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The very good people at Zoo Corporation send me their latest game to review, called SETTRIS, just from the name you can guess that this is going to be a puzzle game with blocks.
The game has a simple concept, you have an empty puzzle board, your job is to place the pieces available onto the board, making sure there are no spaces, and everything fits perfectly. Trust me it sounds easier than it is.
You can rotate the pieces as well as flip them to help you, as you progress through the levels, they will get harder, and the puzzle pieces more complicated and harder to fit. Luckily if you get stuck you can clear the board and start again. You will find yourself doing this often.
In the "Stage Mode" there is no time limit, so you can just play at your own pace, take your time, and hopefully solve the puzzle. Once you have completed a puzzle you move onto the next. There are plenty of levels to complete, so will keep you busy for a while.
There is also a time attack mode, this is infinitely trickier than the stage mode, the job here is to complete as many puzzle boards as possible within the time limit. There are leaderboards too so you can compete for the fastest time against players from all over the world. There are 3 time attack modes to try to score high on, one has you trying to place 3 pieces, another 4, and finally 5 pieces.
The game has a simple layout with a sea background and feel.
Puzzles are well crafted, and a great challenge for any puzzle game fan, young and old.
The Good
Simple concept, well designed, the leaderboards will keep you coming back, and there are plenty of achievements to collect.
The Bad
Perhaps not the most original game, but for a few quid you can't complain.
Overall
A perfectly simple puzzle game, for fans of the genre. I like a nice puzzle game and I enjoyed playing SETTRIS.
It has been a while since I have played a simple building game, so I was looking forward to checking out Pile Up! from developer Remoob.
Pile Up!" is a strategic building game set on a small piece of land, where your objective is to construct houses, keep the people happy, and manage risky buildings placed on a small area as you learn to build upwards instead of outwards. However, don't be deceived by the tranquil environment and the soothing music playing in the background, the game is designed in such a way that if you don't get the balance just right, everything will collapse, and you will have to start over.
Your primary aim is to increase the city's population by constructing risky buildings to their fullest extent. As the days pass, you will unlock new technologies and buildings. To utilize these new structures, you must construct factories. Each factory grants you access to a unique set of buildings, allowing you to expand your city even further. There are various types of factories, each will help you with different types of buildings as well as support.
With a plethora of buildings at your disposal, the choice is yours when it comes to stacking them up in your city. Experiment with different combinations, marvel at the results of your random creations, strategically place buildings in just the right spots, and cover up any mistakes you make along the way. Consult The Architect's Handbook to learn the functions of various buildings and discover creative methods to control your city's growth.
There are missions that you need to complete, which will reward you with various special buildings that may bend the games rules slightly, for example you destroy a building and then rebuild it and it becomes more powerful.
The game is still early access, so it is far from being a finished article, there needs to be more content, and at times it feels more like a block building game, than it does a strategic city builder. Due to the limited space, I feel like the game will end up forcing you to create the cities in a certain order, instead of letting your imagination run free which would perhaps be more fun.
The more you play the better you will get, and failure in many ways is part of the game, as you unlock more buildings.
The Good
Nice graphics, nice idea, just needs more content.
The Bad
Might leave you frustrated instead of challenged at times.
Overall
For an early access game this has a lot of potential. I'd prefer a completely free camera, as at times it is hard to know where you have put stuff.
No score for now as it is Early Access, but the game is worth a look. But keep in mind there are other games out there with the exact same name.
I was asked to review Away The Survival Series for its Xbox release, although the game has been out on other systems for a while, the Xbox release should be the best version with all bugs ironed out, as well as the addition of being able to control cats being a selling point.
The game is separated into two modes, Story mode, and Exploration mode. Story mode plays a bit like you are watching a David Attenborough documentary, but you get to control the main animal character.
You play as a young sugar glider (a small, omnivorous, arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum), there has been some kind of apocalypse on planet earth, and only the animals are left, somehow the sugar glider survived, and he is tasked with following his mother and younger sibling as they try to survive. All the time you are being narrated to like a documentary. The narrator will give you clues of what to do next to further tell the story, for example catch a lizard, kill spiders attacking your family, catch butterflies that will act as a cure to a spider bite, as well as traversing from one area to the next through beautiful and dangerous paths.
While you play the story, you can go off and explore which will unlock other things for you to do, and allow you to uncover all of the game's mysteries.
You will also have to fight large predators as well as small ones, and you will need to use tactics to achieve your aims, or else you will get killed, luckily if you do get killed you can start again at the last check point. And if you choose the Easy mode, you will also have your energy and food supply refilled.
Talking of energy and food, you can eat almost anything, including mushrooms and the small animals that you might need to get past. And should you get lost or lose your mother, you can use a kind of special instinct mode, bit like in Assassin's Creed, where you can sense where they have gone, as well as find animals and so on.
The story mode is the main way you will play this game to get out of it everything the developers want you to.
There is also an exploration mode, which will have you at first controlling a bit of floating fungus, which you can use to "possess" any animal you choose, once you possess an animal, you will be able to use it as if you were it, control a snail, and you will basically be able to do nothing but move very, very slowly. Control a butterfly and you can flutter about, and in the Xbox version there are also cats you can control.
In this mode you are tasked with possessing a certain number and type of animal. Hence why it is exploration mode. At any time, you can leave the possessed animal and return to the floating fungus, to allow you to better search, or you can jump directly from one animal to the next.
Now the idea for the game is great, but how is the execution. Usually, I am very kind to Indie games like this, but because it was initially released a few years ago, I feel like that they have had plenty of time to improve it for the Xbox release. The game does have a few problems. The controls feel clunky, whereas gliding should feel great, it doesn't, it feels a bit awkward, and landing where you want isn't as easy as it should be, although there is an aim method that only adds button pushes to what should be the most fun part of the game.
The camera is also a bit of a pain at times, usually when you are moving in small confined areas.
Combat is rather limited, and not animated as well as it should be, neither are the eating animations.
The game does have a few graphical bugs, as well as bugs with regards to the animals, especially in fight scenes. There are no excuses for any bugs like this a few years after release date on other systems.
The Good
The idea for the game is great, I liked the narration, and it really did feel like you were taking part in a documentary.
The Bad
The graphics at times are a bit basic for the Xbox Series S which is what I was playing it on, graphics are more Xbox 360, unfortunately, a game like this really needs super high detailed graphics to help tell the story. Some textures look a bit dodgy, and the animation is a bit poor. You will probably complete the story mode relatively quickly, and I wasn't a fan of the exploration mode at all. The addition of cats doesn't seem to add anything special to the game, I prefer using the humble cricket instead.
Overall
A great idea for a game, but perhaps hampered by a lack of ambition. Maybe there is just not enough money and man time available to make this game what it should be, which is such a shame as I like the concept. It is just poorly delivered. And with initial release on PC a few years ago, I don't hold up much hope that the bugs will be fixed any time soon.
To release this on Xbox, the game needs to be perfect, and the graphics much improved.
I wish this game was better, I want it to be better, but as it is, I score Away: The Survival Series on Xbox a sad 6/10
For those of you who follow my reviews, you will know I love a simple little puzzle game, so when I was asked to review Railbound, I found myself optimistic in that I would enjoy this.
Railbound has been out on PC for a while, but is now getting its Xbox release, and that includes a "big free track bending update".
So, what is the game about, well it has trains in it, it has dogs in it and it is a puzzle game, so you can probably guess. Ok perhaps not. The concept is simple, you need to lay track, so that train carriages can connect to the train, and the train can then depart. It sounds so simple, and yes it starts off so simple, but as always with these types of puzzle games, they soon become very tricky and will have you pulling your hair out, right before you solve it and then do a little dance in your living room, followed usually by annoyance at how you didn't figure it out sooner.
The game gets harder when you realise you need to connect the train carriages to the train in a certain order, throw in tunnels, barriers that need to be opened, and a limited amount of tracks that can be laid, and suddenly you will need every single brain cell if you want to pass the level.
There are over 150 levels, lots of bonus levels, different landscapes to play on. The Xbox release, brings with it an extra 30 never before seen tracks and a lovely relaxing soundtrack, with all of this you have one very nice little puzzle game.
The Good
Frustrating but in a good way. The graphics are nice and clear, very colourful, and the music is really cool. There are loads of levels, the game plays well on the Xbox using a gamepad. If you do get stuck, there are plenty of walkthroughs online, but try to avoid them, you will figure it out eventually, you just need time and patience.
The Bad
The levels often have only a single way to solve them, which means everything has to be precision perfect, I found this a tad annoying, especially when stuck on a level.
Overall
Railbound really is a fun little puzzle game, ok maybe not the most original in the world, but that doesn't matter, it looks great, is fun to play, and offers a decent challenge to puzzle fans.
There has been an endless stream of "Bridge Construction" type games in recent years, so the concept is not new, but Poly Bridge has gained quite a following as being one of the better examples of the genre.
The concept is a simple one, you build a bridge, and a vehicle drives across it and reaches a flag.
As you would expect things start out pretty simple, and progressively get harder. Start with a simple bridge, lay down the road first, then arrange the trusses and cables so the road can take the weight, once done, click on play, and the vehicle will try to cross, if the bridge is faulty, or cannot handle the weight, then it will collapse, and you have to start all over again. So planning is the key here.
You also have to keep an eye out for costs, weight of the bridge, and so on, all of these issues need to be taken into account as you try to stay within your budget, but also produce a safe useable bridge.
There are a few game options, the campaign being the one you will play the most, 100+ levels, over 12 different "worlds". Each level is harder than the previous, and before you know it you will be including jumps and hydraulics along with your bridge construction to complete the level,
There is also a Sandbox mode, which is all about creativity, with no restrictions. You can view other people's levels, as well as publish your own, which in theory means an almost limitless amount of gameplay, with leader boards and so on to compete with people all over the world. This is a fun mode which really does allow you to create some interesting levels, lots of decorative objects to include and create, as well as moving objects like air ships and planes to make the level look even more interesting.
This is a super simple concept, with a small download size too, it is nice to see an effort made to make what is arguably a crowded genre better, with some new and original ideas.
The Good
Nice simple graphics, a good learning curve, and an endless stream of user created content to play with.
The Bad
Unfortunately, as mentioned this is a very crowded genre, and it will be hard to stand out from the crowd. Many of these bridge building games are basically the same.
Overall
This is a fun if unoriginal game, effort has been made to add features not present in similar games. If you are a fan of bridge builder games, then this is a no brainer, you should add it to your collection. If you have never played such a game before, then this is one to check out for sure.
