Once again, as usual, I am getting rid of the clutter
in my collection by discussing multiple games at once! And this time, five
games, because… I gotta speed up. Yeah, with a bundle I bought recently, I now
have over 300 games… I need to get more stuff done, quicker, faster. Alright, let’s get to it right away!
3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures
Deluxe
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| For some reason, I almost always pick Hector. |
All that’s missing to this title is a Super, a 64, and
an Electric Boogaloo at the end. It does say everything, though: Wanako Games
brought to us in 2006 a mini-golf game in the purest tradition of the sport,
which means extremely creative courses and plenty of gimmicks. And hey, it’s a
video game, so they can allow themselves some very odd challenges.
You pick one of four characters (two guys, two girls),
and are then sent on one of three sets of levels. The first two sets of 18
holes are split in three environments: A Western world, a circus area, and space! Six holes for each environment, which lets you see some pretty
impressive courses. You wouldn’t be getting stuff this fancy at your local
mini-golf place!
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Some power-ups make your ball jump, another sets it on fire,
another turns the hole into a vacuum, and one other removes
one of your strokes. One... makes your ball bigger, that's useless. |
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Yes, you have to send your ball at the planetoid.
Hm, didn't know The Little Prince renovated Asteroid
B612 into a golf course. |
The developers for this one took every opportunity to
turn this into a proper video game. It has power-ups: Some will set your ball on
fire. Some will allow it to jump once (very useful, if not mandatory, on some
courses). Some levels have power-ups that will turn the hole into a vacuum, so
that your ball will be pulled into it if you sent it there during the short
timespan in which the effect is active. The courses have various special tricks
made by the terrain, whether it’s the ducks passing by on a circus course, or a
whack-a-mole, while the space levels have a lot of gravity-based tricks, such
as that level taking place on a sphere and the hole is at the bottom of the
sphere, opposite of where you start. All pretty clever stuff, a lot of
creativity went there.
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Who the Heck puts scorpions on a mini-golf course?
Who lets them interact with the ball? |
Oh, and because this is a video game, the western
levels have enemies, the circus levels sometimes play with randomness, and the
space levels have a lot of hazards. All of which is intended to slow you down,
but fear not – you can accomplish a Hole-In-One on every hole in the game.
Each level has a secret strategy that you can use so that your ball will get
all the way from the start to the hole in a single stroke. You can spend a long
time studying each hole to look for the trick. Sometimes it’s obvious,
sometimes it’s more difficult – and sometimes the secret defies all logic or
requires great precision.
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The circus levels involve a lot of bizarre, carnival
mini-golf layouts. Some levels reference the popular
carnival games as well. |
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| Into the serpent! |
The final course is unlocked as soon as you start
playing, though it’s definitely harder than the other two: The Lost Island
Tournament, another 18-holes course with very tough levels.
I found myself greatly enjoying this one. It can be
tricky, but overall the difficulty is just right (outside of a few particularly enraging levels). Much of the challenge is to reach the #1 spot in the competition, by
completing each level in less strokes than your opponents, although there
aren’t difficulty levels for the opponents so they can be pretty tough to beat
during one game, easy during another… Speaking of which, the game works in
local multiplayer mode, so you can play with friends at home and have fun with
three more players! (Some people wished it worked in online multiplayer mode,
though, and I can understand that.)
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| This all looks quite decent! |
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Paradise Cove? This doesn't look too much like
Paradise. |
If I do have a point of criticism, it may be that the
game lets you choose the direction and power of your swings, but can’t let you
angle your shots using the club. Some levels are also very hard or overdo it
when it comes to hazards (especially in the Lost Islands Tournament), and
losing your ball adds one more stroke to your card, so it can be infuriating at
times. There's also a few issues from time to time, as if a glitch or two hadn't been ironed out, but aside from making you miss a shot once in a blue moon, it doesn't affect gameplay too much. Still, for a 2006 game, it looks decent, plays well, and is great fun. Feel
free to give it a try!
Floating Point
If you were looking for a free, relaxing puzzle game,
this might be it. This game by Suspicious Developments is very simple in
design, with soothing music, a little floating ball and a few squares scattered
around.
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| Look at the purdy colors! |
The only thing you need to do here is to point at a block,
and the ball will get pulled towards it thanks to a line, like a grapple hook. It’ll
then either gain speed or rise slowly. If it’s stopped in its trajectory by
another block, the ball will spin around that block till it’s free to continue
on its way. You can also right-click to “unhook” the floating point from its
current destination, which will make it go in the direction it’s headed, with
physics applying. For, you see, this is basically a physics puzzle game. Half
of each level is above water, with the ball falling due to gravity, while the
other half is underwater, causing the ball to rise to the surface.
The score is directly influenced by the ball’s speed,
as you have to collect red bars growing out of multiple blocks in the area.
They change in size based on the ball’s speed; taller when faster, smaller when
slower. The taller that bar is, the more points it gives, so the best way to
rack up a high score is to keep the ball going very quickly.
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The ball follows the trajectory it wants to follow.
Don't hang on to the same cube for too long. |
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The whole path taken by the ball glows a bright white
when the level has been completed. Now you can see
how much you moved around. |
There isn’t really an end to this game, as far as I
know – you can try to reach for the highest score, and that’s about it. There
aren’t special modes to try either, nor are there difficulty settings. However!
You can freely customise the game using the customisation menu, changing every
single major element of the gameplay and physics (such as the retract speed,
the density, the size of the level… and so on). This would give the game an
infinite replayability, but since it never really changes, it might not make a
huge difference.
There’s not much else for this one – a decent relaxing
puzzle game, which can keep your interest for an hour, maybe longer, with a lot
of customisation options. Not much variety, but that’s
okay. It’s a small game. Check it out!
Splatter – Blood Red Edition
Also known as Splatter – Zombie Apocalypse, this game
developed by Dreamworlds is a top-down shooter about zombies. That’s been a
trend, and most zombie games on Steam have been of poor quality, so I was
expecting the worst. This... was a pleasant surprise. I wouldn’t call it
amazing, but it went above my (admittedly low) expectations.
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Come to think of it, I really CAN'T remember the name of
this game's protagonist. |
Meet Gruff Gun-Ho Snarky Manly Protagonist #148 as his
day takes a turn into horror and a zombie apocalypse begins. This guy would
have been more at home in a film noir. Because he is defined by his willingness
to shoot at stuff, he grabs a gun and goes to town on the zombies, making his
way around. He isn’t alone in this adventure, even if he wished he’d be. There
are options from time to time that can change the results of the story, as
well. Early on you can hand over guns to a looter and they will, in
return, help you back. You can choose to kill that looter instead, if you
think you can face alone the armies of undead out there.
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I guess the zombies are a lot easier to see when they're
moving - and so, easier to fight.
Damn, this is dark. |
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Funny, I thought people stuck together even more now
that they were trying to survive together- oh, you meant
the zombified people. Right. |
There are other times where you’re helping other
survivors, like that time you’re put in the back of a car with a machine gun
and have to save the car by killing the incoming hordes. You can also save a
woman from loads of monstrous giant worms, and she’ll take you to a survivor
camp, where you can either leave as soon as you come in, or help them fortify
their defenses and kill some monster bugs before you leave. And from there,
your journey is far from over.
You have the standard fare from a shooting game:
Collect money and ammo, upgrade the weapons to last longer in the struggle.
Collect weapons, too, of course. You can also change the difficulty setting
(Harmless, Normal, Nasty… or Maniac). There are even side-quests that involve
collecting pieces of a golden gun. So we go from Walking Dead to… James Bond??
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| I don't think that's how guns are assembled. |
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Shout-out to the bit where you can mow down an entire horde
with a combine harvester.
This deserves to be in a movie. |
Get swarmed by monsters, throw flares, and always be
wary of the dark – most of the areas in this game are bathed in darkness. It’s
kind of the point, but it can be disorienting at times, since a lot of
obstacles aren’t clear and, sometimes, the zombies are good at sneaking up on
you in the dark. It’s a small point of criticism, although I suppose it was one
of the stylistic choices they took so I can’t complain too much. The game is
fully voiced and has subtitles (though there are some mistakes in the text, but
that’s a minor issue). None of the characters really stand out (not even the
protagonist) and the story follows all the beats of the usual zombie outbreak, hardly ever deviating from the usual tropes associated to the genre until the end where something more technological seems to be after our hero.
Ultimately, in spite of a slight lack of things to make it unique, the game plays much better than you’d expect it to, outside of a few
cursor-based issues (moving out of the screen will de-center the crosshair from
the mouse cursor). The difficulty settings make the game worth replaying.
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Oh, and also, there are different achievements for the
different options. So this game is worth replaying if you
seek out achievements. |
My only other point of criticism is that, for some
reason, buying this game will add all of its soundtracks and sound collection
to your Steam music library, all in different folders (including tracks less
than a second long), and it takes up way too much room. I might not keep this
game after I’ve beaten it once, but it’s certainly better than I hoped.
Tabletop Simulator
It’s kind of difficult to discuss something like
Tabletop Simulator, mostly because it’s not the base product itself that
matters; it’s what you do with it. This game opens a world of possibilities, as
long as you enjoy tabletop games and have a number of friends who, too, enjoy
them. And that they have some time to play then with you.
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Can you play chess for a full hour?
That's an achievement. I'm not joking. |
Tabletop Simulator, from Berzerk Studios, is a pretty
basic concept: You got that table. Prepare a game, invite people (or join a
server), start playing. The base game offers a few options for a single player,
like the automatic creation of a puzzle out of a picture on your computer.
Chess, checkers, dominoes, cards, dice, RPG figurines… it’s all possible. But
that’s not all. Of course, you’re expected to know the rules of the game you’re
playing, as they’re not set into the simulator; only the tools to play the game
are. You can also buy and download DLCs for various other famous tabletop
games. Can’t find your favorite game in the DLC? Maybe someone has custom-built
it in the Steam Workshop! Most of the stuff found there is kinda crappy, but
some are very well-done replicas of various great tabletop games. Still
nothing? If you’ve got the knowledge, you can build it yourself and make it
available to everyone else!
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| Hell yes, Red Dragon Inn! |
Personally, I’ve had an awesome time playing games
like Red Dragon Inn or Betrayal at House on the Hill through this simulator. I
also liked trying out some of the simpler games that only require cards, as
it’s possible to hide your stuff from everyone else using designated areas. In
fact, when you make a game through the Workshop, you can create all the items
needed for the game and you can even select the kind of table needed for it, as
well as any areas that each player can see or keep secret from everyone else.
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| NIC FLIP! |
Then, of course, there’s a plethora of options for
each player. Not so much to make your game, but to do random stuff in the
middle of a game; wanna flip the table? If the game’s admin didn’t lock the
table, you can! Draw or paint on the table, make lines, flick stuff off of it…
For long I’ve wanted to do that without hurting my fingers in the process!
Chain things up, type text on the table, do a bunch of other things… You can
write a message to everyone else… in fact, you can even make items with text
areas, which is useful for a game that requires players to write things for
others to see.
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| Looks fun, let's try it! |
The system takes some time getting used to as you can
flip items, move them around, do plenty of other things. You can do almost
anything, as long as you find out how. Unfortunately, most of the potential with this simulator is when you
play with friends. Otherwise, it’s kinda boring and bland. There’s only so much
you can do when you’re playing by yourself, it’s not exactly the way to enjoy,
uh, 99% of all board games. On top of that, if a game isn’t available in the
base game or as official DLC, and you can only find it in the workshop, it can
be of poor quality. But overall, the simulator offers all the options that were
to be expected from its base function of letting you play board games online,
and even offers some more. I do recommend it, as long as you have the time and
friends to play these games with. You might even make new discoveries that
encourage you to buy the physical copies, if you’ve got friends you can see in
person.
You Have To Win The Game
And you can! It’s tough as balls, but you can!
This retro Metroidvania by Minor Key Games seems fairly
basic, in that you only need to retrieve a few abilities in order to make your
way to the end – but it’s a lot more complex than it looks. The story? There’s
not really a story here, just go through this maze of caves and find your way
out! Of course, you can’t go very far without the necessary abilities.
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| Wait, haven't I already started the game...? |
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I'm a psychic! I foresaw myself die a couple dozen times
in this area as soon as I reached it. |
Not that you start with “abilities”, per se, outside
of running and jumping. Even then, at first all you can do is seek out special
spheres that will materialize blue and purple platforms all over the place,
letting you access new ledges. Then you can double jump. And later, you can
wall-jump, which becomes not only necessary, but vital to master to reach the
end. As a matter of fact, you’re thrown directly into difficult territory as
soon as you get that ability, having to stick to moving vertical platforms in
order to go back to the main area. Thankfully the checkpoints are very frequent,
as some areas are just insane – I remember that zone where you have to stick to
sides of platforms, because the entire top of these platforms is made of spikes
– and the screen beneath is also entirely made of spikes aside from a mirror
that takes you back to a much earlier area. Yes, there are some teleporters
around here, in mirror form. Not that they’re that common, mind you.
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There are also bosses in this game, but you have no means of fighting.
Just dodge the storm of bullets. |
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| - R - ...you sure it's the right magic word? |
Reaching the final areas involves coming back almost
completely to the start, which involves unthinkable gymnastics of climbing walls
with the latest ability. Throughout the journey, the walls often bear writings
about a “magic word”, who has it, who doesn’t, but it’s not entirely clear what
the word is. Yet, you gotta figure it out, as it’s needed to beat the game. The
final area takes you to the end of the game – that is, a mirror with “LOSE”
written over it, and if you do go inside it and touch the crystal ball, you
lose and have to start everything over. You have to go into a different mirror,
which takes you to 26 lettered mirrors, and you write the magic word (Spoiler
alert: It’s “SUPER”), then come back to the LOSE Mirror, which has been turned
into a WIN mirror. Reaching the crystal ball there makes you win the game.
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One of the nastiest tricks the game pulls is a series of ultra-hard rooms
that you have to start all over again if you use the left exit. No, really.
As for the protagonist, you can see it flashing, struck by the bat
at the top of this image. |
Then you find out that in order to get 100%
completion, not only do you need to find all the rooms in this maze, but also
get all of the money bags… one of which is located in the LOSE room, so you are
forced to play through the game twice.
The game is extremely hard, even with all the
checkpoints scattered around. In contrast, the art style is very simple,
reminding one of the older computer games of the Commodore era. The game itself
takes place on a screen inside your screen, probably to bring to mind the old
computers. The design lies on four colors: White, black, blue and… pinkish
purple? I dunno. The lack of a story means that you only need to focus on the
gameplay. And since you’re a one hit point wonder, you can be sure to die a
lot.
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| NOPE |
This game is also available in a few different modes,
all to test your abilities. The main game is available in Extra Spicy mode,
which is a higher difficulty level. And if you want a limited number of lives
to make things harder, you can find and unlock two additional options: The
‘Playable Cat DLC’ (not actually a DLC, you unlock it by finding a special area
in the game), which gives you nine lives, no more, to complete your task. And
if that’s not hard enough for you, there’s the YOLO Mode in which all the
checkpoints are removed and you have only one life to complete the whole game.
This game is free, so go try it out if you think you’d
like it. You Have To Win The Game’s developers recently released an updated
version, called Super Win The Game, with updated graphics and an actual story.
It’s in my collection; which means I’ll be reviewing it someday…
And that’s it for this Steam Pack. Boy, I really went
overboard with 5 reviews. Oh well, if it allows you to discover new games you
like…
Next week, a Top 12!
