The White Door (2020) - Adventure Video Game Review (iOS)

This past year I have been playing through all the various games that make up the Rusty Lake series. Within the lore, Rusty Lake is a possibly supernatural lake that has had many weird things occuring around it for the last couple of hundred years at least. The White Door is the fourteenth game in the series (following on from Cube Escape: Paradox) and is said to be the first true spin-off, something the title attests to, due to not following the format of the others. While the game is perfectly fine, it is also nearly completely bereft of horror elements. 

The White Door takes place within a psychiatric facility in the 1970's, and follows a patient, Robert Hill, who has ended up there after losing his memory. Taking place over seven days, each day you get Robert to go through his daily schedule, while at night he slowly dreams back his missing memories.

To begin with, I did like the style the game is presented with. Much like its title, the game during its daytime sections is all black and white. It occurs (mainly) in the one room which contains everything Robert needs. A schedule on the wall tells you in which order you need to do stuff. This isn't an escape room though, you may be locked in one but that is as part of your treatment. Things like eating breakfast and personal hygiene are achieved by going to the appropriate location in the room and clicking on things. The only vague challenge comes from the computer in which simple puzzles must be completed each day, and the recreation box that must be used each day. There is a solitary day that becomes more of an escape room, but other than that you are following a set format. One annoying aspect was that puzzles take place on the right side of the screen, with the room presented on the left. Should you accidentally touch the left side while trying to solve puzzles, it will cause Robert to walk away from the puzzle, automatically cancelling and resetting it on the right, very irritating!

Cube Escape: Paradox (2018) - Horror Video Game Review (iOS)

Cube Escape: Paradox is the thirteenth game in the interconnected series of games that take place in the Rusty Lake universe. This game more than any other, really requires you to be invested in the ongoing story as it is fit to bursting with references to all of the other twelve games in the series. By this point the developers really know how to make a good escape room game, this is a quality experience that offers something a little new. Unavoidable spoilers for previous entries to follow, and the synopsis is based on what I assume is occurring (the story thus far been purposely obtuse).

Detective Dale Vandermeer to my knowledge was last seen descending into the supernatural centre of Rusty Lake. He awakens to find himself in a small room, the only exit being a locked door. With no recollection of how he came to be there, he searches for a way out, piecing together his history as he does so.

Paradox is split into two different chapters as well as including a short eighteen minute film. The aim of both chapters is to obviously escape the room, which is done by solving a series of puzzles hidden throughout the room. Chapter one is free to play and has the typical escape room shenanigans I've came to love. Things are spiced up in that there are not only puzzles to solve, but also little mini games which were fun to do. One has you charting your route across a map, using clues to figure out where you need to be. Another had you in a literal puzzle game. A series of rooms which could be swapped around to create a path through, Dale appeared as a character on screen you could move around by clicking. Once the room is eventually escaped you get a first person maze to traverse leading up to a finale that then loops back on itself for chapter two.

Cube Escape Collection (2020) - Horror Video Game Review (iPhone)

(NOTE: this review was started way back in February, due to the way the games in this collection weave in and out of external games it has taken me this long to finally finish playing! As such, my prologue refers to events that all occured at years start).
To describe The Rotting Zombie HQ as 'battle damaged' this week would be quite accurate. Thanks to a blocked sink and accidentally leaving the tap on, the bathroom flooded through the ceiling into the front room so have spent days trying to dry downstairs, a pungent smell of wet dog fills the whole house now. My house roof also appears to be leaking as water is dripping out of my extraction fan. Then, the icing on the cake was someone reversing into my parked car and busting up the bumper. Hard times indeed. Due to all that, and with my downstairs being inaccessible, I have been wallowing in bed playing iPhone games, one of which was Cube Escape Collection.

Cube Escape Collection is made up of nine different escape room games that all take place within the same shared 'Rusty Lake' universe. The games were originally Flash games, but with that format being made obsolete they were saved by being ported. The iPhone is stuffed to bursting with simple escape room games, but with a nice artstyle and tinged with horror this one caught my interest. The collection is free to pay, though you can opt to pay around £2.50 to remove ads that would play should you select the hint option. I paid for this as having spent over an hour playing the first game here and enjoying it I felt I would show my support to the developer.

So, the games are said to all be linked and are varied a bit in what you do. It begins with the fantastic Cube Escape: Seasons. This takes place in a room with a window but no door. Initially you are in the sixties, but by solving puzzles you eventually get access to a black cube that allows you to travel through time to one of three different time periods, two in the seventies, and the final one in the early eighties. The slight story that plays out reveals that a woman may have been murdered in the room. There are some cool mechanics that play with the time element, such as loosening a pipe in the past so that it drips water, then in a later time period fungus has grown under the leak. This follows the format that all the escape room games here did. You have a 2D image of a wall, you can click a button at the side to change your perspective, in total the four different walls as well as the ceiling can be viewed. Maybe it was due to me not being familiar with these types of games, maybe because it is essentially four escape rooms in one, but this took me well over an hour to complete.

Hades (2018-20) - Horror Video Game Review

I'm lately making a concerted effort to get through the backlog of games I currently have on the go. One such game was the Greek myths inspired Hades, a roguelike created by the superb Supergiant Games (Pyre, Transistor, Bastion). With massive replayability and an engaging amount of dialogue with the many characters you encounter along the way this four level dungeon crawler succeeds in being a video game that is just plain fun to play.

You play as Zagreus, the teenage son of Hades, lord of the Underworld. He is on a determined quest to escape the realm of the dead and search for his mother up on the surface. Hades has other plans however and sets the many denzions of the below under his control against his son. Zagreus has allies in the form of the Gods of Olympus who bestow upon him their many boons that can make both him and his weapons stronger.

So Hades is a roguelike. For those unfamiliar this equates in this particular instance of each floor of the dungeon being made up of a series of random chambers, each chamber has its own random reward, whether that be boons from the Gods, health and weapon power ups, or even gold and gems. Upon death you respawn back at the starting area with all your progress reset, that is except for the gems and soul gems you have collected along the way. Gems can be used to make improvements to your home, and exchanged for various useful items. The soul gems are used to upgrade the abilities for Zagreus, making him more strong.

Carrion (2020) - Horror Video Game Review (Nintendo Switch)

Carrion was a game that sounded so awesome on paper that the moment it was released I snatched it right up. This is a pixel art style Metroidvania (one huge level with upgrades that allow you access to more and more of it) but there is a huge difference to many games of this type.It has been described as a 'reverse-horror game' and by that it means you play as a monster, while humans are fodder for you to kill and consume.

Carrion takes place within a research facility and the game begins with you escaping your containment unit. As to how you got there, that is revealed by a series of flashbacks as you progress through the four to five hour game. The monster you control is a red, amorphous tentacled monster that oozes and rolls around the environment. The many tentacles means you can climb around all the walls and ceilings of the many places you go to. You are able to ooze through vents, smash down doors and break windows in your bid to escape the facility. You start the game quite small and weak, however nearly all the humans you come across are defenceless and can easily be consumed by manipulating a tentacle to bring them to your gaping maw and eat them for health. Upgrades received by collecting your captured genetic code grants you all kinds of cool new abilities as well as massively increases your size. These abilities range from less exciting ones such as the ability to smash vents, to being able to turn into a mass of worms in order to swim through water, turn invisible and even getting the ability to possess humans in order to get them to flip switches and take each other out.

When everything is going smooth this is pure joy to play. The feeling of empowerment as you smash and crush your way through room after room as the humans scream before you is fantastic and is where Carrion is at its best. To put in challenge however you come across automated defences, as well as soldiers who are able to deflect your attacks with large shields. It can be frustrating to be on a (literal) roll and then briskly be annihilated. I understand this was to stop the game being a cake walk but I can't help feeling the game would have been more fun without these sections of tough combat. For all the power you have to wreak havoc you are also somewhat of a glass cannon, able to be annihilated within seconds. The game is a Metroidvania in its design but each section of the facility is still within its self contained area. Each area usually has one new upgrade to discover, and there is very little need for backtracking. The game is designed well enough that you are forever moving forward. This is a relief as the samey looking levels and the lack of a map would have made backtracking very confusing. Often your goal is to destroy a set number of locks in order to open up a new area. As you play through the game these locks become more and more, with simple puzzles required to access the locks. This includes flipping switches, playing with the power grid, and finding your way past sealed corridors.  

Cyber Shadow (2020) - Post Apocalyptic Video Game Review (Xbox One)

I was lucky enough a week last Saturday to finally get my rotted claws on an Xbox Series X console. It soon became clear to me that it was going to take a heck of a long time to download the games I wanted to play on it. Having seen screenshots of the retro action platformer Cyber Shadow and been pleased with its fantastic 8-bit aesthetic I decided to download it to play while I waited for current gen games to download. This game is very frustrating, but it is also very enjoyable in almost equal measures, and boy, this sure is a tough game to get through!

You are Shadow, a cybernetic ninja whose last memory is of being caught in a blast that decimated the city you called home. You awaken in an underground facility with no memory of how you came to be there. You and your clan were led by a woman known only as Master. She was the daughter of renowned scientist Dr. Progen whose greatest deed was creating a huge workforce of robots designed to make day to day life easier for all. Your clan were tasked with dealing with any robots that went rogue. Things were good until the day Master discovers she is terminally ill. Unable to accept that he can't cure his daughter, Dr. Progen is driven insane and resorts to more and more drastic experiments to try and find a solution. Finally he decides that 'essence' (a type of magic) that all humans contain within them is the key to curing her. He transforms his robot workforce into a deadly army and instructs them to kill all they come across, then when this isn't providing him with enough essence he destroys the city hoping the gigantic loss of life will provide him with what he believes he needs. Shadow, guided by the voice of Master sets out to stop Dr. Progen, and rescue her from his grasp, even if this means she will most certainly die...

This game looks so good. It is 8-bit but that doesn't mean it is restricted to the capabilities of games from that era. It uses the graphical style as a template but uses all the power of modern day games to make it look and play like a dream. Throughout there are plenty of cutscenes, again created using beautiful pixel art, and this added power also means irritating elements of old games, such as enemies respawning off screen is gone. When enemies are destroyed here they are thankfully gone for good. The game is huge, split into ten stages, each of which is split into many side-scrolling levels full of tricky platforming to traverse. Roughly every three levels you get a checkpoint. In a cool move you can use a form of currency that enemies and objects leave in order to attach specific perks to your checkpoint. These usually include the ability for your health to be restored at your current checkpoint, your magic to be restored, and to have a power-up which takes the form of a small robot that hovers by you as you progress.