Jerec's right. Lack of gamepad and weak gaming rig won't stop you from playing these games. Thus far, they're not advanced enough to trouble anything that can run flash browser games. Your hilarious dalliance with the old overprice paperweight hipster's calculator Steve Job's greatest troll Mac will be. Even asset swap bottom-of-the-barrel devs turn their nose up and that nonsense.

If I have one takeaway from what I've seen so far... these games are dreadful, but they're quite short.

Also this junk doesn't get controller support.

There's a part of me that would love to sign up, considering how the games for this reviewed so far seem gloriously bad to the degree that people are opening reviews with how their game has been purged from Steam.

But there's also the pragmatic part of me that figures that due to the factors of (a) MAC-owner, (b) not really a gaming computer (lower RAM than a gaming PC by far) and (c) since I only really use Steam for the sort of western RPG where things can be handled via keyboard and mouse, I've never bothered with getting a controller for it (or showing the inclination to do any research on using one of mine with Steam) there could be logistic problems.

Dogcoin (PC), developer is Primitive Studio. This game was formerly on Steam but is now de-listed.

Added.

I'll sign up, as long as you're okay with not receiving the review for a little bit.

Last Fort

Your code awaits.

I will do it. I will take the Steam code to Mordor.

Lovely thread on another tough week. Thanks for doing it in such a timely manner, and congrats to Marc on the win (and indeed, to everyone who contributed such solid writing and made EmP's choice difficult).

Thanks for the comments and placement EmP and I don't disagree with your critique. Hell, you should have seen this before I submitted it, as I edited out a LOT of stuff so Jason's eyes wouldn't start bleeding from the sheer bulk of it. I think, when I have a game that actually warrants me gushing over it like a teen over his/her new crush, it's really hard for me to tone things down as far as just getting to the point. Because that "set-up" was about 2 paragraphs longer before I trimmed it down and I personally got to the stage where I didn't feel comfortable taking it down any farther, even if it comes off long to virtually everyone else in the world.

But, hey, I WILL be reviewing both expansions, so with those, I might do a better job of getting to the point.

Thanks for the win, Emp, and the critique/praise. It did turn out to be a tough week, didn't it? I wouldn't have known that at the time I uttered that "quote" that you referenced. I thought flob would be competing with no one if I did the topic and my reviews were deferred, is all. Anyway, I'm glad there was quality all around, even if quantity continues to be low.

For EmP's Steam Code giveaway!

Title: Last Fort
Platform: PC
Genre: Shoot 'em up / Horizontal
Developer: GiBar
Publisher: Robot
Release date: March 13, 2018

Delisted from Steam sometime after, possibly in the great purge of '19.

Added.

“We should swap weeks”, said Marc ‘I’ll Do It Later’ Golding. “This isn’t a very busy week; as stands, it’s only my reviews and one other so if I do it, then I’m just awarding a win to whomever isn’t me. You should do it instead so there are at least two places to discuss.” Surprisingly, Marc had a logical point, and I appreciated his correct use of ‘whom’ so I agreed. Then Rob submitted. Then Joe submitted. And now my easy week is in ruins. More so, there’s a lot of first place tier reviews going on, so someone’s going to be jipped. I guess it’s your own fault for writing quality reviews on a week that isn’t mine but now is. Hurumph.

The given reviews have each cycled through various positions, but I think I’m ready to make my mind up. Before changing it later and being annoyed about it all. Stupid Masters...

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Underrated: Onrush [PS4] Flobknocker

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Why are your line breaks so weird? Argh, it’s so distracting!

There is a really good review in here that is a lot better than its position outside the top three would suggest. The line breaks don;t help, nor does the only image being of an empty vodka bottle, but I don’t really mind the ‘driven to drink’ angle being used throughout (even if Overdrive uses it once every couple of months, so it’s not a new angle for the site…). I think all your arguments and justifications on why this game is mechanically solid and based around a good, original idea come across well, as does your rallying against the lootbox-heavy nonsense that (hopefully) gaming is starting to grow out of by now.

It’s a really strong review by someone who openly wears their love for the genre on their sleeve, and these are often my favourite kinds of reviews. But them lines breaks are all of the bad. Cut that out! Also, write more in 2020.

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THIRD: Virgo Versus the Zodiac [PC] Joe

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Joe’s Necroreview (written 2012; finally edited 2020) is certainly something I can relate to; the game that starts off a jumbled mess that you really feel you should give up on, but are rewarded with perseverance. It’s a very fine angle to take but it’s also very easy to overtip your hand, which I think this review suffers from. I think you spend more time talking about the things that your struggled through, and not an even amount of time redeeming it. I don’t think, by any means, that this is a massive flaw; it’s still a very strong review that both successfully recommends a quirky game and warns the player that it might be choppy sailing at the start, and I suspect we can all relate to the complaints through our own personal backlog (this game’s a sprawling mess, but will turn out awesome: Sundered. Why have they changed all the bloody names we already understand into random gibberish? Phantasy Star, etc), but the overall review felt a little complaint heavy.

This game will still probably find itself onto my wishlist due solely to this review.

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SECOND: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PS4) Overdrive

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Rob has a ramble, because of course he does, but, in this case, with very good reason. There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to Witcher III, and Rob’s going to bloody talk about as much of it as he can!

That said, the weakest part of the review is the intro, which takes a lot of time to really get going. There’s a few points where it feels you’re going to jump right in to why Witcher III is such a great game, but then you back away and drop more hype instead. Once you finally get going, there’s a lot of highlights to try and pick through. The random quest thing was a good talking point to pick on, making each discovery feel like a real threat rather than a bygone conclusion. I also really liked the idea that seemingly throw-away conversations could butterfly effect into world-changing events.

The rest of your heavy praise, ironically, feels skimmed. Almost as if you’ve been told for years to get to the bloody point and were worried about spending too many words on things. But, honestly, I get it. I wrote an Elder Scrolls: Oblivion review that was approximately ninety seven billion words long, and games of this ilk will let you ramble them forever if you let them. I won’;t blame you if you disagree, but I think you could have used less set-up and more depth.

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WINNER: AngerForce Reloaded [PC] Masters

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You’ve barely won this week because giving Rob back-to-back victories would kill me inside so try not to be too smug about it.

I think AngerForce is your stronger review of the week. Enemy Mind is good, but I like the game a little more than you, so your argument is invalid. Or you repeat a few points already well made while in the process of winding down. One of the two.

If I had any negatives to say about AngerForce, it’s that you spend all your time on the concept and very little on the review. Without the screens (you’re welcome) all we’d know about the game itself is that there’s angry robots and you scroll upwards. That said, the focus on how the game does beginner bullet hell right is the ideal angle to take, but it’s very much a statement you’ll need to back up, which I think you’ve done well.

The level progression is the best bit of the review. It’s a tricky subject, and you do really well to not only discuss it, but do so in a way that allows the reader to determine their interest in the game dependent on their own perceived skill ceiling. Just come off a recent run where you were so bloody close to cracking the 1 credit play on Neko Navy? Perhaps the expected grind of the easy levels might turn you away from AngerForce before it warms up to your speed. Can’t even think about Deathsmiles without bursting into tears?. This is probably the game to toughen you up.

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Excellent week, all. Marc has next week whether he likes it or not; let’s give him as difficult a ride as you’ve given me.

One code, winging your way.

Okay, sign me up for this nonsense.

pls add

Pukan Bye Bye
Mar 27, 2018
Developer/Publisher: Artalasky
action platformer

Added.

I hear nothing but bad things about death. Best avoid it, that's my advice.

I've sent you a code. Best of luck!

I am actually intrigued by this.

Sorry to hear about your health issues. If you died that would've sucked.

So, it was the start of last year and I had found myself with a bunch of mostly random steam codes through some twitter lottery thing I didn’t know I had signed up for. “I know what I’ll do with these”, thought Gary. “I’ll revise the old Because I Hate You tourney thing Boo and I used to do and instead offer out random codes for games that I expect are not going to be great”. And then I got fluid in my lungs, didn’t die out of spite and forgot about the entire thing until I just saw all the codes sitting in my google docs. I should probably do something about that.

And do something about it, I shall! I don’t really have it in me to do a tourney like originally planned, so here’s the revision. I will give you, the ungrateful readers, one of these codes upon request and in return you will review it, whatever it is. There’s no limit to this, you can do it as often as you want until I run out of codes, just so long as you finish up the review before you request the next one. In the event that you get a game you can’t because it’s VR, or just doesn’t work, I will give you another one. Just to be clear, I very much doubt you’re going to get big studio releases, but I’ve honestly no idea. Maybe you’ll score GTA V. Maybe you’ll get Resident Evil 2. But you’ll probably get Hentai Slide Puzzle or MSPaint Platformer 12.

I’ll HGMail you a code upon declaration of interest. I’ll be interested to know what you got, but if you want to keep it quiet until you work out a review, that’s cool, too. Of course, it goes without saying that any of you that break the sacred bond of trust I’m extending in this will be dead to me forevermore.

REVIEW #01: I'm Turkey: Masters
REVIEW #02: Last Fort: Jerec

Thanks for the compliments, Venter, and kudos to Rob and Pick, for submitting great stuff on a slow week.