Mini Reviews #6 - The Walking Dead: Road to Survival

Platform: iOS/Android
Store Page
Price I Paid: Free!

So this just randomly popped up in my Twitter feed of all places and it looked moderately okay so I thought I'd download it and play it for a few minutes.

Two days later and I'm completely engulfed in this game, and I'm not even sure how. It honestly isn't even that good, but once I started playing I couldn't stop, I've let it control my life so far, no way out of this one. There's actually a hell of a lot of things to do in the game, which is surprising, there's a campaign, raiding, special missions, town upgrades, it's taken the best bits of a load of games and hastily stapled them together.

Now as far as a "Mature Role-Playing Game" goes this game is far from it. There's actually some spelling errors dotted around the games story.

But of course, being a freemium game it's going to have it's fair share of "Buy this because it's good value" premium currency. Surprisingly there is a lack of items you can purchase straight through the premium currency, say I wanted to buy the character "Hershel" I'd have to get lucky in opening a pack of Elite Characters. It adds more of a reward to getting a good character which is great.

Funnily enough this game has actually made me want to start watching the TV Show, I saw the first five minutes of "Fear the Walking Dead" and the first episode of "The Walking Dead" but it never hooked me, but thanks to this game I'm going to go watch it.

Campaign wise, I'm onto, I guess you could call it Chapter 9, the part in the softball field or something, stage 2, not where I'm leaving it though, I'm planning on finishing the game, because it is surprisingly good.

Of course with all freemium games things take time to build, you have to wait for certain things to replenish etc, which is a real shame because I'd be playing a lot and then be told I have to stop because I ran out of gas cans.

Also, other than gaining resources, there doesn't seem to be a point to upgrading your town, so hopefully they'll do something about that in a future update.

Like it or not, there's another good Walking Dead game out there, it's on iOS and Android and you should indefinitely download it.

The Walking Dead: Road to Survival gets a 7/10

Mini Reviews #5 - Dead Bits

Platform: Steam
Store Page
Price I Paid: Free!

Ugh, another one of "these games". You know the ones, they play some shitty dubstep while you play through a cheaply and poorly made game with Minecraft graphics. Oh, and it's a zombie game. We're off to a great start aren't we? It's also...interesting to see that whenever there's a sale on this game, it can be purchased for around four to seven pence, which is absurd.

Graphically wise, it's poor. Very poor. Little to no effort on that part, but that shouldn't matter as long as the gameplay is good...It is not. Very poor gameplay as well, enemies will just walk in a straight line one at a time, one behind the other for you to beat to death with a silver stick wand thing or a poorly drawn gun. There's two types of enemies, small zombie things and bigger zombie things.

Now, I'd like to present to you, how the game combats it's poor level design.



Yeah, that's how you get around poor level design. mock the player for doing a logical step towards killing an enemy. Bear in mind this fact: Those enemies are pretty tough to kill and that's a very, very, small platform. 1500 times 3 is 4500. 4500 Health, 100 damage done by the gun each time, yeah, mmhm, yeah.

My GCSE in statistics concludes that this is utter bullshit. Yeah, that's the graphics of the game as well.

I'd also like to point out the music, a constant loop of dubstep that not even Skrillex is bad enough to make. Sounds like a tin can being eaten by a penguin, good God it's awful. You can't turn the music off either, if there is then I couldn't find the option for it. This game could've been good if it wasn't so shit.

Dead Bits gets a 0/10

Mini Reviews #4 - Metal Slug Defence

Platform: Steam
Store Page
Price I Paid: Free!

I am a die hard Metal Slug fan, I absolutely adore the series and each and every game in the series, but this one is just a cash grab, slap in the face to the community and fans. This could have been an entirely different game if it didn't have Metal Slug slapped onto it. So, how was it?

It functions, I guess. Well, that's a lie. I have a laptop that allows touch screen use, very good, don't like getting fingerprints on the screen but this game is a mobile port, so it makes sense that the game would allow you to use touch screen computers/laptops. It barely works, it sometimes works when you want to have a look around some of the items, but it's easier to left click and pull the mouse along. Don't bother trying to push buttons with the touch screen either, wont work at all. You can tell it's a mobile game, at the start screen it says "Tap to start" so it gave me a bad impression to begin with.

Graphics wise, I'm impressed to be honest, glad they got the traditional graphics style as the Metal Slug series, along with the music. They kind of changed the music, made it a little higher pitched. One big problem with the game is mission 3, actually all missions for that matter, One slip up and there is little to no way of getting back into the game. You will lose, lots.

It's a nice idea that wasn't executed well, with a premium currency like all mobile games, I can't recommend this to anyone, not even die hard Metal Slug fans, at least they get the characters and story right...

Metal Slug Defence gets a 4/10

Mini Reviews #3 - The Simpsons Tapped Out

Platform: iOS/Android devices (bugger off Windows)
Store Page
Price I Paid: Free! Like everyone else.

I like the Simpsons, I used to be a huge fan of it, I still am, I might watch it if it's on and I have nothing else to do, but other than that I barely watch it. I used to be an avid fan and player of this game, the key term in these past few sentences has been "used to".

The Simpsons Tapped Out is an app that allows you to build and redesign Springfield after Homer blew up the town. So you have to pick up the pieces, follow the questlines and hopefully get Springfield to what it once was. The variety of characters available overall is, pretty small, but constant updates come out and some characters are premium.

Yeah, premium, i.e, spend your real money on donuts so you can buy Dr. Nick and Arnie Pye. What? Of course I didn't buy them. I bought all of them after I used /rtappedoutdonuts/ or something along those lines, which is probably why I no longer play the game. Things get very boring when you can speed through their tasks at great pace. I mean, once you've finished all the quests and gotten to the highest level in the update, all you can do is farm your cash and prepare for the next update, which is more often than not two premium characters and a character you can buy with in-game currency.

Non-premium characters more often than not come with a building, it makes sense. Moe comes with Moe's Tavern, Principal Skinner comes with the School, Marge comes with Moe's Tavern...I did say they more often than not make sense, I didn't say they all made sense.

You can spin your buildings a whole  two ways, facing the left hand side of the screen or facing the bottom of the screen. Which is normal for games like this, I remember Stronghold Kingdom or whatever that flash game was, I don't remember.

Regardless, if you're a fan of the Simpsons then you'll enjoy this game.
If you're a fan of micro-transactions, constant updates to add things EA have gotten and EA, you'll enjoy this game.

The Simpsons Tapped Out gets a 4/10

Mini Reviews #2 - The Binding of Isaac

Platform: Steam
Store Page
Price I Paid: 39p

Bleh, I don't like games like this. I was so wrong about this game though. I guess you could call this an adventure/dungeon crawler game, I don't like adventure/dungeon crawler games one bit. However I was quite surprised with this game, especially for how cheap I got it.

Graphical style compliments the game very well and thanks to simple controls the game flows very well. WASD to move, all the usual stuff. The music for the game is fantastic, fits really well for the atmosphere of the game, which is a creepy dungeon type environment.

As for items in the game, you can pick up a variety of items that will either increase or decrease your stats in that playthrough of the game, no playthrough is the same. The dungeon is randomly generated, with different rooms with different items and bosses (hopefully) every time you play through the game.

Boss battles are, just disturbing. I fought some form of stomach demon with a melted face at one point, like that thing from Blade. But the boss battles are varied, a good mix of entertainment and challenge can be found in the boss battles with a nice variety throughout.

Overall, I enjoyed my brief time with the game, I don't think it's quite hooked me because it's not my type of game but I can see why people enjoy it and I enjoyed my time with it too.

The Binding of Isaac gets a 7/10

Mini Reviews #1 - WWE 2K15

Console: Xbox One
Store Page: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-2-5026555269827-2K15-Xbox/dp/B00KILGT56
Price: £37.80

So, I had the chance to play a little bit of WWE 2K15 over the weekend. I didn't want to make a full fledged review of this, firstly because it's a sports game, secondly because I have a schedule of every Friday for game reviews and thirdly I have the next year or so planned for reviews, so make your suggestions now to see me review it next year!

Well, how was the game? Bad. Very bad. I'm dissapointed to be honest. Not a single thing that can make this game any good. Main problem being the combat. You fight through a series of mini-games, i.e to grapple someone you have to find a blue spot on the RS and LS and then mash a series of buttons. When punching, it's slow as hell. It's a complete change from 2K14, which was pretty good. If this is what 2K is thinking will work, the WWE Game Series is doomed.

The roster is very lacking, no Edge, no Christian and so on. John Cena is the highest rated in the game which is just a problem in itself when the highest rating is 96.

Don't buy this game, if you want to get into the WWE Games, play WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008, WWF Warzone on the Nintendo 64, WWE 13 and WWE 2K14.

WWE2K15 gets a 0/10