Old and New Game Reviews

Just a place to build my "portfolio"

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Beat Cop Review

Title: Beat Cop

Developer: Pixel Crow

Publisher: 11 bit studios

Release Date: March 30th, 2017

             I just got done with my 5th day in Beat Cop and I can’t say I plan on continuing which I find very disappointed in a game I was really looking forward to. I believe it was sometime late last year or early this year when I saw Beat Cop appear on my recommended games and I was able to finally pick it up during this past Steam Autumn sale.

           What I thought would a paper please esque police officer game I sort of did get it just a bare-bones version of it. The game starts off strong you play as Jack Kelly a former detective sent to beat patrol after being framed for stolen jewels from the senator.

           You start of the game with basic tasks like checking parking meters and making sure all parking rules are enforced with having to check tires and lights as the days continue and unfortunately that’s about all the game does have to offer.

           There does seem to be an overarching story with two different crews those being the mafia and “the crew” but you may see only one inclusion of the faction during the day with most of your day just checking cars.

           Now there are some management type features in the game you have a set quota of tickets to give out and if you can double that then you make a little extra and if you decide during the day to help out one of the factions you can also make a little money on the side as well as gaining favor with said faction.

           The issue is up to day 5 the money doesn’t really do much as far as I can tell you can’t upgrade the skills of Kelly like a longer sprint or a quicker recharge or even looking at the lights and tires quicker all the money can do is buy temporary sprint boosts in the form of drugs and food or to pay alimony. I did end up on my 5th day get a “quest” that would let me move to Mexico for 2000 dollars, but I just couldn’t bring myself to continue when the gameplay is so dull.

It differs from the paper please aspect of the details matter game because while you’re looking at different icons and making sure all the information matches each person who walks through your booth has a face and characteristics while the people in Beat Cop who you interact with are just pixel people.

           I necessarily wouldn’t call Beat Cop a bad game unlike other games I have talked about I could see myself picking this one back up and giving it another go around just to see if the story or gameplay picks up at all and If I do end up picking it back up and my thoughts change for better or for worse I will make an update to this review stating so

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The Invisible Hours

The Invisible Hours

Developer: Tequila Works

Release Date October 10th, 2017 For VR Platforms

April 24th, 2018 for Non-VR Platforms

            This review is a tough one for me to write mostly because leading up to the release of the Non-VR version I was highly looking forward to playing The Invisible Hours. I thought the idea of being a bystander in a murder mystery would be an immersive experience and the idea of being able to watch each person’s timeline through the game would be interesting in seeing how everything ties together

           What I ended up getting was an okay experience muddled by a lackluster story and limits of enjoyment by not having a VR headset. I will try as much as I can to not reveal any major plot points I will be assuming that you at least know the setup and the characters of the game.

           Story

As I mentioned you are just a bystander essentially watching a play or a movie about the death of Nikola Tesla you are introduced to eight characters

Gustaf Gustav- The detective of the evening

Flora White-  A Former Assistant to Tesla

Thomas Edison – Famed inventor and commonly known as Tesla’s rival

Augustus Vanderberg- Well-off son of the Vanderberg family

Oliver Swan- Tesla’s Blind Butler

Victor Mundy- Ex-Convict and Murderer of his wife

Sarah Bernhardt- Renowned Actress

Each one of these characters, for the most part, have their own running story separate from the focus of who killed Tesla and they do add a little substance to the overarching story when each story hits focus points for a hypothetical example the story of Sara Bernhardt ties in with Oliver Swan’s story.

The issue I have with the way they present the story is the game is broken up into 4 chapters with a hidden chapter 0 after following a certain person for a set period. With 7 characters you will find yourself, for the most part, fast-forwarding through the stuff that you have already seen and the more story you get the more you will have to fast forward just to get the one piece of content exclusive to that person.

Now the issue of chapter 0 and the “ending” of the game which will be tricky to talk about without spoiling the game. Depending on who you travel with you may or may not unlock chapter 0 and see who killed Tesla very early on in the game or very late in the game and that kind of ruins the experience in my opinion.

If you unlock chapter 0 figure out who murdered Tesla you may think to yourself there’s no reason to go through any of the other scenes since the murder is so cut and dry and adds nothing to the experience to the rest of the game since there’s no mystery about it.

You may also think that’s the end of the game you found out who did it so that’s it right? Wrong unless you look at the achievements or look to references outside of the game it does not tell you that there’s a “true ending” in terms of what the game calls it. I won’t spoil what it is or how to get it since there are more than enough guides on how to get it, but I will say I found the “true ending” to be bland in terms of wrapping the story in a nice little bow

Enjoyment

The one glaring issue I had with this game is it was definitely made for VR the game starts up by saying “This is not a movie “This is not a game” and while I disagree with the former I do agree with the ladder. This is not really a game and more of an experience and what I mean by that is apart from following people and learning their stories there’s not much else to do in the game.

Sure, there are a decent number of collectibles that add a little flavor to each story but other than that it’s a pick up random objects and move them around- type of game that is enhanced because of the VR system. I would rather have them release some sort of movie mode alongside of the game rather than wait a half a year just to get the same game with different controls.

Overall I found that Tequila Works took the best feature of a game they made called Sexy Brutale and a Agatha Christie novel and took out what made both of those mediums fun the story while having an interesting premise lacked on execution and delivery and the mechanic of going back and being able to see different viewpoints of the same story while not a new concept added nothing to a story that could not be “solved” by the end of a playthrough

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Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business

My comments for the first episode of Adventures of Bertram Fiddle will be short but I feel important in a way. A nice point-and-click game in the style of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango puts you in the shoes of “Famous” Adventurer Bertram Fiddle on the quest to find his dog foofy and catch the serial killer Greg the Murderer

               Now the title should give it away, but this is an episodic adventure so don’t expect all your questions to be answered by the end of the end of the game but luckily enough the second episode was kickstarted and funded and is out now on steam. This does worry me though for if the second episode doesn’t do as well as the first one we may not get the ending everyone wants.

               The humor of this game will vary between groan-inducing or MAJORLY GROAN INDUCING if you’re not a fan of punny humor I’m sure this will not be the game for you as 99.9% of the humor is wordplay or puns.

               Now, this is where the heart of my comments lies. The first episode playthrough clocked in around 103 minutes or roughly and hour and forty-five minutes and I think I spent about 5 or 10 minutes stuck at a part only because I didn’t realize there was a screen to the right that I could have gone to.

               So with that being said, I found the game to be extremely easy and this isn’t me bragging I typically consult a walkthrough multiple times when playing a point and click adventure game. But while the game is easy I think this is one of the best point and click adventure games out right now.

               If people are new to adventure games and never grew up playing it could be frustrating when playing a game and not knowing the right combination of inventory items. But the Adventures of Bertram Fiddle does a great job of being a gateway game for other point and click games out right now

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Super Mario Party Review

Overview

Now I wouldn’t call myself an expert on Mario party skipping over pretty much the entire GameCube generation when they first came out. I went back to go back and play them as well as skipping over the Wii U version for apparent reasons. I was quite excited when I heard they were making a new Mario Party for the switch, the two seemed made for each other and in the end while it wasn’t the rebirth I was hoping for it laid the groundwork for future releases

  Mario Party: The Board Game

So let’s start off with the main focus on the game, I found the idea of each character you can choose have their own specific die quite interesting when it was first featured in Mario Party Star Rush and it works well here as well instead of just picking a character based on who you like there’s now a strategic aspect do you go with someone like Mario who has 3 chances to hit a 3 on his six-sided die and play it safe or play someone like Donkey Kong who has a 3 out of 6 chance to move no spaces but a 2 out of 6 chance to move 10 spaces. I also enjoyed the ally mechanic also featured in Star Rush that is a spot on the board that if landed on you get a random character’s not being played dice block along with adding either a 1 or a 2 to whatever you roll an interesting choice on if someone should go for an ally to bolster their movement for future turns or going to get a star to put them in the lead.

               Now for the bad stuff about this mode, I was quite disappointed to find that there were only 4 boards one which you unlock after playing the other 3. The other issue with these boards is there little variance between them what I mean by that is the shape of each board whittles down to your basic square or rectangle shape with little or no variance. Which is surprising since most if not all Mario party games had 5 boards with one being unlocked after playing the other ones now this can easily be fixed with DLC which won’t go over well but it is something Nintendo can do to fix the situation.

Now for the minigames I found pretty much all of these to be enjoyable, I liked that most of the games used the motion control in an interesting way making use of the HD Rumble feature some notable games I found to be my favorites are Sizzling Steaks where you tasked of using the joy-con to cook a cube of steak and getting a rumble when you know it’s time to flip the cube to cook another side and candy shakedown where you have to shake and twist a jar to get all the candy pieces out.

Everything else

Now I don’t have enough to say about each topic so here I will include River Survival and Sound Stage not included here will be challenge road since I’m only one minigame off from unlocking it which is an issue in of itself for the fact that Nintendo touted a single player mode that wasn’t Mario party but to unlock it you need to play all 80 minigames and the last minigame I’m missing is a team minigame another one missing from here will be the Online Mario-thon since I don’t have Nintendo online but what I’ve heard from other people is it doesn’t include the board game of Mario party but you can only play sets of pre-chosen minigames and the two modes are toad’s rec room and partner party.

               Starting with Sound Stage I find this mode to be a great use of the rumble feature and motion control but it only includes 10 minigames so once you go through it a few times you’ve seen all that is there to see so it’s good for an hour or two but after that you wouldn’t find a reason to go back

               Finally, there is river survival which has the same issue as soundstage. You go down a river working with either your friends or computers heading down branching paths while playing minigames and avoiding obstacles along the way. Just like sound stage this mode only includes 10 minigames but the issue with this mode is if you hit enough of the minigame balloons along the way you will run into the same minigame once or twice.

 Conclusion

Overall, I found Super Mario Party to be a nice introduction back into the series, it lays the groundwork for a sequel to introduce more boards with varied layouts, more minigames, and refining other game modes if they decide to do them again.  After this review other than playing it with my friends I probably won’t play it much by myself