Onelargeprawn
There’s a huge gap between games that look retro and play retro, and games that are faux-retro but play like something modern. Dystoria falls into the latter category, and is a 1st person/3rd person action shooter from developers Tri-Coastal Games. Let’s get our 80s synthwave music going and I’ll meet you at the spaceship for a briefing.
Among the Innocent: A Stricken Tale is a new game by a new studio, Zero Degrees Games. The game is a first-person puzzle-horror-ish hybrid, and takes place in the Free State, South Africa back in 2001, before cellphones became common enough to live everyone’s back pocket. Let’s head down to the farm and see what this review holds for us.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is the newest in a series of strategy games in a genre called “4X”, which stands for explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. It makes one sound a bit like a Dalek, frankly. Civilization IV builds on the successes of Civilization V in so many ways, so in our regular review fashion, grab your nukes and meet me down on the battlefield.
Being stuck in the Bermuda Triangle ain’t easy. For one, you have to deal with the whole “going missing” thing. And all those ships that have disappeared in there have got to be floating somewhere. Now if you were an explorer, there might be a chance for you. Let’s take a look around the Lost Sea, and see what treasures we can find.
The Technomancer is the sequel to a game called Mars: War Logs, which was released back in 2013. The game was set on Mars after humanity had colonized it, and was reasonably received. The sequel is here now, and we got a chance to give it a go and see what life on Mars is like.
Rogue Stormers is a side-scrolling run-n-gun game with roguelike elements where you attempt to make it through a series of procedurally-generated dungeons before facing bosses. The game is set in a steampunk world where the discovery of a substance called “goop” has turned everyone into a monster. Guess who’s on clean-up duty? Here’s your mop and your gun, soldier. Make Ravensdale spotless again.
Atari was one of the biggest names in video games during the 2nd Generation of consoles, and helped contribute to the popularity of home-based consoles as a form of interactive entertainment. In fact, until the 3rd generation and the rise of Nintendo, Atari was the best-selling video game console of that era. Like many early consoles, development was easy and cheap, and often could be done by a single person, as opposed to the teams of up to 100 people needed for a single AAA development title today. Many of us old fogeys, myself included, whiled many hours away on Atari’s best-selling console, the Atari 2600, as well as played many popular Atari games in the video arcades. To fuel the current nostalgia going around, Code Mystics has brought us Atari Vault, a collection of 100 of the most popular first party Atari 2600 and Atari arcade games.
What do you get when you cross a robot with a puppy, and then ask it to protect a sentient, jabbermouthed spaceship from incessant hordes of alien life? Turns out you get a game called McDroid. Join me as I try to fix my servos and grind my gears and engineer my engines as I review this game by indie studio, Elephantopia.
Rhythm games and shmups! Who could want for a more unlikely mix of game genres? Well, Russian game developer Nekki has you covered in Beat da Beat, a retro-style game appearing on PC for the first time after seeing successful releases on iOS and Android. Since I never played it on smart device, this is my first experience with the game. Let’s see if I can be a slave to the rhythm.
Level 22 from Moving Player Games is a stealth game with a twist. No saving the world here. No Earth-shattering meteors. Not even a mighty megaweapon to disable. Just Gary. And he’s late to work. Hide under the cardboard box with us as we review this unusual game of trying to get to the desk before anyone notices we’re gone.