Yooka-Laylee (Something of a rarity)

It was way back in the lawless yesteryear of 1998 that Rare released Banjo- Kazooie, and although gaming’s bestloved bird and bear duo may be gone, they’re far from forgotten. Not least by PlaytonicGames, a studio founded by Rare veterans that’s dedicated to recapturing the vivid colour and distinctive humour of the golden age of 3D action-platformers. “So far we’ve recaptured insulting each other via email all day and consuming enough sweet food in a working week to give Godzilla diabetes,” explained creative lead Gavin Price when we quizzed him on the project.
“If we survive the Winter, we’ll put in some collectibles, make the characters talk funny, and ask Grant Kirkhope to make some of his marimba tunes. Sorted.” Playtonic Games is optimistic then, and the team appears to be making excellent progress. Yooka-Laylee is already a pleasingly lustrous gameworld populated with flailing beasties and gleaming collectibles, and it’s all set to an appropriately jaunty score. “We really do believe that our game will present the premium nextgen bat-and-lizard experience of 2016,” concludes Price. Typical industry hype, eh?

Details:
Format PS4, XO, Wii U, PC
Pub Team 17
Dev Playtonic Games
ETA October

Chiptune Champion - Reviews and more

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 Rating: 62/100

Rating: 55/100                                   
As a retro gaming fan, chiptune fan (including gameless originals by e.g. Disasterpeace, Anamanaguchi), and rhythm gaming fan (including GH/Rock Band), I feel like I'm squarely the target audience for this game.

This game isn't terrible, but I don't enjoy it and can't recommend it.

Feeling which keys your fingers are on is a little confusing. The timing is clunky, and it feels like I missed notes I should've hit, even on beginner. And worst of all, the songs are just boring. For $10 I would've hoped they got licenses for at least one or two famous, memorable tunes, even if from indie games like Fez or VVVVVV, but nope, not as far as I can tell. (Although to be fair I stopped scrolling through after my fourth song because the game just felt boring already.)

If you're looking for rhythm on your PC, try Osu, which is free, unique, and fun. If you're looking for a Guitar Hero clone on PC you can try Frets on Fire which is also free, though I can't vouch for it personally. Just... whatever you do, you probably want to skip this game and keep your $10. Even on sale it's tough to recommend since the songs are boring and the controls feel unresponsive.

Rating: 82/100                                                   
This game is excellent! If you like rhythm games, you should definitely pick this game up.

The soundtrack is great, I didn't find a single song that I disliked, all of them were very catchy.

This may turn off some, but the game was designed to be played with a keyboard, which in my opinion is very unique. Yes you do have the option of using a guitar controller, but you have to download a program to make this work. In my opinon though, you should play with a keyboard, it really is not that bad. I was very skeptical at first, but after rebinding the keys to my liking I was playing with no problem at all.

Lastly, there is workshop support, this is what makes the game worth buying. Players can create their own tracks and others can download them for free! You can also make your own tracks and upload them so others can play them as well.

Overall this is an awesome game, nothing bad comes to mind, I highly recommend giving this game a try.


Rating: 50/100                       
Good idea, poor execution.

There is no actual fullscreen. You can only scale it up 2 or 3 times and then there is a giant black border around the entire game.

There is no automatic sound/monitor syncing, you have to exit out to the main menu, go into settings, and manually enter a number between -100 and 100, then go back into a level and try again.

The game uses prerecorded audio tracks rather than playing the notes live as they are pressed. Better for low-end computers, but it causes the gameplay to suffer. If you miss a note, the music continues to play, you just hear an annoying sound that the note was missed. It should not play the music if you miss the note. Worse yet, the music and the notes occasionally desync, because the notes were just placed there by someone who thinks that is where the music plays at, not EXACTLY where the music plays at.

There does not seem to be any progression, not even a tutorial. You can pick any song and the difficulty does not go up as you play the next song available. The next song is sometimes MUCH easier than the previous.

There probably should be 4 difficulty levels, not 3.

Difficulty level 1 would be 3 notes playable and few notes of the song show up.
Difficulty level 2 would be 4 notes playable.
Difficulty level 3 would be 5 notes playable.
Difficulty level 4 would be 5 notes playable and all the notes of the song show up.

That would be better for personal progression of getting better at the game. Those who have never played a music rythm game like this will most likely be overwhelmed by 4 notes at the current easiest difficulty.


Critic Reviews

Critic		Score
Destructoid	If you're a fan of chiptunes and want a Guitar Hero-like experience on PC then Chiptune Champion is easily recommendable	70/100

GameInfo: Transform your keyboard into an instrument and play along to the melody of catchy chiptunes in this challenging rhythm game.

Details:
Genre: Casual, Indie
Developer: Blake Garner
Publisher: Blake Garner
Release Date: 8 Jan, 2016

List of all PC RPG Games: 2016 and System Requirements

List of all PC RPG Games of 2016 - System Requirements and Screenshots

Dungeons Are Random

Pony Island

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Mars 2030

Cally's Caves 3

Echoes Of Aetheria

Crashlands

FINAL FANTASY IX

Bombshell

Take the Dream IX

FORCED SHOWDOWN

World's Dawn

Sydney's World

Tales of Symphonia

Overfall

Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls

Defragmented

Balrum

Unraveled: Tale of the Shipbreaker's Daughter

Disgaea

Acaratus

Moon Hunters

The Fantasy Settlement Sim

Goliath

Good Robot

NeuroVoider

Tanzia

Dungeon Rushers

Rogue Wizards

WASTED

Orc Assault

Heroes of Issachar

Life of Rome

SAVAGE: The Shard of Gosen

Timespinner

State of Extinction

The End of an Age: Fading Remnants

EITR

Sierra Ops

The Guild 3

SpellForce 3

Aquanox Deep Descent

Tom Clancy’s: The Division

Fable Legends

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Deus Ex Mankind Divided

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Dark Souls 3

The Technomancer

Age of Steel: Recharge Reviews and more

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 Rating: 72/100

Rating: 70/100                                                               
Fun to play and fairly priced.

Bugs:
-Text screens need slowing down
-Few typos
-Game freezes for a second when bosses die
-Cannot unselect unit type to deploy sometimes

I would like to see a way to delete turrets (lemmings style would be fun) as this could let you lose your game if you have max units deployed and an enemy gets though. Please seperate music and sounds in the options menu, and also the bullet sounds are pretty dull (wet farts). UI wise the right sidebar blocks a lot of the action and should really be integrated into the menu bar by reducing icon size... could there be an option to shake the screen but not the menu bar?

75/100                                                                              
Fun-to-play side view strategy game with a story, ideal for short games of about 10 minutes.
You throw up to 12 units (which you have to research first) at you opponent, who throws whatever he can craft back at you. Plus some bosses.

Benefits

Pixel graphics with nice effects
Short games possible
Story and interesting settings with different missions (survive the waves, kill the boss)

Concerns

Two modes (campaign and surviving) only
UI good be improved

GameInfo: "Age of Steel: Recharge" is a 2D strategy with a view from the side. You're taking the role of commander, who was entrusted the management of the military base. Your mission is to defend a base from the waves of enemies at any price.

Details:
Genre: Action, Casual, Indie, Strategy
Developer: Quaint Emerald
Publisher: Pirozhok
Release Date: 6 Jan, 2016

Elysium: Blood Games PC Reviews and more

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 Rating: 30/100

Rating: 30/100                           

+Interesting stat system and short or long game modes with a small game package allows for quick rounds
+Stat progression and arena progression always plusses in management games
+Who doesn't enjoy gambling and winning?

-Archaic, invisible, and head-scratching paper-rock-scissors outcomes devoid of correlation to stats or attack decisions.
-Potentially interesting but ultimately useless bye-week activities for your non-active roster
-Smallest scale imaginable for a management game

Long-story short: Unless they release a lot of extra content, I wouldn't recommend this game.

Long-story:
The main issue I have with this game is that you start off with 3 warriors (no indication that your team ever grows after completing a season and reaching the finals) and try to raise them into legitimate warriors. These guys have a robust stat system of Strength, Agility, Speed (? redundant?), Intellect, and Durability, with stats ranging to 100 and age is a factor. But herein lies the problem.

None of these stats seem to matter. There is almost no correlation of stats and attack choices to damage done or received.

And with stats out of 100 (maybe more? but not naturally), and seasons at 20 days max, training and ambiguous 'soul quests' were largely tacked-on things to do with your inactive roster (of 2 gladiators that are generally needing to rest by the end of the season anyway).

Graphics and audio, good god.... I felt like I was playing Baldur's Gate using only Open Source elements. If you play this, listen for the sound of someone biting an apple when a hit connects. (This sounds like a joke, it's not.)

This game had a lot of promise, potentially being a unique take on games like Football Manager or Franchise mode of popular sports game but fell tragically short. In case a dev sees this, I would totally revisit with the following additional elements:
Meaningful stat increases, both for gladiators and the arena. Money and attendance are the only benefits I could tell of upgrading, but attendance only increases money, and money can easily be generated by making decent conservative bets season-round. Favor, gained from victory, only increases money and attendance. Training costs money, but even maximum training only cost me something like 250g per gladiator and a victory generally nets me 3x that. (3 of course being how many gladiators you can have anyway).

Meaningful arena upgrades. I love the idea of unique upgrades a la lemonade stand or even dinopark tycoon. Let me upgrade the chariot parking lot, or invest in armored lions (btw, these ♥ showed up randomly in a fight and did 30% damage to my warrior who was already being curb-stomped by the enemy despite a 2:1 stat ratio in my favor), how about some leg of lamb seasonings for more attendees?

Stat increases should be significant. Gaining 1 or 2 stats per day while training at all is useless in a 20 day season, especially given how they seem to be awarded every other day in random areas? (Plus...:

Stats don't seem to do a thing. Strength seems to be a roll of the dice where the dice don't change despite significant stat differences. I understand needing to keep a game of fighting management semi-random, but the unknown only seemed to leave me scratching my head. Even using attacks that play to my strengths seemed to let my opponent urinate on my gladiator for 20 damage.

Larger roster. Without a larger roster, why even bother training? I can likely hire a new gladiator with my uesless heaps of gold that is better than my current roster rather than spending half their life training at a snail's pace.
Equipment. Equipment would be an excellent gold sink, requiring upkeep, training, and a staff...

I WANT A STAFF! How about providing a staff of people? The game even compares itself to baseball, why do I not have a "coaching staff" of a blacksmith, nurses, marketing, and construction? You could do some amazing things with these. Upgrade your forge, your hospital, your construction and equipment, and upgrades and research take weeks out of the season. You could pay for better smelting techniques and better staff in general, but you have to upgrade your arena to have room for them.

Favor could be used to petition the gods for better victory, healing, or research.

Lastly, bribes are so useless. I bribed so many matches and lost almost all of them despite a bribe making victory "much more likely." What a crock.

This game leaves way too much to be desired. An extremely interesting premise but what is ultimately less interesting than the colisseums of Caesar 3. Spend some more time at the drawing board and release some free content that adds some actual management rather than pure RNG, especially if you're going to boast stats and upgrades.

GameInfo:
Enter a world of blood, influence and secrets in this easy to learn, yet deep strategy sim where you control a group of Gladiators, guiding them through combat and competition. Bribe, gamble and slash your way to an arena championship!

Details:
Title: Elysium: Blood Games
Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation, Sports, Strategy
Developer: SimProse Studios
Publisher: SimProse Studios
Release Date: 5 Jan, 2016

Dungeons Are Random Reviews and Images

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 Rating: 50/100

GameInfo: Dungeons are Random is a fast-paced roguelike game, where everything is meant to be generated as randomly as possible, while still being enjoyable as a game. It's a mix of a roguelike and an action-rpg game: you improve your hero by running around and fighting monsters, while venturing endless, randomly

Street Fighter V's New Challengers (Roster List and Characters Details)

With F.A.N.G. and Dhalsim revealed, let’s remind ourselves of the other fighters we’re going to be wailing on come late February…


BIRDIE
A hard-hitting powerheavy bogie-flicking monster, Birdie can use his chains for long-range grabs and distance reduction, whilst laying traps around the stage when necessary. He struggles when characters get up close, but his Bull Head move gives you breathing space and has armour – perfect for  interrupting  potentially devastating start-ups.

RASHID
With rapid and highrange projectiles, Rashid can force opponents into close range where he can chain quick, nasty pokes into a more damaging aerial combos. His V-Trigger unleashes a huge tornado that comes with a ridiculous hitbox – Rashid is an outright pressure character, and will be accessible to players that aren’t too clued up on SF.

R. MIKA
With a V-Trigger that calls in wrestling partner Nadeshiko, Mika can open up some sneaky backattacks and command grab mixups, making her a good choice for players that like to get up close with their opponents and play the will-they-won’t-they throw game. Command grabs can be charged up, making her a very technical character to get your head around.

KARIN
Karin’s main weapon is her new dash – a move that lets her close distance and follow up with either a throw or a high-low attack that’s a real pain to guard against. Do this enough times to build meter and you can unleash her V-Trigger, too, a technique that lets her let rip on opponents with multistring combos that are variable and totally unpredictable.

KEN
Returning with a highly modified moveset (which apparently ties into his story in the game), Ken now seems like a good rushdown character. With interesting mix-ups and an EX air move that lets him reset mid combo, Ken has become more than just a dragonpunch spammer for new players to grab a few quick and dirty wins as they begin playing the game.

LAURA
A grappler with a projectile, Laura breaks the archetypes Street Fighter usually goes with. Think of her as between Blanka and Elena – she’s all about kicking moves and shocking the opponent, with some tactical command grabs high-damage supers. Her projectile travels at different velocities depending on input – making her fairly hard to read.

M. BISON
Bison is actually quite a bit weaker than he was in Street Fighter IV, but he makes up for it by being able to catch and return projectiles (including Supers!) He’s a slow damage dealer, relying on some charge attacks and teleportation to get up close and attack. With Bison, you’ll want to pressure the opponent hard – getting close is the best way to bring about the end-game.

NASH
In the builds we’ve played, Nash has the most amount of combo setups from his regular moves, and that makes him a prime choice for intermediate players. He has good mid-range pokes and projectiles and can soak up other character’s long-range attacks, to boot. Some of his attacks take a while to start up, but he’s got good anti-air to deal with that.

NECALLI
One of Street Fighter V’s new characters, Necalli comes off as a brawler that can deal big damage with his base attacks, and also comes with a kick that changes direction in mid-air (which makes up for his slow movement). He also has a command grab and a tricky selection of charge moves to get your teeth into. A refreshing new fighter.

CAMMY
Cammy's Hooligan Roll is her main gimmick - you can use it to feint into low attacks or cut it short with a Canon Strike for a few nasty surprises. Her V-Skill – if timed correctly – can punish an opponent as they get up from a knockdown, dodging attacks and getting behind them for guaranteed combo startups and devastating results.

CHUN-LI
With a nice, rapid walkspeed, some quick and accessible pokes and a strong anti-air game, Chun-Li is now so much more than just a spam artist. Her projectile gives her a ranged option, too, making her great for technical players and newcomers alike. As another key legacy character you can expect to see her plenty in early online contests.

RYU
Ryu is one of the few characters that has a parry as a V-Trigger skill, making him a more technical choice for players that love to use mind games on their opponents. He’s got some interesting low pokes, too, and can make unblockable (and quick) fireballs with modified super moves. Beginner friendly, as you would expect from this iconic fighter.

VEGA
Vega is quick, and can bounce around the screen on a whim, getting in good overhead attacks and sneaky mixups. He has  stances, too, which will confuse new players but in the hands of veterans make him responsive to just about any situation the game will throw out. His V-Trigger sets up perfectly for aerial raids on opponents.

ZANGIEF
Because of his size, Zangief has a fairly slow walk-speed (but that’s made up for by his actually decent dash). His standard attacks are varied and have good range, and his grappling supers even have armour, meaning he can get through enemy attacks and projectiles and close distance for highdamage throws even when under pressure.