Summer Saliens Review: Clicking for Bargains and Carpel Tunnel Syndrome (PC, Mac)

    The Summer Steam Sale is here, and with it comes a variety of deals seeking to empty wallets. I've personally managed to snag several games for $50. There's nothing in there that's particularly new, although I could review something if I really feel like I'm running low on new stuff to review. However, Steam itself has a new game I can review, and I'm going to review it, simply because I can. It's the deal-giving tower defense game Summer Saliens!

Circadian Preview: Single Pixel-based MOTHER (PC Demo)

    (I know the horror movie references really good, huh?)

    As the conclusion for my arbitrary Steam-free month, I'm looking at a game I saw among my Twitter replies/likes. It's also another game in development, like Super Lesbian Animal RPG, but this one is probably one no one's heard of yet. Of course, I'm saying that when I was just showing people an RPG with furry characters and strong LGBT themes (which now has a stat on save files for how many times Melody and Alison have kissed that file.) Today's game is the MOTHER-'em-up Circadian, by Jeff Brooks! (demo) (main website)

DAAAAAAAA-DA-DA-DADA-DADAAAAA! ...What do you mean "wrong song"?

Super Lesbian Animal RPG Demo Preview: Some Real Girl Power and a Blogger's Confessions (PC Demo)

    Preface: Well, E3 has come and gone, and while I had surprisingly little interest in it, I have to say something about it. Here's what I can remember:

• Ooh, Ooblets has dance battles instead of normal combat! How cute!
• The new Super Smash Bros. game has every previous character? Neat.
• Ridley is showing up too? I really hope they give him the goofy voice Diabeetus does for him.

Oh, and I know it's a bit late, but I want to do a joke about Detroit: Become Human and it's incredibly ham-handed handling of African American Civil Rights Movement symbols. Sing along to the tune of Centerfold, originally by the J. Geils Band, as sung by Captain Jack:

"Ayy-yo! Cap'n Jack!"

My blood runs cold! My history has just been sold!

Hammer in the metaphor! Hammer in the metaphor!

My blood runs cold! My history has just been sold

*dooo doo do-do do do*

Hammer in the metaphor!

That was very dumb, and I'm sorry. But when I first thought of that joke watching a review for The Smurfs movie, I had to throw it out there eventually. On to the actual preview.

-----

    Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, I've never really told anyone this, and I have no idea what kind of people you are, but I have a confession. You see, I'm not a merperson, I'm not an artist.

I'm... 

I'm...

I'm...

*Try Everything by Shakira starts playing*

    A bit of a furry.

Hey, c'mon. It's not that terrible. I'm not into harassing woman or slinging around homophobic/transphobic jokes on Twitter.

    Why'd I wait till now to admit that I'd probably be a red rabbit? Partially it's because I have the art skills of your average elementary school kid, and most furries seem to have some really good art skills. Partially because I learned my cousin is also one and even makes fursuits, so I felt like I had someone in the community I could relate to. Either way, it's a opportune time to mention my furriness since I'm previewing what will likely be seen as a furry game today. It's the demo for Bobby Schroeder's Super Lesbian Animal RPG!

Somewhere in the world, this game and it's title is making a jerkass spew bile all over his computer.

Grand Dad Reboot Review: A GRAND Adventure (PC, Mac)

   For those of you that saw the last post, I'm doing some games that don't require Steam for the rest of the month. I gave out some clues to the identity of the games, and the first one is here. And it's a meme game, so hope you're all fans of inside jokes and references to bootleg NES games! If you're not, too bad! It's the side-scrolling platformer Grand Dad Reboot, by 'RED-FIRE' on Game Jolt!

"YYYYYYABBA-DABBA-DOO!!!"

    'Grand Dad' is the unofficial name of a bootleg character of the character above: a bizarre mix of animated caveman Fred Flintstone and Mario. According to the game's intro (rendered in glorious bootleg Engrish,) he's one of many bootleg creatures looking to take over Earth. They come not from China, not from Russia, not from Vietnam, but from space! However, our caveplumber has rebelled against his own kind and now must fight against them and their copyright-infringing terror in order to save humanity!

Arbitrarily Announcing Steam-Free Month!

    Hello, everyone. I was planning on reviewing Cultist Simulator, a card game by Fallen London alumni that caught my attention recently. However, something bigger has caught my attention: Steam/Valve doing something extremely stupid. You've probably heard about how recently Steam has had some trouble with some adult-oriented anime visual novels (shamelessly self-promoting my writing!) as well as a game basically about being a school shooter, a touchy subject in the only country where this is a big problem. Steam's solution? Throw their hands in the air and say "Fine! If you don't like how we curate, we'll just open the floodgates!"
    It's actions like this that make me pretend to take a sullen drink from a beer and reminisce about the time a game like Bad Rats was an anomaly among actually decent games. Steam's policy now is anything goes, unless it's illegal (does it consider each country's laws? Would Night in the Woods be illegal in Saudi Arabia for having a gay couple?), "straight up trolling" (whatever that incredibly ambiguous definition means,) and doesn't meet their standards of quality.

Seriously, I had no idea they had standards of quality.

Siralim 3 Review: Mashing My Monsters Against Other Monsters (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, IOS, PS4, Xbox One, Switch)

    As a kid, I played a good bit of Pokémon, starting off with the third generation. I enjoyed it a good bit, even though I always rolled my eyes a bit at the way they acted like friendship was the most important part of being a trainer. Sure, you love that Shuckle, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a crappy Pokémon that Electivire could kill make faint in seconds. And don't act like you never filled your PC Boxes with Pokémon you collect solely so you can say you "caught 'em all." I wound up being disillusioned and leaving the fandom around Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 when I found that the whole "maybe capturing Pokémon and forcing them to fight is bad" thing was a BS lie by the villains, who could be seen literally kicking a Pokémon like half an hour after their introduction. That's a lack of subtlety worthy of David Cage attempting to talk race politics in a video game! It didn't help that when I considered going back in for Sun and Moon that Nintendo decided to start throwing out DMCAs against good fan games like a creepy guy throwing out candy with razors in it for Halloween (allegedly, because that doesn't happen.) Anyway, what I'm saying is that this is one of those Monster Collection games. It's Thylacine Studios' Siralim 3 (Early Access version 0.1.5!)

Spartan Fist Review: Punch, Punch, and Punch Some More (PC)

    I'm not going to make the obvious joke here. I have pride. I also know when a meme should stay dead. It's easy to see when it's the kind of meme that should have never became a meme. Such as messianic gorillas or goofy-looking but racist echidnas. Liberally applied fists don't do much to put them back in the ground, but they do work pretty well against conventional foes, like the ones in the first-person beat-em-up Spartan Fist, by Glass Bottom Games. (Launch Version)

(I don't know why the logo isn't on the title screen, either. It drops you on this menu when you start.)

Where Have I Been!?

    Hey everyone. It's been a while.

    As you've probably seen, I haven't posted any new reviews for a month. I won't try to make a whole bunch of excuses as to why I was gone. I mentioned in a previous post that I'm doing internship work for MXDWN, but I also took an internship with Geekisphere. These two internships have kept me pretty busy, but now that I've gotten into the swing of doing two internships at once, I'll be posting my next review next Tuesday. See you then.

Post-PAX East 2018 Prattle

    I'm back from PAX, everyone! I was only there for one day, but it was quite a day. Even better, despite some post-con fatigue, I don't seem to have PAX Plague or Con Creep or whatever convention-based diseases were there. I've been accepted to do a video game writing internship at mxdwn.com, so I was also a bit slower this week, but I'll still try to get some stuff out here. Anyway, I know what you're here for:

A huge honking convention space filled with video games and demos.

     I plan to deliver. Here are some of my favorite and most interesting games of PAX East 2018, out of the many, many, many I saw. I'm obviously missing a ton, but these stuck out the most.

    Disclaimer: Trailers provided when available. I was not paid in any way to endorse these games.

Unless you consider pins, bookmarks, stickers, and business/website cards payment.

Minit Review: Minit T'Winit (PC, Mac, PS4, Xbox One) plus some stuff on Anime Boston

Preface

    As many of you probably know by now, there was a shooting yesterday at the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California. From the sounds of it, there were only three injuries and the death of the shooter, who was angry with YouTube over some issues, including demonetization. While demonetization was a bit of a hot topic a little while ago, I don't want to delve into details. Instead, I want to wish the employees of YouTube a quick recovery, both physically and mentally.

------

    So, everyone! How was your Easter Fool's weekend? It's not often we get two holidays on the same day. I mostly spent my weekend at Anime Boston enjoying the sights and buying some stuff. I'm not much of a picture taker, but I had a few choice ones to show off, like the serial killer from that one South Park episode where Cartman gets psychic powers (allegedly.) First off, among the many costumes that were either common choices or were things I didn't recognize, I found these two:

"CAAAARL!! Please tell me you didn't kill that blogger!"

    I also spent a good amount of time in the video game room. It's probably the only place I know where I can find games like Cho Chabudai Gaeshi, a Japanese arcade game about flipping a table to teach the idiots around your character a lesson and cause some destruction (Personal Note: The second of those games seems to have done a crossover with some baseball anime. Anyone know which one? It looks like an older one, judging by it's graphics.) Among the stages, I have to say my favorite one is the funeral stage, simply due to the sheer black comedy of being a ghost who's flipping his own coffin and corpse at the mourners and drunk priest. I also got to play the latest rendition of Konami/Bemani's Pop'n Music series of arcade rhythm games. This one had the lengthy subtitle of  "Usagi to neko to shounen no yume," roughly translated to "the rabbit and cat and boy's dream." I'm not that great at the game, mostly because the positioning of the nine buttons always throws me off when moving from one row to the next:

From left to right: Matt (the robot-thing, new to PnM) and series mainstays/mascots Nyami and Mimi.

    Anime Boston 2018 also marked the first time I checked out some of the special guests. On Friday, I saw Japanese singer/songwriter ASAKA, and she seemed like a pretty cool person. In the panel where I met her, she mentioned that she likes horror games, and I got the opportunity to suggest Lobotomy Corporation to her. I also saw the band FLOW at a fan meet-and-greet. They did some stuff in some animes, including Naruto, but I mostly know them from my favorite DS game, which had one of their songs (Okuru Kotoba, a surprisingly upbeat ska song about sad goodbyes.)

There was no photography allowed with ASAKA, but I could take a picture of FLOW.

    Finally, I spent Sunday at home, had some ribs and cornbread for dinner, and watched the Easter Fool's episode of Arcade Pit (8 PM Eastern on the Twitch channel 'Smight'.) I don't want to spoil much about this episode of the spiritual successor to Nick Arcade, but I will say that when that noir detective in the Mystery Game's intro said "Take me to hell," I don't think he meant it quite in that way. Also, I can show you a bit of art that debuted in that episode of Arcade Pit:

Arcade Pit Snail Devouring Bubsy (Any claims of Bubsy Bobcat being the Arcade Pit Snail's descendant are treason, and punishable by Feelin' Sad.)

    With the busy weekend I had, It might be a bit of a surprise to find that I still have a review. Luckily, I can spare a minute to talk about Minit, published by Devolver Digital and developed by the team of Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, and Dominik Johann.

(Version: Release version)

Puyo Puyo Tetris Port Report: Of Blocks and Blobs (PC Port)

    I might have mentioned it before, but Steam's update to the wishlist page seems to be acting a bit iffy when sorting by release dates. Not counting anything involving Early Access, it can't really decide where it should put unreleased games, even if they have an announced release date. For example, a game I'm curious to review is slated to release April 3rd, but it ranks as having a release later than that of games coming in late April, late May, and even those with a TBA date. This, along with a lack of interesting games (interesting for me. I know about Far Cry 5,) I've made an executive decision to look at a recently released port of a game released last year. We're going mainstream, folks! It's the Steam version of Puyo Puyo Tetris, by Sega (Patch 3 Version!)

Vagante Review: Four Years Spent Spelunking (PC, Mac)

    Well, for some reason, Steam delayed their release of Pato Box, which means I have to shelve all my Air Bud jokes ("There's nothing in the rule book that says...") and find a different game. Luckily, I have one right here.

    I've seen quite a few games out there that are well-known for having spent a very long time in development. We all probably remember how Duke Nukem Forever took about a decade to be released as a mediocre first-person shooter, but Steam's early access system can also be considered "in development." If we do go with my ruling that early access counts as development time, today's game has been in development for about four years. It's the side-scrolling platformer Vagante, by Nuke Nine!

CHUCHEL Review: Comedy and Fuzz with a Cherry on Top (PC, Mac)

   Well, let me start off by apologizing for taking so long with this update. I had a game already set up to review, that game being a beat-em-up called Way of the Passive Fist, complete with the obligatory references to Fist of the North Star or the LISA games. However, I discovered a bit too late that for some reason, the main method I use to take screenshots on the Steam games (pressing F12 to snap a screen) didn't work for that game. Since I don't know any other useful screenshot programs and I don't want to use the tedious option of the Print Screen option pasted to Paint, I had to put that review on the back burner. Luckily, I found someone willing to help me with that issue...

"......zzzzzz.....zzzzzz....."

    ...well, he said he would help me with this one. Although he might have been asking me when I was going to clear out my Steam backlog. There was quite a language barrier between us. Looks like I'll be doing this one on my own. It's the comedic adventure game CHUCHEL, by Aminita Designs!

(This isn't the title screen. In fact, the previous image was the first screen you see in-game. This one just works for a title, in my opinion)

Octogeddon Review: Eight Tentacles to Annihilate You (PC)

Preface:

    I would be remiss if I didn't talk a little about the release of Metal Gear Survive, the first Metal Gear Solid game without the influence of game development superstar Hideo Kojima. I won't get into the whole drama between Konami and Kojima, but I will mention the initial reception. It seems lukewarm at best, and I'm not optimistic about its long-term appeal. It already requires always-online and has microtransactions that impact gameplay (such as the save slots you pay ~$10 to unlock,) and let's not forget the fans of the Kojima Era MGS games, who I can imagine already had their torches and pitchforks out for this game the second it was announced. With the future of Metal Gear Survive left uncertain, let's move on to the main event...

    If you've been on YouTube for any period of time, you've probably seen some video that almost feels like a personal attack on you. It might be some news video where a major politician once again digs up the claim that violent video games cause school shootings, a jackass gleefully reinforcing that old stereotype of the ignorant American tourist, or maybe it's someone who remarks on how the Internet lets any "autistic retard" make a webcomic. For most of us, our only options involve silently seething or posting a sternly worded comment, both of which ultimately do nothing. In today's game, however, you can do something that will definitely get them to notice your anger. It's the arcade-style side-scrolling action game Octogeddon, by All Yes Good!

Kyofu no Sekai World of Horror Preview: No Apologetic Satanists Allowed (PC, Mac)

WARNING: Given that this game is based off a famous horror writer's works, this preview will have some disturbing imagery and a good amount of blood. Reader discretion is advised.

    Good news, everyone! I'm back in action! The floorwork is done, we've moved back in, and we'll be getting everything organized over the next few days. But I also have a different kind of good news. That demo I mentioned a couple articles ago finally released! As a result, I can show you the world. The World of Horror! (Or the Kyofu no Sekai, either one.)

(You'll really need to click the pictures to see the finer text in these ones. Sorry about that.)

Update: Out of the house for a week.

    Well, everyone. I regret to inform that I'm going to be out of commission when it comes to reviews for this week because I'll be in a hotel for a few days.

    About a month ago, me and my family noticed that the floorboards in the kitchen were making strange cracking noises and were pretty warped. It turns out that our dishwasher broke some time ago without us noticing it and it's been slowly soaking the boards without us noticing. Of course, this means we had to get a new dishwasher and new floorboards. The problem is that about 85% of the first floor of our house is made up of wooden floors, so in order to replace the warped boards, we have to replace ALL of them.

    Because of this, we spent the past couple weeks moving various things and lugging furniture around so the floor guys can fully replace all the floorboards. Today is the last day of moving stuff, and we'll be going to a hotel for a bit while the floor guys do their work. Because of this, I'll be unable to do much blogging until I get back. Hopefully during that time I can find something good to review. I heard that old game Drakkhen was released on Steam recently (the PC-88 version,) but that probably won't be my choice. It's not really a good game, it's pretty buggy (from what I've seen/heard of the SNES version,) and I would rather not face the wrath of...

LASER PANTHER!! (And that's not getting into murderous constellations or the just plain weird/creepy (Amiga version.)

    Hope to be back soon!

      - Brian Renadette

My Most Anticipated for 2018

    Well, the review I had lined up for this week is going to be a blank page, as it turns out. I had read on Twitter that a certain game that is in development was going to release a new demo version last weekend, but "work-related stuff happened" according to Twitter, and I've been left dry on the game. I thought about reviewing something like Celeste or Iconoclasts (a game with no relationship to the branch of Christianity noted for its belief in the destruction of idols,) but it seemed too easy. When games that are small yet highly-acclaimed come out, everyone reviews them. Not to mention everyone's mother, the mothers' cats, the chew toys owned by the cats, and all the tiny yet durable tardigrades that may be living on the chew toy.

"I can survive in the vacuum of space. What can you do, monkey?"

    While volunteering at a local SPCA by walking the dogs before today's big snow storm, it occurred to me that I never talked about the games I'm really looking forward to seeing this year. So, let's go with that. In no particular order, here are 10 Games I'm Hoping to Play This Year!

(Trailers provided where available)

Haque Review: Not Actually A Hack-and-Slache (PC)

    There are quite a few games out there that take on a purposefully glitchy aesthetic. One of the first I remember is IMSCARED, a horror game that also engaged in some meta-horror by messing around and creating new game files, but there are some other ones out there. I've also seen ones like Pony Island or the highly popular Doki Doki Literature Club, a cute anime visual novel with a twist that is decidedly not sexy. Today's game is a roguelike that happens to also have the same aesthetic. It's Haque (pronounced like hack) by SuperTry Studios!

Hidden Folks Review: Here's Waldo After All These Years (PC, iOS, Android, Mac) (Played on PC)

    As a kid, I was a big fan of the Where's Waldo (or whatever your country calls him) books. To those of you who weren't lucky enough to have those as a kid, they were a series of large picture books where you had to find the titular bobble-capped man in each scene, along with other people or points of interest depending on the book or scene. They were widely popular due to their entertaining nature and their whimsical art style, which sadly didn't translate well to the NES Waldo game made by Bethesda. There are video games like Where's Waldo today in the 'hidden object' genre, but I never got into them. I think it was because I couldn't really see any way you could spice up what was basically a glorified Where's Waldo, and they always seemed to have a story that triee to offer a weak justification for why I was looking for completely random trash:

    "Okay, we've finally found the suspect's hideout. If our sources are correct, he should be in there along with the kidnapped pilot. Time to move in."

"Now, hang on, rookie! Before we can move in, we have to follow proper procedure. Let me check my phone...okay. We need to find two pine cones, a metal water bottle, a Webster dictionary..."

"Sir, we received a call from the suspect. He's threatening to kill the hostage!"

"Dammit! Has anyone found that pool cue? We cannot move in until we found that pool cue!"

(Yeah, someone made a hidden object game about a real-life killer who's still alive and in prison. Probably not the most respectful thing you can do for the deceased, their family, or the killer)

    But back to what we're talking about, it's Adriaan de Jongh and Sylvain Tegroeg's casual hidden object game Hidden Folks!

This is actually a late-game puzzle, but it featured the title, so I figured it'd work for a title screen

I Am Overburdened Review: Unluckily, it's Burdened by its Predecessors (PC)

    Well, 2018 is finally here! We all had our nice holiday celebrations and traditions, but now it's time to get back to work. I celebrated my holidays with my family and got some books and a few movies, including the hit anime movie Your Name *cue Zenzenzense by the band Radwimps*. I know for Logan Paul, his holiday had him going to Japan, testing the patience of Tokyo's citizens via his antics, and trying (and miserably failing) to have a serious moment in Aokigahara Forest when he found someone's lynched body. Classy AF. While Logan caused me to fail my resolution to not be bothered by junk on the Internet, I can still work on my resolution to play more video games so I can review them (and clear my huge backlog.) Today, that game is the satirical dungeon-crawler I Am Overburdened, by Magic Item Tech.

The old tavern that also serves as the main menu. That's Joey in the lower-middle.