Recent reviews by Sam Lilly

Loot Box Achievement Simulator caught my eye with its title. I wasn’t sure if this was truly an overtly obvious clickbait name to make a quick buck, a satirical look at practices of the gaming industry, or something in between. Plus it was on sale. So after browsing the store page I decided to impulse buy it and see how far their comedic exterior went on this one.

The plot, more or less, is just that you want to buy loot boxes so you are forced to do a number of random things in order to make money that you can spend on the loot boxes and obtain all of the unique loot there is. You simply click on whatever task is presented and presumably do it, though there is no indication other than your money count increasing. Some of the tasks will net you nothing and a few even subtract from your total, but you can continue endlessly without penalty even if you go into negative numbers. You also will have to wait a few seconds between each task before you can click the next one. Each loot box costs 300 coins and consists of four random cards. Each card has a corresponding achievement, making for a total of 233. There are essentially five types of cards you can find. The most common and basic of the cards are called Crap and are followed by their respective number. They all show the same picture of a cartoon turd mound. Good Crap cards are slightly more rare, including the word good before the word crap and respective numbering. These cards show the same picture but with a sword imposed on top of the turn mound. There are Rare cards which say rare and are followed by their respective number. These are rarer yer and depict a golden cartoon turd mound. Epic cards have a “super rare” something on them as is indicated by their subtitle and picture. As the subtitle suggests, these are rarer yet. The rarest of the cards are Legendary cards, which follow a similar naming and representation scheme as Epic cards but, of course, just so happen to be rarer. There is no definite ending to the game. When you are done, you may hit the quit button and upon restarting you’ll be back at zero coins.

Loot Box Achievement Simulator has an appealing-enough art style and soundtrack. Some of the tasks brought up here are funny and sometimes the random nature of certain ones following others can create a humorous mini narrative. I think it does a good job pointing out how soulless and empty getting loot boxes for money feels. You really just keep waiting to have the money to buy your next loot box so you can a chance at getting what you need, but since most loot boxes are simply cosmetics in games it ends up feeling like you’re not really getting anything for your money anyway. Once you get down to the last few items you need… it really shows how frustrating paying for something can be when you have no guarantee it’ll be what you want. Not to mention literally calling most of these crap and depicting them as blobs of ♥♥♥♥ leaves no ambiguity on the stance these guys are taking. I think it also feeds into the exploitative nature of achievement hunter games that try to sell you on a cash grab piece of crap gaming that is loaded with tons of achievements you’ll just get for having the thing on. It doesn’t do as much to satirize those, and flirts with being one of those at times, but strikes a careful balance by using those as a tracking system of your progress yet still ultimately being easily achievable if you simple keep playing. Ya know… which doesn’t feel like you achieved much, and that’s the point. Using the world simulator in the title is another aspect that rides the line. It seems like bait for clicks as it’s not really a simulation game, BUT it does parody a lot of other games that use it in their titles without any real simulation in them, AND this game DOES try to simulate the experience of mindlessly grinding for loot boxes and achievements. It’s an interesting experience to think about.

However, this is definitely more of a statement than a game. That’s fine and all, but I like games. The gameplay is almost non-existent. There are no choices. There’s no story. There’s not even a win state or fail state. It’s just mindless grinding for achievements and pondering the lengths of the satire while also trying to read all of the different messages that pop up. Those messages often repeat if you go for full completion and this will make you go a little crazy by the end. It’s not new and fresh anymore… it’s just a grind. A lot of them have strange grammar and there are many spelling errors. Maybe that’s a localization/translation thing. Maybe it’s intentional so you have the task of looking for errors while you mindlessly click away, but I doubt it and wish they would get someone in there to help them clean those up more. There are also some glitches I found. Apparently if you make the screen too small, despite having the display options when opening the game, you can’t see some of the text on the sides. If you click on a card that is already flipped over, it can mess up the cards for a bit. I did this when I was playing, then clicked some more times to get it to flip over which somehow advanced the screen even though the other three were not yet flipped over. Then the next time it flipped over but in a mirrored image. After that the game seemed to work, but the achievements I was getting were a full cycle ahead. as though the next box was already decided before I even opened it. I would open the next one and see cards I got achievements for in the previous box. Also if you accidentally buy a second box on top of the first then it’ll still work but you just won’t see the box underneath it so… you just have to click on the nothing. I know some of this is minor and doesn’t greatly impact the experience, but for a game without much else going on, I feel like the things that ARE going on should be more polished than this.

I hope that if the developers are reading this they’ll understand when I say Loot Box Achievement Simulator is a hard one to recommend. If you like the concept of poking fun at loot boxes, achievement hunter games, and cynically tagged simulator games… then you might like this. Get it on sale for half a buck or so. It’s a worthy vehicle for the discussion and can decent for background footage while talking about these things or simply to stream for a laugh. The problem is, if we’re going by Steam user review standards, then generally I’d have to give it a not recommended status because the gameplay is too shallow and you have plenty of other options, options of games where gameplay is the focus, for the same price. It’s a victim of its marketplace almost as much as its core design. I guess what I’m saying is, Loot Box Achievement Hunter was worth MY 58 cents, but is probably won’t be worth yours.
https://youtu.be/A99aQ_qHS6I

Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is a retro-style 2D platformer based on the popular internet show and titular character The Angry Video Game Nerd. The Nerd and his friends are playing a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game when all of the sudden they get sucked into the TV to a place called Game Land. It's up to you to explore these strange worlds, fight the menacing bosses, and hopefully rescue your friends along the way, as you try your best to escape the living nightmare of ass that is this game. Are you a bad enough nerd to get the references?

You play as AVGN himself, who has the ability to move, jump, do a pitiful crouch, and wields an NES Zapper that shoots REAL projectiles. You can fire in eight directions and if you hold down a certain button you can lock yourself in place to fire at all angles without moving. You also can get some consumable items along the way. Rocks are tossed in an arc in front of you to damage enemies. The glitch gremlin temporarily freezes everything on the screen while sending the audio and visuals into a panic. Super Mecha Death Christ only has a single use but it will clear the entire screen of enemies. You can also pick up a Super Scope that shoots more powerful pellets than the Zapper but is lost upon taking damage. Your health is represented by beer bottles, which can be collected to refill it as well. You can get life insurance in the form of the Nerd's disembodied head. Depending on the difficulty you choose, there may or may not be Nintoasters about the stages as checkpoints. Playing on easy will give you infinite lives and six bears of health as well as make the enemies and bosses a bit weaker. On normal you'll have 30 lives but unlimited continues with only 3 beers of health while enemies are of standard durability. On old school you still have 3 beers of health but only 15 lives, 5 continues, and your foes might just be a bit burlier this time around. The checkpoints are still there but they are invisible and you can't save in this mode either. I only beat the game on the first two difficulties myself, but beating old school will unlock a harder mode and beating THAT will unlock an even HARDER mode and beating THAT will unlock YET ANOTHER even HARDER mode! You'd have to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥' nerd to keep playing this...

So after the tutorial stage you get eight levels to pick from and beat in any order you'd like. These levels are mostly linear but do have some branching and secret paths. Going out of your way might just net you some goodies conveniently placed next to cameos by other internet personalities. Not to mention that most of the dialogue, enemies, areas, and bosses are references either from the web series or straight from the retro games themselves. Every time you die you'll even get a mad-lib of AVGN lines strung together at random. If you look hard enough you just might find the three hidden playable characters. There's Mike, Guitar Guy, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Man. Once you've found them you can switch between any of them on the fly to take advantage of their strengths and weaknesses. Some are needed to reach certain secrets as well, but they are entirely optional. The stages themselves feature a heaping helping of spikes, flames, enemies moving in wavey lines, death traps, moving platforms, falling platforms, and even timed appearing and disappearing platforms straight out of Mega Man. It's a real hodgepodge ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in video games. But there's one other obstacle... one special hazard... the thing that will haunt your dreams as you try to conceive of beating this game. Death blocks. These are blocks with skulls on them that will instantly kill you should you come into contact with them. Some are stationary, but some of them move. Some of them appear and disappear. Some are invisible until you are close enough to see them. They even put them in some boss fights! But, should you make it through all eight worlds and the final level, you'll be on your way to beating the msater of Game Land and, hopefully, getting the hell out of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game!

This game definitely has some redeeming qualities. The gameplay itself is pretty tight and responsive. The visuals are very colorful and the tunes can be pretty catchy. It also is a nice amount of fan service with all of the references, quotes, and nods to things longtime fans of the show will recognize. I also kind of liked how some levels introduced fun little segments with scrolling shooter mechanics. There's enough crammed into the short experience to keep things new, interesting, and exciting. It can also get pretty tough as you learn the levels and start cranking up the difficulty. The different characters add some incentive to explore and give you interesting new ways to tackle levels and bosses which can also increase replay value if you want to play mainly as one character or another. It's definitely a solid, passable platformer.

However, it's nowhere near great. Most of the references will be lost on anyone outside of the show's fanbase. The huge amount of inspiration and borrowing of elements from other games will also feed into this game's lack of identity or originality. It'll remind you a lot of a lot of other things that did things either much better or much worse. And then there's the whole concept of doing things to humorously mock elements that make other games ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Most of these are downplayed enough where they are good for a laugh, but some of them are actually contributing to the game's poor design, especially on higher difficulties where you can't afford to be blindsided by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ just to make a point. The worst offenders are those damned death blocks. What's the point of having health if you're going to just die in one hit? And why litter the entire game with these things? I'll admit that most of the time you can learn the game through trial and error and do better with your future attempts, but the idea that you can be instantly killed at a moment's notice from these in certain spots just seems like overkill. At least keep them out of the boss fights for ♥♥♥♥'s sake! Then again, the difficulty of the game has been largely exaggerated as well. Yes, if you play on the unlockable difficulties you'll be having a hard time, but that's kind of the point. If you play on the normal difficulty you should be fine. You'll die a lot, but the game is often times more of a test of your patience than your reflexes. Learn the levels and you'll pretty much be set. So it culminates in this very meh experience when looking at it in terms of a general game.

Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is a game for fans of the show, classic video games, and old school ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. The references will carry you through the average experience and give a little charm to what otherwise is largely forgettable. Then again, if you're a fan then you probably already have the game. Anyone looking for just a general game should consider getting it on the cheap and only if they enjoy retro-esque 2D run and gun platformers. It may not be cool as ♥♥♥♥, but it's not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of ♥♥♥♥. It's an okay game wrapped in a love letter to one of the most influential personalities in online video game reviewing and entertainment. Maybe they'll impress me more with the sequel. Only time will tell. Until next time... ASS!
https://youtu.be/cvnLRL-kySs

Final Doom is a first-person shooter full of 64 fan-made levels based on the Doom II engine and officially released by id Software. The game is also available on Playstation but this review will be focusing on the Steam version. It should also be noted that this uses the Doom II engine so if you’re unfamiliar with the general gameplay of Doom or Doom II I’d recommend checking out those games first or seeing my previous reviews. Also, I played the game on the easiest setting and used an external program to have my controller simulate keyboard presses. Now that all of that is in mind and out of the way, let’s dig in.

So this is actually split into two different 32-level packs by two different teams. The first one listed here is The Plutonia Experiment. There’s some sort of story but you only get snippets between a few levels to mark your progress. It’s something about getting this prototype accelerator weapon out of the hands of the demons. It’s not very well explained in-game. I assume you’d need a manual or something to get the full synopsis. The second set of levels are TNT: Evilution and from what I could gether, if there IS some sort of story here it was lost to the packaging or modern conversion process because the information screens just recycle the same text as The Plutonia Experiment. The good news about that, though, is that this is a Doom game. The story isn’t what is important. It’s about the level design, enemy placement, and creativity in finding new ways to play around with the great core mechanics. In general, from my experience, it seems like The Plutonia Experiment was more focused on playing around with enemy combinations, placement, and combat situations such as teleporting enemies around or locking you into surprise ambushes. TNT: Evilution seemed to be more about interesting level design, recognizable structures and locations, and leaned more on exploration than combat. This could very well be a different story had I played on higher difficulties, though.

This pack is great. I mean, you already know that Doom has some great gameplay so it’s not too hard to believe, but the design here definitely made the difficulty and the intrigue scale up from Doom II in a natural progression. Even on the easiest setting I was having my old tactics tested without it being a crazy difficulty spike. I loved the way it forced me into combat scenarios I’d normally never put myself in on purpose. It actually made me have to face my fears, stop panicking, and learn how to fight in locked arenas or close quarters. I feel like I came out of it a better Doom player… even if only slightly. I also really liked the levels built on exploration. Having places that were cool to look at and poke around in helped me want to look for secrets and pay attention to more of the little details they put in. So really, it was a natural progression in quality and expanding what was already great about the games too. I had an absolute blast… most of the time.

There were some parts that were annoying, for sure. The incorrect loading of the story text was lame and every level on the map screen was mislabeled in TNT: Evilution as though they were from The Plutonia Experiment, though at least the maps themselves loaded correctly. Not every ambush was a delight. Sometimes you just have to deal with enemies that have those hitscan weapons. Sometimes reloading and trying again is needed until you get lucky with the random chance of them hitting you or not. Some levels even have you starting off with enemies right behind you and facing you so you HAVE to take damage right when you start, which is nothing more than a cheap way to punish you for beating the previous level by the skin of your teeth or to just make your start on this one ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ no matter what. Also some of the levels want you to do some somewhat obtuse things in order to progress which can be very frustrating. It’s not the most fun thing in the world to hit the open button on every surface out of desperation when trying to figure out what to do. The worst part had to be the final level of The Plutonia Experiment. They have the nerve to not only surround the Icon of Sin with a bunch of enemies to make it rough to fight in the first place, but they also plop a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CYBERDEMON in front of the lift so you HAVE to kill that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ first. That’s a task in itself and then AFTER it you still need to survive long enough to take out the Icon of Sin itself. I was looking up tips for this… ultimately BARELY muddling through with some cheats… and I found out that they did not balance this ♥♥♥♥ at all for the different difficulty levels. Apparently it’s just that hard regardless. So I went from playing on easiest to trying to beat the boss on hardest. I don’t feel bad about cheating. Not one damn bit.

Still, most of the experience in Final Doom is great. It’s absolutely recommended to fans of Doom and Doom II. It’s more Doom quality with new levels, harder combat, and more exploration. Plus, it’s only five bucks for essentially two game’s worth of levels! If you don’t have the other games on Steam yet or just want to also grab Master Levels for Doom II while you’re already getting more Doom for your dollar, you might as well grab the Doom Classic Complete pack to get all of the goodies at once. You could wait for a sale if you’re a bit on the fence, but the only tip I’ll give you is to play through Doom and then Doom II first or this might be too tough and consequently the others will seem slightly less impressive going backwards. And NOW I think I’ve FINALLY hit all of the official Doom games prior to Doom 3. I think…
https://youtu.be/LZV8ZMasKNU

Master Levels for Doom II is a pack of fan-made levels handpicked by id Software and put together for sale as an official product. As the name would suggest, these levels are intended for those who are already familiar with Doom II. I’ve also already reviewed Doom II and its predecessor so if you want more information on those basics then go check those out. If you’re still here, let’s talk about this one, shall we? Note that this is based on the Steam version of the game which runs through the program DOSBox. And additional thing to note is that I played the game with a controller using an extrernal program to map key presses to button presses. This means I can’t speak much for the control beyond how responsive it is to key presses rather than the layout and whatnot. Alright, let’s hit it!

So this pack contains 20 levels made by the community that you select from what I can only assume is the original menu you’d see in the DOS game. It’s in alphabetical order and levels must be played one at a time as completely separate affairs. These levels all pretty much play like your typical level of Doom II. You run around finding weapons, shooting demons, collecting keys, and looking for secrets. The difference is that these levels are a bit more difficult. Some of it is in enemy placement. Some of it is in enemy numbers. And some of it lies in the secrets you might just NEED to make it out alive. It has some tricks and traps thrown in as well to force players into more hectic situations. Sometimes you’ll be locked into arenas with groups of enemies. Other times the enemies will be teleporting around the room with invisible warp points that constantly change their position. There’s even some architecture you may not have thought possible in Doom II. It’s designed to challenge those who have played Doom II to the point of near-boredom.

This pack definitely delivers on that. It is pretty tough, but still balanced for the different difficulty levels. So even if you’ve only mastered a certain level of difficulty in Doom II, you can jump into Master Levels for Doom II on that same difficulty and feel like the difficulty curves yet doesn’t spike. I very much appreciated this as a wimp that always plays on the easiest setting. I also really liked the way the game surprised me with it’s tricks and traps. I didn’t really know some of these things were possible so being assaulted out of nowhere with them certainly kept me on my toes and learning new ways of surviving. Also, one of the levels here has this elevator in the middle with a bunch of different floors to explore. The engine can’t do rooms over rooms but it still managed to make the level feel very vertical and large despite the limitations. It was pretty cool. And hell, it plays like Doom II! What’s not to like?

I’ll tell you what. The presentation. The Steam version of this game has had no improvements made to it. There’s not some nice menu to launch the levels or even to play them in the format of one big episode. There’s no controller support or modern resolution options or anything. It’s just the game and a version of DOSBox… which doesn’t even work. Maybe that’s not the case for everyone, and it’s an easy enough fix, but for me to have to do and delete this version of DOSBox and then replace it with a functioning version in the file folders is definitely not the kind of thing the user should be expected to do in a Doom game. It’s a franchise as big as Doom and somehow this isn’t fixed by now? Really? I also believe one of the levels I loaded was a repeat later on with a different name. So either that’s some kind of glitch here on my end or this pack just has some explaining to do.

So I would definitely recommend this pack. It’s great if you like Doom and Doom II and want more of that action with new levels. It’s only available in the Doom Classic Complete package which includes the first two games and Final Doom. On the one hand, it makes sense because there’s maybe not enough in this pack to sell it on its own merits. It’s more likely to get people to splurge for the bigger pack, which I think is still a bargain if you like Doom. That’s kind of the problem with it, though. If you already have Doom, Doom II, and/or Final Doom then you’ll be buying them over again just to get this. It’s not worth 15 bucks on its own, but if you don’t own one of the other games in the bundle then I think it’d still be worth your while. The other problem with it is that, if you’re NOT already a Doom fan then it might feel like an extra gamble for you to buy this whole pack. So it’s frustrating, but it CAN be worth it in this context if your circumstances are just right. The pack itself is solid. It’s maybe not the best thing to happen to Doom, but it’s hard not to recommend more Doom action to those that want it. Speaking of this pack, I’ve never actually played Final Doom either… yet.
https://youtu.be/NXf5sa98gjA

Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny is a first-person shooter for PC by id Software. It is the follow-up to Wolfenstein 3D but the story is actually a prequel. Basically, this time around you're on a mission to obtain the spear the was used in the crucifixion of Christ. It is believed to hold supernatural powers and you can't just let that power fall into the hands of the Nazis. So you have to go gun them down and claim the spear from the clutches of evil. The gameplay is the same as the first game so I'll assume you are familiar with that or my review of it before continuing. It just saves us a little time here. So once again you're going through labyrinths, collecting stuff, looking for secrets, trying to find the elevators, and killin' even more Nazis! The Steam version includes the original Spear of Destiny with its twenty some levels plus two mission packs, Return to Danger and Ultimate Challenge, which each have a similar number of levels including secret levels. They are each split up into singular episodes of levels played straight through rather then the 9 floor split of the original.

In the base game there are some new wall textures, new music tracks, and new bosses. There's a sprite of vines you can walk through that blocks your view in some areas. On the final level you'll grab the spear and be seamlessly transported into a new level where you'll fight ghost enemies that can do lots of damage to you up close and can only be temporarily halted when damaged. There is a new final boss and upon defeating it you'll get the ending sequence and a teaser for the first game to follow. The two expansions offer up new levels and bosses as well, but they also make nearly a complete visual and audio overhaul. All of the textures, sprites, and many of the sounds have been altered, though they all have the same functionality. They even added in a new bat enemy that carries a pistol and makes no noise when alerted. Only the pickups seem to have had their sound files unchanged, though the end level and boss gimmick for each is a rehash of the base game, so it is likely these were built on the bones of Spear of Destiny.

Most of my praises are the same as Wolfenstein 3D since it's the same engine and gameplay. I do like the way the levels play around more with the assets and AI behavior. It was also a nice touch hat you start each level inside the elevator as a safe zone and that the size is consistent with the exit of the last level. It's simple but it's nice attention to detail. The new bosses are a nice touch to look forward to. The expansions are especially a treat as they are much more colorful and the sound design is a bit more pleasant. The color change makes it easier to see ammo on the floor and the new wall textures help a ton in navigating the mazes. Just having the new coat of paint also goes a long way in making it feel a bit less stale.

Though having new visuals and sounds means relearning things like what an item is that you're picking up or what enemy is alerted based on their new voice clips. The bats not having any alert sounds are also kind of annoying since they almost always get a shot off on you before you can kill them. The levels still have some instances of obtuse or overly labyrinthine design. Pushing secret walls with no indication in order to progress through levels is really not fun. There's also another instance where pushing secret walls in the wrong order will ♥♥♥♥ you out of a key and thus make the level unbeatable. I had saved after ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up because I thought I had found an elevator when really it was a fake. This probably wasn't a mistake at this point as they had messed it up before AND because you can make the walls not push from a certain side. It just should've been planned in a way that wouldn't ♥♥♥♥ you. Here's a fun tip. If you hit the I, L, and M keys you'll get full health, full ammo, and both keys at the cost of all of your current points. So don't abuse it if you want a high score, but feel encouraged to if you don't and also don't like being cheated by the level designers. It was likely implemented for a reason, right? Other than that, and my general complaints on the original that were not fixed here, the boss recycling was probably the biggest letdown. It's just pretty much the same final boss experience three times. A bit of a bummer, though the final time has a fun setting. You'll see.

Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny is a solid addition to the Wolfenstein 3D experience. It's a lot more of the same, which means fans of the original should feel right at home here. It also spices things up enough to keep from getting too repetitive. I would easily recommend it to fans of the first if you can get it for cheap. I'd say five bucks or less is worth it. It's slightly better than its predecessor, but it doesn't do anything worlds better and isn't anywhere near as classic so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over the original. Think of it as a companion piece to Wolfenstein 3D and you should feel right at home killing Nazis 90's style, baby!
https://youtu.be/qkfx0g77CCI

Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter for PC developed by id Software. It's one of the earliest first-person shooter and it has been ported many times, but this review will focus mainly on the version available on Steam which plays through DOSBox. The main plot is optional to read, but essentially you play as B.J. Blazkowicz, a soldier on a mission to stop the Nazi regime. This is done throughout six missions total, each one taking down another important part of the nefarious Nazis. You'll also be greeted with some in-game exposition after each successful mission to clue you in on your plot progression.

Each mission consists of 9 floors of levels. The first eight floors have you going around picking up guns, ammo, health, and treasure as you navigate through the labyrinthine castles, bunkers, and other such strongholds. You can open doors, switch weapons, and sometimes push back walls to reveal secret areas. You'll also need to shoot the Nazi bastards that get in your way. There are a few variants of enemies and you can find three different guns in addition to your knife. Each gun runs off of the same ammo and they successively fire faster than the last. You can also scavange ammo from the dead. There's a stealth element to the game as well. Firing your weapon will alert other nearby enemies while killing silent with a knife from behind an unsuspecting enemy can conserve both our ammo AND the element of surprise. The food and medkits restore a fixed amount of health. Treasure, much like defeating enemies, awards you points. These points go towards your mission high score and at certain benchmarks will net you an extra life. You'll also need to find keys in some levels. There's a gold key and a silver key which will open certain doors if you have the correct one. At the end of each of the first 8 floors you'll find an elevator that takes you to the next one. You'll be shown your results and get bonuses based on your percentages of kills, treasure, and secrets as well as your time. You can save at any point as well. The 9th floor is always a boss floor where you may find more enemies but will for sure find the mission's true target. These characters tend to take quite a few bullets and dish out some major damage as well. Defeating them awards you with a death scene and some epilogue text. Beat all six missions to win the game, stopping those Nazi mother ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ once and for all!

This game still holds up as some good, simple fun. I like that all the guns share the same ammo so that you can pick and choose if it's worth being more precise with one that consumes less but kills more slowly or using a big boy to pump out serious doses of lead no matter how many poor saps step into your line of sight. The stealth vs ammo and safety mechanic is pretty interesting too. I mostly just shot things and then ran and hid when more enemies were alerted, but the option was appreciated. I also found that some of the levels were designed to mess with you in that regard. Shooting an enemy in some spots will make others jump out from the nearby doors and surround or ambush you in a way that doesn't feel cheap. It's your own fault for shooting someone you may not have even had to kill. Other times you'll shoot and it will make someone close enough by try to come after you, but the AI is too dumb to get there so it will be running around through doors on the other side of a wall. I think this was actually worked around to work to the game's advantage because it makes you paranoid hearing a door open somewhere and not knowing where that is and just who is making it open and close. The colors a often pretty vibrant, which I like, and it even has background music to help keep you sane in some of those mazes. I do think it's interesting to see how they used the limited amount of models to try and design a variety of different types of rooms and how they played with the simple architecture to keep it looking varied. It's the little things, man. They go a long way with what they have here. It's definitely still fun to pick up and play for a while, yet it's just as easy to put it down and not feel like you'll forget the story or something important if you don't keep at it constantly like some other games. It has appeal.

It also has problems. The controls don't let you look up or down, which is fine since that's how the game is designed and actually works to its ease of use. The problem with the controls is that you can't turn and strafe at the same time. You have to hold a key to strafe. This makes it kind of clunky to have fast action and often made me take damage when I panicked and froze up from conflicting key commands. Some of the mazes are just flat out annoying. It's a maze... I get. Please stop. It just gets tedious once everyone is dead and you just want to get to your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ destination. It also seems a little inconsistent with damage. Sometimes enemies will flat out miss at close range but do some decent chunks from a distance. An enemy might take a bullet and drop and then the next of the same type will eat a bunch before biting the dust. It's some calculation I guess, but it can be a bit frustrating as well. There's no map functionality as far as I know, which only adds to the maze issues stated earlier. It'd at least be a cool secret item to be able to find to give some incentive to find the secrets. The secrets can be good for extra health and ammo, but they are often hidden like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Some are on odd looking posters or walls, which I think adds to the experience for those paying attention to the level design. But putting false walls in spots that have zero context clues only serves to elongate your playtime by slamming your face against every wall. You'll eventually remember it by sheer force of habit, accompanied by the thought of how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that wall is. In this day and age you'll probably just look them up so you make sure you get them all BEFORE finishing the level and seeing your results just to have any idea of what you may have missed. Some of these secrets actually require you to push fake walls in the correct sequence too, or else you ♥♥♥♥ yourself out of the good. In one level I did I found out you not only NEED those secrets just to beat the damn level, but you ALSO have to do them in the right order or you are stuck forever. You could just reload your game, but since you can save anywhere it's highly possible you'd save after ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ yourself and remain ♥♥♥♥♥♥ unless you replayed all of the previous levels again just to get back there on a new run. The saving system also makes extra lives meaningless. Who is going to restart from the beginning of a floor with just the pistol and base ammo when they can reload their save with their full loadout? And why get points if those lives are so meaningless? These are vestigial elements of the times, I guess. That doesn't exactly excuse them. I guess if you want your name on that score page or if you just want to collect everything there's that appeal, but it seems rather antiquated. The whole thing is so formulaic that you could easily get bored of it after plaything through the first mission. It's fun to see what it does to change things up, but it's mostly a lot of rinse and repeat gameplay.

Wolfenstein 3D is one I'd recommend for fans of the history of FPS games that don't necessarily hold the same interest in this day and age. It's fun, but dated. It's worth the five bucks if you're interested but the Wolf Pack may be a better deal, you might want to wait for a sale, and I think a browser version exists to try for free. Now I just need to see what the followup Spear of Destiny is like since I've never actually played it before. Will it be to Wolfenstein 3D what Doom II was to Doom? I'm excited to find out, and I hope you are too. And remember, above all else, kill Hitler.
https://youtu.be/FrAHpkd0X-c

Japanese Women – Animated Jigsaws is a puzzle game for PC. You put together virtual jigsaw puzzles using the mouse to click and drag pieces into place. All of the puzzles use animated images that continue to animate on each individual piece throughout. When a piece is put into the correct spot, or closely enough, on the play area it will snap into place and no longer be movable. You can freely move pieces onto or off of the board. You can connect any number of adjacent pieces freely in the play area as well, but once connected they cannot be disconnected or removed from the area, though you can still move them around within the confines of said space. There's an area to the right of the play area which can be used for holding individual pieces for later. The rest of the unplaced and unsaved pieces remain in a jumble above the puzzle area. Pieces in the holding and saving areas cannot be connected. To the left of and below these areas are some options. There are three different background colors of the puzzle area to toggle between freely. There's a sample button that will show you the full-sized animated image. There's a sort/scramble button that affects all pieces not in the puzzle or holding areas. Sorting will make a pile for the remaining edge pieces and another separate pile for the remaining inside pieces. Hitting scramble will randomly disperse these remaining pieces throughout the top area. There's a timer showing how much time has passed for the current puzzle. The options button allows you to toggle music and sounds on and off, select which background music you'd like to hear, as well as change between fullscreen and windowed mode. You can quit or select a different stage at any point and your current progress will be saved until you return, finish, or restart that puzzle.

There are 10 different pictures, each with a 60 piece, 240 piece, and 350 piece variant for a total of 30 puzzles to complete. There is an achievement for each one, for completing every puzzle in a particular size, and for completing the entire game. The first three puzzles in the first column must be completed on 60 pieces in order to unlock the ones to the right of them respectively. This also unlocks the 240 piece variant of the first column as well. The second column must be completed at 240 to unlock the corresponding puzzles in the column to its right while also unlocking their own 350 piece variants. The three third column puzzles are only available in 350 pieces and completing these three unlocks the final puzzle, which also is only available to play with 350 pieces. After completing the final puzzle you'll unlock all size variants for all puzzles. Once you've completed a puzzle in a given size then that size will show a check mark next to it upon selection to indicate which ones you have and have not completed. Completing all puzzles on all variants will net you all achievements and thus you will have then completed the game.

I'd like to give this one some credit where credit is due. Using animated images actually utilizes the video game medium better than virtually putting together static images that could be better enjoyed in the physical realm. The movement also creates an interesting bit of contextual clues that help you place pieces with repeating patterns more easily based on matching their motion. At the same time, it creates some extra challenge as you might need to consider what the piece will look like through the entire animation loop rather than just the one isolated time you glance at it. The ability to snap into place is not so forgiving that you can effectively flail around, but it's a nice fail-safe with a noticeable click upon snapping into place that makes it serves its purpose without turning the placement into a joke. The ability to connect pieces within the area and move the connect bunch around is very handy, as is the side area for storing random oddities for whatever reason you may have. The sort and scramble button is a great time-saver for finding all the edge pieces right away. It just takes away the headache of picking all of them out. And I found that double tapping it later to help mix up the pieces to give my eyes a fresh look or uncover some previously buried ones was really handy too. Being able to change the background color was somewhat helpful at times to help the blank spots pop. The music in the background was a nice touch, if a bit limited. And the women are beautiful! N... not that I noticed... heh. Hey, at least they are classy beautiful rather than being fapbait. Not that you CAN'T fap to them but... I think they were going for more of a cultural vibe than a sexy one.

Though some of the women aren't even showing their faces, which was a huge bummer considering the low number of puzzles. I would've also preferred just having more unique images and limiting their piece count to a single size in a gradually rising difficulty or even just the base 10 with their primary piece count instead of rehashing the same ones three times each. It just felt more like padding than actual substantial content. The motion also was frustrating at times when I just wanted to gauge where a piece could go yet I was forced to wait through the whole animation loop for each potential spot. It got tedious at times for sure. There's a custom cursor which is a big hand you can't toggle off so once you pick up a piece you can't see half of the damn thing because of that. It probably should've just gone invisible as soon as you clicked on a piece to keep this from being an issue. It's also a little frustrating that pieces cannot be connected in the holding area nor can you even disconnect them to get them out of your way in the puzzle area if you aren't sure where they go yet. The background choices left something to be desired. They are all the same pattern, just with slight color changes. The changes are SO slight that sometimes they don't even help! But maybe that's just me on that one. While the music is nice, it's a bit on the loud side even with my volume at minimum. That could use a slider in the options. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there IS a gallery, but it's only for completed puzzles, which is kind of pointless since you can just start any one of them and hit the sample button to see the picture whenever you want. Why not just have all the puzzles and size variants available from the start, anyway? And the achievements are so bland that they really aren't worth bothering. There's no real reward for completion other than the virtual pat on the back of those achievements, but at least it's an easy enough one for achievement hunters I guess.

So Japanese Women – Animated Jigsaws is a decent puzzle game that uses its medium well enough to enhance the genre while also delivering on the title. As far as recommendations, get it if you like jigsaw puzzles, don't mind putting them together virtually, and want to experience trying to piece together a GIF moving in front of you the whole time. Also if you like gawking at Japanese women... which I personally do. However, I can't recommend it for the full 10 bucks. I got it on impulse curiosity during a sale for a dollar. It's worth maybe... at most, 3 dollars. I think paying too much more is just asking to be disappointed or simply being too impatient for a sale. It's nothing amazing, but it's solid for the virtual jigsaw subgenre of puzzle games. Full disclosure: I did not fap during my play sessions with this game. Yet I STILL thought it was decent. So... ya know. That's saying something.
https://youtu.be/h5a02dYqrYo

Sakura Clicker is a clicker game that uses the art of the Sakura series of visual novels by Winged cloud. It has no plot and plays like many other clicker games. You click on enemies to attack them. Defeated enemies drop gold. You use the gold to upgrade your main hero to increase click damage and unlock new abilities. These abilities much be activated and then go on a cooldown timer before they can be used again. You can also hire and upgrade allies to do damage per second, or DPS. These allies grant a variety of passive boosts to themselves, the main hero, and sometimes even everyone once they reach the appropriate level. Their damage also will increase with each level and every upgrade, just as every hire, will cost more and more gold. Likewise, the enemies will continually have more and more HP as you advance. After defeating ten emeies you will find a boss which is indicated by the word "big" in front of their name. The boss is fought on a timer of 30 seconds. If you fail, you'll have to hit the enter boss button to try again. If you win, you'll go on to the next area. After getting through the fifth area in a zone you will be brought to the next zone, indicated by a change in the background. Every now and then spirits or chests may appear which can give you sums of gold based on your current zone and area. These will not show up while the game is closed, but during such time your DPS will still be calculated so that you'll get gold based on your DPS, progress, and time. All zones, levels, and gold seem to scale nearly infinitely. Once your main hero reaches level 450 you will have the option to use rebirth. Doing so will give you a certain number of spirits based on your current progress and gold spent but will return you to the start of the game. These spirits can be spent on the artifacts page to upgrade pets. These pets can grant permanent stat boosts for all future runs. There is no real ending to this game.

Now I think it's finally time to mention part of what makes this game great. You main character and all of the enemies are, in classic Winged Cloud fashion, hot anime girls. You can customize your character a bit, and even more with DLC if you buy it, but the enemy girls are where this game's fapbait fanservice really shines. The girls are all based on creatures you're supposed to be fighting like cats, dragons, witches and more! They all pretty much look like hot anime girls in cosplay. There are only so many poses and each creature seems to have a limited wardrobe design, but the colors of clothing, facial features, hair color, and skin tone for each girl is randomized to give you a wealth of eye candy to drool over. There's quite a bit for voice acting too... even if most of it is moaning in... uh... let's say moaning in defeat. You even see more and more types of girls the further along you go.

See, this is great and not just because I'm a lonely pervert. It makes you want to keep playing to see more and more. You want to see all the different types of creatures and all the variants to find your favorites. It's very easy on the eyes which makes you want to stay rather than close the game and miss out on those extra gold drops. It's also the first Sakura game I've played that's actually like a GAME. Not only is there gameplay, there's no plot pretending like it's anything more than fapbat. More game, more girls, less filler. It's a beautiful marriage of ideas between the Sakura series and clicker games. It plays to the strength of both so well that I really cannot praise this genius enough. It's the best of both worlds. Did I mention you can play it one-handed?

For downsides, you have the usual stuff for clicker games. It's endless and tedious. After a certain point you find yourself seeing the same girls and simply upping the numbers with no other differences happening. You'll ultimately end up finding the most efficient way to get to the rebirth and keep doing that over and over until you're sick of the game. After that you'll probable just load it up now and then to rub one out at best. Maybe two on a slow day. It also could really use a gallery for all the unique asset combinations you see on the girls, or at least a pause function to keep a particularly appealing girl on the screen longer. Otherwise you almost are punished for getting DPS as you can no longer control the pace of when girls enter and exit the fray. And if you avoid DPS then every time you close the game you're just wasting time without that offscreen progress. So do you want to lose your load, or lose your time? It's a hard choice you shouldn't have to make.

The usual complaints aside, the problems unique to this game are not the worst problems to have. You can waork around them as you see fit. It's still a great improvement for the gameplay of the Sakura series and an amazing aesthetic for a clicker game. It's quite honestly my favorite clicker game that I've ever played. That may not say much, but I was already burnt out on these kinds of games and yet this one STILL managed to keep my playing, and not just with myself... but that too, yes. I even got some DLC for it! But the game itself is free. Want to get a sample of what you can expect to see in the Sakura series? Want a solid clicker game? Want to fap to a bunch of hot anime girls? Even just generally curious? Check it out! IT'S FREE!

P.S. Cat is my favorite of the enemy girls. Just sayin'.
https://youtu.be/8Gw08Mq3rzE

Mighty Gunvolt is a 2D platforming shooter. The is one of those games that has a story that means nothing more than to set you up to get to the gameplay. You start by choosing a character. Every character can perform a standard jump and shoot. Gunvolt can double jump and by holding the fire button can shoot a continuous arcing beam to damage enemies which can also be controlled while firing. Beck can dash by holding down and hitting jump and by holding and then releasing the attack button he can perform a dash attack, even in the air. Ekoro can hover by hitting jump again in mid-air and her charged projectiles can sometimes turn enemies into familiars to fire extra shots alongside you until they are damaged too much. You play stages in order, unlocking the next by beating the previous. Each stage has you running, jumping, and shooting your way through enemies and over obstacles. There are some pickups for health, extra lives, and points along the way. You can also gain a score multiplier by killing multiple enemies in a row without too long of a pause between. Each stage also ends with a boss encounter. There are some alternate paths you can take. Some may depend on your character's abilities while other paths will be unreachable with them. Beating all of the main stages will get you to the end of the game. You can also use the warp zone and play an additional set of stages in any order you'd like. Each character plays on the same stages but you must select one for the entire campaign before playing.

It's actually a pretty neat little game. I like the colorful yet basic 8-bit aesthetic. It almost looks more like a Game Boy Color Mega Man clone than an NES style one, mostly due to the large pixels and resolution. It controls pretty well and some of those bosses are pretty brutal if you don't understand their patterns. Some of the music is catchy and a few of the stages look pretty cool too. I also think the short nature of the overall campaign makes it more enticing to play with three different characters. You need to change up your playstyle a bit and possibly take different paths as well. So it clearly has some things going for it.

Though I have to admit the stages themselves are a bit on the dull side. They are pretty easy and a tad repetitive with their elements. The ability to get score is pretty meaningless in a game like that. And while it's interesting to play as the three different characters, the dullness of the stages will really show when you replay them as all the characters with their barely varying mechanics. It ends up feeling kind of underwhelming by the time you've completed it.

Mighty Gunvolt is definitely an average Mega Man clone. If you're looking for some more Mega Man type fun to have, perhaps with a Game Boy Color aesthetic, then this is a good one to grab for five or maybe ten bucks. It's short enough not to get too bored with, but repetitive enough not to want to replay over and over again after you've experienced it all once. I can't recommend it much outside of those coasting on Mega Man fumes, though. Try to get it when it's cheap if you can. And play as Beck because... that's going to be your closest feeling to Mega Man and you know you want it.
https://youtu.be/ECxOZDa1NAk

Princess.Loot.Pixel.Again is a roguelike 2D platforming dungeon crawler with some RPG elements available on Steam. The story is mostly just a simple plot. The king has been captured and it's up to you to save him. In order to do so, you'll have to fight your way through four floors consisting of two levels each. At the end of each floor is a boss. You can move, attack, and double jump right out of the gate. Depending on your character class you'll have certain base stats, items, and abilities to start with as well. Some classes get spells, some get items, some even get projectiles weapons. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, but every one of them is capable of saving the king if you play them well. Besides inherent abilities, everyone is capable of picking up secondary spells which will consume mana. Typically, a class-specific ability will run on its own set of ammunition or usage cost. You also start with some keys and bombs. Keys can be used to open locked doors and locked chests. Bombs can be used to blast open weak walls, damage enemies, and even destroy some other things as well. From here, your journey begins.

You will be thrown into a semi-ramdomized map based on the current floor. Rooms are usually filled with some type of enemy, but other things can also be present. Sometimes you'll find doors in the background that lead to other rooms or step on floor tiles that will trigger traps. You will often get rewarded for defeating all the enemies in a room, though sometimes it is actually required in order to exit. Chests are your primary source of loot, which can contain anything from gold to weapons to artifacts. There's also a shop on every floor which is another source for loot at the right price. You can also occasionally find vending machines where you can directly purchase health, mana, keys, bombs, or random drops of these. You'll almost always find weapons and armor that are better than your own, unless you find the shop and THEN get upgrades on the level and go back to it later. You can get consumable bottles that have randomized effects that are unknown until you use them at least once in your current run. Then, there are artifacts, which I should explain more.

There are basically three types of artifacts. There are consumable artifacts that take up the temporary item slot the same as bottles do. These artifacts all have specific effects that are always labeled. There are also artifacts that you must activate to use. These will typically be in the slot on the right that and tend to consume mana just like your typical spells. And lastly, there are passive artifacts. These will give you some type of stat boost or special effect that will be passively active on your character for the rest of your run. You will usually get a passive artifact for defeating each boss. There are five bosses. The boss of the first floor can be one of two bosses, but the rest are set. Once you beat all four bosses... well... you win.

I have to say, I really like this little game. It's similar in style to Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac, but it's much simpler and smaller than those two. It's fairly short so a bad run doesn't feel too wasted and a good one doesn't last too terribly long. It's great for picking it up and putting it down whenever. The art is effective and the soundtrack is actually pretty catchy. I like how you always get positive weapons and armor to keep it feeling like you're progressing. The randomized elements don't spread to EVERYTHING which is nice to keep some constants and make sure skill isn't irrelevant compared to your luck. Each character has different priorities in the game based on their quirks, so you can't play the same way with all of them and expect it to work just as well. So this game is largely about understanding your character, your odds, and making tough decisions. Do you use a bomb here? Do you use a key there? Do you buy now or save for later? It has enough depth in these choices and strategies that it ends up being a lot deeper than you'd think at first glance yet isn't overly complicated and overwhelming. It's just a great balance of what I liked in some other roguelikes and at a pretty nice price. Hell, even the achievements were fun to get!

Well... except for one achievement. There's one that requires you to get three specific artifacts in one run, which is pretty tough considering that's mostly getting lucky with IF they show up, WHERE they show up, and WHEN they show up. It's doable and will keep you playing even longer, but it might just drive you a little crazy if you don't have much luck. My tip there is to play with characters that have high fortune to keep the money and luck in your favor. My complaints don't stop there. The soundtrack is cool, but it just plays songs at random rather than basing it off of the areas. That's okay, but it does take something away from their impact. There could stand to be a few more songs in there as well. The sound design is also a little sparing. There are a lot of actions that make no sounds at all. Not a big deal, but it's strange. Ladders sometimes wouldn't let me go down them if I had just climbed them, and wouldn't let me walk over them without falling if I had jumped on that screen already. Strange behavior. Hitboxes can be deceptive. Also, the artifacts could maybe use some slightly better descriptions, but then again it's also kind of fun to figure out what some of them do on your own as you play more, especially since there are only so many. In fact, a lot of the little details are fun to figure out, but maybe having some extended descriptions on the depository wouldn't hurt. Oh, and there's not really a true pause in the game... just a map screen and hero screen. I guess a lot of my gripes are minor technical things or lack of more details, but they certainly don't break the game. If anything, my biggest gripe might just be that there's not more. I'd love to see this game get updated, get some DLC, or even just get a sequel to do even more with this idea. Add in more classes, enemies, room types, trap types, and artifacts and BOOM, you have even more replay value and you might get away with charging more in the process.

Princess.Loot.Pixel.Again is pretty good. It's not amazing, but it's better than it looks. If you liked Rogue Legacy and some elements of The Binding of Isaac, it's definitely worth a look. The low price makes it hard not to recommend unless it just doesn't look or sound like your type of thing. But if you're interested, go for it. You might be pleasantly surprised. It's some good, simple, and pretty darn fun roguelike gameplay. Are you a bad enough dude to save the king... again?
https://youtu.be/6uweYWWZedg