REVIEW: Togges on Nintendo Switch

Review by Jon Donnis

Togges is advertised as "a game unlike anything you've ever seen!", and to be fair, it is pretty unique, whether that is a good thing or a bad thing you will have to read on to find out.

This is a 3D platformer, but you control what I can only describe as a robot vacuum of sorts. You can suck up and spread cubes, (Togges) which in turn will help you solve environmental puzzles. You are tasked with helping the King President to save the Universe from the threat of The Void.

Even though your vacuum (yes I am calling it that) can move around freely and even jump, to stack Togges you need to have a start point, this start point then allows you to spread cubes either horizontall or vertically. You have a set amount of Togges. Now why would you need to spread Togges? Well early on you are tasked with collecting fruit, but to collect fruit you need to place some Togges on the top of the fruit, so you need to spread a line of Togges to reach the fruit before you can collect it. And of course the fruit aren't going to be in an easy to find location, this is where the environmental puzzle element comes in.

Now after the first tutorial, you will start your first world of sorts. Now this game is rather heavy on the text dialog, too heavy, and because of that, you will find yourself skipping through things just so you can start to play the game, this is a problem, as you will inevitably miss an important instruction, as I did.

I assumed that to reach the next level, you would need to build some kind of bridge, or find a way to jump to it, since you can see it not too far away. But instead you needed to collect all 5 fruits which in turn opened a doorway that would warp you there. I assumed I had collected all of the fruits, but of the 5 I had only actually caught 4, so I then spent way too much time going round in circles, trying whatever I could to progress but without success. Eventually I resorted to a walkthrough on Youtube and I realised my mistake. While playing you will discover the ability to change the colour of the Togges, which in turn gives them different abilities, for example the red togges can only stack 5 high vertically, where as the yellow ones can stack 7, but each Togge costs double that of the red ones. And the final fruit could only be collected using a yellow Togges. Now I am sure this was in the seemingly endless instructions, and I missed them, but I just wanted to play!

So once I figured that out, I was able to progress and finally started to enjoy what was up unil them a rather frustrating game.

There are loads of levels/worlds to play through, the graphics are excellent, even on a small Nintendo Switch Lite screen. There are lots of things to collect, loads of places to explore and secrets to uncover. There are characters to interact with and stories to understand. And most importantly as you unlock new Togge varieties, lots of new skills and interactions to enjoy.

The Good

A beautiful game, with a new gameplay mechanic. Once you get used to the controls the game is fun to play and offers a decent challenge, both in a platforming manner but also in a puzzle sense.

The Bad

The game is way too complicated at first, too many instructions, too much dialog, and you are thrown into the deep end pretty much straight away, the learning curve is too steep, and the balance is off at first. Get past the first proper world and you will be flying though, so try not to let it put you off.

Overall

Despite the issues mentioned above, this is a fun game, it looks great and despite the at times fiddly controls, this offers up a really impressive amount of gameplay and challenge.

I score Togges on Nintendo Switch a solid 7.5/10

Out Now on Nintendo Switch

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Togges-2307995.html

REVIEW: Classic Racers Elite on Nintendo Switch

Review by Jon Donnis:

I was asked to review a new racing game for Nintendo Switch called Classic Racers Elite.

This hill-climbing style racer is similar to rally courses, where cars race one by one and their times are collated at the end. The objective is simple: get from the start to the finish as fast as possible, while avoiding obstacles and trying not to crash when faced with tight u-turns.

It seems the game is set in the 1960s as there is a nice selection of classic cars to choose from.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward, with standard controls: the right trigger for acceleration, the left trigger for braking, and handbrake and steering. The game handles well and the cars feel pretty decent. I played on the Nintendo Switch Lite and the graphics were okay, if not brilliant. There aren't a massive amount of tracks, but the replay factor mainly comes from the leaderboards.

There are four different categories of cars to choose from, including small cars all the way up to F1 style cars. There are also 12 different championships to compete in and hopefully win, which will help you unlock cars as you complete them. There are 17 locations and a total of 50 tracks, which are pretty much variations of the 17 locations, so some tracks are reversed or have different obstacles.

This simple and straightforward game offers decent gameplay even on the small screen, nice handling, and a nice variety of tracks and cars to play with. The leaderboards are a nice touch, and the success of the game will probably depend on whether people feel the need to keep trying to beat a friend's score, etc.

The Good:

Ok graphics

Nice gameplay

Good selection of cars and tracks

Cross-platform leadership system is nice and will mean much more competition for the faster times when the game is released

The Bad:

Sound effects are very generic, so I quickly turned the sound down.

Graphics could be a little better.

Massively overpriced on Nintendo Switch; I would expect the PC version to be much cheaper when it is released.

Overall:

A decent game that plays well with no bugs that I could find. I score Classic Racers Elite on Nintendo Switch a fair 7/10.

Release date: 29/06/2023

Pre Order at

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Classic-Racers-Elite-2372747.html

REVIEW: Joe Wander and the Enigmatic Adventures on PC (Steam)

Review by Jon Donnis:

"Joe Wander and the Enigmatic Adventures" is the latest 3D action puzzle platforming game made by Frozen Pixel. You play as an Indiana Jones-type character and travel across four different worlds, each with several levels to complete.

Each level has a set number of coins to collect and, ultimately, a colored diamond. When you collect enough coins and the diamond, you can then enter the next level, and so on until you complete that world and enter the next.

General gameplay consists of 3D platforming with a fixed camera. You can run, jump, and use your whip. The whip allows you to stun certain enemies, enabling you to jump on them and destroy them. It also allows you to grab onto items you need to move and helps you swing across gaps that cannot be jumped.

Each level will have puzzle elements where you will need to move things, activate things, and open doors to raise levels and so on, helping you finish the level.

Gameplay starts pretty easy and gets progressively tougher. When you complete the game, you will unlock three new modes: Hardcore, which gives you only one life per save game; Hard mode, where levels have no checkpoints; and Time Trial, perfect for those wanting to do speed runs.

The Good:

Stunning cartoon graphics with a great level of detail. Easy to play with fun and challenging puzzles.

The Bad:

The controls can be a bit fiddly at times, and the lack of being able to control the camera is frustrating as you cannot always see where you are. The graphics could be a bit better optimized. I noticed a few bugs here and there but nothing too bad.

Overall:

A straightforward fixed camera 3D action puzzle platformer. It delivers on its description. It is fun to play with a few graphical glitches here and there, but otherwise pretty smooth.

I score Joe Wander and the Enigmatic Adventures a fun 8/10

Out Now on PC (Steam) at

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2063310/Joe_Wander_and_the_Enigmatic_Adventures/

REVIEW: POOSH XL on Nintendo Switch

Review by Jon Donnis

Sometimes all you want in life is a super simple, pick up and play, one button arcade score chasing game, well guess what? POOSH XL is just that.

You only need to worry about pressing one button, no directions, no left and right, just press one button.

The main idea of the game is to climb as high in the level as you can and avoid the obstacles along the way. Take too long and the floor will catch up with you and kill you, hit anything and you die. You will see a circle on screen, with a moving directional arrow attached to it, when you press a button, you will fire off in the direction pointed at. The higher you get, the better your score, and really folks that is it.

The main game is just an endless climb, complete the odd challenge here and there to unlock skins, but basically just get as high of a score as you can, see the leaderboard to compare yourself to others and try to be the best.

There is some cool procedurally generated music by "veryhandsomebilly" Billy Mills, and the game is available in 11 languages, although you don't really need the language other than the menu.

The Good

Nice, clear, bright neon graphics, cool music, simple to learn, hard to master gameplay.

The Bad

Anything I could complain about, would just take away from the simplicity of the game.

Overall

Super simple, fun game, not much more can be said that that.

I score Poosh XL a simple 8/10

RELEASE DATE 8th May 2023 on Nintendo Switch

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Poosh-XL-2360584.html

REVIEW: Family Island (Farming game) on Android / App Store

Review by Jon Donnis

I rarely if ever review mobile games, I don't see the point, especially on ones that are free to download, as anyone can just try them and makeup their own mind.

I thought I would make an exception for Family Island. Read on to find out why.

Let's take a look at the official blurb.

"What would your life be without modern technology on the deserted island? Dive into simplicity of the primal world with the modern Stone Age family in this thrilling offline adventure game. Stranded on the remote island, a family of four - Bruce, Eva and their kids - needs your guidance and help starting a new family home from scratch and navigating through various family life situations with humour.

After their previous city had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption, help this family build a thriving town, all while looking for a way to reconnect with their family and beloved tribe. In this farm game, their world might seem ancient and alien without modern day technology, yet their daily family life and relationships are very relatable in today's world."

So to start with there has actually been an effort made to have a story, which is rare, especially in farming games. The general gameplay is simple, start off on your own little island, slowly construct things needed to survive, use the resources around you, build bigger and better things, as you progress learn to trade, and finally explore other islands. The game is full of time limited quests, and lots to explore.

Now comes the problems and sadly this is a problem with pretty much every game of this type. Every action you do uses up energy, and energy is time limited. So lets say you have a full bar of energy, say 60 energy points, to cut down a tree it might cost 20 energy, but in doing so you will earn wood needed to construct things, and you might even get a few points of energy back. Early on the game, this isn't much of a problem as you will level up pretty soon, each level up resets your energy. As you complete tasks you will get energy, so for about the frst 10 levels of the game, you will fly through it, and it is a lot of fun. Then the problems start, everything starts to become a grind, play for 5 minutes then you have to stop and wait a few hours because you have no energy, every task seems to take longer, and get harder as you need more things to complete, but you dont have them, so you have to do multiple other tasks first, but everything uses energy, and just as you pass level 10, the game believing you are hooked, will now start throwing endless links at you, for you to pay using real money, to buy energy, diamonds, everything in the game.

In other words the game tries to get you hooked, and then slows everything slows down so much so that the only realtistic way for you to progress is to spend real money, but the problem is that we are not talking about a few quid here, some tasks may literally cost you tens of pounds. And since this game is clearly advertised towards little kids, this becomes a major issue for me.

I managed to get to level 15, and then I just gave up, as everything just became a chore, I used every trick in the book that I have learnt over the years on games such as these, I followed advice online, but at the end of the day if I want to get further in the game and in a fun way, I need to spend money, and I refuse to do so.

When you start the game, you have to cancel about 5 pop ups which are all trying to get you to spend real money, it becomes frustrating, especially if you are just trying to play for a couple of minutes to use up your energy and then wait again til later. Oh and I never even mentioned the endless ads to watch, to get small rewards just to progress.

Games like this have two purposes, get you addicted, and then try to get money out of you.

Is the game fun? YES it is a lot of fun, upto about level 10. But then it becomes a slog, unless you want to spend real money.

Be very careful allowing your kids to play games like this, and make sure they have no payment details attached to the play store on the phone they use, as otherwise you might get a nasty surprise.

The Good

Nice story, fun graphics, addictive gameplay.

The Bad

After a few days of fun, everything turns into a drawn out slog, and you are bombarded with endless pop ups trying to get you to spend real money.

Overall

A fun game that is ultimate spoiled by greed.

Don't let kids play this, and only play yourself if you are familiar with this time of pay to play type game.

I score Family Island on Android a 6/10

Out Now on Mobile Formats.