gamer.

Decent game but.. don't buy it. You'll be supporting SJWs and their cultural Marxist agenda.

No hesitation. No surrender. No man left behind.

Shipwreck is a rather enjoyable top-down action adventure game strongly reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. I don’t throw out that comparison easily, as that’s one of the best handheld titles ever made, but the game is clearly heavily inspired by this in terms of setting, story and gameplay.
I feel I have to downplay the expectations when I drop a name like that, as it’s not as perfect as a Nintendo game - but what can you expect from a game made by two brothers.

It follows the protagonist as she tries to uncover what is haunting the island she stranded on, and in a true Zelda-like fashion you crawl through a number of increasingly difficult dungeons to gather the Seals of Elements needed to unlock the final ‘castle’.

Again, as it’s heavily inspired by the earlier Zelda games, I have very little to complain in general. The dungeons are varied and very well designed, accompanied by a nice soundtrack for each of them. The puzzles aren’t very challenging, and while some of the bosses are hard as nails the others fail to test you in any way.
This doesn’t really hurt the game though. The only thing that does affect the game negatively are the sluggish controls, which you may not even notice until you reach one of the aforementioned harder bosses. All in all it’s good game with some flaws that can be forgiven considering how powerfully nostalgic it is as a whole.

Tldr: If you’ve been looking for a Zelda clone on Steam, look no further.


+ Fun game heavily inspired by Link's Awakening
+ Great level design
+ Catchy soundtrack
+ Low price

- Sluggish controls
- A bit short

8/10

Styx: Master of Shadows is one of the best hidden gems of 2014.

While the lacklustre story is completely forgettable and the combat system leaves much to be desired, Styx absolutely nails every other aspect that makes a great stealth action title. Its absolutely superb environments, with great use of verticality, are breathtakingly well designed. The music, overall sound and all other aesthetics fit the game perfectly.

It is, however, a very difficult game. You’ll find yourself using quicksaves on every small section you manage to pass through, especially because autosaves are scarce. Trigger an alarm – reload. Tumble – reload. Accidentally kick over a bucket – reload.

All of this makes Styx a great title for the veterans of the stealth genre. You’re free to go for a careless run towards the exit, you could slaughter everyone on the map, but nothing beats the sense of accomplishment for completing the huge levels without ever being seen.

It is a low budget game, but don’t let this scare you away. Sure, I could fill this review with plenty of negative comments about small glitches and poor voice acting, but I knew what to expect. It’s not without its flaws, but none of those break the immersion Styx has to offer. If you’ve been looking for a solid stealth game, look no further.


8.5/10

I dislike short reviews, but... 18 years and over 1000 games later, this game is still in my top 10 of best games ever made.

Urine for a treat.

The Novelist is, not surprisingly, a story telling game.

You’re a being, a spectre or ghost. It is never explained. There’s a family of three and the entire game takes place in a small cabin in the woods. The goal? Make decisions for the family.

Gameplay is.. lacking. All you do is move about the house while trying to avoid being seen. Each chapter you need to find a certain amount of items, over and over. Once you’ve found all the items, you can enter the memories of the family members to find three memory snippets, again and again. The items aren’t very well hidden, nor are the snippets which can easily be tracked by listening. This cycle repeats itself for the 9 chapters it counts. It’s mind numbingly repetitive.

The story is tailored towards the choices you make, a promise made in lots of games these days. This game does deliver. For the purpose of this review I’ve ran through the game twice, making different choices each time. I’m avoiding spoilers, but you can choose to truly neglect a family member, with devastating results. While this is pretty interesting, the final outcome is given in a typewriter animation, which fails to make you care about the results.

The Novelist has potential, but it doesn’t utilize a lot of it. It’s not a fun game and it doesn’t have a great story either. While the character are relatable they never really come to life inside the game – only in the diary segments which got narrated. That only leaves you with a tale with an interesting dynamic outcome, but sadly that isn’t enough to make this a recommendable title.


+ Your choices truly matter
+ Decent cell-shaded graphics
+ Fairly original

± Solid voice acting, but not everything is narrated

- Boring, repetitive gameplay
- Too easy
- Small scale
- Lacking conclusion


4+ / 10

Vampires: Guide Them to Safety! is a game that I could recommend for two kinds of gamers: casual gamers as well as hardcore achievement hunters. To start with the latter, you will be challenged: Both mentally and in skill, it's genuinely demanding and only the finest will ever 100% this game.

Now casuals will have a blast, it's kind of cute despite its ghoulish theme and the game is easy to understand. It's perfect for a 'quick run', most levels don't take more than a minute to complete so you can just jump in and play for any period of time.

The game itself is hard to describe. I don't think I've ever played anything like it. There are some tower defense elements, a pinch of 'puppetmaster', a healthy dose of Lemmings and some influences from Orcs Must Die!. That may sound weird, it probably is weird, but it still makes for a very decent game.

Not knowing how/if the difficulty will ramp up, but there's plenty of gameplay for your money here. If I may give an estimate it'll keep you busy for at least 10 hours. And for 5$, that's a steal.

Pro's:
- Pretty fun
- Great art direction
- Good value
- Quite original
- Can be as difficult as you want it to be
- Trading cards

Cons:
- Some mechanics seem unfair
- Getting those gold medals can be frustrating as hell


7.5 / 10

Rockets. It has them.