GrumpyDan

The Mario brothers are back, moonlighting as a pair of doctors whose medical credentials are as questionable as their plumbing skills. Considering we’ve never seen Mario do so much as write up an estimate for a new en-suite, watching him throw a cocktail of drugs into a bottle of viruses in the hopes of eradicating them with enough blows to their tiny, germy noggins isn’t too far-fetched. Luckily, he has the help of a new Miracle Cure this time around, so you can relax - he’s still a few years away from wiping out the species. Probably. There are three modes in the game. The Miracle Cure Laboratory lets you play through a total of 50 stages, split over a tutorial, basic and advanced levels, that introduce you to the various Miracle Cures. You’ll play a mixture of the series’ standard Dr. Mario mode, the Wii U’s Dr. Luigi mode - which replaces the pills with L-shaped capsules - and vs. mode that pits you against the AI. While the single-player mode will top you up with Blasters, Zappers, and Exploders, the vs. battles will let you sabotage your nemesis with Reversers that invert the controls, Lockers that disable pill rotation, and Boosters that increase the speed of falling capsules. Rather than seeking out a destitute Willy Wonka - down on his luck in a grotty back alley - for a handful of these confections, you just need to fill up the Miracle Cure meter. This feat is laughably easy to achieve, as every time a pill hits the bottle, the meter starts to rise. Chains and combos speed up the process, but the game is as eager to push them on to you as the aforementioned Mr. Wonka, desperate for enough cash to cover a straw of special sherbert and the warm embrace of an Oompa-Loompa for the night. If it all looks like it could get too samey, fear not. Progress is kept interesting with juiced-up game speed and varying amounts of viruses festering in the bottle, along with increased focus on certain aspects like chains and combos, or a particular Miracle Cure. These levels are engineered to hone your skills and familiarise you with the mechanics, as is common practice with Nintendo games. The Custom Clinic lets you choose between Dr. Mario, Dr. Luigi and Germ Buster mode, tailoring the level of viruses and game speed to your tastes. Overall, Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure is solid enough, and while it’s not **** in its originality, the nuances in gameplay brought about by the Miracle Cure power-ups and the addition of Dr. Luigi mode - whether you want it or not - has certainly livened things up since the last time the plumber donned a white coat in Dr. Mario Express. How a couple of so-called handymen are continually able to pull off this charade is anyone’s guess. It’s almost as mystifying as a plumber whose first instinct upon seeing misplaced piping is to squat on top of it.

Lets dismiss the rumor that this game is Pay 2 Win, it actually isn't anywhere close to it. If you were to personally ask me what P2W is, I'd say, "Games with weapons or unlockables (Generally ones that give you an advantage or are just overpowered) not obtainable through playing the game for free, instead using real world money to unlock it." How this game works is entirely different, you get loadout cards, now while you might think, "Oh, well that must mean that everything Silver and Gold is better than things that are Bronze." This is not correct, every Now with these loadout cards, you also get different weapons. These weapons on the loadout cards will change how you play your character. By default you have good loadouts, you can destroy anybody with the basic loadouts so long as you can aim, your guns make you, not your perks. You can get a different gun for every rarity of loadout, even the worst rarities come with guns that can change how you play by a lot, but for the most part all the guns are relatively balanced. The crafting system is next and it's pretty simple, put in cards you don't like of the same rarity and get the next loadout rarity up, you also select any of the characters that you want a loadout specifically for. Essentially trade up contracts in CS:GO. Pretty easy to understand, gives you another chance at randomizing and it's a way of letting you get loadouts that are Silver and higher without the RNG chance, however the weapons and perks are randomized each time. With that being said, if you find that you can't be bothered to open up cases for 1000 ingame credits, you can simply save up enough to just buy a bronze loadout that you like. To end this I'm simply going to put it. The game is fun, not Pay 2 Win, and it's starting to take up time I would spend playing Team Fortress 2.

Sonic Runners. Simple enough premise: Sonic and friends run to the right and collect gems and rings through an obstacle gauntlet of spikes, enemies, dash rings, pits, loops–you name it. At the end of each segment, Sonic encounters Eggman hauling a stash of goodies and is tasked with smacking that old greedy capitalist of all his money for your own purposes. Then the level speeds up and repeats with a more difficult layout. Rinse and repeat two more times to max speed until you eventually die. Throughout this, you’re treated to very simple stories of Team Sonic helping out Animal friends, lost Chao, and even scared groups of Wisps in their battle to stop Dr. Eggman from whatever anti-environmental/furry critter plot he’s hatching for that chapter. It may sound like I’m complaining or ready to just eviscerate the game, but this isn’t the case. The game would be INSTANTLY improved just by removing forced online and removing the life limit. As it stands now, Runners is a good core game buried under so much garbage that it chokes the experience. You’re almost better off spending the money for Rayman Jungle Run and its sequel since it does what Runners here tries to do without any of the stupid overhead. You can even play it without being connected to the Internet! What a concept! I don’t know why I’m so disappointed with the game. It could just be frustration of the usual Sonic Team mantra of “one step forward, three steps back” that makes being a fan of the series really frustrating, especially considering this is the “big” Sonic game of the year. If you can get through the layers of garbage Sonic Team piled on the game, you may find yourself hanging around, but it becomes an exercise of patience as, unlike Sonic Dash, spending real money does not make the advertisements go away. So, until SEGA and Sonic Team can get their head straight, limit down the amount of “freemium” gimmicks, optimize the game so it doesn’t chug, and focus on the strong gameplay they have.

Ultimately Game Dev Tycoon feels like a polished and very absorbing online flash game. Especially considering I played one once about setting up your own game dev company a while back. I have to admit, it’s an addictive little game that eats away at your time. The giddy thrills received from getting rave reviews, along with more and more fans, is equal to the thrill of any racing game, shooter or beat ‘em up Although this review sounds negative, it’s only because Game Dev Tycoon definitely shows potential, it just feels a little barren at times. But if business sims are your jam, this pocket-sized version is definitely worth the cash.

Taking place across the striking milieus of Auraxis, Daybreak Games’ colossal MMO shooter charts the trials and tribulations of an all-out sci-fi conflict between three warring factions: Terran Republic, New Conglomerate and the Vanu Sovereignty. After swearing allegiance to a cause of your choosing, it isn’t long before you’ve crafted a character, selected a class, and been shipped out onto the battlefield — little more than a pawn on the galaxy’s biggest chess board. Moreover, friendly fire remains an issue and there’s little variation in the armor between you and your sworn enemies. Players do have the ability to tag a visible baddie so that they’re highlighted for your allies to target, but more often than not, you’ll hear “stop shooting, we’re on the same side!” echo around the battlefield quite regularly. Now, with such a huge install base, there’s plenty of trigger happy soldiers who will damage friendlies and dance to their own tune; though when you accidentally empty a clip on an ally, accumulating a fair share of Grief Points in the process, this lack of identity can be pretty frustrating. Overall, though, PlanetSide 2’s unique selling point remains its inordinate, at-times-mind-boggling scope. Engaging in The Great Auraxian War is a truly liberating experience, giving you free reign to experiment with classes and different strategies without adhering to a set round time limit. By the same token, this persistent set-up does mean that the concept of winning is somewhat abstract, with victory coming in small, periodical doses rather than one triumphant swoop. Rarely does a game resonate with me enough to keep playing beyond review, but for PlanetSide 2, it feels as though my journey is just getting started.

J-Stars Victory VS + is a larger than life, over the top, arena-battling, special move extravaganza that has finally reached us in the West after being out for over a year in Japan. The previous version was released on the PlayStation 3 and the Vita, while this will be the first to grace the PS4. The release also coincides with the 45th anniversary of the “Shonen JUMP” magazine and the 20th anniversary of the “V JUMP” magazine. For those uninitiated among us, the JUMP magazine brought us Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Dragonball Z, Naruto and Bleach. For those of us who love any of these series and characters, you’ve probably already got this penciled in to be added to your collection. After spending a reasonable amount of time with the likes of Yusuke and Gon and Yuffy, let’s just say at this point I’m still to be convinced of its magnificence. The Developer, Spike Chunsoft, should be applauded for not just taking the opportunity for an easy cash grab. What you are promised from the beginning is a huge roster of characters to chose from, and that each of them will be bringing their own showcase special moves and frenetic energy to the table. There are a number of modes to keep you playing, too: the story mode itself gives you a choice of four different paths you can follow alone. The Motion Chapter focuses on Luffy, the Hope Chapter on Naruto, the Research Chapter on Toriko and the Pursuit Chapter on Ichigo. You spend your time navigating a three dimensional map using a sailing ship, visiting different areas and worlds that are all parts of the Jump Universe. This is so you can face other fighters and fulfill quests so you can build up your team, with the goal of winning the J-Battle Festival. The story is really just an excuse to show off the 39 playable characters and the 13 support characters available. The three dimensional semi cel-shaded glory then erupts into a contained arena, with destructible scenery and one character under your control while the CPU controls everyone else. Support characters can be summoned to deal out additional damage when required and will need time to recharge after their offensive strikes. The action is frantic and breathless at times as you attempt to knock out the other team in order to fill in the victory bar. You have your bread and butter basic attacks to chip energy off your opponents, more powerful attacks that you can string to create impressive combos that will shatter buildings and slice apart giant peppers. Yes, you read that correctly. One of the levels will easily help you achieve your five a day. The irony being that, through all its faults, J-Stars Victory VS + has an undeniable charm because of the obvious love of the source material. Taking part in all the mini side quests involving your ship and exploring the land is a decent break from the frantic battles, and the dialogue is often amusing in its own kitsch way. When the battles flow and Naruto is taking names and kicking ass then yeah, I can totally understand the love this game will get.

There are some wonderful moments and features in Watch Dogs; but also plenty of tired tropes and trappings that should’ve been left firmly in the past. The plot focuses on the high-tech exploits of Aiden Pearce, hacker and self-styled vigilante. He’s a bit of a dullard, really, and prone to occasional bouts of hypocritical self-reflection (in between shooting men in the face, and running down hobos). Before the action starts we learn that Pearce and his partner Damien get involved in a risky hack job at a hotel, a mission that goes hideously wrong and ends up with an unknown villain retaliating against Aiden. His niece, Lena, dies in the crossfire and so begins a classic tale of one man’s quest for answers / revenge. For all the game’s reliance on tech, it’s the basest of human emotions that drives the story forward, which is either a clever nod from the developers or a lucky coincidence. Ubisoft Montreal, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on this one! Story-wise, the game is mostly dud. All the characters are unimaginative stereotypes, with thin motivations and forgettable personalities. Hacker chick with piercings? Check. Sinister, elderly villain? Check. Gang leader with a stupid name? Check. The plot itself is a mixture of predictable twists, dressed up with strange leaps of logic and enough technobabble to make Bill Gates soil his beige chinos with delight. At first glance, the game’s setting appears as shallow as its inhabitants. Chicago is a lively mixture of ****, slums, and the token ‘countryside’ bit--sadly inferior next to the wonderfully colourful, sun-drenched San Andreas of GTA 5. Look closer, though, and the city’s true beauty becomes apparent. It’s densely packed with details, hidey-holes, and some utterly dark secrets--many of which you only start to discover once you start poking around side-missions and optional quests. Perhaps my favourite moment in the whole game happens when I cause a mighty car crash, and see a couple of ghoulish pedestrians taking videos of the carnage on their phones. It really brought the game alive for me. The only real reservation I have about Watch Dogs’ Chicago is that--during the majority of my 40+ hour playthrough--it was either dark or dull. In rare moments of sunshine the game looks beautiful, really showing off its new-generation credentials. Vehicle handling is very heavy in the game, and unless you hop on a bike or high-end sports car, most rides feel the same. That’s no bad thing, as you’re less likely to fishtail out of control when you’re fleeing the fuzz. It’s also a little less twitchy than other open-world games to make on-the-road hacking easier to do--a welcome trade-off. There’s an immense joy in zipping through traffic lights, hacking them, and watching your pursuer smash into the confused drivers behind you. It’s so satisfying, that the game even cuts to a crash-cam when you’ve timed it to perfection. Then there’s the multiplayer, which is incredibly well implemented. Most features are integrated into the single player, and you get a pop-up message allowing you to accept or deny invites. Nice touch--sometimes you just want to be left alone. If accepted, other players enter your game to play one-on-one hacking games, races, or police chases. Watch Dogs’ interconnected world is a wonderful, explosive, high-tech playground. Shame the people who inhabit it are so forgettable.

Westerado is a good game with a lot of replayablity. There are tons of missions, bounty hunting, and exploring the map. The combat is by far the best idea I've ever seen, you are able to reload your bullets one by one if you wish or all at once, it has a decent selection of guns, rifle, shotgun, etc. Also the best part of the game is, during any conversation you can just pull your gun out on them. It gives the player a freedom most dialog choices don't. Get this game, its a gem.

As anyone who struggled through Orphen on the PS2 will tell you, the first RPG of a hardware generation is rarely an impressive experience. The vast amount of content that needs to be created for your average dungeon-crawler also makes them quite rare in the first year of any console. Bound By Flame neatly solves this problem by having so little content you could write the plot on the back of cereal packet and still have room for a large picture of Snap, Crackle and Pop laughing and counting your money. Bound By Flame desperately wants to be Mass Effect, with its interpersonal relationships, moral dilemmas and gritty dialogue, but it manages to mess it up every time. Take the character creation screen: you can pick your character's name, but everyone calls you Vulcan anyway. I went for a female character, only to discover that everyone called her 'lad' regardless. And while it may seem like a minor point, it's sad that the only hairstyles available for girls are soccer mom, skinhead and Miley Cyrus. Enemies seem to level with you, so you never really feel like a badass, and there's barely a single bad guy that can't be defeated by running around its back and hammering the square button for a few minutes. The loot drops are particularly disappointing. Pretty much every monster in the game drops nothing but crafting materials and there can't be more than 50 weapons and armour pieces to find in the whole game. What's worse is that none of them feel significantly more powerful than any other. Bound By Flame is also notable for having the most expensive shops ever seen in an RPG; after playing for three hours and without spending a single penny, I'd amassed a grand total of 127 gold pieces, which was enough to purchase three small health potions from one of the greedy vendors. imply by staggering across the finish line first, Bound By Flame may seem to be an attractive proposition for PS4 RPG fans, but don't be fooled. With its shonky cut-scenes, its outdoor sound effects that play indoors and its linear maps, this is in no way a current-gen experience. It's a budget offering at a premium price - and a poor one at that.

Invisible Inc is an amazing game. I've been playing it over the past 2 weeks, and the more I play, the more I like it. Currently have 45 or so hours clocked in the game, which is actually the second highest playtime of any game in my Steam library! It's also one of the most addictive games I have played in recent memory that keeps drawing you back for more. Those 45 hours were played in under 10 days. Anyways, the gist of the game is that it is a punishing "rogue-lite" turn-based strategy game, with a heavy emphasis on stealth. It draws inspiration from XCOM Enemy Unknown and has got similar interface, but the core tactical gameplay is very different. The game's campaign can be completed pretty quickly (on your first try on Beginner, you should do it in under 4 hours), but this game has been thoroughly designed with increasing difficulty levels in mind. From Beginner to Experienced, and then to Expert, you should get three complete runs at least, each offering a unique playing experience. Also, you will die a lot, particularly when you get to expert, so the game makes you learn from your mistakes to improve future runs. I myself played the game on Beginner first, then after 15 or so tries I got through Expert, after which I played Expert Ironman and finally completed Endless 5/10 days in the same run. The game's levels are always randomly generated. Initially, I didn't like this, cause sometimes you can be dealt an unfair hand and the level generated could be extremely difficult to traverse. But eventually, over time, you learn to deal with it. There's an element of risk vs reward. Do you go slow, at the expense of your alarm tracker increasing **** do you go faster, at the expense of being spotted by the enemy? Even though I've played for 45 odd hours, there are so many unique combinations of augments, programs, items and weapons that the game has got an incredible room for experimentation. Since all of these are randomly obtained or bought along the way, you always have to adapt your playstyle, and as such, the game doesn't become boring or repetitive. There are 4 different enemy corporations, each of them having a different unique threat, so that adds to keep the game fresh as well. There's also around 7 or 8 different mission types, and you have to make your choices count on which mission type to select, based on your needs. When I played the game on Beginner at first, I liked it. Then moving on to Expert, I found it too frustrating to the point I was almost going to stop playing. However, once I cleared that hurdle and moved on to Ironman and Endless runs, I have grown to absolutely love the game. Recommended if you like turb-based strategy like XCOM, and/or if you like stealth games, and/or if you like challenging games that punish and make you learn from your mistakes.

Back in the Old Days a game called Carmageddon splatted onto our screens and into our hearts. This is a pretty faithful reboot of the days gone by. That said, it hasn't aged well, the game still feels unfinished, and takes an ages to load even from an SSD. As a Backer I am disappointed in this game, it could have been so much more. The new race types are a nice change, but the game balance seems rather broken, cars are simultaneously too fragile and too tough, sometimes a light bump is all they need to explode, other times cars can take massive impacts, mines and mortars and cheap kicking. Speaking of power ups, they are just many flavors of the same thing with cosmetic differences, and most are pretty useless. R.I.P Carmagedon, see you in the next life.

Leave any reservations at the door before playing Postal 2 and you're in for a good time. Cut people to pieces, light them on fire then urinate on them to exinguish the flames or stick a cat on the end of a shotgun and fire away. Or don't do any of this and just be a nice, normal citizen. In this game you're The Dude, going around doing things like collecting milk and a paycheck, but something always manages to go horribly wrong and you're forced to murder everyone in your near vicinity. It's like a poor man's Grand Theft Auto, without the driving, constant cinematics and only mimimal social commentary. Damn good fun for anyone who doesn't have a stick up their butt and the expansion packs and recent DLC are all great also.

It's fun for an hour or two but it gets repetitive really quick. Almost every level it's just "kill innocents"and then "kill cops/soldiers". Controversy aside (and the game isn't as bad as the media made it seem to be), it's just a boring top-down shooter with average gameplay and a pretty decent use of destruction physics. And incredibly hard, sometimes. Visuals could be better too, considering what the Unreal Engine 4 can do. If you want to give it a try, wait for a sale, it's not an horrendous **** it isn't a good one either, even though recent patches did solve some issues

Fallout Shelter probably isn't the mobile Fallout game you were hoping for. It's a building game very much from the Tiny Tower school. You're in control of a vault, and you need to make sure its inhabitants are happy and prosperous. There are nods to the main series here, from the cartoon aesthetic to the monsters that occasionally burst in through the floor, but this is a game with both feet firmly planted on the casual side of the line.

HOLY KNOCKS BATMAN! This game is a complete masterpiece. The city Gotham and it's islands hadn't been better, bigger and scarier. They are now! This game is filled with jumpscares that scared my socks off! Joker is back, but in an interesting way, not going to spoil it but he is so funny as hell. I think this game is bigger than GTA V, content-wise (around the same as Witcher 3.) There are so much side missions, from rescuing Gotham's firemen to capturing Batman's most iconic villians. The Riddler side-missions are unforgiving and they work your brain quite well. The story is great (cannot spoil a great and fabulous story!) Around 7 hours of story missions and gameplay, in fact more for the unexperienced players The voice acting is superb, in fact, maybe the best in Rocksteady's trilogy. My favorite is main antagonist Scarecrow, he just sounds EPIC! Kudos to Rocksteady for closing the Arkham saga with a bang!

This is an good (not great) game, the multiplayer and the other game modes are simply fun. The graphics and visuals are very colorful. I question the super-hard difficulty (even in Easy mode.) The Sweet Tooth cameo is awesome, I truly hope for more cameos for DLC. The controls are a bit complex and sometimes clunky. The gameplay is mostly inspired by FIFA, except you control one character, instead of the whole team. Like I said, the difficulty problem is the biggest con of this truly fun game. I played one full match with the CPU, the others, I raged quit. I truly loved the online experience. I played a hundred matches on launch day. This game sounded good on paper, but didn't quite transfer well to the game engine