DIRTY LAND - Crowdfunding Trailer

Independent developer Naturally Intelligent today announced Dirty Land – a video game about salesmanship, crime and desperation, inspired by classic sales movies of the eighties and nineties. The studio today launched a Kickstarter campaign for Dirty Land, with opportunities for backers to appear as “leads” in-game.

Part drama, part satire, part life of a salesman and part murder mystery, Dirty Land is a story-driven adventure about desperate people and criminal behavior in an era when greed was good.

Dirty Land casts players as Frank Marsh, a newly-hired salesman for Pure Sky Properties – a real estate office where coffee is for closers and the goal is selling worthless swampland to unsuspecting buyers for a profit. Will you discard your ethics to make a quick buck for you and your family, or will you take the high road and find a way to carve out an honest living?

Key Features

The Birth of a Salesman. It is 1982. You are Frank Marsh. You’re a good man who made a bad mistake and you’ve ruined your family. You can't change your past, but you can change your future. 

Something New Every Day. Begin each morning outside your drab office in a run-down strip mall. Every day brings new characters to meet, new events to experience, and new stories to be told. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?

Always Be Closing. Every day you’ll have chances to make a sale or two. Learn what your leads like, study their habits, memorize everything you hear about them and make that sale! How many leads can you pitch and sell each day to get back on your feet?

Enter an office from hell. Thought your work environment was crazy? This is worse! A bizarre boss, wisecracking rival salesmen, an elusive owner, and more. Choose to be polite or rude, and make friends or enemies.

Play amateur detective. Immersed in a world of desperate men and shady characters, Frank will come face to face with crime, corruption, backstabbing, and even murder. Everyone is a suspect; even Frank. Can his connections and detective work help keep him out of jail?

Fans interested in Dirty Land can back the Kickstarter NOW and get involved from as little as $1. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/naturally/dirty-land-thrill-of-the-sale

Additionally, an IndieGoGo campaign has been launched alongside the Kickstarter to give backers additional option in supporting Dirty Land: 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dirty-land

REVIEW: Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry on XBOX ONE

Review by Jon Donnis

I was sent a review code by Assemble Entertainment for Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry.

Most gamers under the age of about 30 will have no idea who Larry Laffer is, well back in the late 80's and early 90's the Leisure Suit Larry games were some of the biggest games around, they featured adult humour, so if you were a kid these were the hottest things around. Well it is now 2020 and Larry is back, and I for one couldn't be happier, since I was playing these types of games all the way back in the 1980's.

Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry is a classic point and click adventure following Larry as he wakes up in a dark room, he finds his way out, heads into a bar, and is told he has been missing for 30 years. But Larry hasn't changed at all. He still only has one thing on his mind, and that is sleeping with women.

As Larry you will end up with a new "Pi Phone" and an App called "Timber", but to sleep with his perfect woman (Faith) he needs the perfect score, and this leads you on an adventure whereby you will meet loads of people, find yourself completing tasks, and solving puzzles. 

This is a game that perhaps is a bit out of time, it is a risk to bring back a game that relies on adult humour especially in 2020 whereby everyone is offended at everything, however I think that this game is firmly aimed at people who played and enjoyed the original games. If you are under 30 you will probably hate this, and if you are over 30 then it will bring back fond memories.

The Good

Beautiful hand drawn scenes, plenty of fun interactions within the story, and a "satisfying" end.

The Bad

I enjoyed it, but I can imagine some people finding the humour just not fit for modern times.

Also the game did crash for me a few times, I have not heard of anyone else having this issue so it might just be me, but if it is a problem I am sure the developers will fix it asap.

Summary

Leisure Suit Larry is back at his filthiest and best, an enjoyable story, funny moments. I score the game a solid 8/10

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/leisure-suit-larry-wet-dreams-dont-dry/9p270ndwmq2h

REVIEW: Unrailed! on PC

Review by Jon Donnis

I was sent a review key for Unrailed! for PC by the good people at RenaissancePR.

Unrailed! is a simple game, you have a train, and the train is moving from point A to point B, and your job is to make sure it gets there safely, you accomplish this by building the track ahead of your train. As I said, SIMPLE!, well not quite, you need wood and steel to build the track, so you need to cut down trees and mine the steel, but the train has already started moving, but wait you now have a river flowing through the area and you need to get past it, and now there are cows on the track, and just when you think you know what you are doing the train is now on fire!

And that pretty much is the game, each time you play a level and fail, you will instantly realise how you messed up, so you will restart and try to get it right. Ideally this is a multiplayer game, up to 4 players all at once helping each other to complete the track, mine, and so on. There is a single player mode, and you have the help of a bot which you can send commands to, to help you along.

There are a few different modes, including a versus team mode, where you play against others and the winner is the one who makes the longest track, personally I played the single player mode the most, and just tried to get as far as I could.

As you earn gold you can upgrade your train so it can hold more wood and steel, buy extra wagons, a better engine and so on.

The Good

This is an addictive little game, regardless of if you play it alone or preferably with others, you will find yourself keep coming back to it.

The Bad

Retro style graphics are in fashion right now, but I think the blocky style in this game doesn't quite work, I think you could have had simple style graphics without going full block.

Summary

A fun addictive game, that you will keep coming back to.

8/10

Review by Jon Donnis

REVIEW: Swordbreaker: The Game on Xbox One

Review by Jon Donnis
I was sent a copy of Swordbreaker The Game on Xbox One for review by Sometimes You.

As a kid did you ever play one of those "choose your own adventure books", also known as a Gamebook.
Basically it was a physical book, but you didn't read it in a linear way, there were no chapters as such, you would read a passage, and then make a choice, and depending on the choice you would then go to a completely different page of the book. You literally were creating your own adventure. Well Swordbreaker: The Game is basically that but on a Xbox.

You play as the hero who starts the game inside an abandoned castle, and your ultimate aim is to find the hidden treasure, but of course you have obstacles along the way and each screen you come to is another choice, make the wrong choice and you may lose one of your three lives, lose all lives and that's it, you have to start all over again. You may choose to help a Librarian or push over a bookcase, you might choose to help alien, or kill them, every choice matters.

This is more of an "interactive fiction book" than it is a game as such, and the ultimate aim of the game is to witness all of the endings, all of the deaths and all of the different screens that feature really great artwork.

The Good
The artwork is fantastic, which for what is interactive fiction this truly is the most important thing.

The Bad
Unless you have an incredible memory, to get through to one of the various endings you might find yourself getting so far and then making the same mistake and forcing you to replay the whole thing again, however if you have a pen and piece of paper it is easy enough to keep track.

Summary
Not since the 1980's as a child have I "played" a Gamebook, these really were a big thing back in the day, as we didn't have Smartphones, and computers back then were pretty poor, so you got your entertainment in other ways, Gamebooks were one of those ways, so to have one on a Xbox is definitely an interesting concept, as it allows glorious artwork to go along with a storyline.

If you are a fan of the old style Gamebooks (choose your own adventure) then give this a go, it is fun, plenty of gamerpoints to get which come along as you play through too.

7/10

Review by Jon Donnis

Preview: Real-Time Tactics Game Partisans 1941 (PC)

I was given access to a Press Preview Build of Partisans 1941 and played through the first few missions, so any opinions I give on the game please keep in mind it is from a preview build and not the finished game.

You take control of a group of Partisans (a military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power) to fight against the occupying German forces during World War II.

You start off alone but soon meet up with other resistance members. Each mission involves you planning a strategy to reach a certain location, usually by overcoming the enemy, but remember you are massively outgunned by the Germans, so instead of going in guns blazing, the main game involves stealth, patience and trying to set up an ambush.

The first thing you will notice are the graphics, they are incredibly detailed, you also get a choice of language for the enemy, so they can speak in German or English depending on your preference, or if you want subtitles. This all adds to the realism of the game. Once you get past the looks you have to deal with the controls. I hated the control system. I admit I am a console gamer at heart, but I have also been playing computer games since the 1980s, so I do not fear a mouse and keyboard. I would hope in the finished game they at the very least offer a simplified control system that is more user friendly. I also hope they have in place a better hints system and a better tutorial. The onscreen hints and suggestions just seem to blend into everything else on the screen and I found that it just didn't really help.

Now once I got past the terrible control system, I then had to deal with the camera view, now maybe I didn't figure out how to make it automatically follow your main character, but as far as I can see you have to manually control the view as well, so while trying to plan out your next step you are forever trying to get the screen centred or facing the direction you want, and then instead of having a solid isometric view, the camera also can swing around, which in theory is a good thing as it allows you to see things better, but I found it just makes life harder. When playing a game I hate having to keep looking down at the controls. So I just found it frustrating and time wasting, when a much simpler camera view would just make life easier and the game more enjoyable.

Once you get past these issues, the game itself is actually quite good, the stealth aspect is fun, whether it is sneaking up behind someone and putting them in a choke hold, or throwing a knife or shooting someone with a rifle, get it right and it all feels very good, get it wrong and luckily you can revert to a quick save and try again.

I think if you are already a fan of these types of games on a PC then you will very much enjoy this, however if you are a console gamer like me, you will probably find the whole control system a bit of a nightmare.

The Good

Everything looks great, and the game itself is a fun, if a bit overdone in the gaming market.

The Bad

The controls, the camera.

Summary

As a preview, the game has a lot of potential, I expect that despite an October release, the game will get constant improvements and hopefully if the game makers listen to the players, they can fix the issues I mentioned. If they ignore the complaints and just push the game to the niche market who already plays these types of games, then that would be a mistake.

RELEASE DATE: 14 Oct, 2020

Preview By Jon Donnis