Crusader No Remorse

Crusader No Remorse was originally released back in 1995 and it's now available on GOG for $5.99 USD. I never played it in it's heyday though I really wanted to get it. Your character looks like Boba Fett and therefore oozes cool, also you've got no remorse so obviously you're killing and blowing things up indiscriminately. The story goes that you are a super soldier who originally is part of the immensely corrupt World Economic Consortium but after botching a mission where you were meant to kill civilians, you decide to join the resistance. I think it is a cool story even if it is played out in cheesy 90's, I can see each pixel, CD video. The GOG version runs DOSBox to make it compatible with your modern PC so very little has changed.

The first thing I noticed about this game was how clunky the controls are. Aiming with the mouse is terrible, aiming with the keys is too slow. Searching for loot and hitting switches takes far too long. The controls will see you going all over the keyboard for the buttons that you need and to figure this out you're gonna need to read the manual. The problem is every time I alt-tabbed out the game would permanently get stuck in tiny window mode, which is frustrating and makes me miss the printed manuals of old. Eventually I got the hang of it and I must say it is great to have a lot of control but it doesn't compare with modern games. I think it is a shame that there is no added controller support as this would have made it easier to play. The worst part was when shooting if you got too close to an enemy you wouldn't hit it, same with being too far. Also, the enemies seem capable of hitting you from the strangest angles that you yourself cannot achieve.

One of the coolest features at the time was how interactive the world was and it still stands out in this regard. You can basically blow up everything, hell, you can even blow up metal guard rails which makes no sense. There are a lot of traps and secrets to interact with that help to keep the world interesting. Some traps are as simple to get past as switching off a valve but there are more devious ones such as, hidden sensors traps that blanket the room in grenades and annoying walls that zap you with electricity. The game is also about finding loot, you must loot everything to survive! Like every other game like this, RPGs, Farcry, etc., picking up every bit of ammo and money gets tedious after a while but due to the clunky controls in Crusader No Remorse you'll feel it even quicker.

I honestly did have fun with Crusader No Remorse but I also had a lot of frustrations. I encountered a lot of bugs from in game traps not triggering right, to plain ol' disappearing off the screen at times. I didn't realise how long each mission was at first and that it is crucial to save at all times. Slowly but surely I made progress and got the hang of things. Still, I think this game is best left to those who played it back in the day and loved it, or those that really wanted to play it back then and are willing to give it a lot of time now 6/10.

Clumsy Ninja [iOS]

Clumsy Ninja is a pay-to-not-wait style game which puts you in charge of training a ninja and yes, he is clumsy. The ninja's sister has disappeared after fighting a mysterious villain and it is up to you to train him hard enough to get her back. It plays more like a virtual pet simulator than anything else.

The bulk of the game is spent training your ninja in one of four mini games. The first is a trampoline and in terms of gameplay this one is pretty boring. You have to slide the trampoline back and forth to keep him from falling off and slowly he will learn how to do new moves. Next up is punching bag training. I feel this one is fairly satisfying to watch but you don't really do anything but hold up the bag for him. Then you have my favourite mini game where you throw various things at your ninja like watermelons or basketballs and he has to learn to defend them. Lastly is the practice dummy. You don't do anything with the practice dummy except put it back in the ring if the ninja knocks out it. I wish the game was a bit more interactive.

Then you have the "Fun Stuff" section which includes some other training options and some general silliness. You get things like balloons and boxes, potions that make your ninja do a variety of silly things like get really dizzy or spin uncontrollably. You can combine some of these items with the training tools for some interesting results. For example, I set up a ninja tower from the fun stuff section, put the ninja on top and had him jump down onto the trampoline. Watching the ninja go flying after bouncing off the trampoline was pretty funny to me and this game really aims to be humourous. However it mostly falls short from my perspective but kids are bound to love it's simple slapstick comedy. One of the oddest attempts at humour is the basketball hoops you get. These will provide experience to your ninja every time you shoot him through a hoop.

In app purchases are handle by ways of buying coins or gems, plus there is also a "Holiday Box" purchase too. $2.99 AUD is the cheapest option you can buy which I think is a little silly. A dollar is about all I would want to spend on a game like this personally and there isn't that option. Coins and gems allow you to buy new equipment or recharge the equipment you already have. Once you have used a piece of equipment with the ninja a timer will start showing you how long you have before you can use it. You can get a lot of this game for free though because instead of paying to wait for some items to recharge you can watch a video, tweet or post to Facebook about the game. The Holiday Box adds a snow filled world with various activities set to coincide with winter in the Northern Hemisphere. 

The graphics, sounds and music of this game are all top notch. The way the clumsy ninja is animated is quite outstanding. Though at times he seems like a simple rag doll, as he learns new moves he gets a lot more interesting. At first when you throw him up into the air he will just collapse in a heap but eventually he learns to land like a ninja pro, which looks really cool. Whilst you can't flaw this game for its aesthetics, it's such a shame that more time wasn't spent on the gameplay. All the mini games are too simple and whilst there is some connectivity between training apparatuses it is very limited. To sum it all up, if you are looking for a ninja pet to keep and sometimes play with this is a good option. Just don't expect it to keep your interest for long 6.9/10.

Legend of Grimrock [Mac, Windows, iOS]

Legend of Grimrock has been out for sometime but I've only just gotten around to playing it lately. It's essentially an old school dungeon RPG with new world graphics and sound. Legend of Grimrock is made by another Finnish development team, who go by the name Almost Human, my second Finnish developer this week.

You're thrown into a dungeon with a team of four and you have to survive. The way you lay out your team is crucial as only the two in front can strike with melee weapons. The back is reserved for missile weapons and magic. I do recommend reading the short tutorial to get a handle on the game but very little is explained. It's all part of the old school charm, you have to figure out what is going on for yourself. This makes the game quite difficult at first and on my first try I died pretty quickly, after being overwhelmed by monsters. Once I figured out how magic worked and that you need to keep backing away from monsters, recharging your attacks and coming back in for the kill, I started to make some progress.

I love the lighting in this game it's so beautiful and really adds to the feel of being trapped in a poorly lit dungeon. I think the animations of the monsters are the most stand out aspect of the graphics. The character models themselves aren't amazing but they way the creatures move in the world really helps you understand how they fight and how you should fight them.

Like it's old school predecessors Legend of Grimrock is fairly frustrating. It rewards precise play throughs that can only be learnt with practice. It's all about the fine details, looking for that switch, figuring out that puzzle. This is what most people want out of this game but it does lead to some problems. The inventory suffers from this old school design and it feels like you are always poking through it to pull out a key, or a rock just to solve a minor puzzle. Combat is clunky too though the clunkiness does add to the sense of panic that makes each battle so intense.

I really see this as a niche game and I am very surprised with it's sales figures. Earlier this year they announced it had sold over 600,000 copies which is amazing for a small developer. That being said there are plenty of players out there looking for just this game, though I think most of them have already found it 7.7/10.

Humble Mobile Bundle 3

The Humble Mobile Bundle The Humble Mobile Bundle number 3 is looking pretty sweet if you are an Android owner. I reviewed Epoch earlier when it was out only for iOS and gave it an 8 so it is a solid game. Plus it's made by a team of Australian developers so bonus points for that. I also reviewed Kingdom Rush as a Flash game in a one sentence review giving it 9. It is a tower defence game but it actually added a lot of cool ideas to tower defence that many have copied now. Things like having little soldiers that block your enemies whilst your towers blast away and just the overall art style and theme of the game make this title really stand out. I haven't played the others but Ridiculous Fishing is just like Radical Fishin', which is a pretty sweet game that involves shooting fish.

The bundle is currently sitting at just over $5 USD for all six games which is pretty damn cheap. I say go and get it if you are an Android but not paranoid…

Oceanhorn [iOS]

Oceanhorn was developed by Cornfox & Bros who are a Finnish game developer. This game has received rave reviews and at the time of writing it sits on a Metacritic score of 92. Basically saying it is one of the greatest games of all time. Is it that great? The simple answer is no, a lot of flaws have been overlooked in it's achievement of that score but it is still a good game, let me explain.

You play a boy on a Zelda Winder Waker-esque quest to save the world. You travel from island to island in your boat, which triggers a shoot 'em up mini game. This is probably the easiest part of the game as everything in your path has a giant hit-box, it makes for a good way to stock up on money and items. Most of your adventuring will take place on these islands in their dungeons. You have your typical sword and shield, plus you find other classic Zelda items along the way such as the bow, bombs and even heart containers. Plus you push boxes around to solve puzzles. It sounds pretty good really. Take a classic game and bring it to iOS, well...

Unfortunately Oceanhorn suffers from a lot of flaws, these range from bugs, to aspects of the game that weren't playtested enough. I'll give you a few examples. Unlike in a Zelda game, it's not obvious when you have finished with a dungeon. There is rarely any plot development at the end of a dungeon, rather you get an item that can help you in the next area and you awkwardly move on thinking, "Did I miss something?"At one stage, you have to climb along the gate you want to open in order to solve the puzzle. Why not just jump down off the gate? It's moments like these that break any suspension of disbelief you may have with the game and bring you back to awkward reality. You can pass through some solid objects, the game chugs at points on my iPhone 5, the enemy A.I. ranges from dumb to far too accurate and devastating. All of these things make the game frustrating at times. At lot of them are little but when taken together lead to distraction from the game experience. The worst offence is when you die to a boss. Now you'll want to go back and fight them again, of course but there probably won't be enough pots to smash around you to get back all your health and arrows to fight them again. This means you'll have to back track, which just takes time without adding anything to the gameplay.

But Oceanhorn does have a lot of enjoyable moments too. Adventuring is fun, I always want to see what is next and what new item I will put out of a chest. Levelling up is a pretty cool feature and something that Zelda certainly lacks. The boosts you get from each level are small but they do add up and it is something to look forward to. The graphics and audio are superb. The way the ocean realistically waxes and wanes, whilst the sun shines brightly off it, looks stunning. It makes me want to go swimming. The music was done by two Japanese composers Kenji Ito and Nobuo Uematsu who are probably most famous for working with Square, on titles like Final Fantasy and Secret of Mana. The music does a great job of driving the story and applying the overall mood for the scene. I do also enjoy that the game is challenging because it really does give you a solid sense of achievement when you accomplish something. The problem is that often the challenge isn't due to clever game design but rather awkward controls, poor game design or bugs.

Oceanhorn is a big adventure for an iOS game and it took me a bit over the claimed 10 hours to complete. There is definitely a good game here but it is not for everyone. If you are looking for a challenging, beautiful, yet ultimately flawed Action RPG, this is worth picking up 7.9/10.

3 Games That Are Now Free To Play

There are a lot of games converting over free to play at the moment. Asphalt 8 and AVP Evolution are taking the microtransaction route, whilst Mecho Wars has just become free to play. 

Asphalt 8 [iOS, Android]

Asphalt 8 was a dollar to play for a short time, with plenty of pay for extras options and now it is a free to play, pay for extras game, confused? Good. The game offers a bunch of control modes with the worst being the on screen controls, meaning that tilt is the only real option. If this was a serious racer that would be a big problem but as it's an arcade, crash your way to the top title, it's not such a big deal. The crashes are completely ridiculous with minor taps sending cars flying and scoring you points. Sometimes cars will ram into me and this will count as me destroying them, granting me extra turbo bonuses. It's totally silly but that's half the fun. 

The menu is atrocious with everything smashed onto one screen and the most useful item, the settings button, is reduced to a tiny blip in the corner. Otherwise the presentation of the rest of the game is quite good. The graphics are top notch and it features music from some great musicians including my favourite Go with the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age. Some people are bound to love this game and if you want an over the top silly racer this is for you. For me though, I don't think racing titles will move into the "great" category on phones until titles are released with universal controller support, which, incidentally isn't too far away 7.2/10.

Mecho Wars [iOS, paid on Android]

My first impressions of this game were bad. It's full of typos, the story is horrendous, the graphics are an odd mix and the tutorial goes on for far too long. Basically I wished it was Advance Wars, the game on which it is clearly based. Yet, I kept playing and eventually I was hooked. It may lack the complex tactics of more advance turn based strategies but there is still some substance here. Once you learn which unit does what (and trust me the bizarre art style does not help this) the game begins to make sense. What it does lack though, are clear indicators of defensive bonuses, easy to find attack radiuses and just any useful information in general. The most outstanding feature is probably the music which apparently was nominated for a bunch of awards. I quite enjoyed it though I am suspicious that one of the songs is actually from Star Wars!

If I was playing this game on a Gameboy Advance or a PC, I think I would laugh at it till it ran off into a corner never to be seen again. But phones have such few options when it comes to turn based strategy that this ends up okay 7.3/10.

AVP Evolution [iOS, paid on Android]

It's cool because it's Aliens Vs Predators and those creatures are just cool. Unfortunately the game knows this and it doesn't really try hard at all to do anything with it. The original two games on PC will always be the classics, looked back upon for inspiration despite the fact they were hardly groundbreaking at the time. However they did incorporate a lot of classic moments from the movies in a relatively seamless and fun way. Now every game after them has to try to do this and it just isn't fresh anymore. You have to burst out of a chest and walk around as a stupid snake that can't do anything. There is no real jump in the game and the snake thing just jumps when necessary. You can't climb as the alien except where it wants you to and those sequences are just painful. Despite all of this I thought I chose to play as the Predator but I spend more time as the alien.

As far as I can tell the gameplay is about fighting with the camera and then bashing to death anything that isn't you. I could say more but what's the point? This is for fans only 5.9/10.

Eldritch [Windows]

Eldritch by Minor Key Games is a First Person Roguelike, set in a Lovecraftian world. It looks a lot like Minecraft and plays something akin to Dishonored with guns, knives and magic. It's an indie title and it only costs $14.99 USD, if that's got your interest keep reading.

Knowing this was a roguelike I set about my first play quite cautiously. I snuck about, got stealth kills and looted every bit of treasure. Doing this I found the game got a little tedious and I had become complacent at how powerful I felt I had become. So I started running about, killing things in the noisiest way possible and not looting everything. Then the game threw something new at me and I died. When you die in this, you can keep all of the artefacts you have banked and you can keep your progress in the way of unlocked books but everything else is lost. This means items are gone, as well as any progress you achieved without unlocking a book. Artefacts act as your currency as well as fuel for your magic powers and books are your gateway into the next world.

After my first death I wasn't frustrated with the game but rather I wanted to get back at it. I thought I knew how to solve my problem and I had learnt a lot through my first play through. I was really impressed with the way the game taught me things without throwing it in my face. I learnt how to manoeuvre through spikes by watching worms, for example and I thought the game had a lot in store in terms of this. However the game is rather short and this is it's most disappointing feature. I was hoping for an expansive RPG world with lots of items and things to do but I finished the game in one session. You can go back and play the game on an extra hard setting which is a nice challenge but it adds little to the gameplay. There aren't a huge variety of weapons and there aren't many things to learn.

Eldritch has a great atmosphere and loads of interesting ideas but it runs out of steam too soon. This adventure is going to have huge appeal to a small niche of people and I think that's really what they aimed for 7/10.