The game follows the ever-growing popular style of adventure games set by previous titles in Telltale’s history of releases. The gameplay consists of critical dialog choices in order to progress your own individual story with different branching paths determined by how you react to situations. The first episode doesn’t hold many puzzles for you to figure out leaving you with the opportunity to fully focuses on exploration and conversations between characters. It wouldn’t be a Batman game without some form of bad ass fighting scenes, though; we see the return of a QTE system found throughout Telltale’s games, but with an added twist of having to carry out combos during the scenes too, which really keeps you on your toes throughout the action. Much like in the Arkham series of games, the ‘detective mode’ also makes an appearance where you have to solve and figure out crime scenes. Obviously, the bread and butter of this game come from the plot and decisions you make and Telltale have really pulled off an interesting and captivating start for this series.

The visual aspect of Batman is again mimicking the rest of the Telltale series with a gorgeous cell shaded comic book style. Facial expressions and character animations are all on point with the top of the range voice acting to be heard from the whole cast.

There is no difficulty in completing the first episode in this series; the QTEs can easily be repeated if you mess up, and the small amount of puzzles you encounter are easily solved with a little thought. I really like that a lot of the key choices you have to make come with a timer on, meaning you normally have to go with your gut instinct response rather than sitting on your hands for a few minutes whilst you mull over your decision.

Throughout the first episode, there is a small chance to explore a number of scenes, but none of them really allow you too much space to find new areas. There are a number of objects that Batman/Bruce can interact with, but sadly these are few and far between, hopefully, the episodes to follow will allow a much greater chance to explore some iconic scenes such as Wayne Manor or The Bat Cave.  This first episode took me just over two hours to complete which is the usual length for a Telltale episode, so the full series will easily be a ten to twelve-hour experience if that is anything to go by.

Episode one is a great start for this new Telltale series, the story is gripping and interesting to any fans of the caped crusader. You’ll get to relive some of the iconic moments in the Batman story as well as create some new ones.

The post BATMAN: THE TELLTALE SERIES – Episode 1- REVIEW FOR PC appeared first on Digital Logik.

First of all the art style on the show for this game really peaked my interest upon seeing it on the store page. It has a cartoony look to it that also has very dark and mysterious undertones. It completely grabbed me as one of the game’s stronger aspects after playing. Whilst the game’s world and environment are fairly low quality in terms of texturing and design, it still passes the mark due to the very stylized look and feels. Character and enemy models are again very basic, but due to the style, you can overlook the lack of serious detail. The game does have minimal sound effects; none that really stick in your mind, and the same can be said for the rather bland soundtrack too. We get a cheap-out way of avoiding voice acting by just having some monster mumbling over the top of any text you see on screen; this does come across as very boring and lackluster as it was quite clearly done to avoid having to include proper voice acting for the narrator.

Roguelikes and rogue-lite games are usually right up there with my favorite genre of video games. Thus I was super hyped to try out Necropolis, not only was I was drawn in by the game’s art style, but the thought of having a fleshed out roguelike that had a premium price tag also garnered my interest. Most roguelike games we see released nowadays are in the $10-$20 range so given that Necropolis is way above that I had extremely high expectations. Unfortunately with high expectations comes large amounts of disappointment. The game has a similar gameplay to that of Dark Souls in that it is slow paced and takes on the harder difficulty levels. Having hard game play is not the problem here; it’s the fact that the slow gameplay locks you into doing any sort of action until it has completely played out the animation which will more than likely leave you being smashed on by hoards of enemies in the meantime.

The game also lacks any proper progression system, roguelikes are meant to be played over and over again, each time you will get a little bit further than the last due to having a constant improvement in between runs. You do get some sort of bonus at the end of a run, but this only enables you to purchase very boring and unexciting passive abilities in the form of tomes, these passive benefits can be things such as reduced stamina usage when attacking, and a 5% health regeneration between fights. I would really like to see action abilities, or equipment improvements and definitely more interesting passive abilities that you exciting to be getting an upgrade.

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Crush Your Enemies is a real time strategy game, developed by Vile Monarch, and published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment, releasing on PC, Android and iOS in July 2016. The game has a humorous take on the real time strategy genre, the same developers who brought us This War of Mine invites you to a magical world of Generia.

Whilst Crush Your Enemies is part of the RTS genre, it feels a little like a tower defense style game as well, I think this was because of the UI and some of the game mechanics which are on show though. The game is split across numerous levels which have three different objectives. The game has it’s own gating mechanism, meaning in order to progress further in the story you’ll need to complete a specific amount of objectives, which gives you good reason to replay previously completed levels, just to beat the extra objectives on offer. The objectives in each level will vary from straight up wiping your opponent off the map, to defending a building for an amount of time, or even something as simple as making sure you end the level with a certain number of units left.

The actual gameplay from CYE is square unit based; you have a select amount of units to begin the mission with, and you can turn them into different styles of units, simply by entering buildings, units can be guards, armored warriors, archers, or builders. These units count as your resources for building more units. You’ll need to have a constant churn of units being built in order to combat your opponent’s forces. It takes a little bit of skill to finely tune the amount of units for each task but it is very satisfying once you figure out the perfect balance. The game has a very well done tutorial that doesn’t hand hold you throughout, but gives you plenty of helpful hints along the way when you encounter new mechanics. You learn as you play which is the best way of working these games.

On top of resource management for your units, you’ll also get a number of consumables which can be used throughout a mission too, such as potions that ramp up units strengths, quick tents that allow you to build more units if you are in a little bit of a bind, and many more. These do become a little bit of a forgotten part of the gameplay for me though, as the UI has them hidden away in the top corner where you don’t really see them unless you are specifically looking. I thought they could have been displayed a little clearer in the regular UI to allow players to take full advantage of them, rather than realizing at the end of the mission they just struggled on, that it could’ve been much easier with the use of the extra powers.

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Better Late Than DEAD is a survival adventure game developed by Odin Game Studios, being published on Steam in July of 2015 on Early Access.

As we have come all too familiar with the survival genre of games; you start off as a single character, dropped in the middle of nowhere and you are expected to survive. Games of this genre are often a hit from the start or just flop straight away. Unfortunately Better Late Than DEAD does not have a very bright future in my eyes.

Gameplay is…well, almost none existent. I started out in the ocean and had to swim at least five minutes before I got to any sort of land. I spent almost an hour exploring the island, finding a couple of houses, and that is it. Whilst exploring the houses I found that each of them had their own loot, strangely enough, the houses were all an exact copy of each other and the loot was spawned in exactly the same place. The loot that I found were again, everything you would expect to find in this type of game, cans of food, bandages, knives, etc. As far as game play goes, that is it. There is absolutely nothing else to do in this game; I didn’t find any animals, enemies, nothing.

The graphics are bad to say the least; the screenshots really shows the game in a different light to how it actually looks in real time. Awfully low quality textures on almost everything, the water certainly doesn’t look like how it does in the screenshots, and neither does the skybox. On top of the poor graphics, the animation side of the game is horrible; your character has just an awful run cycle that looks like some sort of jelly man was used to rig it – also this game features possibly one of the highest jumping ability I have ever seen in a game, I swear I was jumping up entire flights of stairs in one go… It should also be known, that from jumping, I managed to break my leg in the game twice and die from it once – lord knows how.

At the beginning of the game, I was presented with a cut scene that sets up for a quite interesting story; but that is it. After that intro, I found no other plot elements, or anything. I was particularly disappointed as I would have really liked to have seen more of it. Hopefully the developers will be adding something in via patches in the future on this aspect.

Better Late Than DEAD also has some audio problems. Whilst playing the game, you will have the same repetitive soundtrack playing in the background, and when it loops, boy do you notice it. There is an obvious cut in the track, and it just starts playing again; this for me seemed like a really basic issue which should not be seen in the game, it really ruined the game’s immersion (the little it actually had).

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You play as a middle aged man named Henry, whose wife has sadly got dementia, a crippling illness which tears people’s lives apart. Doing what a lot of people do in this world, Henry runs away from his problems to become a woodland ranger in a national forest. Your job is to mainly look out for signs of a fire in the dry woodlands and help prevent them spreading across the rest of the forest. This should be a calm and relaxing job for most, but you soon become the centre of a massive conspiracy plot as the story unravels.

Gameplay consists of hiking across rough terrain in order to reach objective points, loot supply crates which contain key game play tools such as ropes or walkie-talkies as well as notes left by past rangers which form part of the history of the park and give you some back plot to the story. Another core element to this game is the interaction you have with the only other human you have contact with throughout, Delilah – you maintain contact with her through your radio and talk to her every day. The two develop a relationship depending on how you respond to her in dialog and actions throughout the story. The dialog was probably the most compelling part of this game; the hiking between objectives did actually grow a little tiresome at times and grew very repetitive towards the end of the game.

The story is what carries this game hands down, I’ve been on a bit of an adventure game binge lately and this is by far the most interesting and gripping story I’ve played in recent memory. The relationship and bond between the main character Henry and Deliaha develops throughout the game and you really find yourself becoming completely immersed in this story. The game will leave you asking yourself moral questions too, and of course the ending will allow you to decide yourself on how everything works out in the end. You’ll probably finish the game with more questions than answers, and normally that would point to a case of bad storytelling, but in this case it is simply amazing that a story such as this can bring out so many emotions and questions regarding certain subjects.

Whilst the game isn’t the most graphically enhanced, it does have a nice art style that is pleasing to the eye. The game is ran using the Unity engine so we do get OK looking graphics but some of the texture quality and graphical effects are lacking which let Firewatch down sadly. The voice acting and sound effects are all really good though, again the dialog between characters is spot on and I cannot fault it even for one second in that department.

The post Firewatch Review for PC appeared first on Digital Logik.

Fallout New Vegas was released in October 2010. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic, open world environment around the areas of Nevada and California. You play as a Courier who has been hired to deliver an unknown package to the New Vegas strip across the Mojava Desert. During the delivery, you are captured and shot dead (or so they think). After being recovered by a friendly robot, you are thrust into this massive world which is filled with various different factions competing for control over the land.

This was my first ever experience with a Fallout game; I had previously watched my younger brother play a little bit here and there, and of course I am on the internet, and so it’s always mentioned on popular websites and subreddits so I knew what I was getting into, a huge deep time sink.

Game play is focused around the use of your V.A.T.S for guns, as well melee weapons. V.A.T.S pauses the game so to speak, and allows you to target certain areas on the enemies body. You have a limited amount of action points to use in this mode, so once you aim, you come out of the aiming mode and the character carries out the orders you set. You can then either wait until your action points have been replenished or use free range shooting mode.

As you wander around the desert, you will find plenty of items, weapons, food, drink, books and many more items that will be of use to you in someway or another. Obviously you cannot loot every single thing you find, alas we have a weight limit for how much you can carry on you at any given time. This can sometimes lead to difficult choices to make when it comes to looting heavy weapons or armor. As you progress through the game and get a higher reputation, you unlock safe houses, where you can store your items in fridges, cupboards and desks for safe keeping while you are out traveling.

One thing I was surprised about in Fallout is that there is surprisingly not as much shooting and actual fighting as I had initially imagined. I created my character to be more based around being able to talk his way out of situations, and this cut down the amount of fighting I had to do by quite a bit I think. It was a nice surprise to see this big game take this approach as I have not come across many that have; like wise, you can go guns blazing at all times if you want; although I would hate to see how your story ends out.

The post Fallout: New Vegas Review for PC appeared first on Digital Logik.

Goat Simulator does exactly what it says on the tin; you play as a Goat, You cause havoc wherever you go; trashing, bashing, causing explosions, destroying houses, jumping on trampolines, basically anything you want. With plenty of interactive objects in the game, you can spend plenty of time wandering around never finding a dull moment.

The graphics in goat simulator are really nice. They aren’t on the levels of Evolve or something, but for this type of game, you aren’t really going to be playing for the top of the range graphics. The music and audio are exactly what you would expect here; derpy music in the background as you potter about the city, along with cries of fear from the civilians as the demon goat runs rampant.

There are three different areas in Goat Simulator; each zone is huge, ranging from theme parks, to crop fields, every building has something to do in it, every room has something to interact with or destroy. I honestly don’t think there is anything wrong with either of the levels included here. There is nothing difficult in the game to do here at all. There are no real objectives, just an open world sandbox game where you do whatever you want, whenever you want.

I have managed to put about twenty hours into Goat Simulator; most of this time was playing on local screen co-op with my girlfriend, and then a couple more hours’ achievement hunting, and boy there is some pretty ridiculous achievements to do. Other than the developers openly coming out stating that they would not be fixing any bugs in the game, I had no real game breaking bugs, apart from sometimes falling through the world; however this was fixed easily by just respawning again.

If you want a game that is just purely for messing around in with no real aim and wanting some real stupidity, then Goat Simulator will give you plenty of fun; granted this type of game is not for everyone, I enjoyed it though.

Tom’s Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play

The post Goat Simulator Review for PC appeared first on Digital Logik.

The main game play in Shadwen is quite simply, remain hidden from enemy guards. If you get caught or detected, you will fail. The game’s rewind time mechanic allows you to rectify any mistakes you make really easily and you will make a lot of them. Accidently knock over some glass bottles and alert the guard? Just rewind time and be more careful next time! The game also offers a unique element where if your character is not moving time freezes. This took me a while to get used to as it can be a little disorienting when you are used to the world just carrying on around you when you are idol, but you soon get used to it and are able to use it to your full advantage. It allows you to plot your next movement precisely without worry of being caught, it also makes clambering up buildings and scaffolding much easier as you can pause time and carefully aim where your next grapple hook is going to land.

Speaking of the grapple hook, this will also be a key piece of equipment throughout the game. You can use it to grab onto objects in the environment to cause a distraction for the guards. You can pull crates, shelves, pretty much anything which can be moved around with your hook. This will allow you to slip past guards unnoticed and without brutally killing them. You can even make deaths of guards look like it was an accident, maybe by pulling a box down on their heads, and whilst this does count as you killing them, the guards won’t instantly become alert of any suspicious activity. You will also be able to create traps and decoys too, these more or less will also kill the guard, but in much more interesting ways than just stabbing them in the back, with items such as poison traps and spiked devices.

The aim on each level is to create path safe for the young girl Lily to pass through unharmed. The game right down to its core is essentially a long escort quests, but don’t worry – Lily’s AI is absolutely stellar. She will remain hidden in shadows, boxes and haystacks and not cause you any unwarranted hassle. You can more or less forget about her right up until you reach the end of the level and have to backtrack to clear a path for her. She won’t just walk out in front of guards, or make any noise which you wouldn’t normally expect. I was really impressed with how well Lily reacted to every situation thrown at her such as guards unexpectedly changing their patrol path.

The post Shadwen Review appeared first on Digital Logik.

The main gameplay element in Ryse: Son of Rome is the hack and slash combat. This feels very similar to other action games such as the Batman series, a very simple but fluid action system means you have no problems taking on hordes of enemies, as you weaken your foes, you get the option to perform an execution on them – this prompts for a small quick time event as you have to press the corresponding mouse button with the colours on the screen, carrying out an execution every time you can tends to make the gameplay feel very repetitive though; it’s nice for the first few times but it soon becomes the same over and over again. You are able to learn different variations of executions through the upgrade menu, allowing you to purchase upgrades using the experience points you have earned, ironically though performing executions. On top of being able to upgrade the executions, you can also add the points into more passive talents such as straight health upgrades, or adding a multiplier to the amount of experience points you earn. If you are like me and you don’t really like learning combos and such, the passives tend to be more the attractive options here.

There is a hint of strategy involved in Ryse: Son of Rome too; a couple of battle scenes allow you to command orders to squads of men, such as ordering archers to cover a flank, or ordering the catapults to aim on different targets – these are few and far between however so don’t go into this game expecting a really in depth strategy element. The larger scale fights are really impressive though, one scene which stands out the most to me would be where you have to defend a castle against an oncoming barbarian army, whilst it is completely reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings scene in Helms Deep but has some really action packed gameplay as you avoid incoming fire bombs, preventing enemies from scaling the walls by kicking off their ladders and tackling any enemies which make it through.

Ryse: Son of Rome has some excellent graphics – this is one of the first “next gen” games released, and it really does look next gen; it looks almost photo realistic, the characters look real and the environments which the game is set in look absolutely stunning. There are a couple low quality textures but nothing you will really notice unless you go out of your way to find them. All of the animations are perfect too; the fluid combat system allows for some exciting fight scenes as you string together plenty of combos.

The post Ryse: Son of Rome – Review appeared first on Digital Logik.

Duelyst is a multiplayer turn based battle game, released in April 2016 worldwide, as a free to play title. Developed by Counterplay Games. This team had members in who worked on the Ratchet and Clank series, and the main developer of Diablo III.

Gameplay is a really easy to understand concept. You start off with a deck of cards, drawing a new card each turn.  Turn based style combat, with the use of mana points to cast various spells or summon minions to aid you in battle. The combat system is really simple, your creatures and generals have an attack stat, and a health stat. You simply do the attack stat in damage, they do theirs back in a counter-attack, and that’s it. It would have been nice to see some sort of bonus if you are attacking from the rear or flank though.  Even though the game is turn based, it is still relatively fast-paced. A single battle will last between 5 and 10 minutes. This means you can find yourself 10 battles in to your session before you even realise it. The deck building aspect isn’t really very prominent unless you purchase extra cards through the microtransactions store. I found the decks you start with to be more than capable in the multiplayer mode, maybe if you want to reach the really higher ranks you may need to drop a couple of quid here and there to get extra cards though.  There are hundreds of cards to keep you collecting for a long time though.  The player’s General, comes in the form of one of six different classes. Each of the classes has a significant level of variety in the way you play through different abilities and deck archetypes.

Duelyst’s visual style is just gorgeous. A wonderful, colourful retro feel. The background location look remind me very much of Bastion. The sprite models are again, a really simplistic style, pixelated, but pixelated with care and passion. One of my favourite looking games to come out in 2016 so far if I am completely honest. There isn’t much to talk about in terms of character animations, as they are all pretty much 2D.

The game’s tutorial system is excellently put together, you find yourself being able to complete the tutorial in a matter of minutes and after completion, you have pretty much learnt all there is to know. It is just down to you to put your tactful mind to use and master the system. I really liked the solo challenge mode which gives you a certain target and an allotted amount of turns to do it in.  This almost always turns out to be a sort of puzzle game, but it is a nice additional game mode when you want to try something different to the core game mode. That core game mode is the ranked ladder. This is the PVP mode where you take on other opponents across the world. Finding a match only takes a matter of seconds, and you can work your way up the ladder within an evening’s worth of progression.

The post Duelyst – A Mix Between Hearthstone and Final Fantasy? appeared first on Digital Logik.

I am however not going to write this as a positive review, simply because the game has marked me as cheating. Firstly I haven’t even touched the multiplayer mode of Black Ops III – anyone who reads my reviews or checks my profile will see I have absolutely no interest in the multiplayer side of this type of game. I was playing the single player campaign, in offline mode.

Secondly, I wouldn’t even know HOW to cheat, even if I wanted to. But one matter which really irks me is, even if I was cheating in single-player mode, why would anyone get a ban for that in the first place? Surely bans from playing multiplayer games should come when you play multiplayer? People who know me will know I am not that sort of person, where as people who read this will probably think I am just throwing my toys out of the pram. Believe who you wish at the end of the day. Heed my warning though.

Due to the lack of any support from Steam or Treyarch themselves, this will be the absolutely last Call of Duty game I ever buy, review, or even lay my eyes on. After doing some research into the matter, many people have been experiencing this issue, even people who play online, who just happen to be on a server with a cheater have received a ban as well.

I’m sorry Treyarch – take your game back to the consoles.

Tom’s Score Card
1) Stay away
2) Not Recommended
3) Only recommended when on sale
4) Recommended
5) Highly recommended
6) This is a must play

The post Call of Duty Black Ops III – The Last COD Game I Will Ever Play appeared first on Digital Logik.

The major difference with Smite over other MOBAs is that you play from a third person perspective, and plays with the same sort of controls as other third person action games. The game is very arcade like in that the majority of your abilities are skillshot based rather than selecting a target and having your character auto aim for you. The game has over 70 different gods to play as, each having their own unique play style, abilities and characteristics. There are at least seven different game modes to play in, Conquest, Arena, Joust, Assault, Siege, Clash, and Match of the Day. My favourite mode out of them all has to be arena. The matches take no longer than 20 minutes, and the players that take part in them are genuinely really nice to be around. Being a fairly novice player at Smite compared to a lot of people, I felt that Conquest, which is considered the main game mode, had a much more hostile community vibe to it with more abuse and flaming coming out of chat than any other mode I played in. As with most MOBA type games, your characters equipment plays a key part in how well you perform, and Smite is no different. There is a wide variety of different gear to choose from, allowing you to play your character however you choose.

Smite is built using the unreal engine 3.0 technology, which provides graphics full of detail and presenting a higher graphic level than most MOBA games. The character models are all high in detail and really well animated using rag doll effects. The game’s sound effects are OK, you have to pay extra for your characters voice pack, but you still get a little bit of flavour speech here and there.

The tutorial system at the start of the game does a very good job of explaining the games main mechanics and explaining the main game mode, and I felt it got me to a sufficient skill level in order to jump into the main online game. I have been playing for about ten hours so far, and I am at that point where I can quite often find myself at the top of the kills score board, and having the least amount of deaths too. I am not saying I am absolutely amazing all of the time, but I don’t feel as if I am being carried by my team anymore and doing more good than not. This is the sort of game where practice makes all the difference – the more you play the better you’ll get.

I can honestly say I am completely hooked on Smite, and have been playing it for the past week every night after work.

The post Smite – My First Proper MOBA Experience! appeared first on Digital Logik.

The game starts with your character being super overpowered, with really rare equipment and dealing tons of damage, giving you a sneak peak into the type of end game content you have to come. But yes, you do get nerfed back down to the regular level 1 RPG character, in your rags and sticks for swords. You are able to choose between a number of different classes, or vocations as they are called in DD. On top of being in control of your character, you will also gain a party of up to three more “pawns”, these too take on specific roles in the group, such as tanks, damage and healers. I found this to be a really nice addition to the game as I wasn’t expecting such mechanics from an RPG game like this. The party controls and management system is basic at best, but the AI is fairly in tune with what they should be doing, and the two basic controls, attack and follow, are both really responsive as well.

The combat system in DD against the smaller style of enemies is very generic hack and slash, there is no real special combos or special abilities to come across, The warrior class is probably the most basic class to play, but is probably the one I would recommend for your first play through. Where DD’s combat system really comes into its own, is when you get to scale larger enemies, such as giants, and cyclops. This allows you to climb onto enemies backs and swing at them to deal more damage. This is a feature that I haven’t really seen incorporated into combat systems in recent memory, the last time I remember coming across it is in Shadow of the Colossus.

You can definitely tell this game was ported from the consoles as the graphics are average at best. The game is pretty poorly optimized as even though the graphics didn’t look brilliant, I wasn’t able to get the full 4k effect. The character models look pretty good once you get some more interesting looking armour and weapons to equip. Animation across the game is of a high standard though, with the regular combat hack and slash animations looking very cool when you can couple a few attacks together. You can get some really nice visual effects through the draw distance of the PC version of the game being superior, with some really nice looking environments when you are out in the open world. This is a game which is completely voice acted, all to a really high standard as well.

DD is a pretty hard game, even on the lower difficulty throughs, you will have challenges. You can really run into high level enemies without realizing it’s too late and your attacks do no damage at all.

The post Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen – Review by TeamTom appeared first on Digital Logik.

Stardew Valley is heavily influenced by the Harvest Moon series. At the start of the game, you are left a plot of land by your grandfather. When you arrive at this land, you will find it overrun with weeds, trees and rocks. Your aim is to clear this area and restart a farm that will make you money. There is a heavy focus on character interaction too. Allowing you to converse with plenty of NPCs around the town and develop relationships which can sometimes result in marriage. This has benefits to your farm as the NPC will also help out around the plot too. As you grow your farm day by day, you will unlock new ways to generate money, whether it is from simply growing crops in the fields, selling fish, or your livestock. The game also has a questing system which will also generate extra revenue for you as well.

The game’s day night circle is really a key feature in the game too. You will soon realize that there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Not only are you battling against time, but you are also up against an energy meter too. I wasn’t that keen on the energy meter because literally everything you do burns the meter down fairly quickly. When you start out the game and are just clearing away weeks, you will perhaps get 5 minutes’ worth of clearing done before your character is out of energy and has to go to bed in order to regain it. You can regain your energy in other ways but the conventional way is just to head to bed and wait until the next morning. The game’s fishing system is also a little cumbersome too, it’s a small mini game when you head out to the waters to catch some fish; I personally found this a little too unforgiving but some may find the difficulty on the fishing feature to be a nice addition rather than just pointing and clicking.

Normally I am not a fan of this style of graphics, but Stardew Valley has just the right amount of character to make this work for me. The game’s vibrant colours and beautiful sprites just make everything click together. It really does remind you of the Harvest Moon series of games, but has its own unique charm to go along with it. The sound track for this game is also exquisite too, so much so that you can purchase the sound track individually too. The game’s ambiance sounds are wonderful too. This is one of the few games where I think not having voice acting worked in its favour, because if it had been done wrong, it could of spoilt the whole game for me.

This isn’t a hard game as such; it is just a time management game, and a waiting game for the majority of the time.

The post Stardew Valley – Thank You ConcernedApe appeared first on Digital Logik.

Mark of the Ninja places a high emphasis on stealth. You are able to see how much noise your character makes by moving, or carrying out a certain action by a circular area showing so. Noise can be used against you, or to your advantage, such as creating a distraction to enemies to allow you to pass by. The game does have a combat system, but it is on the basic side. The combat is essentially a small QTE, requiring you to press the button shown on screen in order to carry out a clean kill of the enemy. You are able to use the environment against your foes too, such as cutting a chandelier to fall onto your enemies head, turning on electric wires to shock them, and many more creative ways to cull the bad guys.

Throughout the story mode, you are able to unlock extra mechanics to use, such as sliding kicks, hanging attacks or new tools to use out in the field like smoke bombs. You can upgrade these at any of the upgrade points in the game, using the talent points you have earned.

Visually, Mark of the Ninja ticks all the boxes too. Even though it is only 2D, you can see how much care and attention has gone into making this game look as good as it has. The backdrops in which you are in are gorgeous, plenty of awesome looking characters and bad guys too. Every single bit of animation looks spot on too. All of the characters move so fluidly it is almost perfection. The narrator and all other voice acting are done to an extremely high standard as well.

This game is by no means easy. You will at times find yourself almost rage quitting at how difficult certain stages are. Some points almost feel impossible until everything just clicks into place. That is what I loved the most about this game. Whilst there is an element of luck involved in a lot of situations, the main points always come from how skilfully your carry out kills, and distractions. If you practice enough, you will eventually heighten your reflexes and senses to allow you to progress.  Upon completing the game, you will unlock the New Game+ mode, which is seriously one of the hardest gaming experiences you will have. Enemies become more intelligent, they will kill you in a single hit, your line of sight is limited to which ever direction you are facing and you no longer have the radius area around you to show how much noise you are making. If you want a challenge, this game mode is certainly going to be for you.

The single player story mode took me just over 18 hours to complete.

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I am a huge trading card game fan, on a daily basis I play at least three hours of Hearthstone, and have played Pokémon and MTG in the past too. Star Realms is a game which instantly took my fancy from the screenshots. Once you get your head around how to play the game, which sadly the tutorial doesn’t do a fantastic job of explaining things, it is a really simple yet addictive card game.  I love the deck building side of the game since you can pick and choose exactly how you want to build your deck depending on the type of opponent you are facing.

You start each turn with at least 4 or 5 cards in your hand; you can play all of your cards if you choose, this in turn gives you damage points, and resources to choose another card to add to your deck. Games start off quite slowly but soon ramp up to some pretty high numbers being thrown around.  It sounds really simple when it is explained properly, but somehow the tutorial manages to over complicate it to the point where it is almost as easy enough to teaching yourself how to play by just jumping into the game.

The game’s art style is in a pretty generic sci-fi theme. You can quite clearly see the game was designed for a tablet, as the UI is pretty poor for a PC game. The clunky designs of menus are a little off putting. The UI in the game itself is OK, you can see all of the required information fairly easily, but again it is very “tablet-fied”. The audio is pretty sub-standard too, sounds like some stock sci-fi music playing in the background with some fairly generic sound effects too. Although these aren’t all massive pointers for a card game, I would still like to have seen an average attempt at these elements.

Star Realms is being advertised on Steam as a free to play title, but really, it’s simply a demo for the full game. The single player campaign mode is gated after the first chapter, which is only five levels itself and you cannot play multiplayer without buying into the full game. Alas I did actually make the purchase of £3, 99 to get access to the full game, because I was having a really good time playing and wanted to play more. Sadly after purchasing I was greeted with an error message of “401 Unauthorized” and no way to exit out of that screen other than ALT F4ing. A few people on the forums seem to be having the same problem too which isn’t too promising, so I have requested a refund until the developers can come back to me/solve the issue.

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Unfortunately, in this day and age, we spend much more time in front of our monitors than we do in front of a menu. But that doesn’t mean we want to drink less, right? We like to game, and we like to drink, but does that make all pairings equal? We didn’t think so. Just like you shouldn’t drink a heavy beer with light fish, we don’t believe every drink goes with every game.

So we, at Digital Logik Gaming, ran extensive tests to determine what was the best pairing of games and drinks. And we’ve provided our findings below. That’s us, always doing our homework.

(Keep in mind, we aren’t advocating that you should drink while gaming. We only believe that if you are drinking and gaming, you should do it right.)

Shooters (First and Third Person) – Red Bull Vodka

With its potent mix of high intensity and demanding skill, shooters embody the top tier competitive game. These games demand your constant attention and coordination, and so are paired with an alcoholic beverage that can assist you in that. The energy drink mixer makes red bull vodkas one of the few drinks that can enhance your reflexes. Additionally, with the short respawn timers in most FPSes, you don’t have all day to sip on your drink, so the high alcohol levels in red bull vodkas allow you to keep playing while maintaining that buzz.

Sports Games – Beer (domestic)

Nothing says it’s game time like a frosty and frothy beverage. Beer and sports go together like Mario and Luigi, and that is true the world over. So whether you are playing Madden, or Football Manager, or Nascar or MLB The Show, no other drink will up the realism like a Miller or Bud sitting next to you. And it makes sense too, as sports games can have longer match times and often have a slower pace than other genres. Drinking too heavily early means that fourth quarter comeback you were planning is going to turn into a fourth quarter beatdown. So put down the hard alcohols. Nothing fancy needed, thank you, just give me that liquor store domestic beer and let me whoop ass.

Role Playing Game – Red Wine

RPGs aren’t for everyone. Some people can’t stand the slow pacing, contemplative nature of an RPG, and a JRPG can be even more decisive. But those that enjoy a good RPG often find it is the only thing that can satisfy them. Similarly, red wine isn’t for everyone. From the heavy tannic taste of a Cabernet Sauvignon, to the spicy Malbec, red wine is an acquired taste that not eveyone has the patience for. But the heady aroma and deep flavor can blend perfectly with the deep storylines and character development in an RGP.

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Progressing through the game unlocks new abilities and areas. There are also new enemies and puzzles that provide opportunities to use these newly acquired skills, so the game becomes more complex and harder. Compensating for the difficulty, the game allows you to respawn from numerous checkpoints or whatever ledge you fell from. This prevents frequent deaths from breaking the game’s flow, and allows the player to learn from failure and quickly adapt to overcome a hard part.

I hate excessive dialogue in games, but fortunately Guacamelee! has just the right amount. It has enough to move the story along and even work in some comedy, but it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. This is necessary in a game where parts must be repeated until gotten right. Having to scroll through the same dialogue over and over again just to get to the point you failed at before is an annoyance from an obsolete era of gaming.

Guacamelee! is not without its flaws. It can be a bit repetitive at times and get slightly boring, but it’s not enough to hinder the gameplay significantly, and the soundtrack and colorful animation inspired by traditional Mexican folklore give it a unique style that almost had me buying this game on looks alone.

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I enjoyed Gone Home despite it lacking typical aspects of a “game.” The main character is a girl who’s just returned from traveling abroad but there’s no one home. By scavenging the house for clues, information is revealed at a steady pace until the main plot is resolved. During this process, details about her family are uncovered, forming several subplots that I assumed would tie together. While only the big question was directly answered at the end, speculations can be made about the others.

Set in the 90s, the game is packed with nostalgia; from SNES cartridges to magic eye posters (that actually work). It’s a great touch and it got a few laughs out of me, but the real value is in the mystery of the story. Curiosity kept me going, and the game kept giving me just enough motivation to keep pushing through it. At two hours it’s a little short, and I would have liked to have seen more about the parents and uncle. For $20 I can’t recommend it but if you catch it on sale, definitely pick it up.

If I had to rate my level of enjoyment on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be a 6. The brevity really killed it for me, but it’s a solid story and probably deserves a higher rating. Either way, Gone Home is a great debut by the Fullbright Company, and I’m looking forward to whatever they’re next project may be.

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Metro: Last Light is a very linear first person shooter, incorporating stealth and resource management. Neither of these seemed necessary when playing on normal difficulty, so for the intended experience, I’d suggest a harder mode. It paces itself well; shifting between slow moments of atmospheric storytelling, faster paced combat and the occasional boss fight. But the FPS side of this game is not it’s strongest attribute. Your character never levels up in any way, or gains any new abilities (unless you count night vision). Aside from increasing the Kalash’s ammo, the weapon modifications made little difference on any of the wide selection of guns. If you’re looking for a shoot’em up gibfest, this isn’t the game; but certain mechanics enhance the realism and improve the experience. The best example of this being the gas mask, which the player must put on when going above ground, replace when damaged, recharge with scavenged filters and wipe off when covered with blood, debris or water.

The part of this game that really shines is the storytelling, or more specifically, the tone. It’s classified as horror, but it lacks the jump scares and excessive gore one might expect from this genre. Instead it has a more mature and suspenseful disposition reinforced by the dimly lit yet detailed level design. Unlike a run and gun shooter, Metro: Last Light encourages the player to patiently explore it’s environment, taking in the scenery and appreciating it. Notes revealing more of the story are randomly scattered throughout the levels, forcing the player to search in areas that would otherwise be passed without notice.

Graphically the game is great, considering the budget this studio had. Sure, the character animation is a bit stiff and the child voice acting is awful but the character models are good enough to not distract from the story and, like the movie Gravity, this game is a rare example of a product that becomes a different experience when using 3D. I’ve found 3D becomes tiresome in most games and I turn it off after a while, even 3D Vision Ready ones such as Metro: Last Light. But I played all 10 hours of this game with Nvidia 3D Vision enabled and it intensified the immersion in a way that couldn’t be accomplished otherwise (most notably when the gas mask was cracked or dirtied). As unpopular as 3D gaming is, I’m glad I have it for games like this. It’s also worth noting that the game runs on Mac as well as Linux.

I don’t like moral choice (karma) systems in games, but I don’t hate them; and there are ways of ameliorating them. One such method, employed by Metro: Last Light, is to hide it completely from the player, allowing them to make organic decisions during gameplay.

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