Indie Gamer Chick

Indie Gamer Chick goes Multi-Platform

August 30, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 4 Comments

After two years with a very fine-point focus on Xbox Live Indie Games, Indie Gamer Chick is now shifting towards coverage of indies across all platforms. You’ve probably noticed that the amount of games being covered from PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade has increased lately. The reason for that is simple: the sun is setting on XBLIGs, and the community that has graciously supported me over the last couple years has started to move on to other avenues of indie distribution. Thus, the community that existed when I started this blog in July of 2011 is being absorbed by the overall indie community. It makes no sense to stick by one platform anymore.

This doesn’t mean coverage of XBLIGs is stopping here. In fact, XBLIGs will probably occupy most of my time over the coming months. But we’re also on the verge of two new consoles being released, each of which will have some form of open publishing for indie developers. Probably. Not to mention Nintendo is also joining the self-publishing bandwagon. I mean, they’ve been saying they’re doing that for months and yet their Wii U eShop is still a wasteland of moldy virtual console titles and little else. But, I’m sure a new breed of indies will arrive soon. Maybe. Fingers crossed.

Thomas Was Alone finally hits the Leaderboard, where ironically it won’t be alone.

The biggest change to Indie Gamer Chick is the Leaderboard, which is now multi-platform. I’ve known this changeover was coming for a while, and I’ve spent the last several months agonizing over how to handle games that straddle the line on whether they’re “indie” or not. I certainly don’t want to rank a game by a well-funded, multinational company against a garage-shop project made by two people. It simply wouldn’t be fair.

But, where do you draw the line? What makes a game indie and another not? Even developers are confused by the issue. Is it the size of the studio? Their funding? What about how long they’ve been around? Have they done larger licensed properties? If they get distribution through a publisher, how much creative control (if any) do they give up to that publisher? Often, there’s going to be a lot more questions than answers. For example, how do you define Tokyo Jungle? Sony owns the IP and their Japan Studio was involved in the development in some capacity. However, a studio called Cripsy’s (founded in 2007 by a group of gamers with no development experience) created the concept and handled most of the development side of things. And Toyko Jungle only came about after a series of failed pitches for other concepts to Sony. It would seem Sony had minimal creative feedback in Tokyo Jungle, except in areas related to promotional material. Hell, they barely managed to secure a US release, because Sony believed the game was too niche for us filthy American swine.

Tokyo Jungle – Indie or Not?

Thankfully, I don’t have to answer that. I didn’t review it, and I don’t plan on it. But I did review several games where that line isn’t so clear. What would you call Worms: Revolution? It was developed by Team17, who has been around since 1990. They’re independent in the sense that they’re not owned by a major gaming company or a multinational conglomerate. But they also have a staff of 75 people, and let’s face it, Worms is a hugely established gaming property. Bordering on iconic.

Worms: Revolution – Indie or Not Indie?

Worms, eh? Never heard of it. Must be one of those newfangled Indiana games I keep hearing about.

After months of debating, Brian and I both agreed that they weren’t “indie” in the sense that we’re aiming for. Then again, we’re not sure what we’re aiming for. Indie is becoming less a culture and more of a marketing term. We’re having trouble finding where the indie line is, let alone what falls on each side of it. Thatgamecompany had the might of Sony’s marketing machine to push Journey into the realm of success. But Sony had no creative feedback in Journey, and at the time it was made, Thatgamecompany only had nine employees.

Journey: Indie or Not Indie?

I went with indie. In fact, I put it #1 on the Leaderboard. I loved that game. But, since Journey came out, Thatgamecompany has raised millions in venture capital and seen their games released on a compilation disc. I doubt I would classify any future games by them as indie. I’m not ruling it out either. I’ll have to wait and see.

The game that gave us the toughest time to sort out was CastleStorm. Zen Studios, like Team 17, is independent in the sense that they aren’t owned or anchored by any major publisher. But, according to Wikipedia, they employ between 50 to 100 people, most of which are in Budapest (according to Mel Kirk, their American arm employs three people in California). Most importantly, they have worked on such major properties as Ghostbusters, Marvel and Star Wars.

Mel Kirk of Zen Studios defines his company as indie. He told me:

In my opinion (and in short), an independent developer is someone or ‘a group’ who control their own destiny. They do not have to answer to marketing, executives, publishers, etc. The developers themselves are 100% in control of the creative vision, all aspects of development and publishing, marketing, public relations, etc. That means indie devs can be 2 man teams or even 80 people – as long as they are in 100% control of the game and are there is no outside influence impacting development.

Fair enough. But, let’s face it, they wouldn’t have had full creative control on many of their projects, even if the Disney people didn’t exercise it. If they included a special table in Star Wars Pinball that showed Jar Jar Binks getting sucked off by Han Solo, Disney would have beat them to death with a plastic lightsaber and fed their remains to George Lucas. Then again, unless you’re publishing a game yourself on PC, you’re never going to have full creative control. Steam and the various console publishers will keep certain subjects taboo and never back down on those.

Forget about Jar Jar and Han. Sucking off wouldn’t be allowed in CastleStorm either. There is NO SUCH THING as full creative control for console-based indies. You’ll always have some kind of rule hanging over you.

Anyway, despite having to concede that CastleStorm was fully conceived internally with no outside funding or influence, we ultimately didn’t call Zen Studios “indie” in the sense that their games should be stacked against the Thomas Was Alones or Escape Goats of the world. It somehow didn’t seem fair. And that’s probably how I’ll ultimately decide what gets filed under indie and what doesn’t. The label of “indie” is too abstract to draw up specific lines for. A studio could be staffed by thousands of first time developers on a shoe string budget and no contacts to guarantee funding or success. On the flip side, if Shigeru Miyamoto or John Romero started a small three-man operation, you probably wouldn’t call their efforts “indie” no matter the game’s size or scope or budget. That’s what I’ll have in mind when it comes time to decide whether a game gets ranked or not. I’ve spent the last six months trying to find “the indie line” and have come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing.

Filed under Editorials

Decimation X3

August 28, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 6 Comments

I wasn’t happy with my previous review of Decimation X3, and the developers weren’t either, so I 86ed it and decided to start again. Why didn’t the developers like it? Well, because I accused the game of being a Space Invaders Extreme clone. No no no, they said. I have it all wrong. It’s not a Space Invaders Extreme clone. It’s a re-imagining of a remake of a clone of Space Invaders, or something like that. Also, they created the original “extreme” Space Invaders game back in 1996 when I was seven years old and not actually playing games. Ohhhhhhh. And if you hand out that link to every single person who purchases the game, all confusion that the very good game you guys made is actually based off a completely different game and not the one people would reasonably assume it was based off of will be cleared up. It also took them two years to request that clarification, right in the middle of the busiest week I ever had at Indie Gamer Chick. I really love Matthew and Jason Doucette, but at the same time I wonder if they’re not one “H” away from having the most appropriate last name in human history.

So I played their not-a-ripoff-of-Space Invaders Extreme-that-any-reasonable-person-who-doesn’t-read-every-blog-post-by-them-would-assume-is-a-ripoff-even-though-they-actually-invented-that-idea and, surprise, I still dug the shit out of it. Decimation X3 is a seriously good game. It’s basically Space Invaders, only its a lot faster, has fancier graphics, lots of fire power, and bosses. You know, sort of like NO CATHY DO NOT POKE THEM WITH A STICK LIKE THAT! They’re Canadians. That means they’re probably armed to the teeth with hockey sticks and moose.

From this, you can tell that I was clearly off my rocker for assuming this game was an attempt at doing a $1 XBLIG version of Space Invaders Extreme. What was I thinking?

From this, you can tell that I was clearly mentally ill for assuming this game was an attempt at doing a $1 XBLIG version of Space Invaders Extreme and not a revamped version of a remake of a clone of Space Invaders. I should also be able to figure out just from playing the game that these guys invented the concept of an extreme version of Space Invaders.

Anyway, yeah, fun game. It supports four players, it has no online leaderboards, and the amount of bullets enemies fire becomes fucking absurd about ten minutes into it. Oddly enough, despite being atrocious at bullet hells, I was able to play Decimation X3 relatively well, with tons of near-misses even when there didn’t seem to be enough room to squeeze through the rain of enemy fire. Either I’ve gotten a lot better at these types of games or Decimation X3 has some of the most forgiving collision detection ever. I vote for option A.

It’s been a while since I played Decimation X3. I didn’t even really get a lot of multiplayer time with it the first time around. I had enough of a good time with just that part to move Decimation X3 from #64 on the Leaderboard to #38. That’s the biggest jump ever made. And they’re getting that because their game is genuinely good. Not because I called their game a clone or a ripoff of another game. Maybe the term I should have used was “heavily inspired by.” Though seriously, if you guys think the average gamer will see this trailer:

And not assume you guys were taking inspiration from something other than the games you were actually trying to get inspiration from, I don’t know what to tell you. I’d never heard of you guys before Indie Gamer Chick. I doubt 99.99999999% of gamers have heard of you. They’re not going to know you guys came up with the idea of an extreme Space Invaders. Besides that point, your Space Invaders ’97 doesn’t look like Space Invaders Extreme, and Decimation X3 does. It’s not the same game, but people see it that way. It’s like hearing Sony say “Super Smash Bros? Never heard of it! PlayStation All Stars was totally our idea!”

Decimation X3 was developed by Xona Games

$1 Probably should poke anyone with a stick that can solve Rubik’s Cubes like this in the making of this review.

Decimation X3 is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection

Magic Racing Rally

August 26, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick Leave a comment

I don’t mind racing video games, but I’m bored silly by any real form of automotive racing. So naturally, I ended up with a boyfriend that’s a gibbering, foaming-at-the-mouth Formula One fan. Magic Racing GP 2 was made for him, not me. It was a game with old-school top-down gameplay, and that’s fine. Where the game made itself inaccessible to me was in the insane attention to detail of the nuances of racing. You had to calculate and adjust for every thing, right down to the types of wheels used. Yea, not for me. Then again, Brian and his F1-loving friends liked the concept more than the execution. The controls were pretty rough for GP 2. If they had been smoother, I think Brian and Bryce would still be playing it to this day. Hell, I think a lot of people would have. It had such raving devotion to the simulation aspect of F1 that I think people might have used it as an honest-to-God league, in the same way people set up Madden leagues or even Tecmo Bowl.

This is one of those games that looks better in screens than it does in motion.

Magic Racing Rally is a much more simple game. There’s still a wide variety of race classes and cars (based on real cars but with thinly veiled name changes) with different attributes, but it’s nowhere near as terrifying for non-fans of the sport. Also, the controls seem more manageable. But, I was still quite bored by it. Mechanically, it’s just too basic. From a graphical point of view, it reminds me of one of those preschool race car toys with the magnets. Just a static screen with the cars and the skid marks they leave behind being the only moving parts. It’s quite low tech and not very stimulating, even though the courses are well designed. Hell, some of the courses are downright beautiful, but when you superimpose a little eight-bit car on them, it kind of looks silly.

The big draw of Magic Racing Rally is the sixteen-player online racing. Giggle snort chuckle ha. Look, kudos to them for thinking to include support for sixteen players, but you’re more likely to see Sasquatch rollerblading on UFOs before you find sixteen players at the same time. The best I could do was three players. Unfortunately, even with what felt like better controls, all of us kept crashing into the walls repeatedly. Only on the slowest class were we able to come somewhat close to staying on the road. Otherwise, it was like trying to trace a doodle in the middle of an earthquake. I’m sure with patience and practice, I probably could have gotten the hang of it, but I was not engaged enough to want to get good at it. I hate doing this, but I wasn’t Magic Racing Rally’s target audience. I think fans of rally racing might enjoy it, assuming that any of the dozens currently available titles from that genre no longer “do it” for them. The weird part is, the racing was never the best part about their original game. It was the simulation aspect. With that significantly toned down, I wonder who this was made for? I didn’t really like it, and actually Bryce didn’t like it either, and he’s into this kind of stuff. Oddly enough, as intimidated as I was about Magic Racing GP2, I think that was the better game. The marginally better controls don’t make up for the lack of customization. I do think the audience of devoted GP2 fans might enjoy this, but otherwise, this race is permanently stuck in a yellow flag.

Magic Racing Rally was developed by Magic Studios

$1 said “Rest in Peace, Microsoft Points jokes” in the making of this review.

A review copy of Magic Rally Racing was provided by Magic Studios to Indie Gamer Chick. The copy played by Cathy was paid for by her with her own money. The review copy was given to a friend to test online play with her. That had minimal feedback in this review. For more on this policy, consult the FAQ.

Gameplay footage via Splazer Productions

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, Indie Gaming, Magic Racing GP2, Magic Rally Racing, Racing Games, XBLIG, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Game, Xbox Indies, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Review, Xbox Reviews, Xbox360, XNA

Dots

August 22, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 5 Comments

Having epilepsy sucks. Between Jerry and I, we rolled off eight straight days of new reviews here, a new record for Indie Gamer Chick. Then I got absolutely obliterated over the weekend by a spell, and wasn’t fully recovered by time the next spell hit on Wednesday. I’ve had no coordination. I’ve been sleeping a ton (cause for alarm for anyone who knows me). I almost checked myself into the hospital under suspicion of brain damage after finding myself enjoying Duck Dynasty.

Mostly, I was pissed at not being able to play the games I planned on doing for Indie Gamer Chick. Then I realized that I had been spending my recovery putting a sickening amount of time into a simple, addictive little iPhone game called Dots. Before I get to the game itself, I have to browbeat the developers for a bit. Dots? Seriously? You put all that effort into making a really fun game and Dots was the best you could come up with? It’s appropriate the game is on mobile because you guys totally phoned it in with that name.

Connect the dots. Nanna nanna nah. Connect the dots. Nanna nanna nah.

So the basic idea is you have a 6×6 grid of colorful dots that you have to link together to score points. If you are able to link colors in the shape of a box, it clears all of that color (and any extra dots trapped inside the box). There are two modes: one where you have sixty seconds and one where you have thirty moves. Like Bejeweled and its ilk, Dots relies as much on luck of the draw as on anything resembling skill or cognitive thinking. Because of that, it’s not deeply rewarding. I look at those pricks on the high score board and think, nay, KNOW that they not only used all the premium boosters, but still have the luckiest board to work with you could hope for. When it comes to randomness in games, I’m not lucky. The only time I beat the odds is when doing so works against my favor. If I was to play Russian Roulette with a special revolver that had 10,000 chambers, one of which was loaded, I guarantee you that Jerry would be writing my obituary.

So why have I been hooked on a game that is based almost entirely on luck? I can’t even really explain it. Dots is almost hypnotic in its simplistic pleasure. Part of it is the sound effects. The chimes that grow louder as you string together longer lines, which creates a soothing STOP LAUGHING AT ME! I’m serious! This is like getting a sensual massage in your ears. Plus, I kept playing hoping for that off-off-off chance of me getting onto the global leaderboard. Actually, these guys could really suck people in by making a separate leaderboard for games where no boosters were used. Of course, doing so would probably discourage people from buying the boosters, but still. You can grind up money to spend on the bonuses, two of which can be used once each per game. Add extra time (or five extra moves in 30 move mode) and clear all dots of a color are pretty effective, but the clear-all color booster is very spendy. There’s also a booster that allows you to remove a single dot from the grid, which might open up a run of square-making. None of them are necessary to enjoy the game. In fact, it was days before I used my first one. But, you probably do need them to have any remote hope in Hell of making the Leaderboards. Again, there should have been more.

I’ve been stuck at my house for almost a week now. In that time, I’ve been a bump on a log, watching marathons of House or Dexter with my boyfriend. But, I suspect that Dots is the perfect “play it while waiting in line” game. That’s what mobile games should be about. Hypothetically, that’s what the best handheld games should be too. Sure, epic RPGs have a place on your Vitas and 3DSs, but what about games that take advantage of the best thing handhelds exist for: killing time when you’re waiting for shit away from home? Phones have completely conquered that market.

It’s a shame that Nintendo and Sony have given up so much ground to the cellular industry in the time-wasting department. Games like Dots, not to mention abysmal sales of really good pieces of hardware like Vita, make me wonder why they even bother anymore. The Vita and 3DS are essentially hand-held versions of recent consoles, and their libraries reflect that. Maybe the era of the dedicated handheld gaming device really is over. I mean, yeah, it’s cool that you can play Ocarina of Time while waiting for the bus. But you have to spend $40 for that, not to mention buying an expensive piece of hardware that really doesn’t have any other functions to do so. Meanwhile, the device I play Dots on can also play movies, Netflix, anything off my DirecTV, and music. I can use it as a GPS, as a calculator, as a camera that doesn’t take crappy low-resolution pictures. I check my stocks on it, or the weather, or movie showtimes. I can tweet from it, or update my Facebook, or browse the internet. I can send text messages and emails, or unlock my car door with it. Oh, and make phones calls too. Really, Nintendo and Sony, no matter how cool the technology in your gaming devices are, they’re still mechanical relics from a bygone era. I would tell you to get with the times, but Sony is charging an arm and a leg for a couple measly gigs worth of memory cards and Nintendo is.. well.. Nintendo. The times are not something they’re going to be getting with anytime soon.

Dots was developed by Betaworks

Dots is Free to Play, and Chick-Approved

Filed under iPhone and iPad Reviews Tagged with Dots, Dots Android, Dots Game, Dots iOS, Indie Game, Indie Reviews

Gone Home

August 18, 2013 by 6 Comments

I recall seeing a trailer for Gone Home a few months ago and I thought then that it looked pretty damn cool. I filed it away in the ol’ memory banks, thinking that I wanted to play it when it eventually came out. Well, to my surprise it came out earlier this week and people have been raving about it. After playing it myself, I believe those raves are justified…to a point.

Meet the Greenbriar’s. They have some skeletons hiding in their collective closets for sure.

I believe that more entirely narrative driven games where there are no weapons and no one dies like Gone Home need to exist if video games are to evolve, transcend and flourish as an artistic medium. One of the better comic book writers of the last couple decades, Kurt Busiek, was quoted as saying in regard to superhero comics, “As I see it the superhero genre is like a big field and we’ve built up this gigantic city in one tiny corner. Every now and then some visionary guy drives out of the city and goes off in a different direction, and everybody goes, ‘Look, look…you can do that,’ and then they drive in straight line right after him. I think the lesson that we need to learn from the likes of Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Animal Man and the Lee and Kirby Fantastic Four, isn’t to say, ‘Look, there’s a new direction that can work,’ it’s to go off and find your own direction. We should try to explore as much of this big field as we can, instead of building another little suburb and then overbuilding it until nobody wants to live there either.” Just change what Kurt is saying about superhero comics to video games and you’ll get what I’m driving at here. Video games are becoming much like superhero comics: Stale. Boring. Overblown. Been there and done that. The AAA studios are overbuilding in the action/shooter genre. Even the indies are overbuilding in the puzzle/platformer and retro RPG genres. (Fuck, if I see one more goddamn indie puzzle/platformer somebody’s gonna get cut. No joke.) Even though I have some issues with Gone Home, I totally dig that it’s driving out of the overbuilt city and breaking interesting, new ground elsewhere. The entirety of the video game industry needs to wholeheartedly support and embrace games like this if it ever wants to be taken seriously.

OK, OK…I’ll step down from my soap box now and get down to the nitty gritty. Gone Home is essentially a first-person, point-and-click adventure/mystery game, which you can control with a gamepad or the keyboard and mouse, and it is set in the year 1995. You play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, a 20-year-old woman returning home from a year abroad in Europe; although she’s returning to a house that she herself has never lived in. While she was away, her father inherited a spooky old mansion from his (possibly) insane uncle and the Greenbriar family (the father, Terrance, the mother, Jan, and kid sister, Samantha) now reside in this manse. There’s a cryptic letter from Sam attached to the front door which essentially tells you that no one is home, but not why no one is home. It’s now your task to investigate the house to find out where everybody is and just what the hell has been going on with your family for the past year.

Teenage shenanigans. Check…

As you slowly explore the imposing and graphically well-rendered house, you begin to piece together (by basically being a big ol’ snoop) the tumultuous events of the last year. You are also treated to narrated snippets from Sam’s journals (wonderfully voiced by Sarah Robertson) when you come across a relevant item or clue. Gone Home does a great job in giving you an almost voyeuristic peek into the Greenbriar’s somewhat dysfunctional lives. It also excels at setting up and adding tension (via various “red herrings”) to the overall mystery. But, where it shines the most is when it makes you feel like you’ve time-warped back to 1995. This is achieved through various pop culture references and household minutia. Case(s) in point, you come across several, fictional Super Nintendo cartridges in Sam’s bedroom and scores of VHS tapes in the family TV room with familiar movie titles I couldn’t help but smile at because I had a lot of the same damn movies recorded onto VHS tapes back in the day.

Where Gone Home falters in my estimation is in two rather large areas. First and foremost, the ending just lacked any real emotional punch for me. I was let down. I was 90% sure on how it was going to end and I really wanted and/or needed something with a little more resonance or grit to it as the ending here. Maybe that was part of it, that about half way through I pretty much knew how this was going to end (even though the aforementioned “red herrings” are flying at you fast and thick by then) and I was let down that it wasn’t something different? I’m not sure, really, all I know is that I had a pervasive sense of “meh” as the game concluded. I could say a great deal more about the ending of Gone Home here, but then I would have to tread into “spoiler” territory, so a longer, commentary piece on this game’s ending may be in order somewhere down the line.

Another family portrait? Hmmm…

Secondly, I completed Gone Home in about three and half hours and that’s only because I took my time and explored every nook and cranny of the house. That’s too goddamn short for a $20 game that realistically has no possibility for a sequel, DLC, multiplayer or any additional content whatsoever. This game should have been priced in the $5-$10 range. Pricing a three hour game at $20 is fucking outrageous and whoever decided on that price-point should be ashamed of themselves.

That being said, Gone Home is an important game and one that you should definitely play. I’m certainly smitten with it, but I’m not in love with it as several other critics seem to be. The narrative (up until the ending) is excellent, as is the time capsule, 90’s atmosphere. It’s hard to capture how it makes you feel in words; it’s really something you should experience rather than have me, or any other journalist/reviewer, explain to you. So, go download a copy and live through the Kaitlin Greenbriar homecoming experience for yourself. You’ll be a better person for it.

Gone Home was developed by The Fullbright Company.

At $19.99, Gone Home costs waaaaay too much for a three hour game with little to no re-playability.

Gone Home is available on Steam.

Gone Home is Indie Gamer Guy Approved and now holds the fourth spot on the Leaderboard.

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Filed under PC Reviews Tagged with Gone Home, PC Games, PC Indie, PC Indie Games, PC Review, The Fullbright Company

The Last Fortune

August 17, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 7 Comments

Lots of XBLIGs look like they’ll be fun. Then you play them, and they make you actively question whether the concept of fun is something you’ve been hallucinating this whole time. That’s what The Last Fortune made me ponder. I took a peek at the screen shots of it and thought it looked kind of like Wonder Boy in Monster Land, a retro gem that I picked up for $1 on PSN that was just swell. Then I picked up Dragons Curse (which I guess is Wonder Boy 3, or possibly 4.. then again, I’m not sure which one Monster Land is either) on Wii’s Virtual Console and thought that was even better, until I hit a brick wall about halfway through and gave up in shame. Still, fun series It’s about time someone tried to make a tribute for them on XBLIG. It’s just too bad this one turned out a bit warped.

It really does have a bit of a Sega Master System look to it. There was no problem with the graphics, besides item pick-ups being too small and samey.

The game starts with a village full of peaceable folks getting ransacked by evil doers that burn it to the ground. Choosing to play as either a boy or a girl from the village, you seek out revenge. Because the language of the option menu suggested that The Last Fortune might be, ahem, difficult, I decided to forgo the medium setting (my typical starting point for most reviews here) and play on casual. But even on sissy mode, I still had a tough time with Last Fortune, because the mechanics of the game kind of suck. Like the developers fundamentally had a good idea of what to do, but didn’t take the time to polish anything up. The controls have issues with unresponsiveness, which makes movement a chore, especially when you get to sections of the game with long jumps and an emphasis on platforming. I was practically praying that the game wouldn’t go nutso with jumping elements. So naturally, there’s a boss fight that takes place during a vertical auto-scrolling section. It’s like being on an airplane that just lost an engine, so you pray for safety and get rewarded by having a wing break off.

The Last Fortune simply doesn’t do a whole lot to entertain. Progression is straight forward. Get from point A to point B while stabbing everything in-between. Combat is the focus of Last Fortune, which is unfortunate (pun fully intended) because the combat is shit. The range of your attack is limited, and thus you’ll have to do most of your fighting up close. You have no dodge, counterattack, or block. Thus, most of the time you’ll be forced to trade damage with the enemy in a way that gets downright maddening later in the game. I especially hated these giant red knights that looked more like a spartan from Halo brandishing a Halloween novelty sword. You have to get too close to attack them, and they’re spongy enough and fast enough that you will take damage. Well, unless you unload your special moves on them, assuming you have a good one. For some reason, you can only have one type of spell at a time. The item-picks for these are tough to distinguish from one-another, even if you’re on a TV big enough to double as an ark with two of every creature. You can buy a charge attack that shoots a Zelda-ish beam across the room, but it’s as weak as a watered down Martini. All the purchasable upgrades are overpriced and money is scarce even if you go out of your way to slay every enemy. Plus, you can only access the store between levels, which are too long and boring for anyone to reasonably endure.

The Last Fortune was only one dodge or block move away from being a decent game. Alas, it was not to be, making all combat an exercise in frustration and annoyance. The only way to safely fight these flying bastards is to hit once, run away, and wait for another opening. Also known as Zzzzzzword Play.

There’s just no hook to keep you going. In fact, the game seems to go out of its way to make you want to quit. The asinine continue system forces you to spend your coins (which again, you aren’t provided enough of to make shopping enjoyable) to continue from the beginning of whatever stage you’re on. To salt the wounds, you have to pay extra to start midway through the stage. Lives systems are obsolete anyway. A continue system this punishing for a game that isn’t very fun to begin with will not add incentive or replay value to it. It will just make people quit and find something better to play.

That’s what aggravated me the most about Last Fortune. It looks good enough that obvious care was put into it. The developers just forgot to bring the fun. Gameplay is bare-bones. Enemies are cheap. Damage is often unavoidable. The level design is basic and boring. The dialog is soul-crushingly long and dull. I truly believe the building blocks for a good game are somewhere in this mess, but Last Fortune never puts it together. It’s like the developers were given multiple paths for each mechanic: the fun way and the boring way. They fully intended to go down the fun way, but couldn’t read the map properly and ended up in the boring capital of the world. And that’s a shame. Bad game or not, nobody should be stuck in Sacramento.

The Last Fortune was developed by Misty Day Games

80 Microsoft Points have friends that live in Roseville, which is right next to Sacramento and thus is a like a satellite of boredom in the making of this review.

Gameplay footage courtesy of Splazer Productions

Filed under XBLIG / Creators Collection Tagged with Game Review, Gaming, Indie Games, Indie Gaming, The Last Fortune, Video Games, XBLIG, Xbox 360, Xbox Indie, Xbox Indie Games, Xbox Live Indie Game, Xbox Live Indie Games, Xbox Reviews

CastleStorm DLC: From Outcast to Savior

August 16, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick Leave a comment

For the original CastleStorm review, click here.

I liked CastleStorm a lot, despite some glaring flaws in its online setup. It’s one of those rare games where you have to get your money’s worth in single player, despite the multiplayer experience being theoretically better. Not that it’s a bummer of a concession. The campaigns features a nice variety of stages bumpered by a fairly entertaining, if completely batshit insane story. The main download of CastleStorm has two of these. If you’re clamoring for more, a third one just hit in the form of DLC. Though this is the weakest of the three. I guess it’s a good thing that it’s an optional purchase.

Just so we’re clear, the game still looks fucking amazing in 3D. The best any console game has ever looked in the format.

The new download, which will set you back $3, is about a third-shorter than the previous two campaigns. It adds some nifty new weapons that actively made me question whether or not balance was given any consideration. I again dove into multiplayer, first with my cue-ball friend Bryce. He absolutely cleaned my clock on account of having talent for building a custom castle. Well, actually he didn’t. He got direction from Brian, who helped him but not me. And no, citing “bros before hoes” doesn’t make it perfectly legal, Brian. Random match-making is still an exercise in futility. Whenever I got paired up with anyone, they always out ranked me twenty times over, giving me about as much fighting chance as a fly has against a swatter.

So what did I think of the new campaign? Well, I really didn’t like it. From Outcast to Savior has perhaps the most interesting story CastleStorm has told thus far, but the level designs are more of the same from the first time around. Only now, there’s much more emphasis on using the hero for the stripped down, button-mashy brawler stuff. Having just played two games in a row that at least attempted to evolve this concept, going back to a three-attack, single-planed hack and slasher was like volunteering for a lobotomy so that you can repeat Kindergarten. The hero stuff was almost always the most dull activity. I don’t know anyone who says otherwise. Why shine the spotlight on it? Zen Studios attempted to legitimize it by adding a couple of boss fights to make it feel climatic, but with such limited options for attacking, they wear thin quickly as well. The hero stuff isn’t the only problem either. One stage requires you to fend off an attack that lasts ten minutes. I might have been able to put up with such an event when the game was still fresh. Now? Ten minutes for a single stage that’s just a glorified wave-shooter is tedious.

Pictured: Jonathan Crane attending a Renaissance Fair.

If more of the same is what you wanted from CastleStorm, you’ll get that here. I always like DLC that takes wild risks with the formula, and From Outcast to Savoir doesn’t do that. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I was totally satisfied with the campaign stuff in the main download and felt there was no need to have more added in. I would have been fine with it, if it tried something radically different, but it doesn’t. In a way, it almost seems like Zen Studios ran out of ideas halfway through completing it themselves. Three of the spells now involve summoning a different form of the hero onto the battlefield. That really says it all. If you’re burned out on CastleStorm, you can safely skip this. If you’re salivating for more, give this a go. Unless you dislike stuff involving the hero. And if you’re a fan of the hero mechanics, would you mind letting me snap a picture of you holding a copy of today’s newspaper? Skeptical Inquirer is offering money for proof of your existence.

CastleStorm: From Outcast to Savior was developed by Zen Studios

240 Microsoft Points think Zen Studios got the order of the final two bosses wrong. The portly barbarian that’s barely mobile should have gone first. The giant fucking dragon should go last. How could you screw that up in the making of this review?

A review copy of From Outcast to Savior was provided by Zen Studios to Indie Gamer Chick. The copy I played I paid for with my own money. The review copy was given to a friend to help me test online play. That friend had no feedback in this review. For more on this policy, consult my FAQ.

Filed under Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with CastleStorm, Castlestorm DLC, Castlestorm From Outcast to Savior

DuckTales: Remastered

August 15, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 7 Comments

DuckTales: Remastered is a game about two billionaires squabbling over five million dollars worth of junk. Seriously. That’s what the game is about. After beating the five main stages of the game and collecting ancient treasures, Scrooge McDuck’s rival, Flintheart Glomgold (couldn’t have sounded more evil if his name was Adolf Stalin Jong Pot III), steals them from you and declares himself the richest duck in the world. Now, since Scrooge McDuck is established as a billionaire, that means Glomgold is likely one too. One whose net-worth is no more than $4,999,999.99 less than Scrooge’s. This is what happens when old people with too much money end up with too much free time. The worst part is during the end credits when, spoiler alert, Scrooge offers to buy the boys an ice cream cone. Each. And fill it with ice cream this time. And I thought I was frugal. What a dick.

That’s why I don’t get DuckTales. Scrooge McDuck is an utterly unlikable tightwad. A cross between Gordon Gekko and Mr. Burns that practically has an orgasm with every new gem you pick up. He talks down to his loyal employees, calling them countless variations of “stupid” and occasionally making fun of his maid’s girth. He lives in a mansion that has a giant silo filled with money that he swims in. In the game, you even get an achievement for partaking in this selfish, narcissistic pastime. And yet, Scrooge is somehow portrayed as the good guy in this thing. This thing that gamers have been salivating over for months now. Hey wait a second. Wasn’t picketing rich assholes who treated their employees with disdain and kept all the wealth to themselves a thing not too long ago?

I don’t get it. If some evil corporation wanted to bulldoze the rainforest and make gorillas go extinct, there would be worldwide outrage. But a game where you play as a multi-billionaire who caves in the skulls of gorillas to earn an extra couple bucks to throw onto the pile (literally) is acceptable children’s entertainment.

Glomgold is the villain because he has an evil beard, I guess. Never mind that it’s Scrooge that’s running around the world like a grave robber, stealing priceless artifacts from primitives and bludgeoning the local wildlife (many of which are endangered species) to death with his cane. By comparison, Glomgold just stealing a few gold trinkets from Scrooge seems positively tame. Though I don’t understand why he would kidnap Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby. Presumably to murder them. What else is he going to do with them? Hold them for ransom? I think the courts would frown on that. Scrooge is established as being older than Glomgold. I’m sure there’s probably an in-joke about how he’s only five minutes older or something, but whatever. Here’s a thought, Flinty: just wait for the old fuck to die. They’ll split his inheritance and you’ll then be the richest duck in the world. A little patience goes a long ways.

Okay, fine. Game review.

DuckTales: Remastered isn’t an indie, but as someone who barely watched the show (which started airing two years before I was born) and just played the NES game for the first time last month, I feel my perspective might be unique. Going into the NES game, I’ll be honest: I thought it was going to suck. Nostalgia taints everything. I’ve had children of the 80s tell me with a straight face that episodes of He-Man or movies starring Corey Haim hold up. That’s only the case if you watched them as a child and they remind you of a more innocent time before work, bills, relationships, politics, and children of your own turned you into your parents. Meanwhile, with only a few exceptions, games based on licensed properties tend to suck. So you’ll forgive me for thinking that DuckTales would be shit, just like 90% of the NES games you thirty-somethings tell me rock.

I admit, I was wrong. DuckTales on the NES was a fine game. But the remake, DuckTales: Remastered, is even better. First off, it looks fantastic. Animation and character models are beautiful. And that soundtrack? Wow. The old 8-bit chip tune stuff is alright if you’re into that sort of thing. But the symphonic remakes are stunning. Unfortunately, Remastered has a giant-sized hard-on for endless dialog. You can skip it easily by pausing the game and pushing a button, but I actively question why they bothered in the first place. Fans of the series won’t like it because the voices are all wrong. Well, except for the kids. But Scrooge sounds way off, probably on account of the voice actor being 93 years old now. I mean, yea, it’s cool that he’s not dead (Update: he is now). But when you have the entire force of Disney behind you, perhaps tracking down a sound-alike would have been preferable. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if all the recorded quips were just for gameplay actions, but oh no. Slow cut scenes showing Scrooge being verbally abusive to his staff or being a miserable old bastard to his family. DuckTales: Remastered, a remake of a game from the late 80s, is now one of the poster children for modern gaming’s excesses.

The new opening tutorial stage. You will scream “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!” at least four times this level.

I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I like how the levels aren’t simply about finding a boss anymore. Each stage requires a full exploration to track down hidden trinkets that open up the boss. And the bosses aren’t just about jumping on their heads, but rather play out as an event. Okay, sometimes those go a little long, but never to the point of crossing the line. There’s a new opening stage, and the final boss isn’t found by replaying the Transylvania level, but in an entirely new stage. Using the pogo stick move is easier. Some of the cheap jumps have been eliminated. The last boss doesn’t use random patterns where you could presumably go forever without having him open himself up to attack, like in the original. I mean, really, they took a pretty decent NES game and made it better. You retro nerds that won’t stop bitching about “why couldn’t they just give us the NES game?” really need to ask yourselves why you play games to begin with. Skip those cut scenes and Remastered is clearly the better game.

It’s not perfect. I don’t understand why invincible coins only last like four seconds, long enough to kill maybe two enemies at best. I don’t get why the physics for the climbing ropes weren’t improved along with everything else. I’m really not sure why unlocking the music, which is really all anyone would want to unlock, is buried beneath so much other shit you have to get through first. But that’s all nit picky. DuckTales: Remastered is a jolly good time and one of the best remakes I’ve ever played, so much so that I’m just about ready to tell Virtual Console and it’s endlessly re-released moldy oldies to choke on a duck’s dick and die. Improve the original or don’t bother at all. I’m looking at you, Earthbound, you overrated sleeping pill with antiquated play mechanics that’s about as fun to play today as soccer using cannonballs.

DuckTales: Remastered was developed by WayForward Technologies

$14.99 (I paid $11.99 with PS+ discount) will never get that fucking theme song out of her head now in the making of this review.

DuckTales: Remastered is Chick Approved, but not eligible for the Leaderboard (non-indie)

Filed under Nintendo eShop Reviews, PlayStation Reviews, Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with DuckTales, DuckTales: Remastered, Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Network, PlayStation PLAY 2013, PSN, Wii U eShop, XBLA, Xbox Live Arcade

Cloudberry Kingdom

August 14, 2013 by Indie Gamer Chick 6 Comments

I hated Cloudberry Kingdom. “Surprise, surprise” longtime readers of mine might say. Hold on there, people, because I didn’t hate it for the reasons you might think. Cloudberry Kingdom is clearly a punisher. I have the same reactions to those that I have to poison ivy. But, I can occasionally indulge in them and come away happier for the experience. I can’t really do that here. Not because the game is difficult, even though it is. No, I don’t like Cloudberry Kingdom because, and I hate to say this about any game, it has no soul.

The big hyped hook for Cloudberry Kingdom is that the levels are done through procedural generation. That’s a fancy-schmancy way of saying enemy and platform placement is randomly done by the AI. Hey, that sounds like it could be cool! I mean, no one game will be the same from person to person. Except, having such a setup pretty much guarantees extreme limitations on what can be placed in each stage. The shallow variety grows old fast, to the point that Cloudberry Kingdom was one of those rare titles I walked away from after several hours just because I couldn’t take the mind-numbing boredom anymore. It’s one of the dullest XBLA/PSN/eShop games of the year.

Good luck following the action on some of the stages. It’s like Satan’s version of an eye exam.

I’ve always been a stickler for creativity in level design. The randomly generated nature of Cloudberry assures none of that shit will be happening. It lacks that human touch. Often, you’re left with stages that just don’t make any logical sense. How can you be forty to fifty stages into a game and have the computer randomly spit out a level that gives you a clear straight-shot to the goal with nothing remotely threatening in your immediate path? Well, that happens quite a lot actually.

On the flip side, sometimes the game will spit out a stage that I would swear is impossible to beat. I mean, yea, you use the game’s currency to buy a short demo of the AI finishing the stage to prove otherwise. The first time I did it, I was using the hobby-horse character, which bounces continuously. In order to reach the first platform of the stage, I had to line up my character on what I’m guessing was the absolute closest pixel to the cliff, with no margin for error. I burned 22 lives trying to do it and couldn’t even come close to the damned platform. The control is loose enough that positioning myself to that one pixel where the correct jump could be made (assuming I then angled the jump exactly right too, which might have been another problem) would have been close to impossible by itself. If the level had been designed by a person, I could complain about the developer being an unreasonable dickhead. But because this is the level layout the game’s invisible lottery commissioner decided for me, I have to just shrug and chalk it up to a failed experiment. For some reason, that just makes me angrier.

I can’t completely chalk up the badness of the Cloudberry Kingdom to random levels. There’s a story mode with stages that were human designed. I didn’t realize that was the case at first. Hell, I don’t even know if I totally buy it as I write this. The truth is, those levels are so lifeless and bland that I honestly can’t tell them apart from the random ones fired at me in arcade mode. And despite the fact that there are multiple different hero-types that add different abilities or game styles, the levels are so samey and the set pieces repeat so much with the same small handful of obstacles that the novelty of each new hero wears off in exceedingly faster times. And some of those different play styles just plain fucking suck. The spaceship is the one I loathed the most. Often, the game starts you right in front of a barrier that you can’t reasonably expect to dodge the first time you encounter it. It’s so cheap.

Hope you enjoy spiky balls on chains, fire chains, the lasers shown above. That's the majority of the stuff you face right there. Really, these screens aren't leaving too much out.

Hope you enjoy spiky balls on chains, fire chains, and the lasers shown above. That’s the majority of the stuff you face right there. Really, these screens aren’t leaving too much out.

And no, bringing friends along for the ride doesn’t take the edge off. Not in the bungee mode, or any other multiplayer mode. Because nothing Cloudberry Kingdom does feels like a tightly designed game. I’ve heard people are enjoying the free-mode, where you can select any game type you want and toggle various attributes like gravity, character size, difficulty, etc. I don’t get it myself. I’m not one of those people who can enjoy an empty sandbox. I need a goal, and that mode doesn’t really offer that. It’s just a time waster. Better games have those in them. Cloudberry Kingdom has no joy about it. I never had a sliver of fun playing it. Not even for a teeny-tiny second. It’s boring. One flavorless stage after another with no incentives to continue except the promise of more blandness to come. Maybe earn a spot on the game’s leaderboard, which isn’t exactly something to strive for. It would be like winning an award for the most quiet person at a mute convention.

Cloudberry Kingdom was developed by Pwnee Studios

$9.99 (I paid $7.99 with PS+ discount) heard this is Garry Kasparov’s least favorite game in the making of this review.

Filed under Nintendo eShop Reviews, PlayStation Reviews, Xbox Live Arcade Reviews Tagged with Cloudberry Kingdom, Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Network, PlayStation PLAY 2013, PSN, Wii U eShop, XBLA, Xbox Live Arcade

Shadowrun Returns

August 13, 2013 by 6 Comments

“Welcome back to the Emerald City Sprawl, chummer. I’d like to say that we’ve missed you…but then I’d be a misbegotten, Troll-shagging liar!”

~ The voice in my head of the badass Shadowrunner, DICKRAZOR, that I created when I was 17. Don’t you fucknuts judge me.

I’m going to get this out the way right up front: I love Shadowrun Returns. I love that it even exists. I love the fact that I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign that made the game possible in the first place. To borrow a phrase from the (in)famous 80’s boogeyman, Freddy Kruger, “What a rush…”

Unlike most though, I have a (fairly) long relationship with this series. I actually played the pen and paper RPG when it first came out back in 1989. I also played both the Genesis and SNES games that came out in the 90’s. Shadowrun Returns plays like a long-lost sequel to the 1993 SNES game, which was fantastic, and that’s another reason why I love it. (I skipped the Xbox 360 version that came in 2007 because turning Shadowrun into a FPS, Counter-Strike clone was a horrible fucking idea.)

I’m back in the Emerald City groove…

Now, for the uninitiated, the basic premise of Shadowrun is that in the not-too-distant future the magic and creatures (elves, dragons, dwarves, etc.) of the old world re-awaken and are thrown into the mix of a cyberpunk, dystopian “new” world filled with crime, cybernetic enhancements and Matrix-like computer hacking. A “Shadowrun” is the name for the covert ops and/or adventures that take place in this world, and Shadowrunners are the folks that carry out these ops. The Shadowrunners typically come in six distinct archetypes: Street Samurais, Adepts, Deckers, Shamans, Riggers and Mages, although cross-pollination between these archetypes is frequent and welcome in the Shadowrun universe. Get it? Got it? Good.

Beyond all the cyberpunk and fantasy tropes, the most interesting element for me is that the majority of the adventures/story lines in Shadowrun have a very pulpy, crime noir feel to them. Shadowrun Returns is no different, thankfully. The scenario that comes with the game, “Dead Man’s Switch,” is pure pulp fiction goodness. You’re contacted from beyond the grave (via a pre-recorded message) by an old friend who charges you (the player) with tracking down his killer. There are many twists and turns to deal with before you’ll reach the gritty finale…and a rather large payday awaiting you at that finale. There are also a several side quests that fall into the same “hard boiled” mold. Fortunately, the writing here is razor sharp, setting the tone of each encounter and location very, very well, just as a savvy Dungeon/Game Master would. If the narrative wasn’t top drawer this would have sunk Shadowrun Returns before it even left the harbor but, as I said, it’s quality stuff, so no worries.

Nice to see that police detectives haven’t changed much in the future.

In regard to the gameplay, Shadowrun Returns is, again, distinctly old school. It is a tactical, turn based RPG that plays out in a 3D isometric perspective. As is standard in almost all RPG’s you can boost stats (with karma points rather than experience points), collect money, armor, spells and weapons. You can also recruit other Shadowrunners of varying archetypes (for a fee, of course…) to assist on the more hazardous runs. The mechanics are solid; the game plays as you would expect with few hiccups or glitches. It’s unspectacular, sure, but satisfying and familiar…like an old pair of slippers that are perfectly molded to your feet.

The overall presentation is nicely done, as well, but I do have a few quibbles here. The 3D backgrounds (and 2D character portraits) have a painterly and/or hand-drawn quality and they are gorgeous, rendered with great detail and truly give you the “feel” of the crumbling, dystopian milieu that Shadowrun Returns is set in. The problem with these beautiful backdrops is that they are in no way interactive, something gamers of this generation have come to want and expect. Hell, even I was like, “Well, that’s kinda lame.” Another disappointment on the “current gen expectations” list is that there is no voice work in this title at all, but the kick-ass, ambient/techno-ish soundtrack more than makes up for the lack of spoken dialogue. Also, the 3D character models are kind of weak; their animations are limited and the textures are a bit muddled. With such fantastic creatures that populate this world, it’s a damn shame that there aren’t more detailed and lively models to admire and manipulate. One other thing to note: the character models pop in and out (i.e. disappear then re-appear) as your character moves and the screen scrolls to match his/her movement. I’m not sure if this was just because my computer was set at the highest settings the game will allow, or it’s a larger issue with the game engine itself. I saw a couple other people on Twitter mention this issue as well, so I don’t think it was my system in particular.

“The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.”

After about ten hours of play time, I was done with Shadowrun Returns. Too soon, yes, but all good things must come to that inevitable end. There is a rather robust and complex game/level editor that comes with the game itself, so I’m really looking forward to the user generated content (and the promised expansions from Harebrained Schemes themselves) that I’m sure will be coming in the not-too-distant future and will add almost endless value and playtime to this already super cool experience.

Did I mention previously that I love Shadow Returns? I did, didn’t I? Well then, I think you’ll love it too, especially if you dig cyberpunk, fantasy and/or role-playing games of any ilk, and what gamer worth his or her salt doesn’t dig those things on some level or another? Go buy it and play it NOW!

Shadowrun Returns was developed by Harebrained Schemes.

For $19.99, Shadowrun Returns will give you happy dystopian dreams filled with orcs and elves and trolls and shit in the making of this review. I obtained my copy of the game because I was a Kickstarter backer.

Shadowrun Returns is available on Steam.

Shadowrun Returns is Indie Gamer Guy Approved and now holds the third spot on the Leaderboard.

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Filed under PC Reviews Tagged with Harebrained Schemes, PC Games, PC Indie Games, PC Review, Shadowrun, Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrunner

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