Formerly a budget title released during the mid 00s, Mashed is a multiplayer vehicular combat/racing game that was released on PS2, XBOX and PC back in the day and is a frenetic & chaotic game that is recommended for anyone who has local multiplayer. I do heartily recommend it especially with how cheap it is but it's only getting four stars instead of 5 because the single player content is a bit lacking and it is local multiplayer only. It received a sequel called Wrecked but this wasn't anywhere near as fun as Mashed or the developer's previous Micro Machines games.
Originally released on the 3D0 as the sequel to Slayer, Deathkeep is the end of an era. The original release on the 3D0 was graphically on the impressive side especially with the scale of the dungeons in it along with a pretty strong soundtrack. For an honestly terrible system like the 3D0 it was a fairly decent dungeon crawler with some control problems. It lacked the custom dungeons of Slayer but the soundtrack was significantly better than its predecessor. But we're not talking about the 3D0 version are we? 7 months later Deathkeep was ported to DOS and we encountered the usual problems associated with converting a CD based game to the significantly weaker DOS. Worse graphics, awkward keyboard bindings and even worse controls than the 3D0 version. If you're collecting the D&D backlog on PC then you'll no doubt pick it up but be warned that it's no Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Hack. It's better than a Capstone game with Witchhaven but that's not a high bar to clear.
Bubsy is back at the request of nobody; developed by the same team as Gianna Sisters: Twisted Dreams, Bubsy is at least competent in that it runs fine and doesn't control too awfully. That's about all the positives you can give it though; the game is incredibly short, still far too expensive for what it is, incredibly easy and every level is pretty much the same. You get some new enemies and obstacles but there are no extra powers and each level is still just running from left to right across bog-standard platforms. The worst crime though is that it's as dull a game as you can get.
Gianna Sisters: TD is a game that I have mixed feelings about. It has a great asthetic to it in both visual and sound design. However it's also marred by slippery controls and an almost cruel difficulty level where it spikes from stage to stage. It is avaliable extremely cheap regularily and it's certainly not a bad game but there are too many issues regarding gameplay for me to give an enthusiastic recommendation. Overall it's competent and looks great but it'll frustrate you greatly.
What do you get when you cross the cutesy strategy of Pikmin with a parody of high fantasy from the mind of the daughter of Terry Pratchett? You get Overlord where you plays as a recently resureccted evil overlord who has found that the world isn't nasty enough for his tastes. As you explore as the overlord, you command a horde of goblins who are equal parts brutal and idiotic who will run inside a house and destory everything but will then return to your side wearing pots and pans as armor. Overlord has a brilliant sense of humour, a genuinely surprising twist, great music and is bright and colourful.
