Tag: Review

  • Review: Return to Grace (PC)

    Review: Return to Grace (PC)

    Playing Return to Grace had me thinking back to when so-called “walking simulators” were still a divisive topic. Video games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, or Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture – in which the narrative, characters, atmosphere, and audiovisual experience take precedence over mechanical complexity.

    On one hand, it’s a design that benefits Return to Grace, making for an immersive experience focused on the narrative pay-off. On the other, I was reminded of how fine a line this genre walks between compelling and boring if the pacing and length are even slightly off the mark.

    Return to Grace is a first-person narrative adventure that places you in the environmental suit of Adie Ito – an archaeologist exploring a frozen and stormy Ganymede in 3820 AD, searching for an ancient AI “Grace”, held in god-like reverence.

    She was an AI that led humanity into a golden age of peace and expansion across the solar system before her disappearance, a thousand years before, triggered a new dark age with many technological innovations and record keeping lost.

    This is a genre that thrives on strong storytelling and Return to Grace, despite retreading some familiar ideas, offers up an intriguing setting, quirky cast, a briskly paced mystery to unravel, and plenty of optional environmental storytelling and world-building.

    Times have clearly changed since Grace was the caretaker of humanity. Travel throughout the solar system is no longer commonplace as Adie has taken a risky, 300-day journey to get to Ganymede. It’s a one-way trip but she claims everything of value to her on Earth is gone. Record keeping from a thousand years prior is so limited she had to rely on centuries of oral histories to pinpoint the location.

    Even before I appreciated the divergent nature of the narrative, I was already sold on the setting, and I wanted to discover more about its take on the future of humanity.

    Thankfully, that “future history” element is integral to the present investigation-based story; it comes up when Adie comments on the technology she witnesses in the spire; and it often features in her conversations with an entertaining selection of AI personalities she discovers on her journey.

    Shortly after arrival, she awakens “Logic” who – alongside “Control” and “Empathy” – form core components of Grace’s identity. The problem is they’re old back-ups that have little knowledge of what led to Grace’s shutdown, what happened to the people that maintained the spire, or how her interactions with humanity evolved over time.

    What they do have is unique personalities, system permissions, and thoughts on how Adie should proceed. As she pushes on, they create amusing hybrid personalities – for whom Adie picks some choice names – that help her circumvent new obstacles.

    It’s not obvious at first but Return to Grace‘s most significant narrative mechanic is how it tracks your decisions. The consequences can feel a little rushed given the 3–4-hour runtime, but there are a few key moments where Adie can push forward instead of exploring, take risky shortcuts instead of the safer path, or allow the AI to perform certain tasks for her. These decisions feed into evolving AI responses and (if we exclude one obviously bad ending) lead to minor ending variations that felt appropriate for my choices.

    Return to Grace‘s biggest issue – and this is one shared by all games in this genre – is what you’re doing mechanically is rarely that engaging.

    You explore and move at whatever pace the game dictates; you sit around listening to lengthy conversations that block your ability to interact with anything until they’re finished; you push or mash a single button to trigger scripted traversal moves or optional commentary; and sometimes you engage in pattern- or memory-based puzzles that require little mental effort. Crossing balance beams, briefly controlling a crane, and melting ice with a flame-thrower is about as wild as it gets.

    Thankfully, Return to Grace’s brisk runtime – coupled with some choice comments from the AI if you do get stuck – make this less of an issue and the compelling world had me hacking every door and audio-log I could find for more details. That said, it didn’t make the process of trudging around larger areas, repeating door code inputs, and twirling Adie’s glove to line up sync points a dozen times feel any less repetitive or tedious.

    Return to Grace’s brevity and strong storytelling are its saving grace. It kept me hooked over two evening sessions and I only started ruminating on the weaker elements just before the credits rolled.

    I wanted to find out more about the past events by sifting through the deserted spire; I wanted to hear every one of Adie’s comments on the current state of humanity; I was fascinated by the AI personalities and their attempt to dissect her motivations; and there were moments of doubt that had me wondering if Adie’s quest was misguided.

    If you’re in the mood for a brisk, immersive, thought-provoking adventure with a lightly divergent narrative, and you can accept the somewhat limited and repetitive gameplay loop, Return to Grace is a great addition to the genre.

    Pros:

    • An intriguing setting and briskly-paced mystery to unravel
    • Thought-provoking conversations and ending variations based on your actions
    • A likeable cast with quality voice acting
    • Atmospheric environments and soundtrack

    Cons:

    • An over-reliance on a handful of simple, repeated mechanics
    • The short length makes some AI relationships feel rushed

    Score: 8/10

    Return to Grace was reviewed on PC using a code provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on Xbox Series S|X and PS5.

  • Retrospective: Vaporum (2017)

    Retrospective: Vaporum (2017)

    I love Vaporum and many of the classic games that inspired it, but it’s a difficult sell to newcomers. Clunky, archaic movement limitations and artificial grid-like environments – elements you might criticise in any other modern game – are core gameplay features and, if you buy into the nostalgic aspect, all part of the charm

    Vaporum is a retro-inspired but infinitely more accessible modern “blobber” – think first-person dungeon-crawler, usually party-based, and with RPG elements. You trudge around labyrinthine grid-based levels, searching for keys, solving puzzles, hunting for secret areas, avoiding hazards, and defeating enemies to progress between floors. It’s a wonderfully contrived game world that makes little sense unless the primary purpose of the facility was to frustrate and/or kill its researchers.

    Events take place entirely within a massive steampunk tower, in the midst of a raging and stormy sea, though figuring out who the protagonist is forms part of the early mystery. The ominous tower beckons them in and although they know they have some connection to it, everything else is a blur.

    As you explore, a combination of written notes and scratchy audio logs spur on their memory, leading to revelatory monologues that slowly reveal the truth about their past and the present research into a mysterious substance known as “Fumium”. It’s a dated but effective approach that works in a game not particularly suited to conventional cinematics – though I wish there was a little more world-building to flesh out events beyond the tower.

    Although many games in this sub-genre – from 1985’s The Bard’s Tale to 2017’s StarCrawlers – shift into turn-based combat when you encounter a foe, Vaporum uses the real-time approach first pioneered by 1987’s Dungeon Master and almost perfected by 2012’s Legend of Grimrock. Unlike many of its predecessors – and one of the reasons it received multiple console ports – is that is Vaporum is not “party-based” and doesn’t rely extensively on an emulated mouse cursor in combat.

    You control a lumbering exoskeleton rig – a sensation not dissimilar to Delta in BioShock 2 – with four starting classes to pick from. These range from pure offence to pure defence, with a few unique perks and 10 gear slots that can be configured without restrictions. There are two offensive slots that can either handle one-handed maces, blades, or pistols combined with a shield, or a single but powerful two-handed weapon. You unlock up to four “gadget” slots that provide elemental damage or support abilities akin to spells, and there are four armour slots to mix and match attribute-boosting gear.

    Fumium gained from destroyed enemies goes towards increasing your rig level, unlocking circuits to invest in a dozen linear skill trees that cover weapon types, energy generation for gadgets, elemental damage and resistance, and general survivability. Each point invested provides a useful but incremental upgrade, while the third level provides a minor perk, and the fifth a choice between two major perks.

    On the whole, it’s a versatile and adaptable system that replaces multiple less-specialised party members. It also feels reasonably balanced given you can only max out 3 or 4 skill trees in a single playthrough. You could prioritise damage output to quickly remove threats; turn yourself into a physical and elementally resistant tank that reflects back a huge portion of damage; or pick a middle ground.

    Whatever your choice, exploration, puzzling, and indeed the combat all hinge on understanding and navigating the grid-like environment, rather than simply increasing your level and gear quality – a design many seem to ignore when you consider the number of videos with players retreating into a corner to just trade blows with enemies.

    Vaporum can look and sound great despite its relative simplicity. The throbbing, clanking, and hissing industrial-steampunk setting is a perfect match for the artificial grid-based world. That said, Vaporum is at its most boring when you’re plodding down claustrophobic corridors or backtracking to a locked door, moving past hundreds of near-identically-textured walls and floors.

    You move block by block in any direction relative to your view, which you can swing 90 degrees at a time. Free-look is great to scan for nefariously-hidden switches and objects, and you’ll engage in some light inventory management and menu-ing to use key items.

    Thankfully, what it lacks in fluidity, it makes up for with purpose.

    When you’re forced to move quickly to hit switches, dodge floor traps, or engage in combat with multiple foes, you’ll come to appreciate the convoluted but engaging movement system that forces you to be actively aware of your position in grid space.

    There are times you need to dash between multiple switches by picking the most effective route. Other times you’ll be dashing between safe spots to avoid fireballs or pit traps. Far too much time is spent shifting around large boxes around to open a path. No matter what you’re doing,

    When it comes to secret hunting, the predictable and repetitive grid-like nature of the environment is both a blessing and a curse. A quick look at the map often reveals blank spaces that hide a secret room but opening them can mean hunting for the tiniest differences in a common texture. It’s worth the effort though, as powerful gear, consumables that permanently increase your basic attributes, rare upgrade circuits, and even revealing documents are common rewards.

    Battling on a grid can feel a bit limited at first and, so long as you’re up against a single enemy and have a 2-by-2 grid space, it’s possible to simply shuffle around them and get in free hits as they transition or reorient. Vaporum attempts to spice things up by giving some enemies projectile attacks, quick strafes, area-of-effect attacks, knock-back attacks, and sideswipes, but one-on-one battles are always survivable if you’re patient.

    In contrast, group battles – especially those with hazards thrown in – will quickly tax your powers of observation, planning, adaptability, and reflexes. Vaporum is perhaps too fond of locking you in rooms, resulting in combat that feels like an awkward dance as you avoid being boxed in, try not to strafe into a hazard or AoE attack, dodge crisscrossing projectiles (or lead enemies into them), clear space to trigger a repair kit, and line up priority targets.

    It’s often chaotic and unpredictable but if you keep a clear head and have a decent sense of spatial awareness, it can be a lot of fun and you’ll often come out on top.

    So, six years on from launch, and 36 years since Dungeon Master introduced real-time combat to the formula, Vaporum is an interesting mix of old designs with more modern sensibilities. The PC version feels most intuitive to play but the console ports are great, irrespective of which platform/s you own.

    I strongly recommend it for dungeon-crawler and RPG fans, though I’d hazard a guess the audience will always be niche. That said, if you can wrap your brain around the grid-based structure, Vaporum provides a weirdly compelling mix of methodical exploration and secret hunting, plenty of mentally taxing spatial puzzles, and high-intensity combat that requires you simultaneously plan and react.

    Screenshots were captured on the Nintendo Switch. Vaporum is also available on PC, Xbox One/Xbox Series, PS4/PS5.

  • Review: The Riftbreaker (PC and Xbox Series)

    Review: The Riftbreaker (PC and Xbox Series)

    At first glance, you might think The Riftbreaker – developed and published by EXOR Studios – is a simple hybrid of twin-stick shooter and base-building/tower-defence game. To an extent, that’s true, and a skilled player could always draw aggro away from their base and limit the need for extensive defensive structures. However, The Riftbreaker also packs unexpected depth, with hundreds of research options, dozens of building and player upgrades, and the ever-present need to expand and protect resource-generating operations. The Riftbreaker provides plenty of entertainment in short-bursts but can also feel unforgiving and tedious when you mess up and need to recover.

    Story

    The narrative, outside of a flashy opening cutscene, is minimal and stretched thinly over hours of playtime. You take control of captain Ashley Nowak, a “Riftbreaker” – think scientist/commando hybrid – in an AI-powered mecha-Suit called “Mr. Riggs” as they emerge from a one-way jump to the lush world of Galatea 37. Earth is barely liveable, and humans are rift-jumping to distant planets to find resources and establish new colonies. She’s tasked with securing a foothold and building a massive “Rift Station” that will allow two-way travel between Earth and Galatea 37. Of course, things are never easy, and the native species are not happy with the intrusion. Aside from infrequent banter between Ashley and Mr. Riggs, which fleshes out Ashley’s ideologies and past a little more, this overarching objective and the need for rare resources to construct the Rift Station is all the context you’ll get to push forward.

    Galatea 37 is a massive, procedurally-generated world full of potential resources and danger – from both the environment and local lifeforms. Early on, you’ll gain the ability to perform short-range jumps to scout and set up new outposts, but you always need to maintain your starting HQ.

    Gameplay

    Controlling Ashley in her mecha-suit is a breeze, with a familiar twin-stick movement and aiming setup. This makes early exploration an enjoyable foray into the unknown, but you’ll eventually have to decide on the location of your HQ and engage with the base-building, resource-generation, and horde-defence mechanics. The world is filled with finite resource pockets – some immediately apparent, several uncovered through research and scanning – and the continuous generation of these resources is essential to making progress. Carbonium is your basic building material used to craft new structures and gear. Ironium is needed for defensive structures and, most importantly, ammunition production. Cobalt, Palladium, Titanium, and Uranium are rare resources needed for advanced structures, crafting designs, and – in huge amounts – your ultimate goal, the Rift Station. Liquid resources, like water and magma, are essential to the functioning of advanced structures, which can, in turn, produce artificial resources, like coolant and plasma, for even more advanced structures.

    All the basic, advanced, and defensive structures you can build require considerable power, which can be produced using solar panels and wind turbines (susceptible to environmental conditions), Carbonium powerplants, biomass generators, geothermal power, and even nuclear reactors. Of course, the ability to build advanced base structures, upgrade them for greater efficiency, or craft and equip the multitude of weapon and mech-suit upgrades, requires researching your way through three massive, multi-tier technology trees. Research speed becomes a major obstacle to progress and can feel painfully slow at times – unless you can support multiple power-guzzling Communication Hubs. Naturally, all these structures require space, and making more space means your walls and defensive network is spread thinner (an HQ location with some natural barriers is a must). You’ll quickly discover the need to run power nodes to distant resource-producing outposts, which are then more vulnerable to horde attacks. You could surround them with walls and powerful, specialised turrets but that means more power, AI cores, and resource-hungry ammunition factories.

    So many structures and so little space! Thankfully, most structures can be upgraded to make them more efficient, but you’ll still need a sizeable base, with a strong defensive perimeter, packing dozens of power-producing structures, refining and beneficiating resources for advanced structures to complete the Rift Station.

    If this is all starting to sound overwhelming, it can be. Although not as granular or deep as games like Factorio or Satisfactory, I can’t help but feel The Riftbreaker has been untruthful in its marketing campaign. Resource production and beneficiation, coupled with power generation, underpin everything you do. As a result, it’s possible to get it very wrong and find yourself struggling to recover. As an example, an early push for automated Repair Towers seemed like a great idea, until I realised they were chewing through my resources faster than I could replace destroyed structures and defences, forcing me to run about manually disabling them. This frequent need to repair and upgrade structures also highlighted the variable gamepad support. Exploration, combat, and menu navigation are solid with a gamepad, but the precision placement of structures or trying to mass select them for upgrades is problematic (and nigh-impossible under pressure). The base building feels more intuitive using a mouse and keyboard, and this is an option for console players if they have the hardware.

    Having hopefully conveyed the complexity of resource production, construction, and research, you’ll be relieved to know exploration and twin-stick combat is far simpler and instantly gratifying. Movement and shooting feel great, making it easy to kite hordes, dash out the way of larger creatures, and thin the alien ranks before they break upon your walls. The mecha-suit can handle three swappable weapons per arm – ranging from swords to chain guns, flamethrowers to rocket launchers – which can be upgraded to higher tiers or modded for extra elemental damage. There are passive equipment slots and active abilities to enhance your combat skills and survivability, all of which can be crafted with the right research and sufficient resources. If you’re after a more hands-on approach to base defence, you can prioritise the weapon technology tree and create a walking tank. Many of the upgrades in the alien technology tree become essential once you’ve constructed the Orbital Scanner and begin away-missions to secure rare resources in hostile environments (think heat, radiation, volcanism, and corrosive clouds). Given the ceaseless demands of your primary base, these away-missions to explore and establish distant outposts are paradoxically stressful and relaxing.

    So many things to research, so few communication Hubs, and constant power shortages… Waiting on research feels like an excuse to go out and explore more, but there’s only so much entertainment to be gleaned from clearing respawning alien mobs from the local area for upwards of 15-minutes at a time.

    When the environment isn’t trying to kill you – and there is an inordinate number of natural phenomena on Galatea 37, from calm moon phases to damaging hailstorms – it’s the myriad of alien species. These range from basic Zerg-style cannon fodder to lumbering organic artillery and – sticking with the StarCraft analogies – seemingly advanced, cloaked and bladed warriors. Each environment – lush jungle, scorched desert, icy tundra, or volcanic waste – has several unique lifeforms (not all hostile) but they fill similar roles when it comes to assaulting you or your base. Despite Ashley’s apparent desire to study and conserve Galatea 37’s original environment, frequent hordes and respawning alien clusters ensure she butchers hundreds of them on any given day. Combat is less stressful than resource production and base management to be sure, but it’s frequent enough that you’re rarely able to explore for more than a minute without shooting something. On the upside, it’s a great way to hoover up biomass, uncover hidden resources using a scanner, find new species for the alien technology tree, and several unique power or gear designs.

    Presentation

    When it comes to the presentation, The Riftbreaker looks and sound great for most of the experience. The world feels ridiculously detailed, vibrant, and packed with moving and reactive parts – think foliage, liquid pools, and destructible terrain. Firefights against large hordes in forests are a particular highlight, with projectiles tearing through vegetation, while explosions send shockwaves through trees and grass. That said, it can be easy to lose track of Ashley’s mecha-suit in busier scenes. The Riftbreaker can buckle during massive horde attacks but proved scalable on PC and even performed well on the budget Xbox Series S, about 95% of the time. The audio is also a highlight, with loud and impactful combat and a catchy soundtrack that starts serenely before escalating based on nearby threats. With only two voiced characters, Ashely and Mr. Riggs have plenty of exchanges, often cheesy and overwrought. Thankfully, the voice-acting is not too bad and you don’t hear it all that often.

    The Riftbreaker’s environments are vibrant, detailed, and reactive but it’s easy to get lost in the visual chaos. Large hordes can drag down the framerate on PC and console, but the experience was smooth for the bulk of my playtime.

    Notable issues

    A lot is going on in The Riftbreaker at any given moment and you’re rarely given any downtime (even after delving into the heavily customisable difficulty settings). This ensures the world of Galatea 37 is less a mysterious space to explore, and more of a pretty canvas on which to build and murder things. On one hand, the procedural generation ensures each new location – be that a permanent outpost or once-off scouting mission – can throw up new challenges and sights. On the other hand, I wish there was a little more structure to the narrative and lore, rather than needing to read hundreds of journal entries. Maybe some handcrafted scenarios to test your construction and combat skills, as in the They Are Billions campaign. Other irritations include the aforementioned gamepad support and the need to manually upgrade structures once you’ve researched new tiers (a thousand wall segments being a prime example).

    Conclusions

    Considering each mechanic in isolation, The Riftbreaker is packed with interesting systems but the learning curve, balance, and pacing often feel off. It’s a game in which you’re constantly hitting roadblocks – some of which present an engaging challenge, while others simply require you to sit around until you have enough resources or research completes. It’s possible to find yourself desperately reconfiguring your base to balance power supply, resource production, and resource consumption, while constantly stopping to fend off hordes and likely racking up more damages. There is an audience for this sort of challenge and, despite pointing out these challenges, I could not stop playing. However, I think there’s an even larger audience who’ll pick up The Riftbreaker looking for a twin-stick shooter with streamlined base-building elements, only to find themselves bogged down in base micromanagement and making little progress. That said, The Riftbreaker can be a ton of stressful fun – just so long as you know what you’re getting into.

    Pros:

    • Fluid and responsive twin-stick shooting
    • Tons of research, buildings, gear, and upgrades to unlock
    • A lengthy, involved campaign across a procedurally-generated world
    • Visually stunning with decent performance on PC and Xbox Series consoles

    Cons:

    • Variable gamepad support
    • Waiting around for research to complete
    • Exploration = incessant combat

    Score: 7/10

    A review code for The Riftbreaker (PC) was provided to gameblur by the Publisher. The Xbox Series S/X version was accessed using an Xbox Game Pass subscription.

  • Review: Frostpunk – Complete Edition (Xbox Series)

    Review: Frostpunk – Complete Edition (Xbox Series)

    At long last, console gamers can get their hands on the “Complete Edition” of Frostpunk – an engaging, mechanically deep, and often stress-inducing steampunk city-builder with a focus on surviving the elements. Make no mistake, the original console release of Frostpunk is still a great game, but the expansions introduce some much-needed variety to the basic formula. These expansions change how you think about the geometry of your city, introduce new victory conditions, and shift the focus from self-reliance to trading with other settlements.

    Despite only offering three introductory cutscenes (one for each of the major story scenarios), Frostpunk feels far more narrative-driven than many games in the genre. Each scenario is, in essence, an opportunity to craft your own story. There are technologies to research, laws to pass, encounters in the surrounding “Frostlands”, and plenty of player-choice in how you’ll deal with the demands of your people, refugees, and other settlements. This all comes together at the end of a scenario – if you survive – with a montage that provides a timelapse of your developing city while recounting your key decisions.

    Attempting to save everyone has its risks when resources are scarce. Then again, that’s 35 workers, 18 engineers, 7 children that could be put to work…

    Did you establish faith to drive your people forward in the face of hardships or to crush dissent? Did you care for the critically ill and provide burials for the dead, or did you triage mercilessly and eat the corpses when the great storm arrived? Did you care for and educate children, or did you put them to work collecting coal in freezing temperatures? Although all choices offer a mechanically advantageous outcome and shift the numbers around, the narrative context adds weight to your decisions.

    Of course, in any survival game, the complexity of the underlying systems is what dictates its success or failure. The narrative context is a nice touch, but Frostpunk would hold up just fine without them thanks to the myriad of systems you’ll need to consider and balance if you want your city to survive. Heat, food, and shelter are your primary concern. If you can get the basic layout of your city and resource-gathering operations in order quickly, a contented populace and victory are inevitable. Naturally, nothing in the frozen north is that easy.

    “The Arks” scenario, which has you trying to preserve four seedling arks, was one of my favourite scenarios. It’ll quickly teach you the importance of automating resource collection and upgrading the range and power of your central generator.

    In most scenarios, life revolves around your coal-consuming generator and the warmth it provides (there’s no nuclear power in this alternate history). An optimal city expands radially, ensuring subsequent upgrades to the generator keep an ever-larger area warm. However, the more efficient your generator, the more coal you burn through. The more coal you need, the more coal-producing industries you need. The more industries you have, the more citizens you need to employ. The more citizens you have, the more housing, food, and medical care you need to provide.

    A new player is going to quickly find themselves overwhelmed, even if they set all the customisable difficulty toggles to easy. The urge to expand, recruit survivors, and generate more resources is alluring, but your citizens have numerous needs that need sustaining. Fail to keep them hopeful, or let discontent swell, and you’ll find yourself exiled to the Frostlands. On the other hand, researching and constructing expensive automatons gives you a 24-hour workforce that never gets hungry, never falls ill in cold temperatures, and doesn’t object to your ruling style. Both are viable paths to victory, but both require careful allocations of resources.

    Few things are more terrifying than watching your coal produced vs. coal consumed graph shift into the red. You’ll find yourself scrambling to shut down workplace heaters and secondary steam hubs, hoping you don’t end up with a sickly population the next day.

    Of course, building up your city is only half the story. If you’ve researched the right technology, most starting locations offer an infinite source of coal, wood, and steel. However, it’s rarely enough to sustain a large population and decreasing temperatures (which plummet to -100° Celsius during storms), while simultaneously dealing with frequent demands to remedy housing, heating, and medical issues. There are two additional ways to keep your population hopeful and reduce discontent: passing new laws and exploring the Frostlands with scouts.

    The Book of Laws typically offers two variants of any provided law, one callous but effective, the other compassionate with fringe benefits. There are basic “Adaptation” laws, which include choosing between burials or corpse storage (for later “use”), establishing care homes or allowing radical surgical treatments, and putting children to work or educating them. As you advance, you unlock “Purpose” laws – allowing you to chose between Order and Faith. Naturally, the end-game for both these branches of law is authoritarianism, but Order focuses on security and suppressing discontent, whereas Faith focuses on maintaining the hopefulness of your population.

    Your first storm is an experience to behold. Even a near-perfect run could go to hell in an instant if you failed to stockpile enough food or establish strong coal production lines. Temperatures plummet, areas away from your generator freeze, and your population becomes critically ill in droves.

    Sending scouts into the Frostlands is another way to influence your city, bringing people hopeful (or depressing) news and rare “steam cores” required for efficient high-tier buildings. The system is simple and requires little micromanagement, but distances and travel time in the Frostlands are always an issue. Nearby locations can reveal survivors, supplies, or the fate of other generator cities (and almost always reveal two or more new locations to visit). You’ll want to keep your scout teams active all the time, as their discoveries – especially resource caches – can provide a means to get out of trouble fast.

    Ultimately, Frostpunk is a game about learning the ropes, one step at a time. Failure – and you will fail – is an opportunity to take what you’ve learned, apply it to your next attempt, get something else wrong, learn from that experience, and eventually master each mechanic on your way to completing a scenario. You can save at any time but Frostpunk is a game in which failures can be days in the making. Thankfully, scenarios – aside from the “endless” ones – are only a few hours long, so you’ll rarely feel frustrated at starting anew.

    I initially thought The Last Autumn would be my favourite expansion, with no damn snow and heat management, but abundant supplies mean nothing if you can’t keep your workforce motivated and London satisfied with the construction progress.

    Like many survival games, Frostpunk suffers from gameplay becoming rote once you’ve established an optimised build order and this is why the console Complete Edition is a great choice (or the expansion pass if you’ve already got the base game). “The Rifts” expansion – along with several of the “endless” scenarios – spices up the city-building element by forcing you to expand to adjacent land using bridges. The perfectly circular city structure and comforting glow of the generator are no longer guaranteed.

    “The Last Autumn”, which serves as a prequel during the early stages of global cooling, tasks you with constructing a generator. Temperatures are mild, illness rare, and resources abundant, so maintaining the motivation of your cynical workforce and hitting construction deadlines becomes the new challenge. To manage this feat, you need to find a careful balance of new Administration and Labour laws. “On The Edge” serves as a sequel to events in the main campaign, tasking you with the management of a new outpost – sans generator – entirely dependent on “New London” for food supplies and establishing laws. However, New London quickly becomes antagonistic with their demands, and you’re given the choice to scout the Frostlands and establish supply lines with other settlements or try appeasing their unfair demands.

    There’s a decent photomode if you want to capture your fledgling city in its best light. Despite the battering it took, my city survived the great storm, if only due to the fact citizens were more forgiving of food shortages than a lack of warmth and a massive spike in frostbite amputations.

    One slight disappointment is that Frostpunk is yet to receive an official next-gen upgrade. Make no mistake, it can still look great and feel incredibly atmospheric as you watch your torch-wielding workers wade through the snow while howling winds whip back and forth. However, the image looks distinctly soft on a large TV and has plenty of aliasing in motion. Dense ambient city sounds and grumbling workers add to the atmosphere, ensuring your city feels alive, rather than just a visualised spreadsheet. That said, when temperatures drop and troubles multiply, it can be a pain identifying individual structures in a large city and the interface becomes increasingly cluttered. The game does have a pause-time function so you can tinker at your leisure, but it’s times like these I’d found myself missing the mouse and keyboard. Frostpunk Game of the Year Edition is available on Steam, and this is quite an enticing package if you’re more PC gaming inclined.

    Minor visual and control gripes aside, the Frostpunk Complete Edition on console is still a fantastic purchase for fans of survival games or city-builders that demand a lot of planning and micromanagement. It is, however, an incredibly stressful game and might not be for everyone. If you’ve got the patience to carefully think through every move and plan well into the future, and the temperament to make tough decisions that will keep (most) of your citizens alive, there are few survival-focused city-builder experiences like it.

    Pros:

    • A strong, emergent narrative component that’s uncommon in the genre
    • Challenging but fair survival mechanics that often requires making hard decisions
    • A stiff learning curve but individual scenarios are short enough to encourage multiple runs
    • The expansions add plenty of content and much-needed variety to the basic formula

    Cons:

    • Possibly too stressful for some
    • Picking out individual buildings can feel finicky on a gamepad

    Score: 8/10

    Frostpunk – Complete Edition was reviewed on Xbox Series using a provided to gameblur by the publisher. It is also available on PC and PS5.

  • Review: Song of Horror (PS4)

    Review: Song of Horror (PS4)

    Travel with me, if you will, back to the 1990’s when survival horror titles were all the rage. When pre-rendered backdrops presented an immense amount of world depth and tank controls were just another challenge to be overcome. To the days when Resident Evil and all its sundry impersonators were the juggernauts of our nightmares and thrilled us late into the night.

    Time has moved on since then, with the likes of Resident Evil reinventing itself into a brand new Juggernaut, yet the thrill of those games remains ever vigilant in our nostalgic memories, providing moments and scenarios that we still talk about enthusiastically today. Even if replaying them in the light of modern amenities removes some of their sheen and lets us realise that some things were best left in the afterglow of our memories. Not that we would ever really admit that.

    If this longing for the gloried past of survival horror games still has a hold on you, then look no further than Song of Horror for this retro-inspired title has all the goods. Developer Protocol Games brings back the heyday of 90’s survival horror games, warts and all.

    Set during 1998, Song of Horror begins with the disappearance of author Sebastian Husher. Sent by his publisher to find him, Daniel Noyer soon disappears as well and it’s up to a varied group of individuals to find both him and what happened to Husher and how it all seems to tie into a missing music box. Before long our protagonists find themselves haunted by a malignant supernatural presence. Spanning five episodes, it’s up to you to find the origin of the curse and hopefully, some way to nullify it, before you’re dragged screaming into the darkness.

    If you’ve played any survival horror game in the last two decades, then you’ll know exactly how Song of Horror plays. You’ll investigate each location for clues and items to use to solve the puzzles around you while reading the notes left behind to further the story and explain why each location is devoid of human life. Because Song of Horror focuses on a cursed music box, sound plays a vital role in the game. If you choose to run, the noise you make can attract the entity, known as The Presence, to your location. This adds a wrinkle to how fast you can get through each location to the game’s overall mechanics. Paying attention to the noises around you are vital to your survival. One of the mechanics of listening at a door to what’s behind it before you open a room, will save you from many instant death moments.

    And these moments are frequent, depending on the difficulty you choose. Song of Horror is littered with instant death moments and trap locations. If you hear crying behind a door, then it’s not a good idea to enter the room, as is pulling the tarp off a strangely covered mirror in a storage room or sticking your hand into a bathtub full of grotty water. Song of Horror is designed with permadeath in mind, meaning you can lose the character you’re playing with permanently if you’re not careful. Lose all the characters or the main one for the game and you’ll have to restart the episode. When a new character enters the fray, you can pick up the previous characters items where they perished.

    With four difficulty settings to choose from, each named after a horror writer such as M. R. James and Edgar Allen Poe, determine the games severity. Higher difficulties have more shock encounters and permadeath is a feature of all, with one caveat. The easiest difficulty lets you load up a checkpoint save when a character dies to just before that fatal moment if you’re not in the mood to lose anyone. With Trophies for completing each episode without losing a character and for completing each episode with every character available for that scenario, gives completionists a reason to replay.

    The game has no combat as you can’t fight The Presence. The most you can do is hide from it or interact in mini-games that have you trying to slam a door closed in time while it’s trying to break through or to control your breathing while hiding from one of its manifestations. Knowing your surroundings is important so that you can get to a cupboard or beneath a table in time. Hiding spots do get scarcer as the game progresses.

    Song of Horror places you in familiar haunted locales; an abandoned manor, a mental hospital, an empty apartment block, etc. The scares are also of the traditional haunted house variety, though there’s definitely an Asian horror vibe to many of the manifestations and blink and you miss it moments.

    Though the game uses static camera angles for its environment, the environment itself is fully 3d modelled and is one of the games strongest assets. The set dressing is absolutely superb with Husher Mansion and an antique shop looking absolutely gorgeous in the amount of detail and clutter present. Character models look good, but don’t quite measure up to the environment around them.

    Sadly, for a horror title, Song of Horror isn’t actually scary. Dealing with The Presences attacks becomes rote unfortunately. However, where the game does succeed wonderfully, along with its sumptuous environment details, is in atmosphere. With the use of sound as a warning trigger, the developers have managed to craft a sense of tension and expectancy that permeates each area as you’re always waiting for the shoe to drop, as it were. The palpable sense of dread and suspense is wonderfully realised, something even movies often struggle to get right.

    Song of Horror does have some issues though. First is the character’s movement and speed. Close to “Tank Controls” are the order of the day, making characters a bit of a chore to get used to. Controlling them is tricky with a turn radius that can get you stuck on objects in tight locations or go the wrong way at times, especially when a camera change occurs. Then there’s the character speed which can be frustrating. When you’re being chased by a nigh unstoppable force that can disembowel you with ease, you should be taking off like the Road Runner and not like a geriatric on a Sunday walk down by the lake. This is a peeve I have even with modern horror titles that feel like a slow walk through a museum when you should hot-footing it for your life.

    Finally there’s the game’s bugs. While not game breaking at all, there were plenty of instances of enemies spawning in the floor, characters walking through doors and in one instance Daniel’s torch not syncing with the character as you walk.

    With an atmosphere seeped in tension and dread that can have you holding your breath, Song of Horror more than makes up for its lacklustre scares with gorgeous set dressing and an intriguing, Lovecraftian story.

    Pros:

    • Gorgeous set dressing and environment design
    • Intriguing story

    Cons:

    • Bugs
    • Tank controls
    • Slow movement speed

    Score: 9/10

    A review code for Song of Horror was provided to Gameblur by the publisher.

  • Review: Glyph (Switch)

    Review: Glyph (Switch)

    Amidst the desert ruins of an ancient civilization, you take on the role of Glyph, a mechanical scarab tasked with exploring the sand-drowned ruins of a once-mighty civilization. Buried beneath shifting sands and rolling dunes, this once mighty empire has taken their secrets with them and it’s up to you to find out what those were. Be warned though, for the further in you go, the harder it becomes to extract what those secrets may have been.

    Will you take on the challenge of navigating the lost remnants of this world or will the truth be forever buried beneath the sands of time?

    That is the background to Bolverk Games’ light physics-based platform puzzler, Glyph.

    As the construct Glyph, you’ll be spending nearly all of your time in ball mode, rolling across the landscape while prey to the whims of physics that such a form entails. But fear not, as you’re not entirely helpless. Glyph has a few abilities that the game’s tutorials will take you through in an extensive fashion. What you learn here will be the basis for how you navigate the game’s navigation puzzle levels.

    Glyph can jump, or more correctly bounce, when in contact with surfaces while specific tiles will allow it to double jump. Glyph can also use a ground slam ability to launch itself higher into the air. The final ability unfurls Glyph into avatar mode for a short flight duration to cover the larger distances between platforms and ledges. Combining all these moves together, while paying attention to the way physics affects the way Glyph moves, is the key to success.

    Bolverk Games have designed levels that, while small, will both entertain and challenge you in equal measure. Sporting a vaguely Egyptian motif, the ruins that you will need to traverse are usually the final remnants of toppled pillars, shattered buildings, and tilted ledges and tiles. Navigating your way across the levels can be an arduous and tricky affair that usually requires all of Glyph’s move set to complete.

    As a ball, Glyph rolls around as physics would dictate to a degree, meaning that you’ll constantly be nudging him back and forth across the environment lest momentum lets you roll off a ledge to the deadly sands – or clouds as some levels are set in them – below. But Glyph isn’t slavishly locked to the laws of physics. A jump can carry you quite far on its own and Glyph has just enough floatiness and control in the air to make even the minutest of course corrections.

    Scattered across each level are coins to collect, gems to find, keys to pickup to open the level exit, artifacts to procure, and different avatar forms to unlock. The avatar forms are for cosmetics only but the other items are needed to progress. Once you’ve exited the tutorial into the game’s hub, coins will unlock new levels while the gems will open up new pathways to new levels in the hub. The artifacts will open up the game’s incredibly challenging Time Trial levels.

    If you die during a level – it only takes touching the corrupted sands once to send Glyph back to the beginning of the stage – keys and artifacts are reset but thankfully the coins you’ve picked up stay with you. And you will die a lot because Glyph is an incredibly challenging game that walks that tight line between been fun enough to pick up for some relaxing platforming, but hard enough to ensure a tense playing experience that, when you finally complete a level, you’re rewarded with a sense of satisfaction.

    Very early on the challenge picks up significantly, even in the levels that have a lower skull rating. Levels are rated from one to five skulls for difficulty. Often I’d find that I’d been holding my breath and my shoulders and wrists were tense when I’d completed a level, having to put my Switch down for a well-deserved break from what was an ultimately rewarding experience.

    Your completion times are recorded and you can go back to replay the levels for better times if you prefer. Like a parkour game, finding that perfect line takes time but is worth the effort.

    The Time Trial levels are where Glyph throws its hardest challenges at you. They’re small but require serious mastery of the game’s mechanics to reach even its gold, silver, and bronze levels. The gold time can be as low as ten seconds. Each tier per Trial will net you a gem making the effort worth it.

    Visually Glyph is a beautifully stylised game that ran perfectly on the Switch Lite and is drenched in a wonderful fable-like aesthetic and atmosphere. Controls for Glyph are pitch-perfect as well, making your failures your own.

    Packing in a ton of levels, Glyph is the sort of puzzle platforming experience that doesn’t come around often. With stunning visuals, solid controls, and gameplay that appeals to those looking for a laid-back exploration experience as well as a nerve-wracking one, Glyph soars above the competition and should be in your collection.

    Pros:

    • Visually stunning
    • Wonderfully challenging
    • Great level design

    Cons:

    • Recollecting artifacts and keys can get frustrating with repeated deaths

    Score: 8/10