Welcome to Gaming Couch Potato, your ultimate destination for all things gaming and tech! Whether you're a hardcore gamer, a casual player, or someone who just loves staying updated on the latest in the gaming world, we've got you covered. At Gaming Couch Potato, we offer in-depth game reviews, breaking news, and insightful articles to keep you informed and entertained.
Bezier is a classic style twin-stick shooter. As you start the game you are told by an ominous voice that "100 years ago, I was born inside a computer" And straight away you find yourself controlling a small triangular thing, shooting at enemies. This is exactly how any shooter should begin.
As you start, there are clear and easy to follow instructions as to what you need to do, and where you need to go. As you destroy your enemies you will collect power ups, shields, better weapons and the usual things you would expect.
The gameplay is fun, and the soundtrack is awesome, apparently there is a full 80 minutes' worth of music to play to, a very cool synth sound.
There are 15 "game zones", various modes, and many different types of enemies to battle against.
Now if you have played Geometry Wars then all of this will look and sound very familiar, and that of course was merely an updated form of classic game Asteroids.
One nice touch in Bezier is the "Ouch bar", this is your health bar, you start with 99 Ouch, and every time you get hit by an enemy you lose an ouch. It's a silly but memorable touch.
The Good
In what seems like an endless stream of twin stick shooters these days, although Bezier is clearly just a fancy Geometry Wars clone, that is not necessarily a bad thing. And Bezier, despite the dumb name, does stand out as one of the better shooters out there, the graphics are simple but fun, and the soundtrack is great.
The Bad
The official blurb for this game talks about how "The story traces the principal's escape from this ""Noah's Ark"" gone wrong", but I really don't get the point of that, maybe that was written before the game was made?
Overall
A solid little twin stick shooter, if you like these types of games, and want a new challenge within the genre, then this is a solid pick, but it won't really offer you anything ground-breaking. I enjoyed it and score Bezier a solid 7/10
"Before We Leave is a non-violent city building game set in a cozy corner of the universe." Well, that is what the official blurb says, so let's go with that.
As with all city builders, your job is to create a society, and help it grow, and expand. Your people are known as "Peeps", and they have spent generations underground, so their civilisation is lost, you will slowly help them grow, expand the settlements, discover new as well as lost ancient technologies and eventually even leave the planet and colonise new and wonderful places.
Everything is very laid back, the mechanics of the game are very simple, the planet your play on is based on hexagonal tiles, each tile represents an area you can build on. You start off with everything very basic, and as you go along, you will find that you can research new ways to do things, everything from the way you build roads, to the buildings and so on.
One of the things that makes Before We Leave stand out, is the look of the game, as I said you play on the whole planet which has kind of been shrunk down, you will start on small islands, create shipping routes to other islands, and eventually leave the planet and go to the next.
You will start off playing with a pretty cool and detailed tutorial that will help teach you everything you could possibly need to know. It does this in steps, and at no point will you feel overwhelmed. My only gripe, and this is a small one, when you are first learning how to play through the tutorial, you may find yourself frustrated when it comes to placing certain buildings, that can only be placed in certain areas, for example, adjacent to a mining spot on a mountain, the tutorial tells you what you need to do, but until you have done it, you may not completely understand how to do it. Of course, once you figure it out, it is easy, but for a good ten minutes I was shouting at the screen at my obvious incompetence at placing a single building. Of course, I soon figured it out and felt stupid.
As city building games go, this is pretty cool, it looks great, it sounds great, it has some original touches, it is easy to pick up and play, and things do get more complicated and detailed as you grow, that it keeps the challenge going.
The Good
Looks great, easy to play and learn. Fun, easy going gameplay.
The Bad
The tutorial is great, but perhaps for stupid people like me there is one or two things that could have been better, but this really is me grasping at straws.
Overall
A Fun city builder, that fans of the genre will love.
Back in the 1980s we seemed to have one "run and gun" game after another, these were perfect arcade games, put your 10p in and play to your hearts content, classics like Commando and Ikari Warriors were often found not just in arcades, but in your local chippy. Well fast forward nearly 40 years and we have Thunderflash, a game that is inspired by these great games.
You are dropped into a warzone, and through top-down viewpoint, you have to fight your way through a seemingly never-ending horde of enemy fighters, drones, vehicles and bosses, to try to free "The Kashmir" from a criminal organization known as "Bloody Wolf".
As you play you will collect better and more powerful weapons, pick up gold and medals, and generally try to stay alive while destroying the enemy.
You can play solo or with a friend.
The controls are simple, your stick or pad controls the movement, and two buttons control your normal fire, or rockets. And that is it. You fire in the direction you are running in, just like the classic run and gun games of the 80s. Something that younger gamers might find a bit tricky to master. It is not just top-down view though, there is a scrolling left to right view on some levels, as well as other levels that might have you driving a speed boat, or a motorbike. It gives a nice bit of variety to the gameplay.
Everything is pretty straight forward, there is a normal mode or a hardcore mode. Check out the video I put together below for a selection of the different types of level you will play.
There is also a survival mode, where you are in one room and enemy after enemy spawns, and you just have to survive as long as you can, as well as a Boss mode, whereby you can take on bosses you have beaten in the main game.
The Good
If you are old enough to remember the classic run and gun games from the mid 80s, then you will take a lovely trip down nostalgia lane with Thunderflash, I can imagine this game fitting in really well at the arcade.
The Bad
Although retro graphics are the in thing right now, I feel like a slightly larger pallet of colours for this game would have improved the overall look, that said, this game is a retro style game, so not sure I should complain too much.
Overall
I was a big fan of Commando in the mid 80s, I spent all my pocket money playing it, this game brought back some fond memories for me. I love it.
Stellatum is a classic scrolling shooter from Satur Entertainment, you control a battleship, and you have to kill all of the enemies to progress to the next level.
Now we have seen thousands of scrolling shooters, some great, some not so great, so where does Stellatum fit in what is already a very crowded market?
Quickly the basic story, you are part of an alien race, ready to conquer the galaxy. Nice and simple.
The first thing that makes this game a little different is the ability to upgrade your ship. As you progress through levels you collect various components and when you have enough, between levels, you can craft upgrades and attach them to your ship, I was pleasantly surprised with this, as there is some depth to the upgrades, not just better weapons, but even the way your ship moves, is affected with the various upgrades. The weapons are also quite varied, and it is more than the usual upgrades of just more firepower, there is differences, rocket barrages, burning lazers, and so on.
There are 80 levels, or missions to complete, each separated into little constellations, each constellation has a different look, and different enemies and bosses to beat.
The graphics are fine, nothing ground breaking, but exactly what you would expect in a scrolling shooter. As with many games like this, it sometimes can be confusing knowing what is trying to kill your, what can be destroyed and what you need to collect, but you will figure things out quickly, and then it no longer becomes a problem.
Although things can get very busy on screen, it is never over the top, and while you may sometimes find yourself concentrating on your ship, and firing blindly while trying to avoid enemy bullets etc, this doesn't happen too often, so is a perfectly fine part of the game.
The Good
As scrolling shooters go, the gameplay is good, the upgrades to the ship as you play are very good and really do make a difference.
The Bad
The soundtrack is uninspiring, and the general sound effects aren't great, very generic sounds. Personally, in any game like this, I want to hear a fast, aggressive soundtrack that gets the blood pumping, and sound effects that almost make me want to duck. Sadly, this game is lacking in this area.
I also do not like the name "Stellatum", every time I say it, I hear Skeleton.
Overall
I am a fan of scrolling shooters, I have been for over 3 decades, so this game is right down my street.
I enjoyed playing it, and the good far outweighs any of the bad.
I was lucky enough to get sent a review code for NieR Replicant™ ver.1.22474487139... by the excellent people at Square Enix Ltd.
Now for the sake of time and effort, I will from this point on refer to this game as NieR, mainly because I am lazy.
Regarding the name, I have seen a lot of people complain, saying it is confusing, too long, and so on. As someone who has worked in marketing my whole adult life, I actually think it is a stroke of genius. Firstly, NieR is an updated version of NieR Replicant which was released in Japan about 10 years ago. And there were also a few slightly different versions released on different consoles over the years. So, by giving the game a slightly ridiculous name, it created a talking point. And if people are talking, then people are buying, it is that simple.
With all that said, we are not here today to talk about the name, but instead talk about the game.
NieR is a prequel of sorts to NieR Automata, now I have played that game too, and one of my biggest complaints about that game was the lack of saving points, meaning you could play an entire part of the game, die and then have to play it all again. Or if you simply had to leave the game for some reason, you would lose all your progress unless you left the game running.
Sadly, this issue also rears its ugly head again, but it is not as bad as with Automata, so if that frustrated you about the last game, then rest assured it is not as bad here. It is still annoying that there is no auto save, but we just have to live with it.
You play as NieR and your mission is to eventually find a cure for your dying sister, Yonah, who has something called the Black Scrawl, along the way you will have to fight evil monsters called Shades, as well as all sorts of other monsters. Early on in the game you come across a sentient floating book called Grimoire Weiss, that gives you magical powers, or the book has the magical powers, anyway, when you have the book, you can cast magic spells when fighting enemies, you can collect Sealed Verses which in turn increases the powers of the book.
You will get most of your directions from a person called Popola, who you will have to return to, each time you complete a main quest. Why can't they have a mobile phone?
You have your main quest that you can follow as well as side quests, unfortunately the side quests can get a bit tedious, there is a lot of running back and forth, which gets boring, quick. What is worse is that you cannot pick and choose which quests to set as the active quest, so at times you will find yourself, not really knowing where to go or how to complete the quest, and you will end up forgetting about them, and sometimes even completing them, without realising.
Once you complete the game, you are encouraged to play through it again, you actually start at the second act on the second playthrough, and although you have to do many of the same things again, there are new cut scenes to see, and new dialogs, that help further tell the whole story. In many ways the second playthrough is better than the first. And to see all of the different endings, then a third playthrough is needed, but I imagine only the hardcore fans of this game will bother with that.
The soundtrack is great, and the voice acting is very good, no complaints there. The graphics could be better, I think NieR Automata is better in that regard, it is interesting how your viewpoint will change in some locations, for example, you may go from the free camera view, to a side on almost 2D type view, sometimes to a static Resident Evil style view, to a top-down view. It is all very clever, and does create something different visually.
The Good
Easy to play, entertaining story, great characters to meet.
The Bad
Side quests are a bit of a trek, and not the most entertaining, the lack of an autosave is also a major annoyance.
Overall
To be brutally honest, NieR Automata is a better game, but NieR Replicant™ ver.1.22474487139... is also a good game, and if you are a fan of RPG games mixed with puzzles, and action adventure.
I score NieR Replicant™ ver.1.22474487139... a solid 7/10
