Recent reviews by aruvin

Bokura is a creative product that plays with both player's perspective; Both players will see different views and the conversation may differ as well. Which makes communication very, very important to solve its puzzles. Story wise, its a little wacky to understand but you understand the core story. The puzzle can range from simple moving blocks to very difficult because you lose your head. i kid you not. it has that weird vibe and a small element of gore - despite the cute, colorful art style. Overall, it is a very unique co-op game and if you are person with a lot of patience, definitely worth re-playing to get the achievements and ahem an expected unique ending as well.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is an engaging story between a sister and a brother, and a thousand mickeys on an adventure to save your family by using a SLING. A SLING!! its has a well written story to motivate players throughout the campaign and one epic mickey mouse fight. so to speak.

A Plague Tale: Innocence (APT:I in short) was developed by Asobo Studio and published by Focus Home Interactive on May 14 2019. It is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch. As of this writing, Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/game/a-plague-tale-innocence/critic-reviews/?platform=pc) shows:

• An average critic score of 81 from 65 critic reviews
  
• An average user score of 8.3 from 1,785 user ratings

I call this game, Mickey Nation and it exceeded my expectations. I feel this is a GEM however It does have it's short comings and also, not everyone is fond at the sight of...thousands of mickeys running all over the screen. But if you are looking for a good story, a connection to the characters, an adventure similar to TLOU 1: Joel and Ellie or Telltales' walking dead season 1: Lee and Clementine or even Life is Strange: Max and Chloe. You've come to the right product.

Visuals: It is a beautiful world set in the mid-14th century Aquitaine, France. All characters clothing were designed properly and textured to look realistically, from Armour knights to monk's robe. Flowers. Rivers. etc.

One thing though i have to also praise the visual team is the death animation from mickeys and also from various different enemies. It reminded me similar to dead space; getting shot by an arrow vs getting speared. ouch. +1 to the visual team

Audio: Impressive voice acting, music, enemy lines and even the mickeys make noises. +1 to the audio team

Controls: On paper, it looks good. Unfortunately, in game, there are some unforeseen elements that hinder your movement/your sight/you just got smacked by the enemy because you didnt know your sling's behavior? it wasn't intentional or part of the design. Also on PC, the round menu can feel a little clunky where the game always forces you to switch between multiple ammo (multi-task) but ultimately, its still okay. More details under mechanics.

Story: Primarily, Its a tale between an elder sister looking after a younger brother. The twist is that the younger brother has a sickness that allows him to control rats. Aside from that, the game touches on family, friendship, of loss and family love (not romance). There is zero romance in this game. and being on the run as fugitives. +1 to the writing team

APT:I is a third person, action/adventure/survival genre with puzzles. It only has 1 campaign that consists of 17 chapters. It is a linear design and there is no multiple endings. There are some light puzzles but nothing too difficult. As you push through the story, you can either approach it via stealth or guns SLING BLAZING.

This is the only game that i know of, that uses SLING as your weapon. It is unique and yes, it does feel satisfying when you fling stones/projectiles to take down the enemies however most consumer will soon discover that the sling is NOT meant for close quarter combat. Lightly armored enemies will charge at you and once they are close to you, its game over. 1 death animation and you have to repeat from the last checkpoint. This scenario can be avoided if you have a sleeping ammo available but you are only permitted to have 1 in your inventory. You can craft them after use but it will take some precious resources.

Which brings me to the next point, aside from stones, you can make the guards sleep, force them take off their helmet (for a head shot), create/extinguish fire, a flash-bang like projectile that blows up every single rat on the screen and even lure rats. All of this requires resources to craft. whats the issue? The issue is that, you will soon realize, these resources are also used to upgrade your sling/inventory so its a decision that you always have to decide between: Do i keep this resources for ammo creation or use it to upgrade my character. This is part of the inventory management throughout the game.

Obviously, the ability to control rats and use them as a means of weapon is the highlight of the game. Use them to take down heavy armored enemy/multiple enemies within a small area, this has a big impact on your gameplay/strategy and it also indirectly affects your inventory management.

The issue i have with this game is that the companion will hinder/block your movement and sometimes they can hinder your view because they are following you. There is also a character that i wished the devs would have given us the option to protect..instead of becoming a sacrifice for the sake of the plot. TWO amazing boss fight. A somewhat open ended, happy-ending which i felt was appropriate after the entire journey.

I know i have typed a lot so i am not going to waste anymore time.

So, on the scale of 0 - 10, my personal rating for A Plague Tale: Innocence is giant, golden, VIP ticket to Disneyland thats worth an amazing 9/10. Bring your own slings. Can't wait to see the entire gang in a plague tale requiem.

Venba focuses on the story of an indian family who choose to migrate to canada to start a new life. You will go through their ups and downs as a family and at the same time, learn to cook indian dishes. On the surface, It may sound trivial/uninteresting but when you go through the events and experience about the "family, love and loss" from Venba's point of view, it really hits you. For that, this game is really good on the story telling aspect.

The cooking mechanics isnt tough. there are hints. It's only infuriating when you refuse to use the hint and try out all possible combinations & sequence by yourself.

Art style is clean, simple and colorful. I do wish there was a key for allowing the text to auto generate instead of us clicking all the time. also would be a big bonus if we could skip some of the conversation/cut scenes for those of us who are doing achievement hunting runs.

Audio is really nice, sizzling, indian themed songs.

For me, there are 2 twists/key events in venbas family that really makes you think and appreciate the things in life. While they are still present and also to understand your roots/heritage..and theres no shame in being yourself. This part was the hidden gaming experience and i really like how they handled it and how they tied it back to the cook book. They could have touched on heavy topic when one of the family remember got rough up but they decided to take the lighter approach and instead allowed users to reflect and think about the incident. How would you react if it happened to your family?

Venba may not have the replayability value, its a linear experience but the journey itself is a valuable life lesson and the recipes was made with love and care. Would love to see a sequel with improved controls, possible some open ended choices and more recipes to learn/explore! a little more light hearted/funny dialogues would keep the game engaging. Keep up the good work in the story telling department and delivery.

Anyone want to help me with my Dosaster?

The Artful Escape is a colorful, vibrant and can be quite bizzare/alien-ish in its design when you explore other planets. The story is meaningful however implementation wise.

• The choices you get in your dialogue doesn't make any difference. There are some funny dialogue choices but with zero impact on your character.
  
• Its a linear story with very little room to explore/create your own adventure or even music notes@jam

For that, the story falls flat, the game does not have much replayability value. Would have been nice if they could make every choice with different outcomes/different endings. Example: what do we with lightman? Do we have options to talk to violetta at the end of the journey? Can we interact/decide the fate of the town/as captain of this ship? Does the game allow you to choose your finale; we go rock/can we still stick with folk song - why not?

As for controls, on the pc, it took a while to get used to the 5 keys and combos. nothing infuriating or finger entangling crap experience.

The game only offers you room for creativity and freedom when it comes to customizing your characters visually. Overall, I feel this product is very limited/restrictive and probably suitable for young audience to spark their creativity or interest in music.

For those looking for a more open/to express yourself freely, will find it very disappointing with the direction of this game. For those who are looking for something different and just want to experience a simple story, will be dazzled by its vibrant colors and art style, rock tunes and some funny dialogues.

I had so much pain, rage & frustration completing Mafia. Once i did, i sigh in relief and said Good Riddance. Having said that, obviously, I cannot recommend this product to anyone unless you want:

• Pain - Your life is not painful enough
  
• Frustration - Your life is not frustrated enough
  
• You just want to build character from this classic title

There were so many awful situations that the game made me go through; Driving, AI, difficulty spike at the end of the last 3 chapters - where literally police will mess you up for speeding/running through the red light. Every mission you are going up against multiple goons..just like in the movie john wick. Without a guide, i wasn't able to complete the game in the last 3 chapters. Medkits are rare, so this game was designed to be difficult..for all the wrong reasons.

I compared Mafia with GTA: Vice City and GTA: SA, and you can see how different both franchise are with their mechanics. I dont give a ♥♥♥♥ about visuals. Driving without a mini map was so much pain. Every car in the 1930's were heavy, bulky and drifting made you look like a lunatic - if you were streaming. Car chase in this game felt as if you needed to drive in manual to complete the objective cause auto mode doesnt know how to go up ramps fast enough. Your companion AI sometimes just run off to their death..but i think the part where i really hated was when certain missions you were forced to do certain actions which was not obvious or wasnt told you via in game. So you kept repeating the mission over and over again like a dumb arse - until you become green like the hulk and decide to look up for an online guide only to find out the ugly truth; the devs want you to do a,b and c to complete the mission. its their way or the highway. You yank out your keyboard and break it into half.

But having gone through all the ♥♥♥♥, i do appreciate the story and the ending. Tommy's story was the only saving grace for this game. inventory was clunky. hand to hand/melee combat was clunky. Gun play was odd, sometime the AI takes 3 bullets to the head and is still alive. sometimes they take 6 tommy gun bullets into the chest and is still running towards you with a saw off shot gun -bam- 1 shot. you're dead. Sometimes you wonder what guns the AI use on you, 1 shot at you and you're left with 25 hp huh? Well enough ranting.

Well Tommy, for whats its worth, i enjoyed your story. Lets just part ways here.

Minami Lane, a cute, straight-forward building/sim game that has been integrated with cats and yokais.

Raji: An Ancient Epic is a fast paced, top down, action bash em up game. Visually its beautiful, has a great audio; music, voice narration, voice actors, weapon & skill feedback. Story was simple and enough to give users the motivation to push through the campaign. Interesting skills, tons of lore on the gods.

Unfortunately, it has some issues with controls during battles and the inconsistency of terrain of battle will leave you baffled at times; when and where you are able to jump. You do lose control of your char for a few seconds, not so obvious solutions for puzzles, some balance issues on certain enemies and one disappointing ending. It was free fall once you meet the final boss. anti-climatic and confusing story that revolves around golu and raji at the end. Felt rushed or incomplete or that they really didn't know how to conclude the journey.

Nonetheless, this product is fun, creative and holds so much promises to grow. It probably needed a little more tweaks on certain areas of the game to make it feel more polished.

Deep Rock Galactic is about 4 dwarfs whose love for mining rock and stones goes into space.

Divide By Sheep is an impressive puzzle game that combines sheep, wolfs, piggies and a bunch of other simple yet creative objects that changes the gameplay; portals, fence, tnt tiles etc - which is unique from other puzzle games. There are 5 worlds, each world offers players 30 levels so in total 150 levels. and they are challenging. Some will enjoy it while others may not because it really cracks your head. it's cute, its fun, its challenging.

Dungeons 2 is a straight-forward dungeon builder game. Dungeon keepers inspired? Probably. The Narration is very well made and can be funny/lighten up the monotonous campaign. The Story and RPG element isnt on the same level of warcraft. The controls are a little clunky along with the User interface and there is a slight learning curve and different factions can behave slightly differently (Evil Forces, Demons, Undead etc). but all in all, it is an enjoyable game. If you have never played dungeon keepers/you dream to become an evil lord wanting to conquer the world with orcs/demons/undead, give Dungeons 2 a try.