LISA: The Painful

LISA: The Painful

LISA is polarizing by design, and simply playing through it’s introduction alone is enough to give you an understanding of why so many people never finish or play it at all. The plot is a pitch black, grim, and hopeless affair filled with only occasional forays into lighthearted and humorous territory. But the catch here is that these moments are designed to make the inevitable fall back down into the blackest pits of human cruelty imaginable even more devastating and impactful. You see, while LISA is a deconstruction of many common JRPG tropes, it’s main deconstruction is that of a trope found in many forms of media, not just video games. That trope is the notion of protagonist centered morality. What this trope means is that in a story, when the protagonist causes innumerable amounts of death and destruction in their quest, they’ll still be a hero and still be loved and praised by the populace, because although they’ve caused all this, their goal is noble so they’re relieved of consequences or responsibility for their actions.

Real player with 91.1 hrs in game


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“Oh hello there! My name is Nern. I’m considered the greatest historian of our time… I’ve gathered a wealth of knowledge about Olathe and what happened here. Many tales… Would you like to hear? Hmm… I wish you were more enthusiastic… Oh well, I’ll tell you anyway. Let’s see…. Oh right! It all started with what I like to call, THE FLASH. I was sitting with my wife, god rest her soul, sipping on sweet lemon tea. I believe it was homemade by my sweet wife, God rest her soul. Or wait… Maybe she bought it from the store in a bottle. You know, like a plastic bottle? Well hold on now, that would be ridiculous to buy a bottle of sweet lemon tea, then transfer the contents into a glass. Why not just drink it from the bottle? I guess maybe so she could put ice in the glass? But then again, making tea homemade would be just as time consuming, if not more! That sneaky bitch… Anyway, I’ll save that story for later! So, I’m sitting on my porch drinking sweet lemon tea. From a glass of course, ho ho! When suddenly… A great strangeness fills my body… Something was wrong… I’ve lived many years, and I’ve never felt something like this before. Do you know what it was? Yup! It was my rocking chair! That wooden son of a gun stopped rocking! So I looked down and realized a little rock had gotten caught beneath my chair! A rock under my rocking chair! What a day! I decided it was time for bed, I had had a little bit too much excitement for one day! Hoho! I slid into my jammies, brushed my teeth, and said my prayers. As I was climbing into bed I noticed my wife, God rest her soul, brushing her hair in the bathroom. As I peered across the hall my body swelled up with emotion…

Real player with 69.6 hrs in game

LISA: The Painful on Steam

DON’T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale

DON’T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale

I remember playing the first demo for this wonderful game way back when the Kickstarter campaign first launched. From that first moment I knew this could be something really special!

It’s got incredibly off-the-wall humour, lashings of self-deprecation (which I’m pretty adept at myself), a dollop of meta, wall-breaking moments and a wonderful helping of deep, emotional storytelling. Underneath all of the fantasy-style plot there’s a raw, pulsating bundle of feelings that really comes through in some of our protagonist’s monologues.

Real player with 14.4 hrs in game


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cons:

Don’t give up has an interesting premise, but in my opinion is falls short halfway thorough the story.

the villain seemed interesting but as soon as its intensions are revealed, made me loose al the hopes for the game’s story.

The story in part circles around the depression which affects character’s everyday life, and it can give some nice insight on how people with depression reason or react to situation, for me it seem to fall flat at the end of the story.

the story also has plot holes, especially as you progress towards the end, and in some way it took me out of the story since some of the informations on the characters are just left out. and it was hard to understand what was going on.

Real player with 9.4 hrs in game

DON'T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale on Steam

-KLAUS-

-KLAUS-

-KLAUS- : I’m addicted to this story now

Klaus is the first game by La Costa studios depicting Klaus who tries to find who he is and why he’s here. With first time releases always come hiccups so has La Costa managed this and made an instant banger first try? In my opinion yes, incredibly so! While it’s not perfect it’s done a remarkable job. Either read the full review or just take a quick look below.

Pros:

✅ Incredible story, one of the best I’ve seen in a long time

Real player with 13.5 hrs in game


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Klaus

Overview

Klaus is an endearing and unusual puzzle/platformer that has just the right amount of difficulty to reward you for your efforts. It’s bursting with charm and boasts an unusual story telling system. The plot unfolds through a series of small and often humorous one-line sentences displayed within the game play area. Whilst a lot of these statements are jokes and flippant remarks, they also slowly reveal the story behind Klaus and his search for the truth behind his origins.

Real player with 11.1 hrs in game

-KLAUS- on Steam

Rage in Peace

Rage in Peace

Been long for me from playing sidescrolling game. But boy oh boy… what a roller-coaster. This game get very hard towards the end

! (mid Kalimazonia onwards I think). Very challenging. Need rest from time to time to unwind myself.

The story was quite deep and compelling. Gameplay and level design is -surprisingly- full of surprise in a good way. Graphics are good, stunning view and scenery. Soundtracks were amazing. The villains character and boss battles mechanic were -punishingly- creatives.

Real player with 36.3 hrs in game

A tale of two worlds: A deep, emotionally satisfying story about a hero dealing with depression and loss paired with truly awful gameplay.

I hesitate to call the gameplay difficult. More like….tedious. A difficult game gives you a chance to use those finely honed gamer skills to avoid obstacles. This game offers none of that. Instead, you’re forced to stumble through death after death until you’ve memorized the level layout. Less like Super Meat Boy and more like a pretty version of Simon Says.

Real player with 8.4 hrs in game

Rage in Peace on Steam

Life Goes On: Done to Death

Life Goes On: Done to Death

Life Goes On: Done to Death is a neat little puzzle game that I picked up a while ago and recently replayed to confirm my opinion of it.

The core concept of Life Goes On is quite unique and well-designed. Essentially, the game revolves around killing your knights in order to progress through the puzzles. The simplest example is creating a pathway across a spike pit with the knight’s bodies. However, this alone wouldn’t be enough to flesh out a full game, so the developers incorporated all sorts of mechanics that make the player think in a certain way to solve the puzzle. Life Goes On’s mechanics include but are not limited to: Checkpoints, toggleable spike pits/walls, saw blades, flamethrowers, buttons, conveyor belts, cannons, tractor beams, and more.

Real player with 24.6 hrs in game

I first played the demo months ago and instantly fell in love with this game.

The full game did not fail to deliver.

The whole concept of (literally) standing on the shoulders of those who came before is presented wonderfully. See a deathtrap? Die on it, then respawn and walk on your corpse. Switch that has to be held down? Die so that your corpse falls on it, then respawn and walk past. Et cetera, et cetera.

The controls are a bit inaccurate at times, and will most likely leave you dying slightly more often than intended. Although since this game is all about sacrificing one knight to make a path for another, a few more corpses lying around aren’t that much of a problem. (And if you’re finding it difficult, a few more corpses aren’t a problem at all.)

Real player with 19.6 hrs in game

Life Goes On: Done to Death on Steam

Roombo: First Blood

Roombo: First Blood

Roombo: First Blood follows a small but technologically advanced household appliance tasked to eliminate and organize filth. This mostly occurs after its owner has suddenly left home, for unknown reasoning, and the house goes from being totally quiet to a loudly invasion by vast perpetrators. Although the intelligent robot is small, it’s entirely devoted to assuring the owner’s household remains intact but also safe from potential threats that become progressively challenging.

The game begins with a short controller tutorial that’s actually less required since players are able to utilize them quickly. Each stage is divided into sections, all entirely in one household, giving them freedom to explore while also maintaining extensive use of the environment as self-defense. The controls are easily useful against foes and offer rather remarkably innovative tactics to thrive each mission as they become tougher and require more strategy. In each stage, players are given simple objectives involving eliminating enemies, cleaning messes, all while thoroughly surviving with the robot’s very limited health and defense actions.

Real player with 2.8 hrs in game

TL;DR

Zoom zoom, doom.

Graphics

The graphics in this game are adorable, It’s vibrant and colourful without it hurting your eyes. There’s no UI clutter, it’s neatly tucked on the edges and the colours/design do not look out-of-place at all.

Gameplay

There isn’t too much going on with the gameplay. However it makes you feel like you are doing more than you are and that’s.. Well because you are! Here you are, using your keyboard or left stick to drive your little roomba around, pre-planning traps to seal the fates of thieves while at the same time, giving the floor a good S-U Double C . There are multiple different devices and objects to use/hack. Other than that, there isn’t too much gameplay but you can HONK …Beep..? Bonk!

Real player with 2.7 hrs in game

Roombo: First Blood on Steam

Freedom Finger

Freedom Finger

The silly and offensive art style is what drew me to this game, not the musicians or voice actors. Despite its cartoony look Freedom Finger is a proper shmup. You have a ship and you shoot enemies with plenty of bullets, enemies and walls to be dodged. The game has two unique game mechanics for a shmup namely grabbing and punching. It’s a bit unusual but it is quite fun. It allows for a lot of different ways to play a level.

Fortunately there’s no shop with upgrades for your ship, you can follow the story but also just hop into any level and start competing for the leaderboard. If you want an upgrade go grab an enemy ship!

Real player with 38.0 hrs in game

Check out my first impressions gameplay video for Freedom Finger here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD1OPbuRzCk


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-QUICK FIRE REVIEW (If you don’t have time to watch the gameplay video)

-Story:

Save the American Lunar base from the Chinese who have taken over!

-Graphics:

Very cartoonish. Kinda of reminds me of the adult cartoons you’d see on Adult Swim.

Real player with 11.0 hrs in game

Freedom Finger on Steam

Stage Presence

Stage Presence

YEAH! This is what VR is perfect for!

Be on a Virtual stage, in the limelight, shout into the microphone, get cheered on or boo’d at, sing along to your favorite songs, destroy a styropor guitar, dance til you drop, make peace signs, join random people in their session to cheer them on or blind them with laser pointers or just get emotional with a rose microphone and much more - Yes, Im having a lot of fun playing this, and I havent even seen all aspects of the game yet.

Its just a very nice feeling to get affirmative response from time to time, some kind words, even if its just from NPCs who are generically shouting how awesome I am.

Real player with 10.9 hrs in game

I really enjoyed this - I’m terrified of getting up in front of large groups of people, so the virtual experience of flailing (vocally, and sometimes physically) in front of a digital crowd was an interesting experience.. especially the parts where I get hit in the face by a digitised bottle of wee (the laser pointers gave me flashbacks to classes in highschool).

If you’re looking for a fun, slightly silly, rather unique experience, where you get to be the center of attention for hundreds to thousands of people (whether they’re angry at, or cheering for you), and perhaps want to improve your “how to dodge the occasional thing thrown at me” skills, I’d heartily recommend this.

Real player with 4.7 hrs in game

Stage Presence on Steam

SushiParty

SushiParty

Grade = D?. Worth a buy, if you enjoy shooting and dodging. But if you’re looking for score attack or time attack, don’t buy it.

⚖️Check Scoring Scheme

| GRADE | SCORE (9) | WORTH BUYING? | OVERALL | DISCOUNT |

| A+ | 57 ~ 70 | Worth a Season Pass / Deluxe Edition |

Real player with 2.1 hrs in game

I didn’t hate it nearly as much as I expected.

It’s an ok videogame but it lacks polish.

I recommend receiving it for free from a friend.

Real player with 1.1 hrs in game

SushiParty on Steam

Ankh - Anniversary Edition

Ankh - Anniversary Edition

Ankh is a fun romp of a point and click adventure game, a bit challenging, a lot tongue in cheek, and a tad 4th wall breaking. The song and dance about girls and hair is hysterical.

Game: Assil manages to get a death curse and now he must break it. Follow his adventure from breaking out of his house (He is grounded), dealing with a man eating crocodile, goofy palace guards, looney market merchants (and a very talkative slave), rescuing a damsel with attitude (Thara), some palace intrigue (and the pharoah’s daughter), a missing caravan leader, and finally the underworld and Osiris, the Lord of the Underworld.

Real player with 14.0 hrs in game

Really fun old-school point and click game. And by “old-school” I mean it is appaently a remaster of the original game released in 2005.

Yep. It is a 12 year old game. So don’t expect it to run well on a PCMasterRace Windows 10 Beast rig with a 21:9 or 4k multiple monitor set up.

It runs great on a Windows 7 toaster. Which actualy surprised me, being that it was developed for Windows 2000, Windows XP. I did not need to set Win 7 to XP compatibility, but newer rigs than my 6 year old one may need to run the game in XP compatibility mode. The game does not have settings to adjust like modern, next-gen games. Because the game was developed in the early 2000’s. When most computers were so similar, they were not needed. So, stop complaining if you can’t get it to run well on your $6000 Beast Rig. The game was made to play on Legacy machines.

Real player with 7.1 hrs in game

Ankh - Anniversary Edition on Steam