Author Archives: thebonusworld

Blog: Investigative Video Gamesman – 03/21/18

Y’all remember E3 2017? It seems like an eternity ago, but hang in there. So last year across all of the press conferences, I made note of some of the more interesting games that I saw. One of those games was “A Way Out” and since that’s coming out in a few days, I wanted to check in on some of the games I saw.

THE ARTFUL ESCAPE OF FRANCIS VENDETTI

You can probably already tell why I’m curious about this game. It was revealed last year, got nominated for a bunch of website awards, and then promptly disappeared. To be fair, the trailer very clearly says “Coming when it’s damn ready.” But even looking through the official Twitter doesn’t yield anymore information on the state of development. The only thing I really want to know is if the game is coming along smoothly. Hopefully we get a hint of a pulse sometime soon.

UNRULY HEROES

In stark contrast to The Artful Escape of Francis Vendetti, Unruly Heroes is a very much in development game that even poises itself as having a release date sometime this year. I love the entire look of this game mixed with the focus on combat. On the surface it reminds me of Rayman Legends smashed with Sacred Citadel. I’m super jazzed about this game and can’t wait for it to come out this year.

RIVERBOND

Riverbond is the perfect example of “shit I like cause it has a look.” But like, it totally does have a look, you can’t deny that. What makes this game notable for me, aside from its already established awesome aesthetic and slick looking combat, it’s also cooperative for up to 4 people which is a huge bonus for me. It too bills itself as having a release date in 2018, and I can’t wait to check it out.

PROJECT CODE: SHIFT

So I don’t know anything about this game aside from it looks slick as hell. Most of this trailer is just air combos and juggling enemies. Literally that’s the only substance. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t 100% sold on it just based off of that trailer. The only thing is that there has been no update that I could find since it was announced at E3. So, who knows what’s happening here.

TUNIC

Do I need to explain anything about why I’m excited for this game? Seriously? After everything you’ve read so far? Look at it, just look at this game and tell me you’re not smiling? It’s adorable and looks challenging as hell and I want it. Tunic is slated for 2019 which, while it sounds far away, isn’t.

ASHEN

Take a look at Ashen. Look at this game. Since it was announced at the Xbox press conference last E3 and immediately made an impression on me. I was excited by the prospect of going on this spooky adventure with a friend but apparently that isn’t how the game will work. From what I gather, it does the passive online thing in the way that Journey did, which is cool in its own right. They are currently looking for in-house playtesters and according to their Steam page, are slated for a 2018 release.

So there it is, just some of my standouts from last year. Hopefully they come out soon and I don’t have to write about this game next March.

Blog: The Pepperoni Pummeler – 03/14/18

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Welcome to the Blog-o-dome, a place where words about video games fall out of my head and on fly onto the screen in poorly constructed sentences with questionable grammar and syntax. All who enter are doomed to have to read the bullshit that I write.

This week in bullshit that I write; video games. What a surprise, right?

DRAGON BALL FIGHTER Z

DBZ

Every day when I feel like playing something without having to think too hard about it, I consider playing Dragon Ball Fighter Z. It’s weird, I’m sure a lot of people in my age range remember catching episodes of that show on Toonami or something, but for something like 15 years, I haven’t really thought of that show. After seeing the commotion and fervor around Fighter Z though, I figured I’d burn an Amazon gift card on it and give it a whirl. Much to my surprise, I really like it a lot.

I like not having to be a fighting game wizard to appreciate what Fighter Z has going on. The game has a great dial-a-combo system that rewards you with some flashy nonsense if you just mash the X button enough. It also rewards you for learning some of its simple combos and commands with slightly flashier and more powerful nonsense. I may not about the deep lore of DBZ or what a Beerus is, but I know that I’m having a grand ole time with Dragon Ball Fighter Z.

SEA OF THIEVES BETA

Sea Of Thieves Beta.00_16_03_34.Still001

This past weekend the Sea Of Thieves Beta was announced to be the last one run before its launch day later this month. With that being said, they also announced that this beta would be open to the public. So we booted up a session on Friday and played around with it and streamed it out. We had a pretty good time with it, but was constantly reminded how empty that game is. In our few hours with it, we never encountered enemy players, and basically kept running the same gold finding quests over and over. It was a lot of fun to play with a friend, but man the beta was a very thin experience.

Here’s hoping the full version is full of goofs and scrambles for my friends and I to get into.

GOOD PIZZA, GREAT PIZZA

pizza

Alright, alright, I know, but follow me here. Good Pizza, Great Pizza (GPGP) is a free mobile game that is actually a whole lot of fun, albeit repetitive. So allow me to paint you a marinara colored image. You get the wild and crazy idea of opening up your own pizza shop right up there on main street. It’s a great location and people have always told you that you make the greatest pizzas on “make your own pizza night.” With an oven and a dream you decide to make fantasy a reality and start slinging pizzas professionally.

Day one, some motherfucker from the pizzeria across the street walks in and starts smack talking you and your pizza abilities. You silence the the part of your brain that tells you to use his blood as the sauce for your pizzas and endure his few lines of bullshit so you can take your first customer.

Sometimes people will be straight forward with you and ask you for a pepperoni and cheese, or a cheese but well done or something. But then you realize that this entire town is populated with people who love to order pizza in riddles. Things like “I LOVE PEPPERONI BUT IF YOU HAVE SAUSAGE THAT’S EVEN BETTER,” or “I WANT A PIZZA WITH NO MEAT, MINERALS, OR VEGETABLES ON IT,” which obviously means they want a fucking mushroom pizza.

You tap the dough, and smear sauce and cheese and toppings on the pizza, cook it and send them on their way. Mess up an order or take too long, people might demand a refund or leave you no tip.

There isn’t a lot of depth here, it’s just a fun and repetitive experience that can help you easily burn 10 minutes at a time. There are some micro transactions, but they aren’t in your face about it or anything, although if you want to customize your pizzeria at all, you might need to kick in a few real bucks for the fake pizza bux to accomplish that.

So that’s been my week mostly. Video games are dumb, but they’re also good… sometimes.

Ari’s Game of the Year List [2017]

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Video games, lets talk about em. The year has come to end and it’s about time for me to share my thoughts on the ones I played. 2017 has been a hell of a year, so lets dive right in.

Personally, the game that has endured through 2017 and has been a calming respite remains to be Cities: Skylines. There’s something nice and relaxing about building a new city from the ground up and swearing that this time, there will be no traffic jams. With the addition of some great mods and add-ons that allow me to get more granular than before, I’m continuing to find joy in watching my little hamlet transform into the next Times Square, even if I never play it right.

Alongside of Cities: Skylines, I’ve also been able to return to Astroneer from time to time and see it progressing quite nicely. There’s been noticeable performance enhancements and new feature drops that have made it a delight to return to. As well as that, my favorite game of last year, Hitman, continues to be as fun as ever especially since giving me the ability to attempt the Elusive Targets I’d missed, once more.

Swing and a Miss

It’s probably obvious, but one of the biggest flops of the year in my eyes had to be Mass Effect Andromeda. Right from when EA and Bioware pitched the premise of the game I recall feeling the slightest tinge of skepticism. A story that ran parallel to the events of the original trilogy but also made sure to remove the possibility of ever seeing any familiar characters was enough of a bummer until the game came out. It was so boring and uneventful. Every aspect of Andromeda seemed to be an artists interpenetration of what made Mass Effect great without ever understanding the reasons behind its success. “We gave them aliens to bone, put that shitty car back in, and let them explore the planets that have nothing interesting on them. What more could they want?!” Mass Effect Andromeda was such a damn bummer.

I Think Something is Wrong With Me

I feel so strange. Even now if you were to tell me that I could fight robot-dinosaurs in a post apocalyptic setting with a bunch of science-fictiony intrigue sprinkled on there for good measure, I’d justifiably lose my mind. So then why didn’t Horizon Zero Dawn do anything for me? Everything about that game was wonderful. It looked amazing, it was fun to play and also there were freaking robot-dinosaurs to kill. Many would attribute bouncing off of Horizon due to The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of The Wild releasing 3 days later. But even before that, from the moment they let me loose in the open world, I just had no desire to explore or learn about these characters. I think I wanted to learn more about the fall of modern civilization and where the robots came from a lot sooner than the game wanted to tell me about it. I still don’t know how that game wraps up. Maybe I’ll give it a go in 2018, but who knows.

Along those lines, the game people kept telling me about was NieR: Automata. I was so intrigued by what I had heard about this game that I was desperate to try it. I was told that I needed to beat it a third time to really some crazy shit. But after the first time around I had no interest in forcing my way through it several more times. Another game that I really wanted to like was Absolver. I wrote a piece about my feelings about the difficulty and how it failed to resonate with me, but the quick and dirty version is that I never felt like I was getting better, I only felt like I got lucky.

Bring Your Friends

Some people are an army of one, others like myself are very much not. That’s why the only way I’ve played PLAYERUNKNOWN’s Battlegrounds has been with my friends. We’ve even streamed a whole bunch of it because we play it that much. From defeating another squad who thought they were alone, to flipping just about every vehicle we ever touched, and of course getting that chicken dinner together, PUBG is packed with reasons why it’s the best game I’ve played with friends all year.

But where PUBG is very tactical and requires a ton of coordination, sometimes you just need pure chaos to have fun. Stick Fight and Gang Beasts are two games that released this year that exemplify that mentality. They’re both janky and glitchy enough to where the physics themselves become a new character you’ll have to contend with. But it’s all fun and lighthearted which makes them a blast to play when you’ve got a couple of friends around.

Game of the Year

This year, before most of the biggest titles came out, a little game called Night in the Woods released on the PC and PS4. Night in the Woods is a game that resonated with me on a fundamental level and mirrored a lot of my experiences in life. It told a story that struck me on an emotional level while also having an awesome sense of humor and painfully charming aesthetic. I still have trouble expressing every reason why Night in the Woods was so wonderful in my eyes. Sometimes a game just hits you the right way, and that’s what happened here. It’s the game I’ve thought about most this year and have replayed twice already. Night in the Woods is easily one of my favorite games. Click here for a more complete version of my thoughts.

A close second this year, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is perhaps the most unsurprising entry in this list. I won’t beat a dead horse here, we all know why Breath of the Wild is on so many GOTY lists. It’s an achievement in a systems-driven, open world game. It’s the epitome of “you see that? You can go there.” But the best part about that, is there’s always something to do when you get “there.” It’s truly a phenomenal game and what’s even more impressive is that it made me love a Zelda game the way no other entry in the franchise has.

Where Night in the Woods and Zelda were locked in for a long time, this third entry took me a lot of time to decide on. While I have plenty of great things to say about PUBG and why it’s one of my favorite games this year, I have to give the edge to Super Mario Odyssey. Mario Odyssey isn’t a perfect game, but it’s just so damn charming. In a year where you could look around and have found plenty of reasons to be scared upset or angry, Odyssey was just this beacon of color and positivity that I needed.

Lastly, I’d like to just add one more thing.

2017 has, for lack of a better term, been an interesting year. The games were (mostly) good while a lot of things outside of the industry maybe weren’t as great. With that in mind I’d like to thank everyone for watching our videos and reading the occasional features we put up. You have no idea how much your support means to us.

I hope that 2018 is a better year… like, in general. So Happy New Year everyone. Be good to each other.

Sam’s Game of the Year [2017]

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Note from the editor: Our friend Sam from As I Play Dying was kind enough to write a piece about his favorite game of the year. So a big thanks to him.

Greetings, Bonus Worlders; it’s Sam from Bonus World subsidiary “As I Play Dying.” I’m overwhelmingly pleased to see our channel absorbed into the all-consuming singularity of Bonus World Industries, LLC, TMI, TLC, OMG.

Our dear, bearded friend, Ari, asked us to write a bit about the great games we’ve been playing in 2017 (and a bit about the shitty ones too). I was delighted to participate. As I sat down to bang out some insightful criticism of this year’s roster, however, I ran into a complication.

I have played exactly four games released in 2017. Four. Like, one hand’s worth, thumb notwithstanding.

So, unfortunately for you and for Ari, instead of adhering to the appropriate format, I’m instead going to give you the lowdown on what I played this year–all of which has been interesting and fun in different ways.

#1: PYRE
Originally, this article was supposed to start with a Game of the Year selection: and, if I were still enough of a gamer to populate the article, Pyre would be my choice, hands down. The third release from San Francisco-based developer Supergiant Games, Pyre is somewhere between “a party-based RPG in which you lead a band of exiles to freedom through an ancient competition spread across a vast, mystical purgatory,” and a “fantasy basketball simulator.”

If I had heard “fantasy basketball simulator” (or FBS, as the genre has become known) before I purchased the game, I might have skipped it entirely; I don’t like sports in life or in video games, no matter how fantastical their setting. However, in addition to being the most groundbreaking FBS of 2017, Pyre is also an engaging narrative, set in an engrossing fantasy world and full of enchanting characters.

I’ll point this out up front: you’re gonna notice a theme in the games I’ve chosen to play this year. They’re all very focused on their stories and characters more than any sort of revolutionary gameplay features, graphics, or other such things. I’m more into fluff than crunch. Bearing that in mind, from its opening screen, Pyre progresses like a novel that you can’t put down. The game opens on the discovery of the player character, known only as the Reader, by three wandering, robed companions. All of you have been cast out of your native society to an inescapable wasteland known as The Downside: or, at least, inescapable by any means but one. The victor in a series of sacred challenges known as the Rites may be able to restore their freedom and return in glory to their homeland, their sins absolved.

As Pyre progresses, you begin to uncover deeper and deeper layers and discoveries about the world you’ve left, the world you inhabit, and the people with whom you share it. The game’s story unfolds at a wonderful pace, balancing the ongoing preparation for and travel to and from the Rites with the mounting tension of an imminent challenge against a new Triumvirate–another team of exiles equally bent on earning their freedom. And, by the time you reach its final moments, the game’s story will take you and your friends in the Downside in directions you couldn’t possibly have predicted, and will face you with choices that feel heavy. I reloaded previous saves on more than one occasion to undo a decision that I couldn’t bear to live with.

Pyre doesn’t punish you for your choices, though; indeed, by the developers’ own admission, the game’s first inspiration was to explore the consequences of defeat and the process of rallying after misfortune. Pyre’s story is actually built to progress regardless of your performance. Whether you are the most amazing Reader to ever walk the Downside, or you can’t tell your opponent’s pyre from your own sphincter, life will go on and the story will continue. For this reason, Pyre is one of the most engrossing stories I’ve ever played, even outside 2017.

Besides its exemplary narrative quality, the care and passion of Supergiant comes through in every other aspect of the game experience: Darren Korb has devised another stylish soundtrack full of unique charm and fascinating sounds; Logan Cunningham delivers another amazing performance as the disembodied voice guiding you, sometimes forcefully, across the Downside; and Jen Zee’s vibrant artwork brings the whole world to life. The gameplay is, honestly, very challenging at times, but even in its most infuriating moments did not feel cheap or broken, and overcoming a challenger with a flawless play is deeply satisfying. Matches can become edge-of-your-seat slugfests as you weave around your opponents to set up the field to score. And aside from the core gameplay, Supergiant throws in tons of secondary content to make their world feel alive and fun to experience, including an in-world soundtrack in the form of a traveling minstrel and a practice arena that can raise your characters’ abilities. The player is guided through the considerable world lore via an intuitive hyperlink system embedded in dialogue; and, as a personal aside, Supergiant gets major bonus points for the best method of dealing with player-character gender that I’ve encountered.

Every element of Pyre works so well as part of the whole. The game is exceptional. I cornered Greg Kasavin, Supergiant’s writer and designer, at PAX 2017 to thank him for giving me such a great experience, and I’m terrified of speaking to people. I can’t recommend the game highly enough to anyone who wants to experience an amazing story in a beautiful world.

Game of the Year Stuff

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Just like every site that does anything remotely related to video games, we’re arranging our game of the year stuff at the moment. We have a vague idea of how that looks and we’d like to give you a peek.

Instead of a stacked list from one to ten, we made some categories and asked our writers to fill them in to the best of their abilities. Since we didn’t have a huge amount of time to prepare or anything, there’s only five categories. This year is going to feel a little “ragtag,” We’ll course correct next year… probably. So without further build up, here’s the categories we’re working with this year.

Game of the Year

We all have our own special reasons for picking these games as the embodiment of greatness this year. Maybe it’s a story that knocked you on your ass, maybe it just feels good to play. Maybe you can’t quite describe it but you know it’s perfect to you. This is the game of your year, and no one can take that from you.

Bring Your Friends

There are some experiences that are just better when you’ve got some friends to share them with. The same thing can be said for games and this category is all about that very thing. These are games that were worth rallying around all year with friends and family, and just leaving you laughing and having a good time.

I Think Something is Wrong With Me

After everything you’ve seen and heard about this game you were preparing for the ride of your life. You were excited and eagerly anticipating its release. Then you started to play it and something was wrong. The game is good but it fails to connect with you. Reviews are phenomenal, your friends are raving, awards are being awarded, but you just have to sit there and accept that you’re the weird one and just don’t like this game as much as everyone else.

Swing and a Miss

A disaster, a flop, a failure, or just a disappointment. Whatever you want to call it, not all games that came out this year lived up to our expectations and this is where we’d like to highlight them.

Just Can’t Give it Up

2017 has provided a bevy of great games across various genres and platforms for players of all kinds to enjoy. In fact at some point one could even argue that there may have been too many games for any normal person to keep track of. Despite that, it’s sometimes nice to revert to something more comfortable and familiar. These are the games that have endured the barrage of releases and still manage to suck up some of our gaming time.

So that’s it. We’ll try to get some lists up by Christmas and hopefully you enjoy them. Till then, keep following us on Twitter and YouTube for more stuff.

The Many Sights & Sounds of PAX Unplugged 2017

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PAX Unplugged is a board game convention. Somehow I ended up there. It was strange, confusing, and illuminating all at once. I brought a camera along and took as much footage as I cared to before we got hungry and left. So, here’s roughly 4 minutes of PAX Unplugged 2017.

I’m Just Not Good Enough for Absolver

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I suppose the most direct analogue to Absolver would be the Dark Souls series. I haven’t played enough of either games to make that connection myself, but at a cursory glance they seem to share a lot of the same mechanics. This is troubling for me because I’ve never been a fan of the Dark Souls games, mostly because I’m not up to their challenge. Also because I’m not a sadist.

Before I dive into why these kinds of games never worked for me, I should explain what Absolver is. Absolver is a martial arts based, action-rpg that is built around the idea of stance-based combat and customizing your combos. It all sounds really exciting from a distance, but the thing I wasn’t prepared for was the level of difficulty within.

I’ve got a million ways to kick your ass, just try me.

I’m sure for a seasoned Dark Souls fan Absolver presents a unique, yet surmountable challenge. But from the early stages I found myself bashing my head against encounters until the enemy randomization and placement became a little more forgiving.

A typical scenario would be me breezing through 3 or 4 enemies only to come up against Bruce Lee wearing a mask. No matter how many times I’d counter or dodge, Bruce would counter my counters and dodge my dodges and ultimately kick me into oblivion. Then I’d reload, only to find Bruce Lee had trained his buddies at the entrance of the level, and get obliterated again. A few more times of this and finally Bruce and his disciples had left, leaving me in the clear and able to stroll through the level.

That’s where my biggest qualm with Absolver is. I never felt like I was actually learning anything or getting any better. Every time I cleared an encounter or beat a boss, it felt less like I had used an arsenal of skills and more like I had gotten lucky.

Don’t knock my style

But this isn’t an Absolver or Dark Souls issue, this is a “me” issue. I’m not good at these games and as I get older I have less and less patience for them. I’m powering through Absolver as much as I can, but I know I’m going to hit a wall and eventually stop. I want to like this game so much, but I can’t. If I could feel a little more like a badass and less like I hit big at a casino this would be a different conversation.

This also feeds into the lack of difficulty consistency in Absolver. There’s nothing rewarding about handily defeating a boss, only to be dissolved by the nameless enemy waiting around the corner.

But then again, I only speak for myself. The fact that Dark Souls is a successful franchise that spawned it’s own genre is a testament to the fact that people want these kinds of games. Players have mastered them in ways that seem superhuman to me, and I know there will be people who dominate Absolver in a similar fashion.

Behold, the world is yours to punch your way through.

This isn’t to say Absolver is a perfect game that I just suck. The game has a lot of rough edges in terms of optimization and especially control issues. I’ve been using an Xbox One controller, and I can’t help but think that the right analog stick has far too many functions attached to it. For instance, we have basic camera control when out of combat, but once you tap the right bumper, you’re locked on to an enemy thus changing the function entirely. Once locked on, the right stick is your dodge or parry depending on what class you pick. But wait, there’s another enemy, hold the right bumper and move the right stick to target them. Oh no, you’re in the wrong stance, hold the right trigger and move the stick to change it, all the while dodging attacks and making sure you don’t fall into a pit or a pool of water.

It’s a lot to deal with all at once. Maybe I’m nitpicking, but these things all compound and make a game that requires a ton of precision feel less precise. That combined with the difficulty inconsistencies make me enjoy Absolver less and less. It’s a damn shame too, because it presents itself so well in terms of world design and art style.

I’ll probably fall from up there at some point.

But ultimately, this isn’t an indictment of the game, but of myself. Games like this just aren’t for me and have become increasingly more impenetrable as I’ve gotten older. Maybe my patience has worn out, maybe I just don’t have the time to practice, but I know that I’ll never “git good,” and I’m totally fine with that.

I’m a Soccer Master Thanks to Behold The Kickmen

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Behold The Kickmen is an incredibly accurate representation of what soccer is, if it was described to you in a foreign language, from space. Now, I don’t claim to be a sports enthusiast. I used to play football and basketball when I was younger, but those days are long behind me. Occasionally I’ll dip my toes into an NBA 2K or an NHL 20XX, but I can’t say I’ve followed those sports in a long time. I suspect Dan Marshall, developer of Behold The Kickmen, is in a similar boat with soccer.

When I arrived at the main menu, I was presented with three choices. I could start a career, jump into a quick play game, or try the tutorial. I opted to go for quick play, so I could figure the mechanics out as I went. That’s when the personality of Behold The Kickmen really started to expose itself. I received an incredibly smarmy, yet accurate pop up notification saying that I should probably try the career mode first, as it slowly would teach me mechanics over time. I complied and attempted to start a career, and was greeted by another message with an even thicker coat of smarmy-ness drizzled all over it.

Fine, I’ll play your damn tutorial.

Oh, I see what we’re doing here.

After my lovely experience with the tutorial, I was finally ready to jump into a career mode. I was given the opportunity to rename my team, and so Flankstank United was born. I was also given the chance to rename my star player, but I let him be.

So there I was, ready to play some soccer, except wait, Behold The Kickmen suddenly became a visual novel. Star player, Joey Flash, had some demons that his bitter rival Pedro kept taunting him about. Meanwhile, the coach of Flanksteak United seems to know less than I do about soccer, which to my knowledge is a requirement of being a coach. My goofy soccer game turned into a soap opera in an instant, and I couldn’t have been happier.

After the drama died down temporarily, I was able to play what seemed more and more like a mini-game in this entire package, soccer. Or some version of soccer I suppose. Remember when I said Behold The Kickmen was an accurate representation of soccer? I lied. Sure, there’s a ball and two goals, but I don’t think that actual soccer is played on a circular field. Nor do I think the “offside” rule just randomly occurs mid game punishing a played for being too far to the left. But hey, I’m not a soccer fan so I can’t say for sure.

For all the jokes and guffaws, Behold The Kickmen actually has some interesting mechanics. For instance, there’s a combo meter on screen at all times that accounts for passes, shots and tackles. You keep the chain going and eventually finish the combo off by scoring, or as the game calls it, having “Done a goal.” Finishing the combo grants you cash, and cash is key to growing your team.

In between matches and soap opera segments, you can take your hard earned cash and spend it on upgrades for various aspects of your team. Whether or not those upgrades actually affect gameplay is a question I have to ask, because I don’t entirely trust this game. But I hope at least one of the upgrades works, because when you start out, your players run painfully too slow and I would very much like that to change.

You can also unlock abilities like passing and sprinting (yes those are abilities) in career mode as well as things like advanced tackling techniques and being able to control the ball mid flight. You can also edit a 4-4-2. which I’m sure means something in real soccer, but once again, I don’t trust this game.

Behold the Kickmen may not be a hyper-realistic simulation of the world’s biggest sport, but rather a perfectly fine arcade style soccer game with a great sense of humor. It doesn’t have any multiplayer which is a little disappointing, but isn’t any worse of a game without it. The career and story mode seem to be the main draw thus far, and the writing is funny enough that I’m more than willing to stick it out till the end to see how it pans out.

Early Impressions: For The King

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My first introduction to For The King was while looking for a cooperative RPG for my friends and I to play together. Surprisingly enough, there weren’t as many options in our price range as I would have expected. So when we saw it sporting an incredibly modest price tag of $14.99 as well as having online cooperative play, it was an easy sell for our little group.

Right from the jump, the game warns you that not only is it in early access, but you will not succeed on your adventure. Foreboding, but as we would come to find out, painfully accurate. Ignoring all warnings the game threw at me, especially the one that said not to jump right into cooperative play, I set up an online match in the barren server browser and invited two of my friends to play. You only start with 4 of the available classes unlocked, so we weren’t exactly spoiled by choice, but we were eager to throw ourselves into the fray.

We selected our classes, changed our character names, and utilized the very basic customization options, which are just color swaps, and dove in. We were greeted with a stylish world map made up of hexagonal tiles filled with towns, structures and enemies. A dialog box popped up and told us that our quest was to go to another town, and get a quest from there. It also indicated that there was a time limit to accomplish these tasks that would tick down after every turn the party took.

From movement, to combat, ambushes and opening doors, everything is determined by a dice roll. These dice rolls are based on your character’s traits and skills, but can also be modified by finding various structures in the wild as well as items you collect. You also have something called, focus, which is a resource you regain when you rest that can heighten the chances of a successful dice roll. Or, they can make you feel like 97% is a really good chance for an attack, only to realize that you still failed it and missed your enemy anyway. That was a fun experience. What I’m saying is, in For The King you need to do everything possible to make your character stronger or else you will die. A lot.

Dying, however, isn’t a simple “Game Over”, but rather a chance for the developers at Iron Oak Games to really rub your failure in your face. You have five chances to fail, whether it be death or an objective or a really unlucky dice roll. Every failure results in something called “Chaos” increasing. Every time that Chaos rises, a new challenge gets thrown your way. A first it’s things like certain tiles will poison you or just do damage to you as you pass through them. Fail enough times and you’ll lose the ability to revive downed teammates or all of your rolls will most likely never be perfect again. This is really handy when you face off against enemies who dodge everything that isn’t a perfect roll.

These are mild frustrations however, and I know that For The King is currently in active development, which is reassuring because there are some rough edges here. The interface is a little clunky and isn’t streamlined in a cohesive way. Exiting inventory and character menus operate differently than interacting with the menu at a town for instance. I wasn’t able to find a good way to compare an equipped weapon to an unequipped one aside from just unequipping them both. Status ailments are unclear in their effects and duration leaving you wondering if it’s worth using an item to cure it or not. There are a ton of these little grievances I have with the state the game is currently in that I’m sure are being worked on at the moment.

And working on it they most definitely are. In the latest update to For The King, Iron Oak Games addressed some of my biggest grievances with online functionality. Specifically fixing issues with a lack of clarity on how to continue games in progress, as well as being able to manage your inventory when it wasn’t your turn.

Entering early access in the same week as blockbuster titles like Zelda and Horizon Zero Dawn may have not done For The King any favors, but if you’ve got some time and are in the market for something new, I absolutely recommend checking it out.

Review: Night In The Woods

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I didn’t expect Night in the Woods to hit me as hard as it did. What on the surface seemed like a simple, charming and beautiful adventure game, turned out to be an extremely emotional journey which resonated with me on an almost too personal level.

In Night in the Woods, you’ll play as Mae, an anthropomorphic 20 year-old cat who is returning to her small hometown of Possum Springs after dropping out of college. Hoping to find solace in a familiar setting, she sets out to reconnect with her old life, seeking out the friends she grew up with.

For most of the game, the reason for her dropping out is a mystery to you and everyone she interacts with. The real reason for her return is obscured by her laissez-faire attitude towards life. Mae, along with all of her friends seem like incredibly shallow archetypes when you first meet them. That coupled with the fact that the story is fairly vague for the first few hours, doesn’t help their cause. But as you progress you’ll begin to find that everything in Night in the Woods has so much depth to it.

Unfortunately for Mae, a lot in Possum Springs has changed. Economic stress is readily apparent as she walks past the skeletons of former businesses on the main road, along with the general gloom and depression that lingers over the town that can be found not only in the locale, but in the people themselves. As you interact with them more, your friends and family will open up to you about their dreams, stresses and sacrifices. As someone from a small town, I can’t express enough how real of a scenario this all is.

But all of that gloom and mundanity doesn’t preclude Night in The Woods from having some really exciting and tense moments. As you scroll through your dialogue options, you’ll find that Mae doesn’t really know how to deal with the general exasperation that the people feel. A lot of her dialogue usually ends up having her accidentally cross some boundaries or touch on sore subjects and generally put her foot in her mouth. Because of this, not only does she grow as a character, but so do her friends. By the end of the game I found myself identifying with certain characters, and seeing my friends in others.

That’s what I loved about Night in the Woods so much. Despite having some of the most beautiful art and sound design I’ve seen in a game (and anthropomorphic animals), it manages to tell a genuinely real story about small-town life which I’m sure many people can relate to. Without spoiling anything, I will say that some people may not be super excited with where the story goes. There’s a whole “murder-mystery, other-worldly” thing that happens halfway through the game that may rub people the wrong the way, but it’s done pretty well for what it is.

Night in the Woods isn’t a game without faults however. There are some story beats that never really payoff, and I’m not entirely convinced that a lot of my dialogue choices actually made a difference. But these are minor complaints in a game that sincerely could not stop thinking about until I finished it’s 10 hour campaign.

Maybe Night in the Woods works for me because I can relate to its version of small town suburbia so well. Or maybe it has to do with the stellar characters and the real issues they face. Or maybe it’s just the fact that it’s pretty as hell and has a cool soundtrack and sweet Guitar Hero mini-game. Whatever it is, I loved it, and I think it’s well worth your time.