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Recent reviews by Stense

Showing 1-7 of 7 entries
6 people found this review helpful
30.5 hrs on record (29.1 hrs at review time)
Thief is so close to being wonderful but falls short and never manages to sneak out of the darkness of “meh”. Ultimately I can’t help but feel that Thief is a game that managed to steal mediocrity from the purse of greatness.

Really mixed on whether to recommend or not, but had to go with not as it annoyed me more than it entertained me. Although it was a close run thing. Not a bad game, just a frustrating one.
Posted March 30, 2016.
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5 people found this review helpful
0.2 hrs on record
There are loads and loads of Angry Birds clones out there, flapping about in the wild. Piggy Princess is one of the better ones. Perfectly servicable entry to the chuck-a-random-animal-at-a-goal-of-somesort genre. The sound effects and music are annoying and there's an irritating zoom in when placing items, but apart from that it's a decent game. It's unlikely to blow your mind, but it's a fun little way to spend the odd five minutes or so.
Posted March 21, 2016.
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5 people found this review helpful
2.4 hrs on record
Pros:
-Satisfying puzzles.
-Wonderful humour and characters.
-Cute graphics and sounds.
-Bigfoot!

Cons:
-Lack of configuration options.
-Annoying swaying screen effect and blurred edges.
-Individually, each episode is a little brief.

[Review for both Episode 1 and 2]

One day when I was a kid, I was looking for a cheap holiday read in one of Gloucester’s 4396 discount books-that-no-other-shop-wanted stores and came across a book that was so invocative and fascinating that I simply had to have it. Creatures From Elsewhere set my mind alight with the apparent mystery of creatures unknown to science but somehow leaving their mark upon the Earth. The opening chapters centred upon Bigfoot, and Bigfoot foot like creatures. It was marvellous and thrilling stuff. Utter nonsense, but I loved it. I love Bigfoot and all his mates. From Tintin in Tibet to Bigfoot centric X-Files episodes, the whole mythos of this elusive man-ape creature is so engaging that I can’t help but adore the whole Bigfoot culture. So seeing a puzzle game about a Bigfoot mystery appear in the Steam store was a real no-brainer for me.

Jacob Jones is a kid on his way to summer camp at Camp Evil Eagle Feather. He wears a blue bear coat. Already this is a thoroughly charming game. Needless to say, there is a Bigfoot involved and a mystery. This plays out in a very lovely cardboard cut-out style environment with cute stylised character models. It reminded me a lot of Psychonauts, which is one of my favourite games ever so any resemblance, even if just in passing, is fine by me. The story is rather basic, but it makes up for it by having some wonderfully witty dialogue and laugh out loud worthy gags. There are an awful lot of horror referencing tucked away into the largely child-friendly dialogue, some jokes got surprisingly dark in nature (especially one right at the end of episode 2). There are only a handful of characters that Jacob has any real interaction with but the ones that are in place are well voice acted and come with their own little idiosyncrasies that set them apart. Little details such as the rage fuelled Coach and his bulging eyes or one of Jacob’s bunk-mates’ runny nose and chronic snot bubble problem made for some just adorable people. Then there’s the Bigfoot, the star attraction. Biggie, as he’s known, is a lovable furry lump with a friendly demeanour and a joyfully silly dog disguise. Getting the Bigfoot right was essential. Lucid games nailed him.

The meat of the game is in the puzzling. Although there is a world to explore and some folk to chat to, most of the gameplay is devoted to single screen puzzles à la the Professor Layton games on the Nintendo DS. The puzzles are an assortment of logic, sliding block and maths puzzles and will mostly offer a good brain teasing without being annoying. I came across one puzzle I found a bit confusing but that could be just as well down to the fact I’m not so great at maths puzzles. Give me a Sudoku and I’ll probably just draw pictures of hedgehogs on it and run away with my hands in the air and cackling like a maniac. Luckily, my hand wasn’t forced like that in Jacob Jones. With the exception of the maths puzzle I found the puzzle screens to be eminently satisfying and engaging. Sometimes the puzzle instructions could be a little vague on what needed to be done, but everything is presented excellently and more often than not the game of the puzzle comes to you instinctively.

A handy feature is the memo screen that lets you doodle over the screen to keep track of your puzzle progress. It’s a testament to how well made the puzzles are constructed in that at no point did I resort to doodling hedgehogs on the memo screen in frustration. If you do find yourself stuck, there is a hint system that lets you exchange soda cans (that the environmentally minded Jacob has picked up) for a nod in the right direction. Using his phone, Jacob can get either a vague hint from his friends, a more specific push from his brother or a fairly explicit direction from his uncle. It all works well and keeps the game flowing nicely.

I would have liked the environmental interaction to be a bit more developed. There isn’t really much to do in the world. It looks lovely but it serves as little more than a way to link the unconnected puzzles together. It would have been nice to have more to do than pick up soda cans and bother gophers. As basic as the movement controls are, they are still a bit wonky. The keyboard shortcuts for rotating the screen are Q and E but the keys for moving the view around are the arrow keys. This can be done with the mouse but doing both movements at the same time makes your mouse cursor pretty unreliable. The game was originally made for the touch screens on mobile devises but I would have liked more thought given to how the controls work on a PC, or at least to give an option to change the controls myself or use a control pad.

The game does lack configuration options in general. Volume, full screen on/off and resolution are the only options available. This irritated me specifically because I desperately wanted to turn off the damn depth of field which gave the screen a constant blurring around the edges that I found incredibly off-putting. The game is made with the Unreal Engine so tinkering with the .ini files to get the graphics settings you want is usually an option, but even that couldn’t remove the effects I found so obnoxious. Likewise, there was a constant gentle sway to the whole game that seemed entirely unnecessary but I found no way to turn it off and keep the damn screen still.

These are relatively minor quibbles to a game that I had a lot of fun with. I picked the episode one and two pack for a fiver on Steam and got around five hours worth of delightful puzzling. It may be short but I found it to be well worth the price for the amount of fun I had playing it. I’m now looking forward to episode three, assuming there will be one. I could serious go on for far longer talking about how charming it is. Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery has stomped its way into my heart and rekindled my love of Bigfoot. I love you Biggie.

From Coffee Break Gaming[www.coffeebreakgaming.co.uk].
Posted December 1, 2014.
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6 people found this review helpful
2 people found this review funny
4.2 hrs on record
Pros:
-Fun fusion of puzzle styles.
-Cute graphics.
-Great music.
-Easy to pick up.
-Satisfying solutions to puzzles.

Cons:
-May be too easy for some, lacking in many real head scratchers until late in the game.
-Simplistic in places.

During the winter of 2012/2013, I went to war with the mouse expeditionary force that had invaded my flat. Taking advantage of the crumbling foundations of the old terrace building I live in, they attempted to take over. Eventually I managed to fight back the mice incursion and block off their access into my territory. I tell you this as I think it’s important to be transparent with the fact that the mice and I have history. So hopefully you can trust that when I say the mice in Mousecraft are adorable and I really wanted to keep them safe, I really mean it.

Mousecraft is the new game from the wonderfully named Crunching Koalas. The idea is simple, guide mice through a level to the cheese. Because science. The gameplay is a curious mix of Tetris and Lemmings and I have been utterly charmed by this game. It’s bright and colourful, the music toe tappingly jolly and the fusion of puzzle classics works intuitively and offers some fun mazes to take on.

Right off the bat, the game made me smile by featuring a cat scientist named Schrödinger. Poor old Shrödy has a problem, he desperately wants to continue his animal experiments but he doesn’t have enough dosh to fund them and build his mouse powered pipe dream. Fortunately for him, and indeed the scientific process in general, a mysterious benefactor steps in to offer to fund the experiments in exchange for crystals the mice collect.

Each level gives you a set of obstacles to get across and a few “Tetrominos” blocks to form a path for the mice. Once let out of their mouse wheel, the mice won’t stop until they have the cheese at the end. And who could blame them? While things start very simplistic and a little too obvious with the solutions to each level, the game adds features regularly enough to keep interest up. It’s not long until you are faced with obstacles such as robot rats, exploding blocks, perilous falls or acid baths.

This leads to some unfortunately ethical quandaries. Just why is this mad scientist cat doing these experiments in the first place? What possible reason could he have had to construct mice hating robot rats, and then to put them together in the same maze? Why does he need mouse activated high explosives as part of his mouse based experimentation. In short, I’m dubious as to whether Dr Schrödinger’s experiments meet the regulations required by the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

Luckily, our mysterious benefactor doesn’t appear to care about such things and is happy to allow all sorts of out of control science to go ahead. So the game is free to chuck in more tools for aiding the mice, such as a jelly block to break their fall (mice can only free fall three tiles), block busting bombs to clear the path or crumbling blocks to separate the trio of mice and put them on different paths. It all feels well balanced and thought through, creating fun puzzles that are satisfying to pass but don’t frustrate. It may lack complexity and experienced puzzle gamers may not be too challenged on most levels, but the whole experience is satisfying and presented in such an amusing way that it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of the game. Some levels can feel too similar to the last and there isn't much variety in the sound effects, but it introduces new elements regularly enough that any hints of repetition are dealt with quickly.

With four sections of twenty levels each, there are plenty of puzzles to solve. On top of that there is a level creator to build your own fiendish puzzles, although there is not yet any in-game method of sharing levels with the community. User-made levels can be downloaded by getting files from people on the forums, but hopefully a more intuitive sharing system can be implemented in a future update.

I’ve been enjoying my time with Mousecraft. It’s a cute and perfectly paced puzzle game with some great ideas and adorable graphics. It’s currently part of the Indie Piñata promotion (a selection of games on discount with further discounts if you own any of the others in the selection) and offers players around 5-6 hours of charming puzzling for the main game. It’s helped me put the mouse war of 2012/13 behind me and heal old wounds. For that, I am eternally grateful. Mice, all is forgiven.

From Coffee Break Gaming[www.coffeebreakgaming.co.uk].
Posted December 1, 2014.
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4 people found this review helpful
12.0 hrs on record
Pros:
-Fast, over-the-top and immensely satisfying shooting.
-Great weapons and sound.
-Old fashioned accessible shooting that relishes in its own silliness.
-Ludicrous gibs!

Cons:
-Even patched, it still has some serious performance issues.
-Some glitchy map geometry frustrates the otherwise good level design.
-Tedious platforming sections.
-Sub-par graphics and animation.

If there's one game that did more than any other to define my gaming childhood, it's Apogee's Rise of the Triad (1994). Originally envisioned as a full sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, it morphed into a standalone game that gathered a cult following despite its bad fortune to be released in the shadow of Doom 2. For years it dwelled in relative obscurity until a couple of years ago when Interceptor Entertainment and a resurgent Apogee announced a remake of the beloved but oft forgotten game.

This new Rise of the Triad was released last year to moderate fanfare. After the utter farce that was Duke Nukem Forever, it's fair to say there was scepticism about how an old Apogee/3D Realms classic could be revived. ROTT 1994 is a game I still play from time to time to this day, so I was curious to see how ROTT 2013 stands up just a year later, once the mists of nostalgia had faded. Put frankly, ROTT 2013 is one of the most satisfying shooter games I've played in recent years. It had me tearing my hair out at times, but the joy and insanity of the original has transferred over and makes for a hugely enjoyable game.

ROTT always was a always strange beast. Using a modified Wolfenstein 3D engine, its 90 degree walled levels betrayed its origins and the limitations of the technology were always apparent. The look and feel of the game also betrayed its more Nazi-iferous beginnings with the Triad enemies having a distinct whiff of the jackboots about them. On the other hand it was also a game in which ridiculously powerful rocket weapons were always on hand, you could become a god, a dog or just get high on shrooms and bounce around trap filled rooms with elastic super powers. It was slightly unhinged and it revelled in its own stupidity. ROTT 2013 brings all of this back.

Shooting a firebomb round into a clustered group of nasty fascists and getting a ludicrous gibs bonus is as fun today as it was in 1994. ROTT 2013 knows what people want and it gives it to you; big dumb guns and squishy meat sacks to fire them at. It's brutal, over the top, bloody and very satisfying. Every classic gun from the original is faithfully recreated and handles just as in the original. As are the enemies. The over-patrol throwing a net at you, the lightning guards nicking your bazooka to use against you or begging for their life and playing dead when injured, it's all there from the original and fits into the action perfectly.

The game is punishingly hard at times, definitely adhering to the old school rules of difficulty. There is absolutely no hand holding, it throws you into the action and expects you to come out gunning, or exploding. It may well be one of the quickest games around. The speed of the gameplay is at first a little disconcerting if, like me, you'd got used to the slower pace of modern shooters. Once you get into the groove, you'll find yourself stringing together ridiculous mid air rocket manoeuvres and jumping around shooting all over the place. Admittedly I'm not the best player, but even an unskilled player like me can be made to feel like a bazooka shooting goddess.

That is until you hit a section where the frame rate decides to go on holiday and leave you in the lurch. ROTT 2013 is hardly the prettiest or most technologically advanced game out there (just like the original in that way too), but it manages to mangle the Unreal Engine it's built on and create an unpredictable beast that can have the performance go up and down wildly. It's a horribly optimised game, terrible even. Parts of the game I could play with maximum graphical settings, others it would struggle with medium settings for no apparent reason. What's worse is that you can only change graphics options from the game launcher, so experimenting with the long list of graphics options means restarting the game. Interceptor Entertainment have patched the game and improved performance since the initial release, but it's still pretty unstable and wildly unpredictable.

Performance issues dampened my enjoyment of the game but they were more an annoyance than anything, what did cause me to groan in pain was some of the naïve level design on offer. The levels are all remakes of the levels from the original and for the most part are really well done and fantastic arenas and shooting galleries, but then you hit upon a terrible jumping puzzle or platforming section that is incredibly frustrating and leaves you thinking “Why?”. I came across numerous places where I got stuck behind props or bad geometry in the environment. If you are making a high-precision platforming section where you have to travel from jump pad to jump pad over an insta-kill death pit of doom but you have ledges to get stuck on and cause you to fall to your death, it's going to annoy players. Getting stuck by a tiny box in the middle of a fire fight with an army of baddies is going to frustrate people. Finding that a flight of stairs won't let you pass because of misaligned geometry makes players want to scream. Yes, ROTT 2013 was made on a small budget with a small team, but such clunky design is pretty disappointing.

These are far from the only problems with the game. The enemy AI is very basic, with some baddies just standing around until activated when I was almost right next to them. Character models and animation were equally basic and the colour pallet meant that enemies frequently blended into the brown surroundings. I'd often find that I was being shot by someone unseen and I'd have to stand in the middle of a room and scan around slowly, squinting to see who was left alive and still audacious enough to carry on shooting at me. Clipping issues and bad hit-boxes abound, unavoidable death traps are used to sucker punch the player far too much and the checkpoint saves are spotty at best.

If it sounds like I'm being harsh on the game, it's only because I care so much. And I know I'm not the only one. Interceptor Entertainment obviously put an awful lot of love into this remake. They are clearly fans of the original and must have doted over it a long time to get the remake to feel so faithful. There are plenty of nice touches to see, Easter eggs and references. They even give you a choice of the classic level music or the newer heavy metal covers. There are plenty of new one liners for each of the five playable characters (it's not the wittiest of dialogue, but enjoyably silly) and briefings to listen to for each level. Multiplayer mode is chaotic and frequently exhilarating.

The remake of Rise of the Triad is pretty messy in places, for certain, but the fact is that throughout most of my time playing it, I've had a huge grin across my face. It remains faithful to the original whilst tweaking the gameplay enough to make it relevant to modern audiences. If you're a fan of the original, everything will be familiar and just as fun as you remember. If you're new to ROTT, you'll find one hell of a silly good time. It's a shame it didn't receive more polish and forethought with some sections but I'm so glad that this game exists. ROTT is ludicrous, deranged, challenging and very, very fun.

From Coffee Break Gaming[www.coffeebreakgaming.co.uk].
Posted December 1, 2014.
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7 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
9.7 hrs on record
Pros:
-Very funny, witty story and dialogue.
-Easily accessible for all.
-Great music.
-Wonderful art and graphics.

Cons:
-Repetitive combat.
-A bit too similar to the first game.

I never really did Halloween when I was a kid. I’m one of those killjoys who rolls her eyes at the Halloween decorations the shops insist on trotting out and flogging to a mostly disinterested British audience every year. I managed to work my way through my formative years without it playing any part in my yearly routine. I never went trick or treating, or ‘glorified begging’ as I was told it was. I’ve never really done fancy dress in any big way either. In fact I’ve probably put more effort into making costumes for my hedgehog soft toys than I have for myself. Costume Quest 2 lets me precariously live out my repressed need to threaten strangers into giving me sweets and dress up in increasingly deranged outfits whilst hitting monsters, which I assume is standard Halloween behaviour for those inclined.

Costume Quest was a game that impressed me immensely. It was simple in places but filled with all the wonderful charm and wit that Double Fine have built their reputation on. Like Psychonauts (another game I love), Costume Quest is a game about being a kid, doing kid stuff and seeing the world in a fantastical way that the adults around them just cannot do. It’s silly and quirky without coming across as pandering or dumbed down. On the contrary, Costume Quest had some really clever writing. Despite my Halloween-cynicism, I was strangely excited about the prospect of Costume Quest 2 (especially after seeing the wonderful announcement trailer).

After stopping monsters stealing all the Halloween candy, brother and sister team Wren and Reynold are preparing to finally enjoy some trick or treating Halloween fun. But would you believe it, an evil dentist has changed history to outlaw the festival. The simple premise belies the sharpness of the writing and the sheer joy of finding all the gags and japes the game has to offer. There is always something happening on screen, be it a quick one liner or a visual gag going on in the background. It seems there is no wasted space in the game world, everything has a purpose. I adored the art style that lead designer Tasha Harris gave the first game, I’m very pleased to see that the sequel has added to it in the best way, keeping the style consistent as new characters are introduced and fresh costumes take centre stage. The game looks brilliant, being so full of colour and life as it is with some well thought out areas to explore.

It plays almost exactly as its predecessor. Costume Quest was never the most challenging of games in terms of gameplay, which is fair, not every game needs to be a hardcore l33t ultra noob-smasher pain-a-thon. I always enjoyed the gentler style Costume Quest took but it would have been nice to have the sequel mix things up a bit more to stop it becoming too repetitive or overly familiar. Very little has changed. The meat of the game is divided betwixt two scenarios; knocking on doors to trick or treat and seeing if you get candy or a fight, and then there is the fighting. It’s not a bad system but one that gets a bit too predictable the longer the game goes on. The fighting in particular runs close to becoming tedious after a while. Two parties line up and take turns hitting each other until one party has lost all its health points, it’s a time honoured system but one that wears itself pretty thin when it’s limited to a few characters with the same moves and little involvement from the player.

The combat system has had a bit of tweaking though. The button timing mechanic for attacking opponents has been streamlined slightly to make it more consistent over the various costumes and there is a more effective block/counter-attack move to be learned. However you’ll be performing the same actions so many times in combat you become numb to them. The joy of seeing the kids you play as transform into literal representations of their costumes and fight giant monsters or robots loses its impact after the hundredth fight or so. The special moves your characters can use are amusing (the clown’s ‘laughter is the best medicine’ is my favourite), but even they become tiresome the more you see them. There are some enemies that certain costumes are stronger or weaker against, but I never found myself needing to worry about it so much and just used the costumes I liked best or had upgraded most recently. You also need to heal your party after fights otherwise damage taken rolls over to the next battle, but even this was never an issue I needed to adjust my tactics for. You can just eat some candy at any point to replenish health or visit a water fountain.

In the end, combat started to become the tedious bits in between the story and exploring. As slight as the fetch quests and trick or treating that make up the bulk of the non-fighting sections are, I still did it all with a big grin on my face. The world is just so cute and charming that I was irresistibly compelled to play on and poke my nose into every little corner of the game. The story was enjoyably bizarre and presented well (it follows on directly from the CQ1 DLC, Grubbins on Ice). It’s frequently very funny and features a twist that had me giggling so much I dropped my controller. I spent a silly amount of time running around being a jerk honking a loud clown horn in people’s face, trying to initiate diplomatic talks with everyone and hitting alligators with candy buckets. That this is a game that encourages such childishness can only be a good thing in my opinion.

It may not be for everyone, but if you’re after a game that captures the child like glee of getting caught up in an insane festival, then Costume Quest 2 may be for you. It doesn’t do anything that its forbearer didn’t do, but it’s a game that boasts buckets full of wit and an incredibly adorable outlook that’s hard to dislike. After all, if it can make stone-hearted me appreciate Halloween in anyway, it has to be onto something.

From my review for Coffee Break Gaming[www.coffeebreakgaming.co.uk].
Posted December 1, 2014.
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2 people found this review helpful
3.8 hrs on record
Pros:
Satisfying puzzles.
Wonderful humour and characters.
Cute graphics and sounds.
Bigfoot!

Cons:
Lack of configuration options.
Annoying swaying screen effect and blurred edges.
Individually, each episode is a little brief.
Posted October 7, 2014.
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Showing 1-7 of 7 entries