Game Review #10 - A Game of Thrones: Iron From Ice - Telltale Games Month

Platform: Xbox One
Store Page: Xbox One Store
Price I Paid: £2.49

We're onto the final week of Telltale Games month and what better way to finish it off than with a game I bought because it was cheap and realised why it was so cheap. Like usual for Telltale games: SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS.

Game of Thrones: Iron from Ice is the first episodic installment of the new Telltale Game of Thrones game series. Much like Tales from the Borderlands, Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us, this game is cell shaded and follows through on the choices you make. While you might be sick of the same cut and paste formula right now, Game of Thrones adds something new to the mix.

You have three characters to play as. We have Ethan, who is now the head of House Forrester. Garred, who was a servant to Lord Gregor Forrester and then we have Mira Forrester, who is in some sort of pickle with the future Queen and a short bloke with a beard, I think his name was Tyrian Lanister. Because it wouldn't be a Game of Thrones game without throwing in characters from the TV show to try and throw the canon of the show away.

Now, I must admit, I'm one of the people who doesn't like Game of Thrones, I'm sure it's very good, but I'm more of a comedy type person, not a beheading simulator with a Frodo Baggins lookalike from Lord of the Rings. I'm not saying the show is bad, I just couldn't get into it.

Garred is told to fetch more wine, even though all of the soldiers are getting drunk when there's a surprise attack, you have to quick time event and button mash your way out of that predicament and take a blokes sword when he dies. A touching scene, I'm sure. The one thing that bugged me about this bit was the fact that you had the choice to save him yet he doesn't bother coming with you anyways and makes his mind up there. That was the problem Walking Dead S2 had, choices that didn't matter or had little to no effect on the gameplay.

You're then switched over to Lord Ethan, a twelve year old boy that has now inherited House Forrester because his father was the bloke that refused to have his life saved after one too many arrows in the knee. But he has a lot of decisions to make, which was surprisingly enjoyable. I like simulators where I have to choose which is better for who, while there's always a negative, it's why I liked the Rebuild games so much, man if anything happens to this character then I wont be too happy. (foreshadowing)

Finally, we switch over to the other one, I can't remember her name. It's a bloody forgettable game and name. I'm not even going to bother mentioning it, the only part I can remember of her story is that Tyrian Lannister is there or whatever his name is.

Cell shaded graphics, the same concept as all the other games, you do get sick of playing the same game concept but with different slash of characters. Not to mention the forgettable storyline, the re-cast of many characters from the TV show for wow factor and the fact the most interesting character gets killed off...

A Game of Thrones: Iron From Ice gets a 5/10

Gaming News 23/04/15 - Steam Workshop Update, Bloodbath Kavkaz and more!

So, I think it was about ten days ago I ran out of things to do so I started posting news if there was any, there is a lot going on in gaming right now. For starters, the Steam Workshop has received an update, wherein people can sell their mods to the community for anywhere between a couple pennies to a few pounds. While it's nice to see creators get paid for their work, this is literally just a giant DLC store. It's nice to see that people will get paid for their work, but is this honestly the best way of doing it? By doing this, you're creating a mass amount of DLC, not to mention if it catches onto other games such as Garry's Mod and Civilization V, the workshop may not "work" at all. They're literally putting the "shop" portion of "workshop" into effect here.

In other news, EA are buggering up Star Wars Battlefront 3 as much as possible which has created a sort of uprising within the community. Due to the huge lack of features, including no Galactic Conquest and quite literally having Dice give no comment on the feature of AI Bots, things aren't looking good for Battlefront 3. Why get Battlefront 3 when Battlefront 2 is available on Steam at a much better price?



Some smaller news now, the Xbox game Project Spark is getting some DLC which will feature Conkers Bad Fur Day related items. That's great, I guess, I haven't used much of Project Spark, but you know what would be better? Conkers Bad Fur Day 2. In other Xbox One related news, Halo 3: ODST remastered comes out sometime in May. Anyone who played the game before December 17th get's the game for free as an apology from 343 Studios because of the rocky launch, but the rest of us have to pay for it, even though the game is still a buggy mess.



Hotline Miami clone came out too, I guess it's worth mentioning because of the sheer disrespect the developer provided to the community after some negative reviews came up and people questioned the copy/pasting that seemed to happen with this game and Hotline Miami. There's a difference between blatantly copying a game and making it worse and being inspired by something. The game originally had "Hotline" in the title, so that just tells you how much original concept has gone into the game.

Just a quick heads up, I watched Ray's past streams on Twitch, they're fantastic, I definitely recommend you go watch his streams. Game review tomorrow!

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

Games You Haven't Played #3

So, another one of these 'ey? Sure, why not, here's three more games to play through that you may not have heard of or don't have the recognition they deserve, it'll be only games I've played though, but I've delved into the darkest depths of the Grainger Games value shelves, car boot sales in a field and charity shop bags to find some hidden gems of games.

Bulletstorm



I don't think I've ever spoken to a person that's played this game, other than the person that bought me it for Christmas. It's a fairly fun FPS game, with some unique features, such as the whip, which throws enemies into the air and slows down time in the process. Definitely a fun game to play, not too keen on the story front, but it's worth it for the unique features provided by the game.

The Simpsons Road Rage



Crazy Ta-I mean The Simpsons Road Rage is basically Crazy Taxi with some underwhelming reviews, slippy controls and Simpson characters. It's surprisingly good for what it is, but you can see why people might not want to play it.

Shrek Superslam



A surprisingly good game, basically Super Smash Bros. but with Shrek characters. Very good character spectrum, a moderately decent storyline to unlock characters and it has a variety of challenges to accomplish that'll unlock trophies and such. It has multiplayer too!

Food Festival Bonanza Thingy Review?

Well, I went down the town to buy some games for my consoles and do my weekly thing, but it turns out there was a food festival on, I completely forgot about it. So I had a look around, saw a couple of friends and decided to tag along with them. So, how was it?

Pretty good surprisingly, for the first time in a while I actually enjoyed being outside with other people. I could've easily spent the day sat inside playing Borderlands. The food, while I'm sure most of it will have been delicious, due to the fact that it was home made it was very expensive. I'm talking £4 for some Orange Juice. At least there were free samples, which is free food, technically unlimited free samples, they never specified how much people were allowed...

To be honest, if it wasn't for good company then the Food Festival would've been naff. Unfortunately I couldn't stick around for my friends' band, Arcanum, but laughs were had, people disappeared, the food was few and the people were many. Someone took photos but I don't have them, I'm in them which makes the photos infinitely better but I don't know where they are, I'll hunt them down and stick them on here.

Long story short, it was fun. I forgot to buy the game I wanted though...

Game Review #9 - Tales from the Borderlands - Telltale Games Month

Platform: Xbox One
Store Page: Xbox One Store (Download Only)
Price I Paid: £2.49

So, we're on the third week of Telltale Games Month and it's only fitting that we go over with the only series so far without a second instalment that I can actually be bothered to buy at a later date. This is only a review of the first episode. Again, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS AND MORE SPOILERS.

Much like the Walking Dead series' this game is based on the choices you make. However, this game has two characters (as of now) to play as, giving their sides of the story to what happened. We have Rhys and Fiona, who have been captured by a stranger and are telling him/her/it their story.

Rhys was meant to get a promotion, he doesn't and a man named Vasquez (voiced by Patrick Warburton) has taken charge of the company and is planning on buying a vault key. Seen as though Rhys is part robot, he finds out this the easy way and just scans the computer Vasquez was using. Y'know, if this was my employee, he'd be a high ranking employee, my own personal scanner, who can just stand up and yell "GET OFF OF IMGUR" every five minutes at the mindless slaves that are employees.

But Rhys goes off and does the only thing that's right, steal Vasquez's car and take the Vault Key which is worth trillions of dollars I'd suppose. But, that's where our second character comes in, which has faked a Vault key, the very vault key you're buying.

Eventually you end up in some sort of destruction derby/Mario Kart tournament and then the episode ends when you find a glove and shadow thing.

The new layout given to the game is lovely, you can even get money in the game too, which can buy you some things later on in the game, they aren't necessary but they're cool to have.

It's a fresh change from the Walking Dead series' and it's a nice branch in the Borderlands series.

Tales from the Borderlands gets a 9/10

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