Recent reviews by Shrodu

The Walking Dead: Season Two takes place after the events of Lee Everett's tale, the man who we grew to love...the man who we grew to be...the man...who is no longer among us. This serves as the epilogue of the original The Walking Dead (the TelltaleGames one) showing what happened to the remaining survivors of the group you were a part of as you now take control of Clementine, who was once an innocent young girl, now thrust into a zombie apocalypse. At first, she got an introduction to a zombie apocalypse, now she has to learn how to be alone and how to survive...while still getting into new groups, but we all know what's going to happen.

The narrative this time is still good, but it has moments that I found lacking, much like those forced ending choices at the finale, which seem to come out of absolutely nowhere. Of course, there's also another "Ben" in the group, who you'll both like...yet grow to absolutely hate due to her sheer stupidity. But I guess every group needs a "Ben" to screw everything over. That said, the beginning is incredibly strong. I only feel the story starts to fall apart in the final episode, where everything feels like it was rushed out the door. It's good to see, though that Clementine is no longer a little girl (she's a bit older), though she still has naive child moments. As the season goes on, you see her mentally mature and in various regards, she's more mentally mature than many adults out there. This is essentially the story of Clementine growing up mentally.

Graphics are still the same as you've come to expect in the first season and you see that Clementine has aged a bit. The voice work is still fantastic. And the setting is awesome to glance at, perfectly setting the mood of the moment.

Again, the only problem I had that I would change wouldn't be the omission of the "Ben" character (though making her less useless in moments of need would be a massive plus), but it would be to fix how forced those ending choices were. There is no third choice to prevent the situation, but TTG has chosen to have dialogue before it where you try to prevent it. When it comes down to it, though, it forces you to pick sides when both have their uses and purposes.

Would I recommend The Walking Dead: Season Two? Of course. Though it's probably best if you wait for a sale where it's 50% off if you want to feel like you're getting the most out of your buck. The story starts off strong, but I was left with only a sour taste in my mouth when it ended rather than a feeling of accomplishment. Season 1 also left that feeling, but instead of providing a situation that could be avoided, it provided an inevitable and unfixable situation where you had to determine how you would spend your last moments, knowing full well what's going to happen. If you'd like to continue the story you grew to love in Season 1, this is a good purchase. But don't expect the same quality of writing that made Season 1 so awesome.

8/10 A great continuation of the first season, but would be better with some different writing choices in some areas.

Never Alone: Foxtales is the DLC to Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), which acts as a prequel to the main story. You play as a young girl and her friendly fox as they create a little mischief that goes horribly wrong and it's their responsibility to fix it before things get even worse.

Like the base game, Never Alone: Foxtales is a story of a people...the Inuit (or commonly referred to as the Eskimo). This is based on an Inuit story regarding two brothers who faced against a giant mouse. The story is simple without much to expect, where the puzzles take precedence. The players can play as Nana (the girl) who can row the canoe, use ice blocks, and fight using her opposable thumbs...or the fox who can swim faster and communicate with spirits to relocate (...meaning it drags spirits to where it wants them to be). This requires teamwork between both player units and can lead to some interesting puzzle solving.

While I didn't quite care for the story of the DLC, I did find the insights about the Inuit people more interesting. The graphics are also quite a sight to behold. A nice package for $4 (more ideal during a sale at $2 since $4 is unreasonable for only 1 hour of gameplay), though given the length, I think $1 would have been more ideal since this DLC is only 1 hour long from beginning to end.

So, would I recommend this DLC? Well, yes if you're looking to complete the base game completely and if you're willing to wait for a sale. The main asking price is unreasonable for what you're getting and a sale will mark it for 50% off. Simply put, wait for a sale before you grab this one.

7/10 DLC done right...now about that price...

So, would I recommend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ObSDYmMmUY
(In case the video is removed: Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls saying "Oh this! This is beautiful!")

Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but this game certainly made an impression on this player. Unforgettable You is a narrative about a man who loves a girl and explains just how much he has loved her in the time that he has known her. The story starts sweet, but is bittersweet in the end. However, the gameplay is unique in each chapter, providing a new quirk for each new section of the story.

The graphics are minimalistic, but fitting. The music is decent. But above everything, the voiceover and the story telling are top notch and are award worthy. The whole experience is meant to be enjoyed for half an hour and it does a great job of keeping the player entertained with its fusion of narrative and gameplay...an experience I haven't experienced since Broken Dreams.

Personally, I would recommend giving Unforgettable You a chance. It's short, free, and has an engaging story with some fun gameplay. While the experience is brief, it is very much to the point and doesn't bore you with the same-ol'-same-ol' since each section in this 20 level adventure has a new experience to try out.

8/10 Don't forget to try this one out!

Children of Orc is a civilization-based game where you play as a single character and give orders to various others you free to complete tasks for you...whether it's collecting lumber, collecting stones, building whatever targets you set up, or freeing other prisoners, you basically have a poor man's Pikmin though far less refined.

You're automatically locked with a large world in this version, to unlock the full game, you'll need to buy the "Jumbo Globe" item from the Steam store, which acts as DLC to unlock the full game, including the medium world, jumbo world, and various small worlds that are so insignificant that you either cannot proceed or the game will crash.

In order, every playthrough begins with smashing crates, freeing 3 orc children, having them build a sawmill, and only then can you proceed to build bridges and enjoy the rest of the game...missing these requirements will lead you in a broken state where you cannot proceed, leading you to restart your world entirely. Every world is different, assuming you shut the game off then started a new world. If you start a new world without shutting the game off, you'll just reset the current version of the world you already have, which is good if you don't want to deal with new layouts. The objective is to collect the 8 gems (which may as well be chaos emeralds) onto a single space, build a crown, and go into the portal the gems make. This is how you complete a world.

The music is calm, but gets annoying. The gameplay is terribly slow, but you can make it more manageable if you're willing to hold the Tab button for hours. The graphics are decent, but mostly below average as they feel like assets purchased and repurposed into a game. As a full package, though, the game provides a decent experience...though the flaws in design as well as crashing don't really help its case.

If you manage to get this game running just fine, then I would recommend playing Children of Orc. It's not an awful game, but it does suffer from some basic game design flaws that are a hindrance to the player. While the item you buy is called the "Jumbo Globe" for $3.50, it is (in reality) a DLC that unlocks the full game, allowing you to alter the size of the planet instead of having the defautt large world. If you're looking for a simple and somewhat calming game, this is for you. If you're an achievement hunter that is bothered that you'll need to pay $3.50 to get your 100% or are worried that the game may crash...or if you're bothered by any of the flaws I already mentioned, then this may not be the game for you. Of course, you'll need to remember that the base game is free.

5/10 Not a bad start, though it's in need of polishing.

Hamster is a simple button mashing game, but a bit TOO simple. Much to the point that if you want to 100% this title, you need an auto-key-pressing macro AND to rub both of your fists on the keyboard simultaneously...quickly. This is the type of game that threatens to damage or erode your keyboard quicker than any FPS game that has flooded the market.

Graphics are decent, music is forgettable, gameplay...is abysmal and forgettable. After 100%-ing this game, you'll wish you'd never met it and will toss it into the mental garbage bin, only telling friends your bad experience or passive aggressively telling some "friends" to torment them. This 100% isn't worth your time, energy, or sanity.

0.1/10 Just feed this Hamster to your cat.

(Got this back when I was a curator of one of the groups. A dev supplied it. Thanks!)


Arcade Mayhem Juanito is a trip down memory lane for those who remember the dawn of video games...namely Atari age games. It follows Juanito (or "Little Juan"), a kid who's obsessed with video games with his alien sidekick (never explained why he's around) who ends up sucked inside of his video game to battle strange blobs corrupting his games.

The gameplay involves you essentially playing in Space Invaders mode...meaning you're only shooting upward. Don't expect to shoot side-to-side or at angles. Why is it like this? I don't know. Ask the developers. You can pick up powerups, charge your shot, slide...basically some arcade controls with a hint of Megaman. You delve into 8 worlds, a tutorial world, and a final boss world. There's also a survival mode. Of course, if you're having trouble, there's a co-op mode for both story and survival modes (local co-op. I think Steam has that remote play thing to help out)

The animation behind this game is great! It reminds me of a Nickelodeon style cartoon similar to The Loud House and possibly Cuphead with all enemies appear...though not as animated (kind of hard to beat how much of Cuphead was animated). This goes well with the retro covers to set the mood of what you're playing and give you a sense of nostalgia if you're from the 80's or the 90's.

If I had any critiques, it would be that the lore isn't properly explained and that some levels are either poorly designed or repetitive. It also doesn't help that I only shoot upwards instead of to my sides, where my biggest threats often are. The challenge of getting 100% is difficult, but not impossible. If you're an achievement hunter, you may struggle for a while.

Would I recommend Arcade Mayhem Juanito? Sure! It's got a lot of charm for someone who enjoys vintage arcade game experiences. If you're looking for that or if the cartoon style seemed appealing to you, I'd recommend giving it a shot. With its layout, you're pretty much getting 8 worlds (+1 tutorial, +1 final boss, +survival) more or less for $1 each. Though if you're looking for a bargain, I would wait for a sale. Recommended sales price would be $5-$7.50 if you're a bargain hunter.

7/10 Not a bad game. Caters to nostalgia.

(I remember getting this a long time ago off of a giveaway. Was probably a gleam giveaway...)


Well, I remember a history with this one. Something about revoked keys after they were part of giveaways. Stories about how this game would also mysteriously appear in people's libraries. Weird stories...but most prominent are how the licenses were revoked from users. And there's only one person at the core...the lone developer behind the game. But...let's talk about the game itself, not the developer.

Death Penalty: Beginning takes us back to the days of Digital Homicide a former company that made awful games, mostly asset flips, and would sue its customers for posting libelous reviews about their games. Their games lacked save features, flipped purchased assets for a profit, and mostly focused on gameplay with horde attacks from enemies...this very formula you see here. Of course, you are presented an option screen from the beginning...after you figure out how to bypass the screen with a zombie that runs up and just stares past your camera (what I can only assume was supposed to be a title screen, but focused on the wrong area and without a prompt on how to proceed). You can edit your settings, but you cannot save these settings...you'll be locked in this screen until you force-close the game. This means, you're stuck with the default settings. The settings menu is a lie.

You begin with a plane ride, that you can just bypass by pressing E. Then you're in a corridor walking straight...if you look back, you can see a clone of yourself. Then you wind up in the middle of a desert and have to seek refuge in a cave. There are several zombies in the cave and all this activity causes your performance to drop like a stone. If you make your way out of there alive, you are introduced to a vehicle and a shed before being told to have fun. You get into the vehicle and a short distance away, you see a literal pile of zombies the developer clearly wanted you to plow your vehicle into (and all that activity...get ready for severely crippled gameplay). After plowing into these zombies, you're told to go to far away area on the map, but you'll be out of gas long before this point...meaning a 10 minute run past zombies and giant spiders (you'll be fine. You can outrun them) to the next point before being told to go halfway back the way you just came...except you can't because there's now an invisible wall 1 minute from getting to the spot in question...thus technically ending the game due to not being able to continue.

I managed to die in the cave once, but the problem was that afterwards, I shoot the zombies with my unlimited ammo (save for the infinite mandatory reloads) and somehow ended up recovering health as I killed the zombies. Clearly there are problems with the game design and conveying what the basics are to the player.

Now we get to the graphics and sound. The graphics...are bad. I mean, they seem decent, but as your machine is forced to render all objects, the map, and all activity you see, you can expect the performance to suck...especially since the option of being able to change these settings is an outright lie. As for the sound...the zombie groans suck, the gunfire is basic, and the voice actors are abysmal...especially since they're drowned out by the loud music...which seems to be the only good thing for the ears, but man does it get repetitive. Not just that, but it just doesn't set the mood of whatever you're doing. I mean really...you're a girl in the desert (or cave) fighting off zombies and giant spiders to poor performance lag to what I'm guessing is punk rock music. I'd forgive that...if the music was quieter than the other audio AND fit the mood of the missions.

Of course, we come to the rating and my own personal opinion on this. Is Death Penalty: Beginning worth playing? No. It isn't, but I don't completely regret playing it. I now get to see what kind of product it is with my own eyes. I remember invisible walls being a problem in another game like GASP and while this game is similar to that in that flaw alone, the rest of this game is (intentional or not) homage to Digital Homicide in quality and scope. I would only recommend playing this for 3 reasons: To punish someone (or yourself), to understand poor game design before implementing good game design (learn from other devs failures), or if you simply have nothing better to do. Fortunately, this game is removed from stores and cannot be obtainable anymore. If it were obtainable, however, I would say it would not be worth any price other than free.

0.01 / 10 If this was only the beginning, I fear what the rest of it would have been like.

For a long time, I had this in the back of my mind, but today, I decided to look into Free to Play. Of course, I won't be commenting on the commentary (because that would require me to watch this movie two more times) and the special/deleted scenes (which were either long and didn't interest me or short irrelevant stuff), so...yeah.

Free to Play is a documentary for a video game tournament that took place for $1.6 million USD. The narrative talks about various team members who had sacrifices in their lives and had to make the decision to play video games in a tournament instead of deal with real life situations. Of course, these decisions negatively effected those around them which they seemed to fail to realize.

As some people may have spoiled, one guy lost his girlfriend over video games. Another sacrificed his education during finals week for video games. Real stupid reasons effected people in this regard, for fame and money. One player played as an escape for a true loss of his father to cancer, which is more understandable than sacrificing your education. And while there are winners in this story, there are losers who need to get their lives together.

The writing is good, the CG cinematics are good (even though it does make the movie feel like an over-glorified commercial), and the movie is well-presented. The biggest problem I have with this documentary is the motivation behind some of the players as well as how people would treat "E-sports" as sporting competitions. Games are games, plain and simple...but that's just my opinion. I don't play for competition. Not anymore, at least.

Would I recommend watching Free to Play? Kinda. It's a wake up call for those who are too addicted to video games rather than a call to action saying to "play more and be passionate about it" since the losers have to face the cold reality that there are more important things out there that they have sacrificed in favor of something so temporary in life. Remember, there are more important things than video games out there. Don't forget that.

6.5/10 Well-presented, but conveys the wrong messages with its presentation.

Costs $10 as sticker price and $2.50 when it goes on sale. You're probably going to get this to unlock all characters just for the achievements, then uninstall the game without playing it again, which is basically what I'm doing, too. I don't blame you, the game is unreasonably boring and development on it has halted. If you're stuck with this game, you may as well get this DLC to free you. And yes, it does work.

5/10 It works, but it sucks how cash-grabby this game is.

(Got this game via a key from the developer. Thanks!)


No Turning Back: The Pixel Art Action-Adventure Roguelike (I'm not typing all of that again) is a slow and repetitive attempt at a roguelike by the developer of PHAT PHROG. You can choose several classes...which all look like the same goober when you're actually playing with subtle differences that you won't really care about since you can use weapons for other classes.

You run around a randomly generated dungeon to kill bats, haunted armors, puppets (if I recall correctly), sentient acid spitting plants, and cultists...all of whom have recolors that don't make much difference. Leveling up takes forever, kill grinds take forever, bleedouts take forever, running speed is slow, and keys do absolutely nothing for chests and doors. Not just that, but your home base is completely useless and empty. This game is "in progress" as of this review (6/6/2021), but it's clear that development has been abandoned on a project that seems to be too ambitious.

Everything about this particular title is bland, boring, and unimaginitive. There is no fancy plot, no big bad guy, no super special treasure, just your generic character walking in a dungeon, killing enemies to unlock doors and get weapons...that's about it. You'll find yourself frustrated playing this as you have high goals to unlock all characters...or you can buy the DLC to unlock all characters to get those rare achievements for $10 ($2.50 when it's on sale).

Would I recommend this title? No way! There is nothing redeemable about this title and you're in for a boring time if you do get it. Save your money and play something like Realm of the Mad God instead.

0.1/10 The scope was too large for the developer...but I guess even he had to look back and wonder if this was a good idea.