Full video review here: https://youtu.be/J52eSdnlIx4 https://vid.me/BxGe Ruin of the Reckless is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler where your nameless character must traverse levels of a mysterious foreboding tower. As you ascend the dark tower, spirits of ever increasing difficulty, number and strength will try to oppose you from reaching the next level. The nature of the game lends itself well to any twin stick controller, but I found the keyboard controls more than adequate as I fought my way past 15 floors of intense brawling fights, of which there are plenty more. Character customisation is the key to gameplay here. You'll find anything from a elegant sword to stab your foes to a giant green hulk fist you smash down upon your enemies. Using various upgrades and trinkets, your character can be enhanced with greater stats, as well as the option to use "ability orbs" to further customise your characters skillset, my particular favourite was to summon an army of pets to do my bidding. To add even further challenge or even ease to the game, you can add cards to your character slots to change the flow and tide of battle. Resolution options are quite limited here, ranging from 1080p down to 720p with full support for both fullscreen and windowed mode. Screen shake can be fully turned off, which I found to be preferable over the default setting. Keyboard bindings are fully rebindable as well as some of the options for the controller, of which the XBOX 360, PS3 and PS4 controllers are supported. There's also local co-op play available, of which I haven't yet had the chance to test, but a lack of online co-op is notable. Ruin of the Reckless is easy to play, but difficult to master. Fans of other games in the genre should find something to like here, as the game strikes a good balance between difficulty and progression
Point and clicks are far from my forte, in fact The Little Acre is my first brief step into this genre, and so far I have been left with an impression that will be difficult to beat. Upon entering this world you're greeted with an artistic style that has a whimsical nature to it and a soundtrack to match. Even from the menu screen it was clear that this particular game had some great effort and love poured into it by its creators. From the art direction to the voice acting, everything appears to fit snugly in place, which in turn helped me immerse myself into the magical world that awaited me. Jumping down the almost literal Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, you're greeted with a magical world away from the simple farm life your characters left before. Surrounded by strange plant and animal life, everything seems to have a reason to be, and if it were placed in any other world everything you see would seem threatening, but here you're filled with a child-like sense of wonder. I spend just under three hours with the game, part of which was due to my lack of experience with the basic mechanics of point and clicks in general (how to move between scenes using the edge of the screen etc). The puzzles in the game are on the simplistic side, which honestly I was thankful for so I could experience the world without getting bogged down and becoming uninterested. I can say that the performance of the game was sublime and had no impact on my experience of the game whatsoever, nor did the frame rate. Animations throughout were simply smooth and I never felt any slowdown, stutter or tearing. As is expected options are extremely limited here, with just simple sliders for audio and subtitle tracks in various languages. As someone that has great difficulty keeping focus and finishing games, I can say that The Little Acre kept me captivated throughout, which is a rare feat.
Zombie Night Terror is probably best described as a lemmings-esk zombie infestation game, with your primary goal (assuming you're of the same mindset as I am) of biting and infecting as many humans as possible whilst completing the mission goals. The game has no direct control over the zombies, and just like willful lemmings they will simply walk towards whatever goal you have set for them or wander around the general area they are in. Whilst you have no direct control over them, the walking dead are surprisingly entertaining to control through other means, even more so when you are forcing them to self-destruct, causing blood and body parts to splatter across the screen in a meatboy styled explosion, taking out other zombies and humans in the blast radius. There are several "mutations" available that will periodically unlock as you progress throughout the game, giving you new abilities to unlock and that open up more gameplay elements and strategies. There does seem to be a very loose story from what I have played so far, but I'll leave you to explore that for yourself. Video options are simple, but to be honest with a game like this I didn't expect much. Full 4K support is a feature and the game should auto-detect your monitors resolution. A few other options I appreciated was the ability to automatically pause the game when I placed an overlord (a sort of mind-controlling zombie for the peasant zombies), the in built game time tracking and the ability to clear my save data within the game, something that is surprising missing from a lot of games nowadays. Controls are also fully rebindable (as far as I can tell) with the option of a secondary set of controls. So far I have enjoyed my brief time with it, and will most likely continue streaming it on a regular basis. The gameplay is a nice mix of challenge and excitement, wondering what each level will bring and how I can overcome it, not to mention the exploding zombies, did I mention that?
Okhlos was not a game I was expecting to be playing today, but regardless I found myself recruiting hordes of peasants and warriors alike in a mob based action beat'em up. The developer has managed to blend PS1 era looking 3D art with 2D spites, a game I can imagine looking at through rose tinted glasses if it were released back in the 90's. The premise is simple. Recruit followers to your cause of destruction and havoc across multiple ancient Greek cities fighting mobs and bosses as you go, and the game executes this simple idea excellently. The game has multiple types of followers available from just your lowly peasant to warriors and defenders, each with their own role, benefits and downsides. You can even have stray cats, dogs and other animals follow you on your adventures. I spent roughly three hours with game, but I certainly will be coming back for more as there are still more levels for me to explore and followers to unlock, the levels of which are semi-randomly generated but maintain a theme for each. The game has full support for 4K and gamepad support, as well as windowed mode but sadly no borderless mode. The only bugs I encountered while playing the game was a single frustrating crash as I brought a bosses health to its knees, and a strange bug with the underwater wooden platforms that are on the water levels, my character would get stuck around the edges of the object without any means of escape. Overall this game is a great pickup for the asking price with many hours of mindless fun ahead.
