Recent reviews by gwenavirre

Thank you Kingdom Games for sending us this game to review!

King David was described in the Bible numerous times (1 Sam 13:14, Acts 13:22) as a man after God’s own heart. He was also a warrior and shed a lot of blood (1 Chronicles 28:3) and because of that, the job of building a temple for God was passed onto his son, Solomon. David wasn’t the only one on the battlefield though - he had many mighty warriors and they are all described in 2 Samuel 23:8-39. FIVE: Guardians of David focuses on Jashobeam, Eleazar, Shammah, Abishai, and Benaiah.

Each of these warriors has a specialized weapon and together they were an unstoppable force that have wiped out many of Israel’s enemies including the Amalekites, Arameans, Edomites, Jebusites, Moabites, and the Philistines. In the beginning of the game, these mighty men were mere shepherd boys fighting off wolves along with the occasional lion.
FIVE: Guardians of David is an action RPG very similar to the play style of Diablo. The swarms of enemy soldiers can be attacked by clicking on them repeatedly or by holding down the mouse pointer on them until their hit points are depleted. As long as another mighty warrior is still standing, you can take control of them at any time. If one of the warriors falls in battle, the others can pick up their slack if needed. If all of the warriors fall, the game will resume at the nearest check point and the enemy’s health points will be where you left them. Some gamers may find that too easy for their tastes, especially during boss battles. There are many boss battles and of course, the epic battle between David and Goliath takes place early on in the game.

A majority of the game takes place as David is fleeing from Saul and beginning to establish his kingdom. Besides dealing with outside opposition, the people of Jerusalem did not want him to establish his kingdom there. Their king had to take it by force, and he did.

While most of the game is based on and sources its Biblical references, there are some added characters and story elements to keep things interesting. In total there are eleven acts and forty-two levels in the single-player campaign. After completing each act and their boss, a Steam achievement is earned. I’m not sure why, but there is no achievement or mention of Act 3. Does that mean there are only ten acts? In either case, this is one of three Steam games I have gotten a 100% completion on.

There’s a decent amount of variety in the game’s missions. Besides beating the snot out of people, you will also have many opportunities to set fires to their camps or scout them out stealth style while not being detected. Animal lovers may take offense to the mission objectives that require hobbling messenger horses (binding their legs with rope) or setting loose pigs with ignited jars of oil on them to set enemy tents ablaze in the chaos. Each mission has several objectives that need to be completed and optional caches that can be found to relay some story background and accompanying Biblical verses. Finding all of the caches is great for OCD gamers and their knowledge will prove to be useful when it comes to taking quizzes in exchange for some good loot. I like the way that this game offers but doesn’t force Biblical references on the gamers and they can to choose to read it if they want to.

In all honesty, FIVE: Guardians of David is one of the better Bible themed games I have played in a long time. The gameplay is fun and just when it starts to get a little bit dull, something new is thrown into the mix like stealth missions or enemies with new abilities. The alchemists were very annoying with their fire attacks and explosions upon their death.

There’s a fair amount of humor as well with the conversations amongst the five mighty warriors turning into bickering and they pick on and prank each other a bit throughout the game. The voice acting is well done and the background music is a good fit, though it could use a little more variety in my opinion.

Graphically, FIVE: Guardians of David is pretty good and there’s a decent amount of variety in the maps. Some of the missions take place in towns while others are in the desert or inside of caves. The enemy animations are nicely done as well though I did run into a funny glitch. During a battle instead of the enemies attacking me, they were clapping instead. It was both hilarious and taunting as if to say the attacks weren’t powerful enough. Once that swarm of enemies was defeated, the normal attack animations resumed.

Sadly, I wish that was the only glitch I had to report. The check points in this game is arguably useful. While they do record your inventory and number of caches discovered, if you have to leave your game mid-level for any reason, upon re-launching it you’ll have to start at the beginning of the level again. The only time the check points work properly is if you get defeated by a boss, and sadly even then they don’t trigger properly. I got my butt kicked in two different boss fights and my party was not registering in the game as dead and when I had to reload the autosave, I had to start the level from the beginning and re-do all of the objectives before I could fight the boss again.

Despite having to redo my progress a couple of times, my experience playing FIVE: Guardians of David has been mostly positive. The single-player campaign took me roughly seventeen hours to complete. There is some re-playability if anyone missed locating all of the caches during their first play-through. This game lends itself well to multiplayer-coop but it’s not available at this time. The developers haven’t excluded the possibility. While the normal price is $24.99, I have seen it for less than $10 on sale and it’s worth picking up if you’re looking for a good Bible themed game. I look forward to future releases from Kingdom Games.

Thank you Brain Shape Games for sending us a review code!

In the future, mankind discovers and harnesses the power of dark matter. As they explore and colonize the galaxy, they come to realize that they are alone after a couple of centuries of failed communication attempts. Then out of the blue, they are aggressively attacked by an alien race known as the Constituents of Nothing. Since this alien race uses dark matter technology as well, mankind's weapons were useless against them. That is until humans discovered anti-dark matter particles. This blue-energy is humankind's last hope against this alien threat.

There are thirty-six story missions that span across nine planets. Well, technically eight since Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore. In fact, the Steam achievement for completing all of the Pluto missions is "Not a planet." The story missions can be played solo or with up to four players locally. Having people to play with is highly recommend since the missions get really tough towards the end. Some of the missions will have an AI unit assist you, but most of them don't. Most of the time you'll be protecting AI ships instead of working with them.

If you're not escorting or defending an ally's ship, chances are you're defending a generator or two instead. The generators are crucial for converting scrap metal into usable resources. The scrap metal can be used to upgrade various attributes of the four different ship classes. I went with the balanced class ship, The Euphrates. There is also the Rio speed class ship, the Volga assault class, and the Potomac support class. Most ships have a limited number of missiles and turrets, but some ships have mines and the ability to heal allies.

In total, there are nine upgradeable ship options. Each additional upgrade costs more scrap than the previous tier. You can upgrade the number of turrets, missiles, and increase other attributes including armor, top speed, maneuverability, acceleration, firing speed, and bullet power. The upgrades help, but fighting the medium and heavy class enemy ships goes a lot smoother when you have a partner fighting alongside of you.

The controls are pretty straightforward and the PC version of the game supports keyboard and gamepads. I used my Xbox 360 controller and it worked flawlessly. The left analog stick moves the ship while the right analog stick fires the bullets in the direction its pointing. Deploying turrets or mines is done by pressing the Y button and firing a missile is accomplished by using the B button.

Graphically SCHAR: Blue Shield Alliance is pretty basic. The space ships all appear to be flat and the bullets, bombs, and missiles are all pretty simple with minimal special effects. The characters in the game are cartoon like and the space atmosphere is pretty simplistic.

The audio is pretty barebones as well. There is no voice acting, but the sound effects are passable. The dialogue can be a little colorful with a character threatening to kick my *ss twice if I failed in protecting them. The soundtrack is decent and available for purchase for $0.99 on Steam if you got the game by itself. Alternatively, the soundtrack edition of the game sells for $5.99.

While SCHAR: Blue Shield Alliance is rough around the edges, there is some fun to be had in this title. Especially if you have people to play with. Xbox 360 owners may want to consider picking this title up for $0.99 while the Xbox Arcade is still around. For Steam users, I recommend picking this game up if you see it on sale.

The price is a reasonable $4.99 on Steam. Android and iOS users can get it for two dollars. It only took me a couple of hours to complete with the occasional glance at youtube. If you don't look for help, or want to earn all of the possible achievements there is some re-playability but not too much.