video games

A Casual Review – ANNO 1800: A Relaxing and Engaging City Builder

April 23, 2019 by Xiao Liang Leave a Comment

After two not so successful Sci-fi themed releases, the Anno series has finally gone back to its roots.

Developed by Blue Byte and published by Ubisoft, Anno 1800 is a real-time strategy city-building game that is taking place during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.

In the game, the player assumes the role of a colonial leader of the crown, building up new economies and establishing trades as the game progresses.

What makes Anno unique is perhaps its competitiveness, unlike most city builder games, the player is not alone.

There are other AI or player factions that seek to prosper, and there is only a limited number of islands and resources, which means that the player needs to think and act strategically.

At the beginning of the game, the player starts off in the Old World, which has a similar climate and environment as the majority of Western Europe.

In the Old World, the player needs to expand and industrialize the colony’s economy, as well as managing different classes of people.

Once the colony has developed to a stable economy, the player can then choose to venture into the uncharted seas of the New World.

The New World is vastly different from the Old World, the player will encounter new threats as well as new resources that are needed to fulfill the people’s demands.

The player will be working with the local populations of the New World, exchanging resources in order to become more powerful.

The game has many mechanics that need to be learned by a new player, such as trade routes, naval combat and chain of supplies.

Fortunately enough, the game did provide a campaign mode for new players to learn while having all the fun that the game has to offer.

The overall gameplay experience of Anno 1800 is quite relaxing.

Like most city builders, the players are in control of the pace of the game, even when there are competitive elements present.

A single game session of Anno 1800 can take a very long time to finish.

It will probably remind the players to take a break or get a coffee because they’ve been staring at the screen for too long.

While I believe that the game is very much recommended for people who are looking for a fun and relaxing game to player, I think that Anno 1800 is not a game worth spending $59.99 for.

The game can also be very demanding on the player’s PC and time, which are the things that most college students don’t have at the moment.

A Casual Review – Grim Dawn: The Perfect Game for ARPG Fans

April 9, 2019 by Xiao Liang Leave a Comment

With the confirmed release of Diablo Immortal later this year, I figured it would be a good time to talk about Grim Dawn, a game that is closer to the classic actionRPG experience.

Official game poster by Crate Entertainment.

Before I get into the gameplay, I think it is a good idea to look at some data and make some comparisons so that I can explain why I think it is “a good ARPG game.”

Developed and published by a rather small independent developer named Crate Entertainment, Grim Dawn is an ARPG game that focuses on loot gathering and character building.

Grim Dawn is often described as a “spiritual successor” of Diablo 2 by many members of its community and critics, which says a lot about the game.

Diablo 3 is a sequel to Diablo 2 developed by Blizzard Entertainment, the company that is known for making highly praised games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft.

The development of Diablo 3 took the company around 11 years to finish, and only one major and one minor expansion pack have been released ever since it’s initial launch.

The last expansion pack of Diablo 3 was released five years after the initial release, and it bearly had any content.

Crate Entertainment, on the other hand, announced the development of Grim Dawn in 2010 and later revealed that there were only two full-time employees in the company on their kickstart page.

Grim Dawn was eventually released in 2016.

Crate Entertainment has released two major and one minor expansion packs for the game in just three years.

While Diablo 3 is not necessarily a bad game, it is hard to think of a reason why a small company with 13 employees and mostly crowdfunded budget can spend almost half as much time to make a similar, if not better, game than a multi-million dollar company with a huge amount of resources.

There is definitely more information that needs to be looked at when it comes to comparing two similar things.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the gameplay.

Grim Dawn has its own unique style of world design and choice of music.

Like the title suggests, the visuals and soundtracks of the game are grim and often gives the player a sense of dread.

The world is falling apart and people are turning against each other, but there are still exotic locations to visit and cool gears to find.

While elements such as storytelling and character designs are important to a game, I think what makes this type of ARPG fun is the character and class customizations, and Grim Dawn is a very good example of this.

From a gunslinging necromancer to a greatswordwielding mage, Grim Dawn offers its players a huge variety of choices.

In Grim Dawn, the player gets to choose from one of the six bases plus three DLC classes once they reach to level two.

Each class has many different skills for a player to choose from, and the play style within a single class can even vary from the player’s choice.

In addition, the player will get to choose a second class specialization once they reach level 10, and the chosen class will be combined with the first class to become a completely new class.

This means that there are a total of 72 classes for the players to discover and experiment with.

On top of that, when the player get their first devotion point, they will meet the devotion menu, a passive skill system that allows the player to gain additional modifiers and abilities to further customize their character.

It is also worth mentioning that Grim Dawn features replayable content such as endless dungeons, harder difficulties and online co-op up to four players.

To conclude, Grim Dawn is an ARPG game with classic gameplay of the genre and a huge variety of customizations, and it is frequently being updated by the developers.

The game is currently available on PC and Xbox One.

A Horrible Review – Fourth Life considered greatest game in human history

April 1, 2019 by Xiao Liang Leave a Comment

After seven years of development and crowdfunding, Best Games Studios has finally fulfilled its promise of “creating the game that everyone dreamed of.”

Fourth Life is a massive multiplayer online first-person role-playing action survival sandbox simulation sports shooter real-time strategy battle royale game that has the most innovative game-play mechanics the world has ever seen.

Unlike other game developers, the people at Best Games Studios understand and know what the gaming community wants for their games.

Instead of choosing inferior and obsolete gaming platforms such as PCs and consoles, the developers of Fourth Life wanted everyone to enjoy the game and have made the decision to release exclusively on mobile because “everyone has a phone.”

The processing power and the state of the art hardware of smartphones are capable of handling the otherwise impossible engine that the game runs on for around 30-45 minutes, depending on the player’s preferred phone of choice.

If the player decides to get the Ultimate Deluxe Collector’s edition of Fourth Life for $300, the game will also come with a compact-portable power bank which will extend the possible play time.

Now let us talk about what makes Fourth Life so special: the game-play.

In Fourth Life, the player gets to choose to be whatever they want to be.

The forward-thinking developers of the game have added over 500 gender and sexual orientations for the players to choose from, such as Attack Helicopters, Goats, Pizza and Chairs.

The players are even allowed to customize the look of their character pixel by pixel, which is the true character building that everyone wanted.

After choosing what or who they want to be, the players are thrown into the immersive world of Fourthland, a place where magic and technology coexist and the world is open for the players to explore.

At the very start of the game, the players have to find a purpose for themselves as the game heavily emphasizes on making your own choice, which means that there are no set objectives and no real NPCs to interact with the players.

However, with a small fee of $30 per month, the player is able to access additional features of the game such as crafting and learning magic.

On top of the monthly subscriptions, the players can also purchase in-game currency to participate in what is probably the most exciting and addictive game mode of all time: Loot Roulette.

Unlike the questionable loot boxes that some other game companies have been implementing, the Loot Roulette is a perfectly fair and balanced mode that allows the players to acquire loot by playing the in-game roulette.

Although the win rate and chances of Loot Roulette were not posted by the developers of the game, Best Games Studios has assured players that the roulette is perfectly balanced because it functions just like a real-world roulette.

Aside from the breath-taking Loot Roulette game mode, the game also has a very competitive and advanced battle royale mode.

Unlike most popular battle royal games before the launch of Fourth Life, the battle royale mode of the game has completely removed the element of luck, as this would make the game unfair and not fun to play.

Instead, the players can use the in-game currency they’ve purchased to choose accurately where they’ll be dropping and what kind of loot they will acquire, a truly fair and open battle royale indeed.

Fourth Life is a completely perfect and functional game that will just keep improving by itself.

Even the developers at Best Games Studios have claimed to stop any further development and maintenance of the game shortly after its release because of how perfect it is.

To conclude, I’ll give Fourth Life the highest score and recommendation: 10/10; it’s all right and the only entertainment you will ever need.

A Casual Review – Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice: A beautiful and harrowing experience

March 26, 2019 by Xiao Liang Leave a Comment

Hellblade is a game that’s not very well-known to many but highly recommended by people who have played it.

Developed and published by Ninja Theory, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is an action-adventure game that was released back in 2017.

The game has surprisingly high production value considering that it was made by a very small team of developers.

In Hellblade, the player sees the world through the eyes of Senua, a Pict warrior who has embarked on a journey to Helheim hoping to save the soul of her dead lover from the Norse goddess of death, Hela.

Before I proceed to evaluate the game, it is worth mentioning that Hellblade is really not what it claims to be on the surface, and I personally think the game is more of an experience than a simple game: The player’s eyes will be deceived, and the mind will be challenged.

On a technical standpoint, Hellblade has met almost all the requirements to be a good AAA title.

The graphics are stunning, the sound designs are incredible and the gameplay is fun and immersive.

The game is relatively short compared to most modern games and is also very linear.

On average the game should only take around 6-8 hours to finish, but I have to say that it was the most memorable six hours I’ve ever experienced.

In general, Hellblade is an exploration game rather than an action game.

The player will spend most of their time walking around and solving puzzles instead of hacking down monsters or demons.

However, when there is combat, it is very fun and engaging; the actions are smooth and the controls are easy to master.

It is hard to explain what the game really is about without spoiling major plots of the story, but it is worth noting that the game has many metaphorical meanings behind almost everything.

Like mentioned earlier, the player’s eyes will be deceived, and the mind will be challenged.

The starting screen of the game advises the player to put on headphones, which is very important if the player wishes to better understand the story of the game.

There is also a short documentary that the player can choose to watch in the main menu of the game.

On top of showing how the game was made, the documentary will also help the player to understand the game better.

Overall, I think Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a game really worth playing if anyone is looking for an atmospheric or interesting game to play.

Turn off the lights, put on headphones and just let the game tell its story.

A Casual Review – Devil May Cry 5: The sequel worth waiting 11 years for

March 12, 2019 by Xiao Liang Leave a Comment

Capcom has unleashed yet another great work of art into the world.

Just two months after the release of Resident Evil 2 remastered, Devil May Cry 5 has arrived and brought joy to fans of the series.

For people who aren’t familiar with the DMC franchise, it is an action game developed and published by Capcom, which tells the story of Dante the devil hunter and his companions.

The story of DMC 5 takes place a few years after the events of DMC 4, Nero, one of the protagonist of the game encounters a mysterious demon who rips off his demonic arm “Devil Bringer” and escaped with it.

A few days later, a mysterious man named “V” comes to Dante’s office and hired him and his companions to kill a certain returning demon, who happens to be the one that took Nero’s arm.

The plot of DMC 5 is a bit hard to understand without information from the previous games, luckily the game has included a video that quickly summarizes the history of the DMC universe.

However, it is recommended for the player to watch other related videos online or actually play the previous games, the experience of playing Devil May Cry 5 afterwards would be much better.

The gameplay of the franchise primarily focuses on fast-paced, stylish combat and is mostly well-known for this reason.

Visually, the game looks good, the character designs looked absolutely stunning, but there wasn’t anything else worth noting or mentioning.

The game’s soundtracks are probably one of the most memorable parts of the game, especially the character battle songs.

Not only are they great to listen to while hacking down demons, but they are also catchy and get stuck in your head.

In DMC 5, the player gets the chance to play three different characters within the story: Dante, the legendary devil hunter who focuses on multiple combat styles; Nero, who is outfitted with different types of “Devil Breaker” prosthetic arm; and V, a mysterious man who summons demons to aid him during fights.

Each playable character has a very distinctive style of combat and characteristics, which are all very fun to play.

The weapons that the game has to offer are crazy fun, from Dante’s motorcycle power-saw and akimbo rocket launcher to Nero’s prosthetic arm that acts as a homing missile fist.

The developers were very creative with the weapon designs of the game; there is even a DLC item in the game that gives Nero a spinning pasta fork for his prosthetic arm.

Gameplay-wise, Devil May Cry 5 feels just like its prequels: It is over-the-top, flashy and amazing.

Almost every aspect of the game is cool to look at.

The cutscenes have the same style of direction as the previous games, but they just never get old.

Even the simplest things such as calling the van (which serves as the in-game shop) have ridiculously actionpacked cutscenes, and each of them are very different from each other.

Like the previous games within the series, Devil May Cry 5 focuses a lot on stylish combat.

While constant button mashing is completely viable, the game encourages players to try out new combos and weapons by showing Stylish Rankings ranging from D to SSS during every battle.

It’s very satisfying to hear the in-game announcer go from saying “Dismal” to shouting out “Smokin’ Sexy Style!” when the player has reached SSS ranking.

The difficulty of the game is pretty balanced.

It took me around 10 hours to finish my first play through on Devil Hunter Mode (regular difficulty).

The level design is pretty straightforward with hidden secrets here and there, and the enemy variety and design were very interesting.

The boss fights of the game are quite memorable as well.

There aren’t any “filler” bosses in the game: Each boss encounter is unique and pretty challenging.

While Devil May Cry 5 is a fairly linear game, it has decent replayability.

After beating the game on normal, the player will unlock New Game Plus and a harder difficulty for a skilled player to play through.

If the player managed to beat that as well, an even harder difficulty will be unlocked until all the regular and special difficulty levels have been unlocked.

The game will also be receiving an update for Bloody Palace in April, which will give the players the opportunity to fight against endless waves of enemies and bosses and earn rewards.

To conclude, Devil May Cry 5 is probably the best action-hack and slash-style game that’s been released in recent years, and very much like it’s prequels, the game’s stylish actions and energizing music have created an extremely enjoyable experience for its players.

The game is currently available on PC, Xbox One and PS4.