Week in Review - July 10th to the 14th

The week started off with our Review of Black the Fall from Sand Sailor Studios. It's worth every minute.

"Between the tones of the color palette and the visual presentations of a world that is all but broken, the journey of one man in order to escape it all is enough to make your heart ache."

- Pierre-Yves

---

Tuesday brought about an odd one. Open world sandboxes are nothing new but when you've gone and added giants inspired from Shadows of the Collosus? That's new! Our preview of Voodoo by Brain in the Box.

"So all in all Voodoo has some ways in order to go but if they fix the servers and the lag at the very least things will already be in much better shape."

- Pierre-Yves

---

The middle of the week saw Nick's review of Oceanhorn by Cornfox & Bros. that just released upon the Switch. It was definitely interesting for me to read as Breath of the Wild was not out when I sailed the seas making it a tribute to Zelda and not the idea of what Zelda used to be. Read it!

"It is almost impossible to play Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas and not think back to older Zelda titles, and by and large this game hits most of the necessary notes along the way. "

- Nick

---

Every now and then an established idea mixes in a variety of new ideas and comes out with something brand new that can easily stand on its own. Death Squared by SMG Studio is one of these.

"Death Squared is one of those unique titles that is able to wear a few different hats, as it is a uniquely challenging single player experience that also works as a party game. Usually titles like this only excel at one and tend to be lacking in the other, so kudos to SMG Studio for striking a great balance between the two. "

- Nick

---

Finally the end of the week landed with Chris' review of The Golf Club 2 by Maximum Games. It's impressive how far sports titles can push the graphical boundries sometimes. This is definitely not Hot Shots!

"Golf enthusiasts should enjoy The Golf Club 2 quite a bit. The physics are realistic, the course variety is potentially limitless and it looks and sounds the part."

- Chris H.

---

Article by Pierre-Yves

Read More

Voodoo - PC Preview

Voodoo by Brain in the Box is a great example of a title that could be something amazing in time. Currently in Early Access, this open world sandbox that takes inspiration from Shadows of the Colossus. That is a loft goal, and Voodoo still has a long way to go in order to reach those aspirations.

Each reviewer is different and we tend to score or view titles in different ways. I personally like to judge a title upon its own merits and how it works in regards to what it set out to do. Voodoo is one title that as much as I want to judge it on its personal merits I also have to judge it against another in the style. Being judged up against Ark: Survival Evolved as well as what it currently has in stock, there’s work to be done.

One of my first issues which is perhaps the largest is the servers. Currently there are a few available but there’s no option to simply create a “single player” server in order to get yourself established and work out exactly how to do things. Instead, unless you work through the many steps in order to be able to run your own private one, you’re stuck playing with others. This wouldn't be a bad thing but when Marc and I took it for a spin the first day we had so many issues when one person in particular would join the server and it would then promptly crash or lag us right out. It’s not even a case of being PKed or seeing the foul language being thrown around it’s simply not being able to really play because someone's bad connection lags the rest of us out. Yes we could have swapped servers but the pings were all too high that connecting to them was long enough on its own.

Gameplay itself is still a bit rough and because of the lack of private servers, having to go into one that have had people in them recently can be hard to start off in. It’s rough because in order to start off you have to pick up the materials off the ground in order to build your first tools. Nothing on the ground? Nothing can be crafted and you’re stuck wandering a beautiful but empty landscape as you look for enough in order to make a pickaxe and a hatchet to break apart boulders and trees. Once you have these then the rest will slowly come into play but before that it can be a long time in coming.

Building and setting up your first camp is fun and all but compared to others there’s not that much else to do. In hours I’ve seen maybe a few gazelle and a couple of this other beast that once it saw me, I was dead. With everything that I had on me because I didn’t have a chest to put things in yet. That’s fine, I’ll just make my way back to where I died… except when I did there was nothing there. I also happened to be alone in the server at the time so I know it wasn’t just someone else. Whelp back to the gathering materials up off the ground game in order to even just get my basic tools back. Also how do I know it was gone in a vast landscape with no minimap or compass? Because I had just gone toe to toe with the best part of what Voodoo offers. Giants.

These beings are freaking massive and basic weapons do absolutely nothing to it! I couldn’t even dent the thing and one almost good step on my head is the reason that the other beast managed to take me out so easily, I had no health left. These Giants are impressive though and can be seen over large distances. I had wondered the first time how big these would really be but damn. You can’t miss them and all while running up I could only think to myself that I was going to die. I did. Just not to it. It was all the reason to head back in order to start gathering over again in order to try it again but hopefully with others because it’s so damned big that by the time you’ve moved from one of its feet the other one is coming down on you.

So all in all Voodoo has some ways in order to go but if they fix the servers and the lag at the very least things will already be in much better shape. Perhaps even adding the ability to punch your first materials out at the cost of health would be worth it especially if there’s nothing on the ground to pick up. I guess we’ll wait and see how things shape up as Voodoo is currently only within a pre-alpha stage.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Brain in the Box
Publisher(s):
Indie Gala
Genre(s):
Sandbox
Open World
Adventure
Mode(s):
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
N/A

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Pierre-Yves
Opinion by Marc L.

Read More

Indie Gala - similar to Humble Bundle - cheap PC games

I just stumbled onto this deal a little bit ago, but very similar to the Humble Bundle, I found the Indie Gala advertised.  The deal's only got about a day left on it, but includes games like Future Wars and Trapped Dead, and if you pay more than the average, you get additional titles as well such as Grotesque Tactcis and Twin Sector - all but Gear Grinder is redeemable on Steam.  IndieGala3 can be found here.

Read More