9th Dawn Remake (2024-25) - Initial Impressions (PS5)

I've had a review copy of 9th Dawn Remake since April time, but it is the type of game which requires a lot of investment. This is a huge game, and so, rather than wait to finish it, I will give my initial impressions based on the first ten hours or so. 

Unsurprisingly, this is a remake of a much older game. How old I was unable to find out, You play as a character plunged into a nostalgic feeling, relatively basic looking fantasy world. The graphics were really charming and old school, but the game itself felt more fresh. The open world is absolutely gigantic, in my time playing this so far I have barely scratched an eighth of this massive world. It has one of the biggest map screens I've seen in a game to my recollection. I haven't mentioned the story yet and that's probably due to it being about the weakest part of 9th Dawn Remake. It is simple enough that I honestly have no idea what it involves, not helped by a quest screen that is extremely light on details. I love a story in video games, so this was a slight issue. Thankfully, due to the huge world I felt like it was 'open world' rather than just a big old school RPG. This world is to begin with quite a deadly place, my poor wizard was getting the stuffing beaten out of him. I later found an armoury that lets you upgrade your weapons, so that helped. Even more helpful was the amazing creature companion feature. Occasionally you stumble across eggs that when hatched give you a little pet who will battle alongside you. You can have up to eight of the critters at once, making it very fun to pounce on an enemy as a mob. As they level up, they can also evolve into better monsters. On my playthrough I've recently had a skeleton join my crew, love it.

Combat is very simple, requiring nothing more than to have you hold the analogue stick (playing this on Playstation 5) in the direction of enemies to auto battle them. Dungeons are literally dungeons here, all taking place under ground in various caves or sewers. This creates a combat loop of heading in a little bit at a time, slowly grinding out levels to make your team better suited to conquering the place. I enjoyed many an evening with a podcast on while doing this. As if this huge game wasn't enough, there are also some great little side games you can play. Head to the docks and you get a fun fish based Vampire Survivors clone you can play. Even better, by taking to the Card Master in each town you can access Deck Rock. I adored this side game. It has you as paper warriors fighting your way past paper monsters in castles in turn based card combat. Truth be told, I had more fun playing that side mode than the main course itself.

I was given a review code for this indie fantasy game so my words might sound false, but I think there is such a vast and impressive game to be found here. Having a game with such a charming retro look to it coupled with a massive world makes this something I could easily see myself sinking days and days into. 9th Dawn Remake is out on just about everything, from the major consoles to mobile phones.

CounterAttack (2023) - Sci-fi Video Game Review (X-Box One)

I decided to ask for a review code for scrolling space shooter CounterAttack because it looked like a game that would be fun to play. I decided I would worry later about how to shoe-horn this into a horror blog. I have always loved the idea of scrolling shoot em-ups, yet it is fair to say I am damn awful at them. CounterAttack is designed to be a game that will take multiple attempts to beat, and with weapons and power-ups constantly being unlocked, and a branching pathway of levels to take, this was one game I kept returning back to time and time again.

This takes place in the far future, a time when humans have completely automated many of their more laborious processes. One day, a malfunction with the A.I core of a remote mining facility causes the legions of automated robots to be reprogrammed with a new mission. The A.I designates humanity a terminal threat and without warning unleashes a devastating war against them. Playing as a soldier in charge of a powerful state of the art experimental spaceship, you are tasked with first stopping the assault on Earth, before taking the fight to the rogue mining facility, with the aim of destroying the A.I core.

I had so much fun playing this, something which might not appear obvious when you first boot the game up. It is fair to say that the graphics and music are both quite poor. The thirty two levels take place against fuzzy backgrounds light on detail, the enemy design is uniformly dull, with the boss battles being against large angular spaceships that are completely forgettable. I guess being kind, you could say the uninspired enemy design could be a result of the A.I creating robots for functional reasons, rather than to look at all interesting. The music meanwhile sounds almost placeholder, arcady in sound, reminding me of the type of music you would hear from an X-Box Live Arcade game from the Xbox 360 days. It is darn good then how insanely addictive the gameplay loop is. As you play, you unlock various attachments for your ship, there are in fact over five hundred different attachments to unlock! In the three or four hours I spent playing this to eventual completion, I only unlocked around 7% of the overall unlocks! There are a lot of levels, but due to the branching pathways, I only experienced around half of those levels. Mainly you are just shooting everything in your path until you get to the boss, but some levels include asteroid fields, others allow you to pilot larger spaceships, one particularly difficult level had you navigating the narrow corridors of a space station.

Bullet hell this may not be, I would describe this more as enemy hell, in that you are frequently being swarmed by hundreds of very weak enemy ships at a time. It was so much fun blowing these all away with the impressive inventory you have. Enemies are constantly dropping power-ups, which you can sink into the various weapon systems your ship has. Each of the eight ships have options to level up speed, spread, side guns, beam, missiles, increase damage caused, plasma and drones. By the time you get through a few levels your tiny ship is spewing out screen filling ballistics that instantly decimate most of the enemies you come across. The game can be played online with up to four players at once, but I didn't try that part of the game.
I liked how dark and serious the story was, each level opens and closes with your commander giving the orders. This is all ruined somewhat by the eight different pilots you can choose from. Nearly every one is tonally off from the otherwise serious story. Atrociously written dialogue that condenses their dialogue into little soundbites sounding like they were written by a chatbot, with the teenage looking pilots standing out like a sore thumb from the otherwise dark feeling world.

This might be an ugly game with a forgettable soundtrack and boring enemy design, but it is saved by how darn fun and addictive it is. Every attempt, no matter how short lived, had me unlocking ever more useful attachments, while the eight ships all have their own unique special attacks that made them feel varied. Ignore the pathetic dialogue of the ship pilots and the story is perfectly fine. As it is, I loved my time with this, I can only imagine how much better this would have been if time had been dedicated to making the visuals and sound match how amazing the gameplay loop of CounterAttack is.

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Pinku Kult: Hex Mortis (2022) - Horror Video Game Review (Xbox One)

Pinku Kult: Hex Mortis is an indie turn based RPG with a definite horror bend to its style. On the one hand it is perhaps too simple in its gameplay and mechanics and has a bit of a short length. On the other hand however this was a load of fun with good music, an interesting artstyle and an addictive feel. Originally this was an apparel brand designed by Hana Eaton, so it was cool to see it altered to become a game instead.

The game takes place in the dark and grim Razore City, where, desperate for a job you apply to work for the mysterious Shokan Corp. Your application is successful and you initially get tasked with investigating a series of unexplained disappearances around the city that have something to do with a strange girl wearing a fox mask. Your adventure leads to you discovering that demonic forces are loose, and eventually leading a group of four characters you battle over four chapters to stop them.

With a small map screen I figured this wouldn't be the longest game in the world, and after slightly under four hours I had finished it. With a $9.99 price tag (seems to be £7.99 in the UK) that wasn't the worst price for what you get. There are three main dungeons to explore as well as an optional one that combines elements and enemies of these three together. While this is turn based fighting, the enemies appear in the gameworld before hand rather than it being random. There were no proper side quests to do, though there are obvious other things you can be doing which tie in to a fortune teller you can find on the high street. One complaint I had was the simplicity, while you can level up as you fight enemies, which unlocks more powerful abilities, there is no option to buy better weapons and armour/clothing. There is a shop where you can buy a limited number of potions to restore both health and magic, but with the amount of health items dotted around the levels I never really felt the need to buy these. It led me to amassing quite a small fortune of money that I had nothing to spend it on.

Chernobylite (2021) - Horror Video Game Review (XBox One)

Chernobylite is a science fiction survival horror game that takes place within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I have never played the Stalker series of video games but imagine this must share some similarities. One very cool thing this has going for it is that the various locations you travel to are actually 3D scans and recreations of the real exclusion zone in the Ukraine. Due to the way the games story is set out this is very accessible to dip in and out of. It was developed by The Farm 51, I own their previous game Get Even, but bounced right off it, I was hoping this one I would get on better with.

This takes place thirty years after the Chernobyl Disaster, with you taking the role of Ukrainian scientist Igor Khymynuk. After the disaster occurred he left the area, but in the recent past he began to experience strange dreams about his missing fiancée Tatyana (who vanished shortly before the 1986 disaster happened), and then after receiving a photo of her in the post he is given hope that she is somehow still alive, and so he returns to Chernobyl. The exclusion zone is under the control of a shady military organisation known as the NAR, so Igor hires two mercenaries and together they sneak into the central power plant where Igor used to work, and where he believes Tatyana would be. In this reality a strange material known as chernobylite began to grow in the exclusion zone, a by product of all the radiation. Igor had been studying this material and managed to develop a portal gun that is powered by the substance. His team manage to infiltrate the power plant and retrieve a sample, but they are then ambushed by an apparently supernatural figure known as the Black Stalker. In the chaos that follows, one of the mercenaries is killed, while Igor and the other one, Olivier escape into a portal. Igor realises to get back into the power plant and find Tatyana he is going to have to carry out a heist, to do that he will need to recruit a team of specialists, learn more about his enemies, and get the right tools for the job.

I was a bit put off when I heard that this was a survival game, however, playing on the normal difficulty I really didn't have any trouble with that aspect. The game is split into days, each day you can choose to go to one of the five areas in the game, either to scavenge supplies or to carry out a story mission. In a neat Chrono Trigger style concept you can actually attempt the heist at any point, though it can be seen as similar to the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission in that if you are not fully prepared you can expect to lose some team mates. By the time I did the heist I was around thirty days in, that included about nine days of grinding for materials. Base building was a bullet point about the game that I wasn't looking forward to. I hate base building as I find it so confusing. Here though it is a lot simpler than I feared, the actual base is already built, a concrete building that Igor has rented off local Stalker Mikhail. By gathering items in the areas you travel to you can build various machines. These can create lockpicks, be used to upgrade weapons, create healing items and more. There is a slight need to juggle in that the more machines you make, the more power is needed to run them, the more air filtration units are needed to provide clean air, and the more anti radiation devices are needed. This is balanced against the comfort of your team, by building beds, TVs, radios and plants you can raise the comfort level. It is all very slight and so I never struggled with this.

Outbreak: Endless Nightmares (2021) - Zombie Horror Video Game First Impressions (Xbox Series X Enhanced)

I've played a few of the Outbreak games now and while they have their issues in terms of quality they are also fun to play. For all their obvious inspirations they are also not afraid to change up the formula. Back in 2017, Outbreak was a top down 2D survival horror game whose clunky control scheme made it a bit of a chore to manage your inventory. This was swiftly followed by a 3D sequel which eventually shuffled onto consoles in 2020. Outbreak: The New Nightmare had some issues for sure, but it felt even more like a classic survival horror and had plenty of different game modes. Outbreak: Endless Nightmares is the latest and really switches up the style I had come to expect.

As always the story of Outbreak is told via on screen text. I have to say the writing quality really seems to have improved. I loved reading this, with it feeding into the repeating cycles of the levels. Playing as one of six characters (I played as a female detective), in the post apocalyptic landscape of Outbreak you have suffered an injury that has placed you into a coma. You awake in a nightmare world which is either a creation from your mind of all the evils you have been forced to face, or it is in fact a supernatural reality, a limbo between life and death. 

You are based at the Hub, this is a dream version of the Arzt Memorial Hospital that is populated by neutral shades. These shades both offer you advice as well as sell you items needed for your explorations. Anomalies are the games levels. Starting off with just one available, these are a series of roguelike semi-procedural levels based around a theme. The first anomaly you access is set in a large mansion, each of the levels is a small series of rooms that are laden with supplies, enemies and traps. The aim is to get through these, collecting items, weapons, journals, and most importantly, tokens. The journals reveal fascinating horror stories, the first set I collected spoke about a detective arriving at a house where the family living there were discovered to be cannibals. The tokens meanwhile are needed to unlock new areas at the Hub, these include sealed off rooms containing more items, as well as unlocking access to more anomalies. It is insinuated the tokens are the way to escape your endless nightmare by paying a ferryman to bring you out of your half-life and into the real world. Should you die in an anomaly you will respawn back at the Hub. After each set of levels you are given the option to either play a new, tougher set, or to return to the Hub with all that you have retrieved from your run.

Visage (2020) - Horror Video Game Review (Playstation 4)

Way back towards the end of November last year I was given a code for horror video game Visage. This game was heavily influenced by the infamous P.T demo and like that this takes entirely within the confines of a suburban home. I had heard this was a scary game, maybe I am broken, or maybe I am far too used to being fully immersed in horror VR games but I didn't think the game was scary, outside of a few jump scares at least. I had hoped for sustained dread but that never really ever came.

Set in the 1980s, you play as Dwayne Anderson, a man who in the game's prologue is seen in the basement of his home murdering his wife and children before turning the gun on himself (all disturbingly shown via his perspective). He mysteriously awakes alone upstairs in the house during a dark and rainy night. Dwayne receives a phone call from a concerned neighbour who says she is worried about him as he hasn't left his house in over three weeks. It soon turns out the reason for this is due to the fact both the front door and back door are strangely jammed shut. As he explores the house he comes across mementos from different people who have lived there previously, these mementos trigger supernatural events to occur, revolving around these people.

Visage is a first person 'walking simulator' in which you solve simple puzzles while struggling to retain your sanity. As long as you are in light you are fine, but as soon as you step into darkness your sanity metre begins to fill. Spend too long with your sanity metre high and eventually it will result in death at the hands of one of the spirits haunting the house. There is no combat to be found here, instead the ghosts you come across must be avoided. This felt like an anthology of sorts as each of the three different chapters you access are self contained. Wandering around the house outside of the chapters is relatively peril free, sure you can still succumb to the darkness but there isn't any spiritual danger to watch out for. It felt almost like the more peaceful moments of the Silent Hill world. It is starting a chapter where the danger really begins.

Outbreak: The New Nightmare (2017-20) - Zombie Horror Video Game Review (Playstation 4)

Back in 2017 I gave a first impressions preview of top down 2D zombie horror survival game, Outbreak. The game, from Drop Dead Studios really wanted to create the feel of an old school survival horror game. Since then a 3D sequel titled Outbreak: The New Nightmare was released on Steam, and now an updated version has arrived on the Playstation 4.

Outbreak: The New Nightmare takes place during the same time period that Outbreak occurred in, this time leaving the confines of the Arzt Memorial Hospital to follow another group of survivors as they also try to survive the zombie apocalypse. Thinking it would be the safest place around they take refuge at Kraus Shipping Industries, but learn too late that that too is overrun with the undead. With each of the five levels unlocked from the start it isn't much of a spoiler to say that from the offices (Outbreak) you take to the streets (Urban), before making it out to the countryside (Faith). From there you head to an old asylum (Cure) and discover the secret lab underneath it (Shelter) where it seems the nightmare has originated from.

This is old school survival horror that is older and more school than the original Resident Evil games this is influenced by. More specifically this is influenced by the tough as nails Resident Evil: Outbreak games. Each of the six characters have their own attributes, Lydia the cop (who I played as) has a greater resistance to damage and starts with a pistol for instance. It pays to stay with the one character as there is a lovely XP system in place that as you level up gives you access to different perks, such as weapons doing more damage, and starting with more health. Much like with the first game you have limited inventory space and so you are constantly having to micro manage to ensure you have both space for weapons as well as essential items such as tool kits and wires that are needed to fix environmental obstacles. The levels are dotted with ammo as well as discarded weapons, and as each weapon comes with a full clip it makes sense to regularly discard weapons in order to use newer ones. Guns range from pistols to a grenade launcher, shotgun, assault rifle and magnum. All typical weapons and work as intended even if they are a bit unexciting.

Depth of Extinction (2018) - Post Apocalyptic Video Game Preview (PC)

Way back towards the end of September last year I received a copy of turn based strategy game Depth of Extinction. I don't like to review a game until it has been finished, an embarrassing mistake I once made with Persona 4 (twenty hours in I figured I was near the end, turns out the game took ninety one hours to actually complete!). It is now months later and I have been playing this on and off periodically yet the way I'm playing it means a review will likely be years in the future. Due to that estimation I am instead going to put up a preview of this game, the experience I have had with it so far.

This takes place in a post apocalyptic world where thousands of years ago a disaster occurred that led to the human race being forced to exist under the seas. During this time a new technologically advanced group formed who rebuilt the population and created many wondrous machines. Now in present day this group have long passed, humans have split into various factions and rely on the ancient technology to survive. With essential machines fading you are tasked with travelling deep into unknown territory to try and find a way to repair these machines to ensure survival under the dark seas...

This style of game is very similar to the XCOM series, of which it was inspired. You have random characters who undertake missions in small undersea bases populated with all sorts of bad guys such as robots, pirates, smugglers and soldiers. You move using a grid system with the different classes able to move different amount of spaces. When you engage enemies combat takes place in a turn based fashion. Here you can make use of cover to reduce the odds of getting hit, use various class based abilities and use an 'overwatch' ability which means any enemies going into range of your guns will get shot at. Each action you do gives you a probability of being able to hit the enemy. Snipers for instance have a pretty much guaranteed chance of hitting a line of sight enemy from afar but up close they are ineffective, the opposite being true for characters equipped with the shotgun. You also have to factor in reloading. These battles are all important as this game has perma-death. If a soldier should die they cannot be brought back, instead you have to use a new one who will start off as basic as they come losing all the XP and new abilities your seasoned warrior would have had.

The artstyle is pixel based and it looks wonderful, really charming and nostalgic. This goes in tandem with the music which is also nostalgic and fits the action well with an exploration theme and then different music for when the fighting kicks in. Each mission gives you an ultimate objective, but to get there you have to travel in a submarine through a grid like map to get to your goal. Each time you move to a new location it costs fuel, this can be scavenged from locations and brought from traders. If you run out you can call for assistance but it is not guaranteed if enemies or help will arrive to help. Only once did I run out of fuel and luckily the help that arrived was friendly. Being able to choose where you go next en route to your objective gives some variation to the game, also for most the bases you get to you have the option to just skip them entirely, useful if you are overpowered for the mission you are doing.

I have put around ten hours into Depth of Extinction and have had a blast playing it. It is not something I spend hours on at a time but it is fun to pick up and play for a random half hour here and there. I find it peaceful to play, I just get enjoyment out of moving my characters around one by one, I have always liked turn based stuff as real time usually confuses me! Due to the extremely slow way I am playing it I came to the realisation this preview needed to happen, I am going to keep on plugging away at it so one day a review will appear of this! Depth of Extinction was released on 27th September 2018 and is available on Steam, GOG, itch.io and the Humble Store.

 

Without Escape (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (PC)

Without Escape was originally released on the X-Box 360's Indie section back in 2012, and so this new version is actually a remake of that one. This marks the first proper 'room escape' game I have really played, unless you count The Room trilogy on iOS. This is inspired by puzzle games of the 90's such as Myst, due to it being a homage it is quite simple, simple enough that even my PC was able to run the game perfectly.

This game sees you as a man staying at his parents house while they are away on holiday. Late one night he gets woken up by a strange noise in the house and he decides to investigate, fearing burglars. What he finds is much more bizarre, the house is slightly different to how he remembers it, and he discovers he is unable to leave. Soon he finds himself in an alternate Hell type dimension that occupies the same space as the home and by solving a series of puzzles he must find a way to escape the predicament he finds himself in.

So this is made up of a series of rooms that feature static backdrops and  plenty of text descriptions. You travel from room to room by clicking on doors and stairways and it all takes place in a fixed perspective. You use the mouse to control this and do so mostly my clicking on items of interest. As you progress you collect different items, such as a lighter to help you see in the dark, and keys to open the various locked rooms and cupboards dotted around the property. This is not a large game, the house itself is just a house, not a mansion, the only thing keeping the game long is its puzzles.

Wulverblade (2017-18) - Adventure Video Game Review (Playstation4)

When I first decided to review Wulverblade I felt like I was being a bit cheeky as it seemed at first glance to have nothing whatsoever to do with horror. However I have a real soft spot for scrolling beat-em-ups and so I found it too hard an opportunity to turn down. I fully intended to come up with some lame way to link it to the horror genre all the way up to the final level, when to my surprise an element of genuine horror does appear.

I like history so I was pleased to discover that as far as it is able Wulverblade aims to ride alongside actual events that took place. It takes place in Britannia (now Britain) around 120 A.D and has you as one of three members of the northern tribe of the Caledonii: Caradoc (all rounder), Brennus (strong but slow) or Guinevere (fast but weak) as you battle the invading Roman army, specifically the 9th Legion. Over eight levels you have to battle hostile tribes and Roman soldiers in order to try to repel the unstoppable forces from taking over your land.

The graphics for this are very charming, cartoon like and bright, yet that doesn't take away from the blood and violence. It isn't too long into fighting your first few foes when you realise that sometimes upon death enemies will leave behind limbs, or even their heads for you to pick up and use as a projectile. Enemies also drop an assortment of weapons that can also be flung at others, these include hammers, daggers and even javelins, obviously these all do more damage than body parts but nothing beats throwing heads! Crates and pots dotted around the levels also can contain throwables, as well as coins, rings, special weapons and notes. The notes are the most interesting thing here in terms of history weapons. Get to a specific part of a level, encounter a specific new enemy type, or collect a super weapon or note and you get to read either a brief little bit of history or myth revolving around Britannia. These were all fascinating to read, especially the ones that also contain photos of ruins visited for research while making Wulverblade. Getting a bit of behind the scenes info is not only interesting in its own right but shows that the team making this were committed to trying to be as accurate as possible.