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Olli Olli Review: Don’t be board, it’s flipping great!

I have absolutely no interest in skateboarding, hell I can’t even balance properly on a bicycle. I could only finger skate with those little finger boards. For many years, we have been given skateboarding games like Skate or Die and the critically acclaimed Tony Hawks series. Tony Hawks was widely accessible and got more people into skateboarding. The last skateboarding game I played was Tony Hawks 2 on the original PlayStation as an early teenager. This review will be covering the PS4 version of OlliOllli. Let’s skate!

The first thing you will notice is how colourful and vivid OlliOlli looks in comparison to the more serious skateboarding games on the market. The art style, coupled with a wide selection of crazy skateboarding tricks makes this game a pleasure to look at.

The game controls are simple for anyone to grasp. Hold the analog stick up, right, down or left and release to pull off a fancy skateboarding trick. Whilst you are in the air, you will need to press the X button the second you land on the ground or a rail. If you miss, you either fall off your skateboard or stumble (which breaks your combo streak)

OlliOlli is also an incredibly accessible game to pick up and play. The aim of the game is to jump, flip and grind from the far left of the stage to the far right where you will be welcomed by a crowd of devoted fans cheering you on.  But make no mistake, this game is brutal. Each level will present you with 5 challenges. These challenges range from getting a certain score to collecting an x amount of a certain item in one run. Once all challenges have been completed for one level, you will unlock a “pro” version of that level. These Pro levels are 100x harder and they will make you smash your controller against the wall.

To the dedicated OlliOlli players, if you manage to beat every stage and challenge, you will unlock the fiendishly difficult RAD mode, a mode that will make your palms sweat and your blood boil. RAD mode is ironically pretty UNRAD for the average gamer who loves to rage-quit. Every jump, landing,  grind and trick you pull off must be perfect rank. One slip-up and you will end up back at the beginning, no second chances. Memorisation of every grind, ramp and obstacle is absolute key here.

OlliOlli also has a ranking system that displays a list of all the OlliOlli players who took part in earning a high score for that particular level. There is also a “Daily Grind” event that occurs every 24 hours. You have only once chance to rack up a high score on a randomly generated stage. These two modes will keep the score-centric gamers happy.

Overall, despite my lack of interest in skateboarding in general, OlliOlli is a game that everyone should try. OlliOlli may be incredibly frustrating but you will be rewarding for your patience and determination with the sounds of people cheering upon your arrival and an overwhelming sense of relief. OlliOlli is also a really fun game that has kept me engaged from the moment I took off on my skateboard to the final landing. A must play for everyone.

9.5/10

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Hotline Miami Review: Dial-bolically great

In 2012, Hotline Miami was released and was met with critical claim fromboth critiques and gamers. Hotline Miami sounds like a cheesy 80s show, right? Wrong. Hotline Miami is an incredibly violent, top-down twin-stick shooter soaked in 80s Miami's underground culture, a culture dictated by drug barons, sex-trafficking and extreme brutality.

Hotline Miami puts you into the shoes of a mysterious man who has no name. You don't know his motives or his past. The only thing you know is that he has a thing for cool 80s jackets. You are plagued with visions of 3 masked individuals who are all discussing his identity. The Rooster masked man is called "Richard", the horse figure is a woman called "Don Juan" and an owl called Rasmus who is disgusted with you for some strange reason.

The year is 1989; you receive a voice mail telling you that some cookies are waiting to be delivered to be his home. You find a package containing a Rooster mask and a set of instructions encouraging you to steal and kill a group of men guarding a briefcase. Nobody knows what's inside this briefcase but you go and do it anyway without hesitation. What I just described is a personification of schizophrenia. The voicemail is the voice that schizophrenics hear in their heads. I am not sure if this was intentional considering the visions he was having in his sleep.

Hotline Miami is divided into 20 chapters/levels. Every chapter begins with you receiving a voicemail from a mysterious voice who speaks in riddles. He then gives him a mission to complete which usually involves killing a certain target or various people. 

The first thing you will notice about the game is its top-down perspective which will remind you of the critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto series on the original PlayStation. You move through colourful buildings swarming with Russian thugs armed to the teeth with blades and guns lusting for your blood. Engaging in battle with these thugs is like a wild western stand-off like in the movies; whoever strikes first is the victor. In Hotline Miami, you will need to learn how to analyse enemies movements and wait for the right opportunity to bust the door off it's hinges, charge into a room, shower a crowd of thugs with bullets from your Uzi and cut the remaining thug's throat before they open fire. All this in the blink of an eye. A bit like Neo from “The Matrix” If you don’t prepare, you will die and be forced to restart.

Hotline Miami is the kind of game that doesn't hold your hand. Your mission is to simply kill everyone. How you do this is up to you. At the end of each mission, you are rated on your performance from A* to F. This grade is influenced by how fast you are in completing the mission, your highest combo chain and how you kill your enemies. You will also be rewarded points which unlock deadlier weapons at your disposal. Unfortunately these weapons cannot be selected at the start of each mission; they are simply added to the rotation of weapon spawn spots littered throughout every mission. For example, you may start a mission in a disco and end up finding a knife in the cloak. If you die and return to the same cloak room, you can end up finding a sledgehammer and can deliver a satisfying blow to enemies’ head.

Before starting the mission, you are presented with a wide variety of funny-looking masks that represent the faces of certain animals. Each mask grants you unique abilities such as the ability to run faster, ability to use unique weapons and much more. Some masks even drastically change the way you play the game. 

The one thing that really makes Hotline Miami stand out from other indie games is its fantastic soundtrack, a soundtrack inspired by 80s electronic dance music. These tracks are produced by such prolific Electronica artists like Carpenter Brut, M.O.O.N, Perbutrator and many more. These tracks are infectious and they will get your head nodding as you massacre every enemy in the building. As you deliver the final slash to the last thug’s throat or the final bullet to their head, the music stops abruptly creating a sense of eeriness and dread that fills up the entire building. This “moment of silence” echoes across the entire level as you walk past all the bodies you have killed with their blood staining the floor and walls of every room. They may be dead but your conscience of all the violence you have started still remains intact. I know it’s just a video game but to me, that is pretty haunting!

Most games I reviewed all excel in one or two aspects of a videogame, be it in storytelling and narrative, gameplay or it’s soundtrack but Hotline Miami is a collection of really good ideas put together to make a truly unique and amazing title. A game that mixes great storytelling and interesting characters, addictive, challenging and satisfying gameplay and a fantastic soundtrack to boot. There is only number to dial on that telephone and that number is 10.

10/10

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Gunman Clive 2 Review: A Wild Wild widly successful sequel

After the first Gunman Clive stormed the eShop charts two years ago, it was no surprise that a sequel would exclusively appear on the 3DS, the best selling platform. It's no surprise really, the game was only 99p! The first game was a fantastic 2D side-scrolling platformer that was hugely influenced by Capcom's iconic Megaman series and this was noticed by fans.

The full review can be found on the NintendoFeed website HERE

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Apotheon Review: Getting geeky with greek mythology.

It has been 15 years (at the time of writing) since I walked into a history classroom where we learned about many different historical timeperiods such as the the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, Anglo-Saxons, TheVikings, Tudors, Nazi Germany and more. There is one specific time period thatalways fascinated me the most, Ancient Greek history and mythology. I lovedreading stories about Greek heroes and Gods such as the story of Pandora’s Box, Odysseus and the adventures of Hercules. Here I am, 15 years later playing Alien Trap’s latest title Apotheon, a 2D Metroidvania type game set in ancient Greece. Apotheon is now available on both the PlayStation 4 and PC. This review will be tackling the PS4 version which I actually got on PS Plus for FREE. May the Greek gods bless PS Plus!

You are placed in the sandals of Nikandreos, a pretty fierce looking greek warrior that looks like he has been ripped straight out of a mixture of Grecian art and pottery designs. After being observed by the Queen of the Gods called Hera defending his peaceful village from villainous marauders, she recruits Nikandreos to rise up to the task and save Olympus from the wrath of Zeus and the other Gods who are angry with the mortal world. Zeus in particular seems pretty pissed. It’s as if someone just shat into his greek tea.

The first thing that captured my attention is the visual style that Alien Trap went for with Apotheon. As I mentioned earlier, the art style reminds me of art that you would see in Grecian paintings and pottery. Each character displayed on screen is rendered in silhouette form against mostly a dark bronze background. The background colour palette changes depending on your location. For example, when you reach the sea world of Poseidon, the bronze background turns to a lovely mixture of shades of blue, Hades is the world of the dead so the underworld's background changes to a rather depressing grey background that uses less than 50 shades of Grey (sorry I could not resist), the world of Ares, God of war and destruction, greets you with waterfalls of blood and the voices of the dead screaming and moaning in unison ringing throughout his kingdom. Each God kingdom looks visually different yet they all share the same artistic direction which I think is nice.

Apotheon is based largely around its combat system. The game is generous enough to allow you to carry a multitude of weapons and armour ranging from spears to long swords and small shields to tower shields. One thing that I really liked was the names associated to these weapons. For example, a small sword called “Xiphos”, “Hydra” arrows, "Celestial mirror shield" to name a few. Handling these weapons however was very clunky. Selecting your weapon for combat involves you making sure that the cursor is hovering over your weapon of choice. If not, you will need to tap the D-pad up or down before you can attack your enemy. You have to do this whilst fighting soldiers and mythical beasts by the way. Aiming with a bow or a throwing item also felt very clunky. I do feel that the aiming mechanism in this game would suit a mouse + keyboard setup a lot more than a gamepad. Having said that, I did find killing enemies very satisfying, especially dealing the final blow to the giant you encounter earlier in the game.

The soundtrack for Apotheon is composed by Marios Aristopaulos. The soundtrack is fantastic. In fact, you can listen to a sample of the glorious soundtrack on Youtube . The soundtrack combined with Apotheon's beautiful aesthetic makes Apotheon one of the most captivating games I have played in a long time.

As beautiful as this game is, Apotheon sadly suffers from a large abundance of glitches and other technical issues that will hopefully be addressed in a future patch. Apotheon runs mostly at 60fps but starts dipping dramatically when Nikandreo enters one of the many towns and markets in Olympus. This also happens during big boss fights and battles with multiple enemies. I also came across a couple of game-breaking bugs which prevented me from completing side quests. I strongly advise you to turn auto save on and create backups of your saves. Apotheon took me about 15 hours to beat. This also includes all the side quests scattered all over Olympus.

Overall, Apotheon is not a bad game, nor is it a great game. Apotheon’s art style is just about enough to garner gamer’s attention and so it should, the game looks and feels fantastic. Unfortunately Apotheon’s clunky control is its Achilles heel. If you appreciate greek mythology, love metroidvania type games can spend time getting to learn how to fight with the almighty Nikandreos then Apotheon is actually pretty fun. If you can’t get your head around the game’s control and combat mechanics then you will struggle to scale this mountain of Olympus. 7/10

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Squids Odyssey Review: Brothers in (many) arms!

Starting off as a mobile game deep within the vast ocean of the Apple and Google store,Squids Odyssey eventually extended its tentacles and has now found a home on the Nintendo eShop on both the 3DS and the Wii U.

The full review can be found on the NintendoFeed website HERE  

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Siesta Fiesta Review: A Fiesta worth visiting

Siesta, a green little cute blob has fallen into a deep sleep and ends up dreaming about visiting an island full of colorful creatures called Fiestas. Once Siesta has arrived to Fiestaville, the fiestas take Siesta on a magical dreamy tour of their world in his bed.

The full review can be found on the NintendoFeed website HERE  

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Wooden Sen'Sey Review: A failed Samurai that has fallen on his blade

The Wii U platform is well known for being inundated with 2D and 3D platform titles both from Nintendo and third party developers. For this reason, Wooden Sen'Sey's publisher, Neko Entertainment decided to captalise on the genre's popularity on the Wii U by releasing Wooden Sen'Sey on the eShop.

The full review can be found on the NintendoFeed website HERE 

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Costume Quest 2 Review: A sweet adventure

The game takes place directly after the first game's DLC pack, Grubbins on Ice. You play the role of four children: Wren, Reynold, Everett and Lucy who must save Halloween from the evil Orel White, A devilish dentist who uses the power of time travel to free monsters from the underworld of Repugnia to carry out his mission, his mission to wipe out Halloween and candy sweets from the face of the Earth.

The full review can be found on the NintendoFeed website HERE

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Bayonetta Review: Fly me to the moon

Although Bayonetta is set to be included with most copies of the upcoming Bayonetta 2, this review will only focus on the first installment in the series. Bayonetta originally came out for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 in 2009. Bayonetta is one of those games that you sit down and play and can’t really describe, especially in a review like this one.

The full review can be found on the NintendoFeed website HERE

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haha what the fuck

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It's Dory!!

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1001 Spikes Review - Please spike my drink, this game is insanely hard.

Are you the type of gamer that craves a challenge and is sick of how easy and streamlined games have become? Are you the kind of person that does not rely on save states or checkpoints every two seconds to help you beat a game? Then 1001 Spikes is for you. 1001 Spikes is an incredibly difficult throwback to 8-bit platform games from the NES era.

You play the role of Indiana Jones doppelganger Aban Hawkins, a treasure hunter who must traverse through an ancient, trap-filled temple with 1001 lives in search of his father Jim Hawkins. Starting the game with so many lives may make 1001 Spikes seem like an easy game with plenty of room for the player to make mistakes, when in reality you will need 1001 lives and most likely more. This game is really hard and it will punish you. The game does not care how far you have reached or how many lives you have lost, you will be punished over and over until you memorize and beat the entire level in one fell swoop. 

The objective of the game is very simple, grab the key and make it to the exit. Each stage has an optional golden skull to collect which grants an extra life. Collecting enough skulls allow you access to more characters and costumes. These characters have their own special ability like the ability to fly, double jump and more. Abilities that will no doubt help you on your adventure.

What makes this game truly shine is the game-play and how cleverly designed each of the stages are. After dying hundreds of times in the same spot, the game forced me to think of another way to beat the stage. Each stage is full to the brim with traps and hazards that will take you down in one hit sending you back to the beginning of the level. Yes, that means no checkpoints.

Another aspect of the game I loved was the presentation of the game. For example, the stunning series of vibrant backdrops in each stage and the catchy 8 bit melodies that recaptures the melodious sounds of the 8-bit gaming era. I also really enjoyed the opening cut-scenes between the game's characters, a nice throwback reference to the groundbreaking cut-scenes in the Ninja Gaiden series.

There are also three other game modes which can be unlocked by playing through 1001 Spike's story mode. Golden Vase, The Tower of Nannar and Lost Levels. Golden Vase plays almost exactly like the original Mario Bros where you must collect coins that pour out of the golden vase.The Tower of Nannar is a vertical scrolling mode where the player must reach the top of each stage just like in the NES game Ice Climbers. The Lost levels is more an expansion of the original game with more challenging levels and less lives (100 to be exact) The coins collected from each mode can be used to unlock extra characters and skins.

If you are struggling with a certain stage, there is an option to skip the stage. Personally I think this is a pointless feature considering 1001 Spikes was made with brutal difficulty in mind. Being given the option to skip a hard stage ruins the fun of the game and the satisfaction in beating a challenging stage. On top of that, you cannot beat the Gold Temple until you beat every single stage, including the ones you skipped in the first place. Once you "finish" the game, you will be taken to a brand new world called "Antarctica" which serves as the secret world in this game. 

Overall, 1001 Spikes is a really, really hard but incredibly fun, well designed game that will force you to play through the game carefully whilst avoiding dangerous traps at every turn. If 1001 spikes teaches you anything, it's "fail to prepare, prepare to fail" I highly recommend this game and give it a 9/10.

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All 90 stamps collected

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Waluigiiiiii smell my crotch!!

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Most glorious moment