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Upon starting it becomes clear pretty quickly that this game is about relaxation and exploration. Relaxation for you the player, and exploration for the characters you control. There are no enemies as such to fight, so you really can just sit back and chill as you play.
The game is full 3D, you play as Miku and Taku, the game chooses different characters for you, swapping between each, as you explore a sunken city, surrounded by water. There are plenty of ruins, which you can travel to on boat, you will then find yourself climbing, swinging and jumping to different areas of each building, and collecting various items, both from these buildings but also from the surrounding sea. So that might be flowers, boat parts, diaries, and also detecting all creatures and cataloguing them.
You have a telescope too, so find yourself a nice high building, or a lookout spot, and have a look through your telescope, see if you can find other places to explore.
While climbing and exploring is fun, riding around on your boat is also a lot of fun, perhaps more fun than it should be, when really you should only be using your boat to get from one point to another.
The game never asks too much of the player, it is a fun experience, with great music, and excellent visuals, a proper palate cleanser compared to your usual games.
The Good
Very pretty visuals, a lovely soundtrack, and lots to explore and collect.
The Bad
When I first started the game, there is not a lot to tell you what to do, so you might find yourself lost for the first 10 minutes of play, but you will soon figure things out.
Overall
A fun game, simple as that, it delivers what it promises and in life and gaming what more do you want.
I score Submerged: Hidden Depths on PC (Steam) a solid 8/10
The story goes that the Human Race has mostly deserted the Earth and gone to live on Mars, behind them they have left the Earth as a waste filled dump. Your job is to explore and clean up. And try to restore the beauty to the world around you.
At its base this is something of a farming simulator. But there is more to it than just that as you can domesticate wild animals, build your village, craft items and eventually build your perfect home. Hence the name of the game "No Place Like Home"
When you first start you will have a vacuum on your back, that will suck up trash, as you walk around, you will find seeds, which you can then plant and water, grow plants, which you can use to make meals which you can then trade.
A lot of the game revolves around exploration, crafting and trading, there are plenty of secrets to find, as well as cleaning up all the trash and toxic waste.
Domesticating animals is fun, chickens, rabbits, dogs and cats etc. As well as decorating your farm and making everything look as good as you want.
The Good
If you enjoy the types of games that you can put a lot of time into, without much stress, then this game is designed for you. Everything looks great, and definitely would appeal to the younger gamer.
The Bad
It is early access, so there are some bugs, plus little things that would just make the game better are not there, silly things, can't put my finger on them as such but it is missing that little bit extra, that just grabs you and wants you to play another hour. Also, you can't run or jump, which is annoying. Plus, where are the horses! We need horses!
Overall
The game is ok, but it is rather niche, and it is quite buggy, although the bugs are slowly being fixed.
This game is not really for me, but I can understand it will appeal to some. So with that in mind, I score No Place Like Home on PC (Steam) a fair 6/10
Although this game is "Early Access" it is pretty polished, so I will treat it with the respect that it deserves, as not only Early Access, but also as a very well developed, and far along game.
The story goes that the Human Race has mostly deserted the Earth and gone to live on Mars, behind them they have left the Earth as a waste filled dump. Your job is to explore and clean up. And try to restore the beauty to the world around you.
At its base this is something of a farming simulator. But there is more to it than just that as you can domesticate wild animals, build your village, craft items and eventually build your perfect home. Hence the name of the game "No Place Like Home"
When you first start you will have a vacuum on your back, that will suck up trash, as you walk around, you will find seeds, which you can then plant and water, grow plants, which you can use to make meals which you can then trade.
A lot of the game revolves around exploration, crafting and trading, there are plenty of secrets to find, as well as cleaning up all the trash and toxic waste.
Domesticating animals is fun, chickens, rabbits, dogs and cats etc. As well as decorating your farm and making everything look as good as you want.
The Good
If you enjoy the types of games that you can put a lot of time into, without much stress, then this game is designed for you. Everything looks great, and definitely would appeal to the younger gamer.
The Bad
It is early access, so there are some bugs, plus little things that would just make the game better are not there, silly things, can't put my finger on them as such but it is missing that little bit extra, that just grabs you and wants you to play another hour. Also, you can't run or jump, which is annoying. Plus, where are the horses! We need horses!
Overall
The game is ok, but it is rather niche, and it is quite buggy, although the bugs are slowly being fixed.
This game is not really for me, but I can understand it will appeal to some. So with that in mind, I score No Place Like Home on PC (Steam) a fair 6/10
Martha Is Dead is advertised as a "dark first-person psychological thriller" from the creator of The Town of Light. Set in 1944 Italy, and with an Italian language set as default, the game is designed to get into the mind of the player.
You play as Giulia, and start off as a young girl, with her grandmother reading a rather unsuitable story to her, the story of a White Lady in a lake, a ghost who lost her partner, trapped in the lake until there is fog upon which she can wonder the surrounding forest, and as is often the case, will murder young women. Lovely bedtime reading. Once the seemingly never-ending intro is finished, you fast forward in time, and get some control of your character, you find yourself setting up a camera by the lake, to try and get photos of wild animals, you then have to go through a rather tedious effort of changing the film on the camera, and since this is 1944, it is one of those very old cameras. After you put the new film in, you check to make sure you have the focus right, but upon doing this you spot a body in the lake. You run down, and by run down, you press one button and the character runs automatically, you dive in, after pressing one button, recover the body and drag to lakeside. But wait the body is your identical twin sister Martha who for some reason is wearing one of Giulia's dresses. Upon this terrible discovery, Giulia takes off Martha's necklace and puts it on herself. Your parents spot you, come to your aid, but your mother who despises you, assumes you are your deaf sister Martha and comforts you. And so, the lie begins, Martha is dead, but now you have become Martha, destined to not only pretend to be her, but also learn more about her mysterious death.
Ok that enough spoilers of the game, since that is the opening chapter.
The game itself has plenty of warnings on it for disturbing content. The PlayStation release has been censored heavily, and some scenes have been removed completely. Suffice to say this is not a kid's game. For those of you who have played The Town of Light, you might have a general idea of what to expect, but no this is much more disturbing.
There are options to skip the disturbing scenes, but then what is the point of playing if you take out the most powerful bits.
The rest of the game will have you exploring the woods and the area around the family home, the stunning Italian countryside and of course trying to contact the White Lady.
The game can be very disturbing as I mentioned, there are some horrific scenes that not only do you have to watch, but you actively take part in. You will quickly understand why the warnings were needed. If you really want to know about them, just google about what bits were censored on PlayStation and you will find it talked about. Something I will avoid here.
Think of the game more as a walking simulator, something that the person sitting next to you watching, will get as much out of it as you would playing, there is a lot of going backwards and forwards between the same locations, which can become tedious too. Giulia moves annoyingly slow, and although the atmosphere of the game is great to start with, it soon loses its impact with repetition.
There are a few puzzles to complete in the game, but most of the interactivity involves you collecting things or looking at things. Dolls, Puppets etc which help unlock memory sequences. As this is set in 1944 there are plenty of references to the war, radio news alerts, newspapers and so on.
And of course, just as you started, taking and developing photos is a big part of the game.
The Good
The graphics are stunning, and the soundtrack is fantastic.
The Bad
Th gameplay is sadly quite tedious, and although the horror elements are very well done, and will get in your head, they are not enough on their own. I understand this is a "Narrative Driven" game, but it still needs to be enjoyable to play. And sadly, this game is more about looks than it is substance.
Overall
Really disappointing game, could and should have been so much more.
I score Martha is Dead a disappointing 4/10
Out now on all formats, but only the PC and Xbox versions are uncensored.
I am always somewhat cynical of card games on a computer, seems a bit pointless when playing cards exits in real life, with that said I have spent many an hour playing classic game Solitaire which comes with pretty much all versions of Windows, so there is a market. And when a game really needs two players, then that is where a computer and AI can be helpful.
This game is called "Speed" and is part of the "Pretty Girls" Franchise.
Pretty Girls Speed at its base is a two-player card game, now with this being a Japanese game, thrown in some fancy animated women in skimpy clothes, and you have a game that can attract the eye.
But as I mentioned, this is a card game, and that is the focus of the game, the female characters act as your opponents, and there are 10 to beat in the Battle Mode. Each one has their own little description, things like " She is weak-minded and loves cute and sweet things. She has a short fuse and easily sulks.", and " A snake Yokai. A graceful and bewitching monster. She controls humans and make them pay tribute to her in the form of wine and food."
Now the game itself is all about speed and concentration, this is a very very quick paced game, and will test even the quickest of thinkers.
You start off the game with a number of cards showing, and your opponent the same.
In the centre of the screen are two cards, to win you need to click on a card of your own that connects sequentially to one of the cards on the table.
So, if you see a 3 and an 8 in front of you, you need to click on either a 2 or a 4, and a 7 or a 9. As you do this, your cards move to the centre of the screen and are replaced by cards from your half of the deck, the first person to get rid of all of their cards wins the round. It is a simple concept, that I found to be incredibly addictive. As your amount of cards lowers, neither player might be able to play a move, when this happens the centre cards are replaced, or if there are none left from the deck, the two players can place one of their own cards, this is where some real thinking comes in, because you can see your opponent's cards, so choose wisely to avoid helping them, but also look for a route for you to win.
There are two modes of play, Battle Mode, where you play a best of 3 rounds game against ever faster opponents. Each time you win your time will get placed on a leader board, and your win/loss ratio is also recorded.
I found the leader board a real incentive to play a level over and over. Nothing better than seeing your name top of the leader board. All of the achievements in the game are attached to this mode of play.
The second mode is Challenge Mode. There are 100 levels to complete, the difficulty increases with each level. Try to beat all the levels.
Although the women are dressed in a sexy manner, there is no nudity in the game, and no sexual innuendo, just nicely drawn characters with interesting proportions.
The Good
Incredibly easy to pick up and play, and very addictive. I loved the fast-paced nature of the game.
The Bad
Nothing really, it is a simple card game, wrapped in some fancy graphics.
Overall
I am not sure if in England we have our own name for this game, I am not aware of it if we do, however I have already remembed the rules, and on a long flight somewhere, i might play it in the real world. For now, I will stick to the PC version.
A really fun card game, that I score a strong 9/10. It delivered on everything it promises
