Jagged Alliance 3 XSX Review 9/10 "A Modern Turn-Based Classic" 💥 @THQNordic

A series of turn-based games that have roots going way back to 1994, Jagged Alliance has always enjoyed critical success – and yet it’s a series of games I’ve only touched upon briefly since its inception in the mid-’90s. I recall having some friends who were hips deep, thinking very highly of the franchise, and so when the opportunity came up to cover the third major entry, I was keen to have a goosey.

In Celebration Of Violence PC Gameplay ⚔️🩸 @JulianJEdison #IndieGame #GameDev

 

Rich steps into In Celebration Of Violence which is a fantasy action roguelike of exploration and murder.

Boiling Point: Road to Hell PC Review 7/10 "Arnold Vosloo Kicks Ass Once More" 🚛💥 @playziggurat #IndieGame #GameDev

In quite a few of my reviews covering beloved (by me, at least) yet shonky games – usually open-world RPGs from the mid 2000’s – Boiling Point often crops up, alongside Xenus 2: White Gold (an oddly-named sequel to Boiling Point: Road to Hell), Precursers, and Hard Truck Apocalypse (which has AMAZING music).

The first two of which come from the same developer, Deep Shadows, a company that seem to have moved into hidden object and mobile titles, which is a shame, as they have real character and craft. If each game mentioned here had more time and money invested, they would be classics still talked of today.

Antstream on Xbox 🐜🕹️📺 @AntstreamArcade #RetroGaming

Good news! Back in 2020 I reviewed the Antstream service on PC – it’s also available on Mac, Android, Nvidia Shield and Amazon Fire Stick – and lamented the fact that it was taken down from the Xbox family of consoles, but no more!

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been playing a myriad of games on my XSX through Antstream, you can pay for either a yearly or permanent subscription, and there are currently over 1200 games to choose from ranging from home systems such as Spectrum, Commodore, Amiga and Spectrum through to Arcade and modern indie.

It runs swimmingly on the Xbox and still features daily challenges and high score tables for players to dive into, as well as the usual save states and gaming snappiness.

If you are a lover of classic titles, this is a great way to dip in and out of hundreds of games with full multiplayer and controller support – perfect for retro gaming nights with friends and family!

AntStream On XBOX 🔗

XBOX | Antstream

AntStream Games List 🔗

Games | Antstream

Berserk Boy Nintendo Switch Review 9/10 "It pretty much hits the bullseye." ⚡️ @BerserkBoyGame #indieGame #GameDev

Berserk Boy is the latest in a long line of Metroidvania platformers to try and capture the pure retro feel of Mega Man and its contemporaries. Happily, it pretty much hits the bullseye.

The backstory is your basic mad scientist fare, where the bad guy wants to use Dark Energy powers to take over the world. You play as Kei, young soldier who meets a talking owl called Fiore, who leads you to a strange orb which grants you powers and abilities and the adventure begins.

Gameplay-wise we're very much in Mega Man territory, with the classic Metroidvania tropes of defeating enemies while exploring the map, using new abilities to unlock areas and so on. But this isn't just exploration - as you unlock new abilities you find yourself able to chain multiple attacks together in order to build up your Berserk meter, which lets you really let rip with special attacks. 

The key focus here is melee combat - you're not hanging back and taking pot-shots but rather you're right in the thick of it. And that's one of the things that really makes this game fun; you'll find yourself moving around faster and faster to get the perfect sequence before hitting the big moves. The speed and smoothness give the game almost a Sonic the Hedgehog feel, where you're bouncing from enemy to enemy and seeking out more victims on every screen. 

The graphics are very much in keeping with the retro theme: bright and colourful with big chunky sprites that would fit perfectly on the SNES. And the excellent music comes from Tee Lopes, who wrote much of the music for Sonic Mania and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, so you're onto a winner here as well.

As you beat the various bosses, you can unlock different transformations for Kei. Each defeated boss gives you a new way to smash through levels, whether it's digging tunnels, flying or even locking on to multiple enemies at once. You also build up currency that lets you use new abilities for each transformation, so there's a sense of progression throughout too.

If I had to find a drawback, it's that the game isn't massively challenging, although you can select the Retro difficulty level at the start, which gives you the traditional limited lives, so when it's game over it really is game over, whereas the modern setting is unlimited lives and you just get kicked back to the last checkpoint. This is nowhere near a dealbreaker though, as the game is just so much fun. 

SUMMARY

If you're a retro platformer buff this is pretty much a must-buy, and it's accessible enough for all ages to have a blast. More of this please.

QHOT Wireless Lavalier Microphone Unboxing & Testing "A Budget Wireless Lavalier Under £25" 🎤

 

Rich unboxes and tests the QHOT Wireless Lavalier Microphone and sees what it can do for under £25.

🎤 Amazon Affiliate Link: https://amzn.to/3vcxgNj

Kill It With Fire 2 DEMO PC Gameplay 🔥🕷 @KIWF_Game #IndieGame #GameDev

Rich dons his spider eliminator boots in Kill It With Fire 2 and struggles with opening drawers for a good minute. Arachnophobia. The Game. The Sequel. Take on the arachnid menace alone or with friends in full campaign co-op. Wage the arachnid war across time and space and exterminate every last spider across the multiverse, or jump into Spider Hunt PvP and play as the eight-legged menace for the first time! 🔥🕷

Cannibal Abduction Xbox Series X 7/10 “Leatherface Upstairs, Having a Quick 40 Winks” 🏠 @selewidev @transvaalgf #IndieGame #GameDev

In Cannibal Abduction, you play as Henry - a man who has borrowed his father’s car and is looking to spend time away from his parents; let his hair down, drive the open roads etc. and all was looking good until the engine blows and he is stuck in the middle of absolutely nowhere. 

His luck picks up when a very friendly man offers to take him back to his house and fix the car. Henry agrees, and off to the house they go. Whilst the man fixes the car, he notices tools in Henry’s car and asks about them, he learns that Henry has carpentry experience and asks if he could do him a favour and fix his wife's wardrobe upstairs. It’s a fair deal - he fixes the car, Henry fixes the wardrobe.

Now, on the one hand it was nice of Henry to help, but personally I have a rule in life - if a house looks like Leatherface may be upstairs having a quick 40 winks, I refuse to enter and run as fast as I can in any direction to get as far away as I possibly can. 

I understand that Henry would have to explain to his dad what had happened to the car, but I think that any truly loving father can understand that dodging a possibly cannibalistic family is more important than his nice car. Sadly for Henry, he doesn't live by my rules and well, spoiler alert! He gets chased by a cabbalistic madman.

A Thug's Ascension PC Gameplay "Roblox GTA?" 💥 @moonwalk_games #IndieGame #GameDev

Rich jumps into the murky world of A Thug's Ascension on PC which is a low-poly action-adventure / FPS story set in the dying city of Maratha, circa 2023.

Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil Review 6/10 👿 ✝️ @MrSkullGameStu @FernandoTittz @ElderDefensor #IndieGame #GameDev

Devil Inside Us: Roots of Evil is based around a 74-year-old priest trying to save a family in a cursed home, the curse is initially making the fathers of the family murder their children, a sinister story indeed.

To stop this, he uses his abilities as a medium to exercise the evil that lives inside, but after 30 years he is drawn back to the original house to find that the same curse still lives…

Cute ‘Em Up" ‘Rainbow Cotton’ (XB/SW/PS/PC) Digitally Releases May 9th - Check Out The Trailer! 🌈🎮 @ININ_Games #RetroGaming #Retrogames

Rainbow Cotton, a colourful and whimsical shoot 'em up game, is making a comeback! Originally released for the Dreamcast in Japan back in January 2000, it’s now getting a fresh lease of life. Here are the exciting details about the upcoming release:

Release Date: Mark your calendars for May 9, 2024! Rainbow Cotton will launch digitally for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.

Visual Overhaul: The 2024 version of Rainbow Cotton features stunning visuals, taking the original Dreamcast release and giving it a magical makeover.

Enhanced Gameplay: The game has been revamped with improved mechanics, including snap-back, lock-on targeting, controller rumble, and speaker support.

Local Co-op Mode: Gather a friend! Rainbow Cotton now includes a local two-player mode. Play as Cotton and Silk together in this delightful addition.

Multilingual Cutscenes: The fully animated cutscenes return with original Japanese dubbing, accompanied by English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German subtitles.

Retro Mode: Want a dose of nostalgia? The Retro Mode lets you experience the charm of the original Dreamcast version.

So, get ready to embark on a whimsical journey through a bullet hell fest with Rainbow Cotton!

Alisa: Developer’s Cut PS5 Review 8.5/10 “Made in Heaven” 🏚️ @TransVaalGF @CasperCroes #IndieGame #GameDev

When I watched the trailer for Alisa: Developer's Cut, I thought, “ah, this game definitely has an early Resident Evil vibe”, then as the trailer was coming to an end there is a shot-for-shot remake of the first time you see a zombie in the original Resident Evil, so that absolutely confirmed my thoughts.

Now, over the last few years I’ve played so many ‘We wish we were still in the late ‘90s, playing Resident Evil, when tank controls and fixed camera angles were all the rage and will never ever be replaced’ that it really at this point should be a category on Steam, so many games have tried to capture survival horrors past - with varying degrees of success - and I found that the more of them I played, the more the nostalgia wore off.

Nostalgia can only take you so far and underneath these games you needed to capture the past but also bring your own flavour, as well. With these thoughts in mind, I was understandably elated when that was exactly what Alisa did. Yes, it very much wears its Resident Evil one influence on its heart, but it adds enough interesting twists to feel fresh.

Fantastic Gaming Speakers from Trust Gaming to Upgrade any PC Setup 🎶🔊 @TrustGaming

Trust are back again with more great value PC tech and this time it's the The TRUST GXT 612 and The Trust GXT 606 speakers!

The TRUST GXT 612 Cetic Bluetooth speaker set has the possibility for both a Bluetooth connection or a wired connection if preferred. 

The GXT 606 Javv is a wired speaker set and both are compatible with all PC/laptops with great audio, a nice and compact size with RGB lighting to set the mood.

Gloomhaven XSX Review 8.5/10 "How Deep is Your (board gaming) Love?" 🧙‍♂️ @GloomhavenGame #IndieGame #GameDev

Although Gloomhaven was originally released on PC back in 2021, I wanted to cover it here on GF (on Xbox) in 2024 because I had such a rich experience with the boardgame on which it is based at one of our regular nerdy weekends away a few weeks ago. At said weekends, we tend to have several smaller, briefer games, and then a hefty one to tuck into for a good portion of each day. In this way we’ve played some pretty heavy hitters...but Gloomhaven always lurked at the back of our minds. 

FiFine H9 Headset Review "The Best Budget PS5 Headset" 🎧 @FIFINEMIC @FifineStore @fifinemicrophone

Rich tries his hand at unboxing and testing out the FiFine H9 budget Gaming Headset on his PS5 which for the price point has a great quality headset microphone attached to it.

AMAZON AFFILIATE PURCHASE LINK🔗

https://amzn.to/3IH5IT7

H9 on FIFINE Official Website

https://fifinemicrophone.com/products/fifine-ampligame-h9

Speed Or Death Nintendo Switch Ten Minute Taster Gameplay 🏎️💨 ☠️ #IndieGame #GameDev @Dolores_Ent

Rich jumps in the driving seat to play Speed or Death where he will need to cross a city infested with enormous monsters, dodge the fiery breath of a dragon, find how to escape an alien invasion... all without getting eaten by a worm.

This is Speed or Death, a frenzied racing game where the most important thing isn’t reaching the finish line, but surviving the chaos around you. Unlock the different cars and live to tell the tale another day. What apocalypse shall we race through today?

PURCHASE LINK 🔗

Speed or Death | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo

Grandia II Memorial Soundtrack Vinyl Review By Britt 🎶💿 @WayoRecords #VideoGameVinyl #Vinyl #VGM

An incredible triple vinyl collector edition that celebrates the music of Grandia II, Wayo records’ release is another incredibly-presented box-set that Grandia fans will clamour for.

Originally released for the Dreamcast in 2000 and eventually ported to the PS2 (and beyond), Game Arts’ Grandia II was a more mature affair than the 1997 prequel, and featured a lot of the returning original staff – including Noriyuki Iwadare, the composer of all three main Grandia games. The game told the story of Ryudo, a mercenary of wobbly morals who gets tasked with a seemingly simple escort mission that evolves into a grand(ia) adventure. 

Summerhouse PC Ten minute Taster Gameplay "a tiny building game" 🏠🌳 @Friedemann_A #GameDev #IndieGame #CozyGame

Rich takes a sip of a frozen margarita, sits back in his deck chair and plays Summerhouse on PC which is a tiny building game about beautiful lived-in houses. No rules or restrictions, just pure creativity and relaxation.

Radical Dreamers (Digital) Album Review By Britt 💿🎶 @AmerigoGazaway #VGM #Vinyl #VideoGameVinyl

Radical Dreamers is billed as an album that blends “melodic hip-hop beats, razor-sharp lyricism and the allure of old-school RPGs Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger”. I mean, all of that sounds good, so let’s give it a go.

WWE2K24 PS5 Review 8/10 “Time to play the Game” 🤼‍♂️

Yearly wrestling games - and yearly games in general - have always had a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ problem. In years’ past, match types and modes would be added in just to be removed in the next instalment, so this year’s edition has rolled around, and I was very eager to see if we were still heading forward… or if we were about to take an unfortunate step back.

Well, it may not be a huge stride forward but I’m pleased to say the WWE2K series is moving forward. Now, if you looked at the gameplay it will feel very similar to last years’ game aside from a couple of small tweaks such as super finishers and the ever-popular ability to throw weapons being added, but largely it remains the same and as DDP would say, “it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing”. The base gameplay is good, the lighting and character models are great, some gimmicks are outdated - but that's going to happen with how much wrestlers change in a year. The matches and combat have been a highlight since 2K22, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.