Jump across gory arenas cutting down the competition and escaping to live-saving portals.
Yearly Archives: 2018
Hunt: Showdown: Evil Waits Unseen
Horrific, nightmarish monsters lurk in the swamps of Louisana in Hunt: Showdown. Are you tough enough to put them down and prove your worth as a bounty hunter?
Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia – What’s new in Battles
Changes have been made to make the battles in Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia true to the time period. Learn more about that here.
Nintendo Switch News – 4/2/18 – 4/6/18
by Jason Parker (Ragachak)
Hello, Internet! I’m going to do something a little different with the Nintendo Switch News, as long as I have the capacity to do so. We receive a fair amount of Nintendo Switch news that simply didn’t get covered because we until recently did not cover the Switch outside of my occasional reviews of content. So before I get into the games that came out this week, we’ll talk about some of that fun stuff to get Switch fans excited for more hardware/software! The first bit of news I have is that Astro Gaming is partnering with Nintendo to create an ASTRO/Nintendo Switch headset later this year. They have revealed three tags for their A40 Headsets, with The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, and fans can get a peek at them at PAX East in Boston at the ASTRO Booth (#13055). These tags are magnetically interchangeable custom-made art for their headsets to personalize their headsets. We have no release date just yet, but take heart, as soon as we do, you will as well.
Battle Chasers: Nightwar had a very successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2015, where 14,175 backers made the development of the game possible. AIrship Syndicate created a unique game, paying homage to the famous console greats. It’s already available on PC, Xbox One and Playstation 4, and is on the way to the Switch! May 15th, with an SRP of 39.99. This dungeon-crawling, turn-based RPG is gorgeous and it’s on the way in May. We have the animated trailer below:
Alright, that’s enough looking to the future, what’s out right now?
Ninja-Kid (4/5/2018): More Arcade Archives have hit the Switch, like Ninja Kid from HAMSTER. Ninja-Kid is an action platformer from 1984, where players control “Ninja-kun”, donning a red hood and works to move through various stages, defeating his foes with his shuriken. There are plenty of arcade classics on the Switch, including some like Ninja-kun that may not have been overlooked in the 80s Arcades. (7.99)
Penny-Punching Princess (4/3/2018): Now it’s no big secret that I love NIS (Nippon Ichi Software); as far as I’m concerned, they can do no wrong. I only just found out about Penny-Punching Princess today and I have to say, I already love it. It’s about a stoic, pragmatic girl who only trusts money. Boy, do I ever get that sentiment. She’s out to avenge her father’s death against the corrupt money lenders, the Dragoloan family. A land that used to be ruled by might is now ruled by capitalism. “In short, an era has come where even a Level 1 pleb can defeat a tyrant as long as they have money”. That’s a real bit from the story. I love it. I need it. It sounds absolutely wonderful. (39.99)
Metropolis: Lux Obscura (4/4/2018): Well, this is a “unique” game. Metropolis: Lux Obscura from Ktulhu Studios’ gameplay is based on a motion comic with a non-linear plot, mixed with Match3 puzzle fights. Make sense? It has a dark, noir-style game, and this is a game you’d probably see from Nutaku. The Steam-version has an X-Rated patch, and certainly something a player could finish in a day. But if you like breasts, and match-3 puzzle games, you’ll get your money’s worth out of it. Graphics that remind me of Sin City (which I love), Match3 puzzles (I also enjoy these) and Boobs (Come on. You know me.). It’s worth at least a peek. (7.99)
Super Rocket Shootout (4/5/2018): This is another game that simply has a great title that lures me in. The title really helps sell the game; more publishers and developers ought to learn this lesson. This is a 2D pixel brawler game. It has platfoming and fighting mechanics, adorable stages, cool characters and weapons, and jetpacks! How could you not like this? Plus one of the characters in a convenient blonde/gold Luchador mask does the Hulk Hogan flex-pose. It’s a trip back in time and was originally available on Steam. This is a game I can see people getting together with a few drinks, some pizza and snacks, and just blasting the crap out of each other in for hours without getting upset about it. This game just looks fun, and that’s a thing we’re lacking in games now. Sometimes you just want to blow stuff up and have fun. (9.99)
Claws Up Games
Claws Up Games
ECO Early Access Preview
By Terris Harned (NWOrpheus), Guest Writer
Ever since I first saw the Kickstarter trailer for the game Eco, I wanted to give it a try. The premise of a survival-style game where you are required to balance the ecosystem of a planet, while progressing technologically in order to save it from a meteor, appealed greatly to me. Although Eco is still in Early Access, Strange Loop Games has not disappointed with their offering.
The character customization is relatively limited in many ways. There are only 4 hairstyles – including bald – and 3 facial hair examples for the ‘masculine’ model. Yes, masculine. There are no male and female in this game, only masculine and feminine, which I personally find novel and an interesting choice. The current selection of clothing is rather limited, but more are expected in the future.
I repeat however that this is Early Access and, according to SLG’s Community Manager Shay McLean, there is likely to be more customization in the future. Unfortunately there is no timeline for that feature. On the plus side, the colorization options for clothing are in the millions of colors spectrum, offering you the rainbow slider and a hue selector.

When you start the game you have the option of choosing between joining a server or creating a new one. If you create a new server you can choose whether to allow friends to join, as well as the level of cooperation you want to instill in players. These cooperation levels dictate the speed at which you gain experience points, as well as the experience point cost of learning skills and specializations – more on those later. If you have high cooperation set, for example, players are going to advance very slowly on an individual basis, meaning that some people are going to have to supply food, others will chop trees, and someone else will provide stone. On a low or very low cooperation server, you generally won’t have to worry about each player having a narrow focus.
Once you’ve joined your server and created your avatar it’s time to get down to business! Thankfully, the game has a plethora of tutorials that flash on your screen to guide you on your path. This includes one that encourages you to spot the meteor that will one day collide with your homeworld, unless you can build the lasers to blow it to smithereens before it has the chance! If the tutorials aren’t quite enough for you, there’s also an excellent Getting Started guide on the Eco wiki page. You can also find tooltips for pretty much everything in-game. They’re even linked together so clicking part of one tooltip will take you to associated recipe or skill. The controls are fairly intuitive and transparent, with the tutorial directing you to most things you need to see, and a little experimental clicking of icons allowing you to find the rest.

In the early game Eco plays much like most other survival games. Gather resources, build a dwelling, manage hunger, etc. Unlike other survival games, however, Eco has no health bar. That’s right, none! Instead, you have a calorie and nutrition meter. Most actions, including running, consume a set amount of calories – this amount can be reduced by certain specializations, which are a type of skill. I’ll get to those soon, I promise!
There are two things that make Eco’s hunger system very unique. The first is the fact that it is broken up into 4 nutritional facets: fat, protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins. The second novel factor is that balancing these facets increases the rate at which you gain skill points. Thus, while you can simply forage tomatoes or huckleberries to fill your hunger meter and keep working, you’ll find yourself gaining skill points significantly slower than if you have a more varied diet. This makes farming for food an essential, but not critical, aspect of gameplay.

Skills: Yet another fairly unique and core feature of the game. There are a variety of skill sets, from mining to masonry to hunting and even forestry. Under most craft skills there are 3 aspects; crafting recipes, crafting efficiency, and speed. Gathering skills similarly have various ways to improve, such as increasing the amount gained from each harvest, or reducing the amount of hunger consumed when swinging a tool.

What I really think is a marvelous feature is the fact that you gain skill points over real-life elapsed time – even when you’re offline (this only applies to multi-player or dedicated servers.) There is an option for the server admin, set at launch, allowing you to gain skill points for each task completed. Most multiplayer servers seem to have this turned off, considering it a better option for single-player mode, since you don’t get that benefit of offline skill point gain.
Some of the other features of the game include an incredibly useful map, which assists in locating any resource the game has to offer, as well as displaying pollution and temperature levels in an area (helping you maintain the ecological balance and avoid rising sea levels). You can even set your main view to display this information as well.


There’s also an elaborate voting system that lets you create a leader for your society – in the future, you’ll have the ability to have more than one government – as well as setting laws and restrictions, such as disallowing deforestation in an area.

Joining a server is not one of my favorite parts of Eco. There are a boatload of servers, each with unique rules, different progressions into the game, various skill rate settings – and no way to sort them, other than searching by name. This can be a bit frustrating if you’re looking for something specific, though using the Eco Discord server – linked on the front screen of the game – can help greatly, as they have a #server-ad channel specifically for finding a server with your desired options. This is another aspect that Shay said would be fixed eventually, but isn’t the highest priority of the developers.

Once on a server, or on the Discord, you’ll find a generally helpful community, after all, the game typically forces cooperation. That being said, it’s probably a good idea to spend some time in single player navigating your way around the game before jumping online, as people inevitably get a little touchy when too many basic gameplay questions are asked.
Despite its cartoony graphics, I found myself immersed in the game, whether I was chopping trees or shooting turtles with my bow. I still chuckle every time my avatar yells “Timber!!!!” when felling a majestic fir tree. The music and birdsong in the background are a soothing enhancement, rather than an overwhelming distraction.

At thirty dollars, some might find this game to have a steep price point, especially for an Early Access title. Having actually bought my copy out of pocket, I can say it’s been very worth it to me. My personal system of judging is one hour played per dollar spent, and I’m already well past that point, despite having owned the game less than a week. It has more features and less bugs than most Early Access games I’ve played, and has only been on Steam since early February.

With more vehicles on the way (oh, did I not mention vehicles?) as well as enhancements to other existing features, this game can only get better. With a unique method of skill acquisition, innovative voting system, and positive community, I can see myself coming back to this game time and time again. Keeping in mind its Early Access status and improvements coming, I give Eco 4.5 out of 5.
Steep: Road to the Olympics – Gameplay (Japan Trailer)
The road to the Olympics is not an easy one, but STEEP lets you hone your skills in the mountains of Japan without ever leaving your home.
State of Decay 2 – Pax East Official Trailer
State of Decay 2 has an official trailer dropped at Pax East that shows off base building, character selection, environments and much more. It releases on May 22nd (18th for the Ultimate Edition).
Impact Winter – Launch Trailer
Help is coming in 30 days, but you have to use every skill at your disposal to help your band of survivors last that long. Impact Winter is available now.
KOF XIV: Blue Mary DLC Character
Blue Mary is back! She’s a DLC character on the way to King of Fighters XIV and noone is safe from her brutal Sambo fighting style.
