Recent reviews by AddyTheSquirrel

The best Saints Row Game. Pc version was outsourced and is rather unstable, but if you can get it working it's bundles of fun. Use Gentleman of The Row to achieve even a smidge of stability. Probably shouldn't recommend this in the state it is, but the core game is just too damn fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnf3BMidfPs

Sumerian Blood: Gilgamesh is quite the confusing game at first. It is perhaps one of those games that would be better suited with a manual, unfortunately I got it on Steam, and it didn’t come with a manual.
So what attracted me to Sumerian Blood: Gilgamesh? Purely and simply the fact it played on to my love of chess. At first I had expected it to be a differently pawned chess game. You know, the basilisks might be knights. And so forth. But it really is a modern reinvention of Archon.

I had not been expecting that. Archon is defined by many as a cult classic, in it you control different units which all have different attributes such as speed, mode of damage, and so on and so forth, and when two units meet in the same space – well, they fight in an enclosed arena. What is really frikkin cool is that you get to control your unit. So – even if your unit is at a disadvantage – being slower, or not having a ranged attack. You still have a chance. You only need to control it yourself and maneouver it around.

It’s such a simple twist, but it makes the game all that more fun. But I’m not reviewing Archon, I’m reviewing Sumerian Blood: Gilgamesh. Though I might as well be. They’re very similar.

The game puts on a mesopotanian skin, which I can’t comment on because I know absolutely nothing about ancient mesopotania. Some of the monsters you get to control or fight have endured in our collective imaginations though. Such as griphons, basilisks, and so on and so forth.

Every unit has a different measurement of health, and ideally that’d be balanced so those who hit harder would have less health to compensate. And it kind of works like that? The human characters hit stronger than the mythical characters, but they have to get up close and their health is tiny. That creates an inbalance though, as one will probably just stick to the ranged fighters and attack from afar. True, enemies too have ranged attacks, but, if fast enough, those can be avoided.

Heck, there were even instances where I got close to an enemy and just mashed the attack button. Whick first I had to find. A keyboard has over 30 keys easily. And I got it by pure happen stance. In my first game I got my first unit killed because I didn’t know what key to hit.

It’s the right control key, if anyone’s interested to know. To attack you use the right ctrl key. Either way as soon as I figured out, and played a couple of games, I managed to win a match. In truth I don’t know what caused it. I had earlier lost two matches when enemies got to those glowing points in my field. So I invested early in there. But then I defeated an importante looking enemy and I won. If this is based on chess, might I assume that to have been the king?

It’s frustrating – because I enjoy the game, I enjoy the gameplay, it’s an ingenuous idea given form once again years later, and it’s done reasonably well, but I can’t in good faith say I understand it completely. Don’t get me wrong. I had fun with the game. The graphics were perhaps not the best, the explosions of rocks were limited to a single bucket colored sprite, even if the character sprites looked good enough, they lacked animation frames. But they’re serviceable, in that they help make the gameplay clear.

My biggest problem with the game, however is just that one – it lacks direction. Or rather it lacks input to the player. Perhaps that was the norm in 1987 when the original Archon was released, but this game, amidst electronic manuals and help menus, I can’t help but be disappointed.

Lack of direction aside, for what it’s worth, I still had fun playing it. I don’t see myself going back to it very often. But as a quick fun time waster, I don’t see why not. I also tried the online multiplayer but it was very much empty…So, no comments there.

Overall a solid product ponctuated by a lack of instructions. I’d recommend it, if you know what you’re getting into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJFD35f59Y&t

Detective Case and Clown Bot Murder in the Hotel Lisbon, otherwise known as Case and Bot is an interesting game, with obvious throw backs to the 80’s and early 90’s era of point and click games, a time where those kinds of games ruled computer gaming. An era of witty dialogue, of thinking outside the box, of clever puzzles. But can a game produced in the 2010’s really capture that magic?

Games have evolved a lot since the times of LucasArts Or Sierra (back when they produced that kind of game), and it isn’t exactly fair for me to judge the game when compared to something that came out 20 years earlier. At the same time, however, seeing as it’s a throwback, I can’t exactly compare it to something like Life is Strange which was published by Square Enix.

I will so, judge the game on its own merits.

So how does the story present itself? Well the tone is silly and comedic, never for a moment taking itself too seriously. My first time playing through the game I played it in portuguese, and it’s clear that this was the main way the game was play tested and developed. As some of the jokes fail to get the impact that they got in portuguese, when played in english. There are also a few other problems that I will mention with the translation later, but for now let’s focus on the story.

A murder has been committed in the Hotel Lisbon, so named to indicate the setting of the game, Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, sometime in the 80’s . Or rather...we are clued in to the fact that it’s a murder because the man who died has 14 stab wounds in the back, all the while he was calmly drinking his coffee. Everyone seems to think it’s a suicide. Somehow

You are called in to investigate, you are Case, Detective Case, get the pun? A rather patriarchic man who is somewhat of a putz...by which I mean he’s not very clever. One of the first things we hear him comment on is about the apparent age of the woman he slept with last night. The only reason he even seems to get a job is because he is friends with the local police chief...which is just as incompetent as he is.

Just as you’re about to leave to the street for the first time you meet your sidekick, Clown Bot, he is a robot (or is he?) that wanted to be a clown, but is afraid of children so he couldn’t exactly be one. Case seems to find him annoying but the audience finds his jokes pretty funny…

Oh yeah, audience, I don’t mean, you, as the player, I mean a literal audience, almost as if the whole game is a stage play when there’s a particularly tense scene, a brutal retort, or a funny joke, we see the silhouettes of the audience and they clap, or go “oooooooooh” or laugh.

Anyway, the two of you team up, and from that point on clown bot acts as your inventory, your joke dispenser (though most of them are somewhat offensive, typical portuguese humor…) and the fourth wall breaker. Clown Bot is very well aware that he’s in a game.

From there on out you two are tasked with solving the main mystery, of who killed the man. It shouldn’t take you very long 3,4 hours, and even then you’ll retrace your steps several times, but it’s good fun while it lasts.

Along the way you’ll meet a colorful set of characters...though most of them bang on stereotypes or have one or two particularly things that stand out about their personality, and it doesn’t go much beyond that. The ♥♥♥♥♥ is the ♥♥♥♥♥ that will make you a discount, you can find her number scrambled on walls, the spanish restaurant owner is proud of his fish, and talks about not much else. The crime fi...well I’ll leave that one as a surprise, but needless to say, it’s the 80’s. He had to be there. That may make the characters look one dimensional...I think that they are fun and entertaining to talk to. You’ll have to gather clues and interview some of them along the way.

The interview is the main mechanic of the game, other than point and click, it’s the reason you’re picking up all those items (excluding like vhs tapes), a character will mention something that’ll clue you in on which one to use to interview them, since you can use both Case, and Clown Bot. For example, if one character is afraid of robots, clutching his crucifix , maybe you should use Case, not the bot..

Generally there’s one very obvious “not this one” and two similar that are more or less the one you should use, you have to pay attention to the item and the question you choose and use the right answer. That’s the way to advance the story

That can be a problem however as the translation isn’t the best if I’m being totally honest, not as bad as some of the early rpgs back in the 80’s. But it’s noticeable. Several errors., run on sentences, and so forth. It’s annoying, but nothing that breaks the game.

There aren’t too many environments just 3 or 4 streets and the buildings in it, and you’ll retrace your steps a lot of times, entering the arcade, the hotel, the restaurant, the bar...the park. and so on. I think the outside of the buildings look amazing, for example the police station has bullet holes in it. The park has the bridge over the river, the only one at the time visible, and yes it looks like the Golden Gate Bridge. We know. A portuguese man or woman can recognise the details and see “It’s Portugal”, to someone who has never been here it looks distinct.

The models of the characters when not in interview mode feature big, blocky pixels. I believe it to further show the throwback? In fact some games back in the day featured more detailed characters, but mcportugalem greatly enjoys the cartoony animations on the characters.

As for the music? There are some tracks here, that I find myself listening to while working, including the tracks simply titled “office” and “arcade”. Though the highlight of the soundtrack is a fully voiced fado song. I don’t know whether I can play it for you here and not worry about copyright, but trust me, while the jazzy music is all great, this very portuguese, fully sung song took me in by surprise, and it’s done by a professional fado singer. So it’s always nice.


I will warn however that this game is offensive to pretty much every minority out there. It’s not that Case and Clown were bad characters...or that the creators are homophobic, racist, sexist and so have you, it’s the style of humor of the game. Plus while I wasn’t alive back then I believe that humor was common in the 80’s.

Case and Bot is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Ios and Android. Though the version reviewed here was the Windows one.