IIWYM Reviews... UNHOLY HEIGHTS

IIWYM Reviews!

UNHOLY HEIGHTS

Available Platforms: Steam Games (App stores?)

Right, well, this review's going to be a little unorthadox right off the bat. Let me start you off with my playing experience...

It's 5am on a Friday night.

One game has been soaking up the hours of our noble player...

Well, let's face it. Your character is anything but noble.

See, you're The Devil. And you've just put your life savings into buying an apartment block and retiring into the countryside. 

You're busy managing up to four floors of monstrous tenants that you bilked into buying a flea-ridden apartment that you've been gracious enough to steadily upgrade, trying to get strong enough tenants to withstand the endless horde of peasants, thieves, knights, and heroes that throw themselves at your doors to steal your money... Because, let's face it. You're the ex-lord of evil. People aren't exactly lining up to do you favors.
Plus, Lucifer-old boy has put on a few pounds over the years... Succumbed to male-pattern baldness... Gained poor eyesight...

You're in no shape to defend yourself. So pray hard that you've made those monsters in the floors beneath your penthouse like you, because without them, someone's going to take all your money and leave you broke, clientless, and sad.

So you work hard. You listen to everybody's complaints, improve their apartments with the rent they give you, buy them exercise equipment so they're more likely to survive their encounters with humanity... Or less, if you're truly The Devil and throw your tenants under the bus to appease darker powers...

It's entertaining, in a way, after all. To be responsible for all these lives. These little individual monsters, who each have a name, a job, their own story that you happen to be involved with and can shape to your will. Find them a lover, help them start a family... You see, it all comes down to you and how involved you want to get. And the happier they are, the more rent you can squeeze out of them, and the stronger they become. 

Now, let's be honest here. Failure is tough to come by. You're The Devil. You're not going to be dying of old age... Ever. You don't need to eat if you don't want to. You don't have your own bills to pay. So who's to say you should treat your tenants right, as long as they pay up, you really aren't required to help them for your own benefit, just to further their benefit. So, the assistance is its own reward, really. And maybe that's how it should be, besides, that's what you're here for, isn't it? If this doesn't appeal to you, maybe you shouldn't be in the apartment business.

And furthermore, managing the monsters you call for help is tough. They all move different speeds, of course, and you can only tell them go forward or backwards. There's no stopping to have your monsters regroup and wait for the enemy. All in all, being The Devil-Commander is slightly more difficult than it truly needs to be.

But it's impossible to deny that there's a certain magic involved. Something that can't really be stated in words, something that speaks to the creativity inside you. Your window into the lives is limited, so it's up to you to make up their stories yourself. Which is where much of the fun lies.

And so, You, The Devil, take these adorably designed monsters with you on your secret goal... But what is it, you might ask?
OF COURSE!
Take over the World!

I do hope you enjoyed that narrative. I had so much fun with this game, it kept me up and going for hours. The art design is adorable, the gameplay has its quirks but is really unique, something uncommon in this day and age, and it kept me glued to my computer for hours on end. This is one of those unexpected gems that really needs more attention, and I'm more than happy to give it to it.

Unholy Heights recieves a Buy Any Price.

This is your charming host, The Devil  Nev, saying good night, and sweet dreams. See you in the next review.

IIWYM Reviews: Ironclad Tactics

IS IT WORTH YOUR MONEY?

Reviews: Ironclad Tactics
Available Platforms: Steam Games, Facebook? Other app stores?

Hello once again, fans and other, today we take a look back to 1860 and grow out our epic mustaches while strapping dynamite to robots and throwing them at people!

STEAMPUNK FANS REJOICE!

Thank gods, it's here!

A game that's taken seriously and steampunk and pretty good!
...Though it still has flaws.
Finally, almost a year since my Guns of Icarus review and I find a good steampunk game.
Well...
Maybe.
I shall continue!

Ironclad Tactics is a game set in an alternate history 1860's, following a version of the American civil war... Except where both sides had massive metal death machines.
...So yeah. Summarizing a bit here, but... AWESOME!

Let me start off with the big pluses. The ENTIRE GAME is drop in-drop out cooperative. It even has "Counteroperative" modes (To borrow a phrase from Perfect Dark) in every mission, where a friend or someone online can take over your opponents, even taking over the bosses with a special army setup.
I haven't played with a friend at press time, but just thinking about getting 3-4 buddies and talking alot of smack and bluffing about your game should exponentially increase the fun. If there's any significant problems with the multiplayer, I'll cover it in an update.
The actual "Tactics" of ironclad tactics are rather fun, with a good amount of customization out of a...
...
And we now get to both this game's big strength and it's biggest weakness.

Everything is a card.

Yes. Another card strategy game.
*Sigh*
Let me explain why you shouldn't walk away.

Card Strategy games basically work with units taking the form of cards in a deck, which you then play to attack other cards, as seems logical. The problem with these games is they add a LARGE amount of luck to each game, and can lead to heavy arbitrary difficulty spikes, where the important thing isn't having a deck that is varied with good cards, it's about exploiting the hell out of a single strategy and creating a deck just for ONE mission of the story campaign then never using it again.

OH! The story, I nearly forgot! It's told through pretty good comic book style cutscenes, which makes me wonder if this wasn't based off of a comic book franchise that I just haven't heard about as I don't know step one about comic books. It's decently funny, getting a few good laughs out of me while setting up the next mission.

But back to cards again, this DOES lead to some pretty big frustrations and can leech the money value right out of the game, requiring sometimes several restarts until you get a good hand, and even if your deck is balanced and well done, you still can get worked over by pure card luck.

But that doesn't mean that there's not alot of fun to be had, as it feels awesome to wipe the floor with an opponent... Though sometimes card abilities are weird, like Armor not reducing damage over 1... Which seems...Strange, and it could definitely use more. More... Everything, really. There's the jumping off point for something excellent here, and it comes much closer to being awesome than Guns of Icarus did with a similar theme.

All in all, I spent $15 on this game. Once I get around some of the difficulty spikes, I'll definitely feel like I got a good amount of money's worth. While the game's basis is solid, varied, and the art is excellent (Which I didn't mention, but it's highly stylized and very memorable and good looking), it just doesn't quite produce great money value at the $15 price tag. If this were a Xbox Arcade game in its present state, I'd be happy paying base price for it. Of course, it may be and I just don't know about it.

Anyways, Ironclad Tactics gets a Buy it Cheap verdict. I definitely say "Get it!", especially if you're a fan of steampunk OR the civil war, or even better, both!, but maybe wait for a sale or see if you can't find it somewhere in the neighborhood of $10.

This is Nev with IIWYM, twirling my mustache and riding my metal ironclad off into the sunset. See you next time.

IIWYM presents... A very special review

First, A foreword from Our Chowder.

Hey there, loyal followers. It's been quite a while, hasn't it? Eight months, to be specific. This review was meant to be my second review on this site, but I kept continuously putting it off because, frankly, I didn't want to play through it again to give it another review, despite my thoughts telling me I loved the game. So, this made me think. Why? Why didn't I want to play it? And well, I will elaborate in the following paragraphs.
So, thanks for sticking by me all this time while I put my thoughts together. And apologies for continuously promising I'll review something, then not delivering. I hope to correct that now.

This review is also dedicated to my friend Michael "The Machine", as he leaves for the Air Force a few days after this review goes to air. Good luck, buddy. Stay safe.

So. Without any further ado...

IIWYM presents...
The long awaited...

Review of Darksiders II

Available platforms: Steam Games, X360, PS3, WiiU, and probably every other console known to mankind.

Freaking. Hell.

I can only think of one other game that I wanted so badly to love, yet it failed to live up to my expectations. It's especially more painful because this game gets alot of things right, but then SO much wrong! I'll try to explain from memory, but forgive me. It's been a long time and I still have no desire to pick this game up again.

Darksiders II is an action-platformer-puzzle game that followed up on the (humorously) dark-horse underground hit Darksiders, which was set in a world after the apocalypse was brought on too soon by War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and War set out to clear his name, as he was tricked into invading earth and bringing about the destruction of humanity. Darksiders mythos is basically christian mythology in nature, but with the second game it takes some more turns into weirder territory. Darksiders II takes place in the same time frame as the first game, but from the different perspective of Death, War's brother and the other of the four horsemen, last living Nephalim known.

So, now that we've got the setting up of the game out of the way, let's get on to my favorite part of this game. The soundtrack.
My god.
I want to give the composer for this game a medal.
The battle theme in the opening world is AMAZING, powerful, intense sort of Celt Rock being the best term to describe it. It's glorious, and so is much of the rest of the soundtrack to the game.
The combat is faster and more fluid than the last game, with Death getting a dodge as opposed to War's block, and Death's scythes have alot more visual flair than War's sword swings, though War was an admittedly cool character, with a very Warcraft-style design. In fact, that's a good sum-up for alot of the game's visual style. Warcraft.

But all of this... Comes at a price.

THE GAME IS BORING!

I really hate to admit it, but it's frankly true. The first game was one of my favorite games of all time, blending several different games experiences into something all its own, taking bits from God of War, Zelda, and Portal. The dungeons were creative, and had that Zelda-style feel that other games have tried to replicate unsuccessfully, and it bulged with fun ideas. Sure, it didn't break any new ground. But it was FUN, and I like fun things. And why not have more of our favorite experiences in a new shell? Darksiders I was an awesome game, and if I gave it a review today, it would still get a Buy it Discount.

However, Darksiders II loses ALMOST ALL of that. In Darksiders, you gained a new tool for traversal or other useful item in EACH. DUNGEON. In II, you do NOT get this. It's a constant quest of "Collect the three things so you can advance and collect the next three things". It's a cosmic road trip that really... Goes nowhere. And that's not even getting to the BETRAYAL that the game does in the ending, but I'll get to that later. I mean, oftentimes you would collect one of the series of three things and in one case those three things were just ONE of ANOTHER set of three things you have to collect. It has very MMO-style feels... Hey... I'm seeing a pattern here...

The designers seem to have taken so much inspiration from Warcraft, World of Warcraft in particular, that they BECAME like world of warcraft, and all the problems that has. Now, WoW can get away with really simplistic design and occasional middle-school intelligence because it is, by its nature, multiplayer. Deep, involving stories tend to not translate well into mulitplayer, especially if you're skyping with two or three other people and are laughing your keister off at a buddy's attempt to glitch his sword through the NPC's head, or jumping around like a rabbit. Storytelling is best told in simple quips, guides to give you a bit of context to what you're doing, which is often a simple "Go collect X amount of this". I mean, the game seems to be taken mostly out of Game Design 101.

It SUFFERS because of this. The game seems to have been approached with multiplayer in mind, as the game is less about fighting some "Villain" and more a cosmic road trip where Death has his one goal, the resurrection of humanity, in mind, and he constantly gets stopped along the way, which would be fine, if you had some friends to spice up the experience. But to me it seems multiplayer got scrapped late in development, so they were left with these really large open areas... But not that much to fill them with. It also necessitated the removal of the clever zelda-style puzzles that made Darksiders I so fascinating and so much fun.

This gets more apparent the farther you get into the game, as the story starts to get more ridiculous and nonsensical. Okay, so, in the game's story, you have angels and demons fighting a war. Angels aren't necessarily good, they're more about order and law and hierarchy and bureaucracy and such, while demons are about chaos and destruction and corruption and that sort of thing... But then you have Corruption, which is a new thing introduced that has nothing to do with any of these but is about... Destruction... And corruption, of course... And...Chaos...
ISN'T THAT WHAT THE DEMONS DO? How is this faction any different from the ones we already know? And furthermore, the gameplay itself begins to devolve. The dungeons get less focused as you go on, and the worlds stop being developed. By the time you get to a demon area, late in the game, it's like the designers stopped caring. There's ONE character for you to talk to, and ONE dungeon. However, in the first world you go to, there are Four, with two extras. Why? The game definitely suffers again from the lack of variety later in the game. Early on, things are good, and hitting their stride. Why not make the worlds more balanced so you're seeing different places more? It just doesn't make much sense to me.

And now to get to the BETRAYAL of the ending that I talked about before. Now, this does get into spoiler territory, so if you desire to purchase this game even after all this I'll keep this in spoiler text. Hi-light it to read it.

Now, over the course of the game, you are constantly told that Death is one of the last of the nephalim, spawn of angels and demons who threatened the balance of the cosmos long before humanity ever came into the picture. Now, the four horsemen (Death, War, Famine, and Strife, as they're called in the game) turned on their brothers and swore to uphold the balance. Death, however, has misgivings, and refused to destroy their souls so they could never be revived, and kept them in his soul-reaper amulet. Early on, this amulet is implanted into his chest, and is visible on Death no matter WHAT armor or equipment you acquire. It's Always visible, constantly bringing to mind the fact that Death has a choice. The ONE demon you speak to in the demon world tells you this. Bring back the nephalim, or bring back humanity. He could only choose one. This choice is constantly on your mind as you go through, and Death seems to take it pretty seriously, and all through the game I was weighing what I would choose and evaluating which I would take first, as that is the one that counts. This choice is built up through the ENTIRE game, and is the main reason for your quest: Make it to the Well of Souls and revive humanity to clear War's name. 
Now, imagine my surprise. I beat the final boss and make it to the end, ready to cast my vote for the future, and get a chance to see what world my choice created...
BUT NO
You do NOT get a choice!
It automatically chooses the "Good side" ending (Reviving humantiy) for you, and you have NO options! It just happens, with no player input at all.

No!

THIS IS WRONG!
Don't jerk me around like this, game! You built up the choice *I* as the player would have to make the ENTIRE game, well over 20 hours, and then you don't give me the one choice I get? The major one that determines the fate of the universe?
WHY?
How much of a problem would it be to give me a text prompt and a BOX OF WORDS if I choose the other one? I'd be fine with that, at least allow me to make a decision if you built it up. I'm not picky, I'd be okay with it... A bit disappointed, but okay if I got SOMETHING that acknowledged this build up the entire time. But the way it was handled goes against every rule of design I know of... And it drove me MAD. I seriously screamed "WHAT?!?!?" at the top of my lungs when the last cutscene played and the credits rolled. I seriously think I damaged one of my vocal cords.

And truly, I was raging about that for HOURS.

*Sigh*
Just thinking about it makes me upset.

Anyways, that's pretty much it about this game... I don't want to go back to it. In fact, if I had the chance, I'd erase it from my memory so I could still hope for a game that's a bigger, awesomer Darksiders I instead of Darksiders and Diablo/World of Warcraft combined.

Darksiders II recieves a score of BUY IT BARGAIN. If it wasn't for the awesome soundtrack and some fun parts of gameplay, it would recieve our first ever DON'T BUY IT. It was really that close.

This is Nev with IIWYM, signing off. Whew. Finally glad I got that review done.

IIWYM Reviews... Rogue Legacy

IIWYM presents...
A review of...

Rogue Legacy

Available platforms: Steam Games, X360 Arcade.

Salutations, fans and other! This is Nev, with IIWYM, reviewing Rogue Legacy, and heading into the dark and foreboding castle for the last time, on an adventure that Charles Darwin would readily approve of.

Rogue Legacy is an... Interesting game. On its surface, it's a 2d action-adventure. The closest game that I can come up with is Super Castlevania in terms of stylistic format and gameplay. And I mean seriously. All the castlevania weapons are here, from the boomerang weapon to an arcing axe and so on, which are much more useful than your sword *Ahermcough*Whip! *Ahremcough* in general. It's clear what the inspiration is for this game, but it does alot of things differently. Alot of, I think, good games.

The game, as well, is HARD. There are casual games, and there are hardcore games, and this is SQUARELY in the latter's territory. Especially early on, enemies WRECK you. It has alot of the feel of "Bullet Hell" games, such as the rather infamous Touhou, especially the bosses, who absolutely fill the screen with bullets. And if you die, you lose all the money you have collected, and you HAVE to collect money to advance the game...

Now, you'd be right to think this is frustrating. And, it is.
But.
And a rather big, juicy but it is.

Every time you die, you pass on all of your stuff to your next heir... Immediately. Seriously, when you expire, you're about two screens away from starting the game again, with a newly minted son or daughter with a wide selection of wacky traits, ranging from Irritable Bowel Syndrome to ADHD and Alektrokophobia (The fear of chickens). This makes the game SO MUCH more enjoyable, and much like the last game I reviewed, I did get frustrated. However, frustrated is not bored. I have logged roughly thirty hours in the game and still have three bosses to defeat before finally beating the game, and unlike other roguelikes where you start every game from the basic zero starting point and are SO prone to getting absolutely #%@!&$ by the roll of the dice, this game is much more friendly, and much more appealing to ME, as you just have to be a little bit better than before every time, as you upgrade your facilities to improve you each time, making it a bit further and surviving a bit longer, making a bit more money. Again, though, the game is hard, as if you don't do better, you've wasted your run, as your upgrades get more expensive and as earlier stated, you give up all your money with each new generation after spending it on upgrades.

In short, this is a game about the Evolution of Species. Like I said before... Charles Darwin Approved.

However, we now get to the point that I've been dreading while thinking of this review. The rating. Because, try as I might, I simply CANNOT give this game my highest rating, despite how much I REALLY love this game.

Because, simply put, it's not for everyone. For some people, the frustration IS a major problem, and you have to have quite a bit of patience to make it any distance. However, unlike Sword of the Stars: The Pit, another game of similar style that I'm reviewing next, this game is rather friendly for a game that's in the "Roguelike" park.

Rogue Legacy recieves a score of RENT IT, for those new to this type of game, or the casual player. However, I would recommend it to hardcore gamers because of the massive feeling of satisfaction you get from working your way from peasant to hulky slab of monster slaying beef.

This has been Nev of IIWYM. I've paid the toll, and I'm on my way back once more into Castle Hamson and Rogue Legacy. See you in the next generation.

UPDATE: Quite recently, I've finally finished the game, and can say it had a really excellent ending. I didn't touch much on the story in the main review, but it is well written and goes hand-in-hand with the gameplay...mostly. Going from a total zero starting point to knowing alot is great, and there's a good twist in the game as well that I didn't quite see coming. I won't say what it is, of course, just that I think the ending and last boss are excellently done. I can't wait to see if there's a Rogue Legacy 2 coming in the future!

UPDATE UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I'm beginning to think that I was wrong. Rogue Legacy is a far more accessible game than I gave it credit for. Sure, I still think it's hard. Sure, the difficulty is rough. But I think that it's worth it. It's easily the biggest surprise hit for me of the year, and I don't think anyone should miss out on this game. It's far too good, far too well crafted to miss out on. Hense, the game's score is hereby changed to Buy Any Price. So Sayeth the Nev.

IIWYM Rev.... THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!

IIWYM Reviews....
THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN

Available platforms: Steam, (Xbox 360 arcade?), other places around the nets (Newgrounds?)


Hey everybody, this is Nev with IIWYM here to bring you a...
*SUDDEN BURST OF STATIC*
I'm Nev, From the future! There's no time to explain, you need to not go through with this rev...
*Wall breaking noises, various sounds of screaming*

Huh... He's gone. Well, that was weird!
Anyways, on to the IIWYM review of There's No Time to Explain!

TNTTE, as I shall NEVER be abbreviating it henceforth, is at its core, a platformer with (Several) interesting "Gimmicks" though that is definitely a very bad term for it. Mechanics is probably better. In either case, depending on your view, it's a VERY funny platformer that hits that same sort of vein that can usually only be scratched by a good puzzle. Portal and Zelda games have traditionally filled this itch, but There's No Time to Explain futher! ON TO THE NEXT POINT!

You traverse the environment in the beginning with a sort of beam gun that works remarkably like a jetpack. The game has a rather realistic physics system... Or, rather... A PHYSICS SYSTEM. It works quite well, and probably 90% of the puzzles are about managing your momentum and making sure you are pointed in the right direction at the right speed. Finally, physics majors. Here's a game you can REALLY get behind! The puzzles are creative, and well done in general, though some of them get frustrating, and frustrating quickly. However, frustrated isn't bored! So there is that. This game did NOT bore me.

However, there are some weaker points. Some of the other traversal tools you get are disappointingly short, such as the shotgun, which you get early on. I was just having alot of fun with it when I was done with the section and was given back another gun. There's other tools as well, like a slingshot tool, an antigrav gun, and others. When do you get these, you might ask? Well... you know.

THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN!

All in all, I had an excellent time without having time to explain it. Or, not that much time.
*Time travel noises*
There's no time to explain! You have to give your review score now! This has gone on WAY too long, and has FAR too many time-related puns!

Ehh? Oh, alright then.
There's No Time To Explain gets a Buy it discount, for some rather frustrating moments and other minor issues, but is definitely worth your money and time for a good weekend's gaming.

This is Nev with IIWYM, so long!

IIWYM reviews... PAPERS, PLEASE

IIWYM presents...

A review of PAPERS, PLEASE

Available systems: Steam Games


Hello once again, and welcome to IIWYM reviews! Today, we take a look at PAPERS, PLEASE and get our passports stamped to dystopian adventure!

On it's surface, Papers is deceptively simple. You are selected by the government of a cold war era communist country to inspect people's papers for accuracy, and to ultimately determine whether or not they get to enter the country through a very secure checkpoint.

This. This is a lie.

For you see, the game quickly gets much more complicated from there. First, they start you off simply denying all foreigners. Then it escalates. Check for the proper date. check a person's weight. Check their stamps. Detain certain people, strip search others, defuse bombs... Even pull out a rifle and shoot intruders. Yes. In a game about papers, you are called to Spy VS Spy some terrorists.

The game is incredibly immersive, as well. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about people just from reading their documents (Hue, hue), but it's true. The game is presented in 8-bit (Maybe 16. I might have miscounted my bits!) graphics, and the sound has that quality of something you'd see on a old NES game... Which is a perfectly apt descriptor. The whole game feels like some forgotten gem from 1984.

But that doesn't mean the game can't do tension. For you see, the government doesn't pay for the housing they give you. Of course not, that would be too easy. No, you're paid by commission for each person you see in a day. There is a very definite time constraint, as you try to see the maximum amount of people you can so you can continue to feed your wife and often sickly son and keep the heat on in your house (Because it's based on communist countries on earth. It's freakin cold in those parts.) Each time you mess up, the game tells you with a telegraph from the head office. The game seems rather lenient with letting you slip up early on, but I have a feeling they're going to really hit you with the fines towards the end of the game.

There's several items to collect as well from certain people and special tasks, and the replay value is incredible. I got arrested for something that was rather stupid to do in a communist country (Report bribes and such) and got ending X out of 20. So... There is ALOT to the choices you make. Because you see, you have ultimate authority over who goes in and out of that gated checkpoint. It's not a game over if you let one person through without papers (Which you may often have to to get some of the special tokens, I feel).

All in all, there are few games with this much dedication to the writing. This is a heavily text-based adventure, and the quality of the writing and characters shines through the gameplay through what starts off as simple mechanics. For this is not a game about stacking and shuffling papers.

It's one of the best games with a moral choice I've seen in YEARS. Move out of the way, mass effect. I was more torn over whether or not to let a refugee in without papers than I have been since that game.

I got this for $10, and I would have been happy paying $45 or more. Note however that the game is also best played in shorter stretches, as the documents can, of course, get tedious (Especially when you booch it several times or try things as an experiment and need to replay a day or two)

PAPERS, PLEASE gets a BUY ANY PRICE

This has been Nev with IIWYM reviews, who has just been approved to cross the border to gaming pleasure. I'll see you there.

500 views return!

Greetings friends and people and other!

This is Nevermore, with IIWYM, saying...

*I RETURN!*

This week, expect three new reviews and writings! Shadowrun Returns, Loadout, and PAPERS, PLEASE are all on the slate scheduled for the next few days!

Sadly, I haven't been delivering on some of my earlier promises. But expect a short piece on Darksiders II finally (Ugh, you've been trying to write that forever! Get out of here! Faaaaaaaaake! -The Internet)

I hope to be writing much more as I have now retrieved my more functioning laptop.

Once again, this is Nev, with IIWYM, signing off for now!

(Also, nearly 600 viewers! Woooo!)

Guns of Icarus kickstarter

Hey followers and people, this is Nev with IIWYM, here to bring you a special message!

This little writer has heard word of a Guns of Icarus kickstarter, for the online game!

Given the popularity of my review, I'd like you all to check this out, and maybe kick back a few bucks so we might be able to get the game I (And several others) were dreaming of!

Check it out!

Dark Souls: In Depth (NOT A REVIEW)

Hey Everybody, this is Nev with IIWYM, posting something I hope you folks will enjoy. I wrote a piece on Dark souls for my final project in a Game Design class, and I thought you folks would like to read it. So, here's me, on Dark Souls

            Dark Souls is an Action-RPG, renowned for its challenging difficulty but good balance and design. The target audience is definitely longtime, experienced hardcore gamers. I have played the game for about twelve hours, and I have barely scratched the surface of all the game’s mechanics. In this game, death is frequent, and not knowing where you need to go next is a common occurance, but all the tools you need to succeed are there in the game. It’s got heavy RPG elements, with a robust character creation system and detailed amounts of stat building and weapon upgrading and so on. It’s also heavy on action elements with a bend towards realism in combat, with armor weight, character agility, and other elements weighing heavily into success in  combat, with powerful backstabs. There’s a nice tutorial level to start the game, and you kill a very large boss early on. Also notable about the game is the complete lack of cutscenes, other than the opening cutscene. All the story is told through NPC conversations, or what you make of it yourself, though it does have a deep story and a lot of mythos to the world. I started playing the game as the knight class, a rather tanky build that gets heavy armor and can both dish out the hits with good starting strength, high balance to take a hit and keep swinging, and high HP. However, I got lost shortly after getting to the meat of the game after the tutorial level, butting my head against a challenge that was way above both my skill level and character and equipment level. And it wasn’t some boss that was ruining my day, it was simple skeletons. However, eventually I learned an efficient strategy to beating them… And shortly after that I found the route through a place that was appropriately challenging without being overbearing. I then proceeded to scythe through the game… Until beating the second area boss at which point I became hopelessly lost again, as the straightforward path dead ends until

The dynamic I’m going to cover is the death system, which creates a very complicated abstract dynamic with the game. The game heavily rewards and is weighted towards trial and error, but the game is balanced in such a way that every time you die it FEELS like it’s your fault. Every time you die, you respawn back at the nearest bonfire, which acts as a sort of checkpoint and home base all in one, and you can do more things at a bonfire as you acquire more key items and so on. However, you drop all your souls, which serve not only as your experience bar but also your currency to buy everything in the game and are often needed to solve puzzles or get hints, and all your Humanity, when you die, also leaving Human form, an essential component for online play and well… Looking nice…, and leaving all these things where you died. Not only that, every respawnable enemy (See: ALL OF THEM) respawns back into the world. HOWEVER, you can only have one bloodstain waiting in the world at any given time, and if you die again before recovering your things, they’re gone. This mechanic means that death can leave you not only set back but penniless, and encourages the cautious nature of the game. Death is also designed to be a common occurrence, but each one is set to be a learning experience, as instead of being a bad design point, it uses this in a clever way, as all the encounters are SURVIVABLE if you act cautiously and be prepared, and being skilled at the combat system. Enemies have specific, memorizable attack patterns that are usually well telegraphed, and, with proper timing, can be blocked, or parried, which will leave your opponent open for devastating critical attacks, most of which will either kill in one hit or take a significant chunk of the enemy’s life away. The entirety of the game works in one fluid system, expertly tested and well balanced to make the rather punishing deaths seem, once again, like it’s an obstacle to overcome rather than bad design. For instance, compare the system in this game to something similar, like Skyrim. In Skyrim, if you die, you have to load a save and lose ALL your progress. But in Dark Souls, you just head back to a checkpoint with a lesson learned. The difference is that death is Punishing, but Recoverable. Every mistake that you make can be fixed in another go.

Dark Souls: First impressions

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!

WHY AM I STILL PLAYING THIS GAME?

IT'S SO FRUSTRATING AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS CLUELESS ON WHAT SKILLS I NEED TO SURVIVE PLAYING *EVER*!

BUT I'M SO COMPELLED TO KEEP PLAYING!

SO FRUSTRATING, AND YET SO REWARDING!

Total playtime:3 hours 30 minutes

Deaths: 25

First Impressions: Monaco:What's yours is mine

First Thoughts on....

Monaco:What's yours is mine

 First off, I wanted to make it known this isn't a full review, just my initial impressions after about an hour with the game.
Monaco came out on Steam a few days ago, and it had a really catchy trailer, so I just haaaad to pick it up. I love heist stories, and thought that there was potential for a good game here. But my initial thoughts are.... Mixed.

The single player is DIFFICULT. This is compounded by the fact that there is no way to permanently incapacitate guards, or turn off lasers, or really clear things out in general. No matter how hard you may try, there's no way to reliably complete a floor unless you manage to get EVERY guard at the same time, a herculean task, to be sure. And I figure that when a shot from a shotgun turns someone into a SKELETON they're pretty much dead. But no, when another guard finds their skeleton (Which they invariably will, a shotgun blast is LOUD) they'll make a sound that sounds like they're hucking their organs into the other guy, and he comes back to life. Disgusting, to be sure. And incredibly annoying.

I'll come back with more impressions and an actual review soon. Until then, this is Nev with IIWYM, saying seeya soon.

Retro Reviews: Sonic Adventure 2

IIWYM presents...
A retro review of...
Sonic Adventure 2: Battle

Ahh, Nostaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalgia. It buoys up many a man's past childhood memories. And it is often deeeead wrong. People tend to look at their pasts, especially their childhoods, with a degree of what the germans like to call "Sunday eyes" or rose-colored glasses. Everything's romanticized to a large degree, especially with the amount of time. This game came out ten years ago, I was a small child who was just breaking in a shiny new gamecube. I logged many an hour into this game, and it shows. I still remembered the placement of most of the collectables and knew exactly what to do to grind out money. Ahh.

             Regardless, onto the game itself. Sonic Adventure 2 was released on the dreamcast originally, actually, but got a rerelease onto the Gamecube a few years later with a few more features. And most recently, it was ported onto Steam, where gamers curious to see what the fuss is about can get it. The premise is simple as many things were in games at the time: Doctor Eggman has released a doppelganger of Sonic (Who else) and sonic is put in prison for the actions of this doppelganger, and sets out to get to the bottom of things.Things escalate from there, and end up with
*Spoiler: To see the spoiler, highlight it with your cursor*
A giant floating space colony shaped like the face, and a plot to use it to blow up the United States, presumably, and cuts the moon in half!
*End spoiler*

The game plays out like a classic platformer style, much like the marios of the era, but with much more of a focus on speed. When it gets it right, the game feels great, and the sense of speed is better than you can get in some modern games even. But problems are starting to arise here that continued into the later games of the series, like the disasterous Sonic '06. But there were a number of reasons that game was bad. This one is good.

In fact, its very good. It ate up an entire weekend of my time, and I loved it. However, the graphics are really showing their age, being well over a decade old now. The game still has a high degree of replayability even to this day. So I say, give the game another shot if you've got some spare change laying around. The core game is STILL about seeing how fast you can run though an impressively designed level, and the soundtrack. That glorious soundtrack is still intact. As soon as I heard City Escape playing again, I was right there, ten years old, sitting in front of that TV with my shiny gamecube. For the nostalgia alone, I'd say pick this up on steam. You'll need to fiddle with the keyboard controls if you lack a gamepad, and in my version there was some occasional significant game lag, but nothing that really detracted from the overall experience.

Sonic Adventure 2 recieves a...
BUY IT CHEAP

It's still good, and I definitely recommend a buy if you've got a weekend free and feel like some nostalgia.

This has been Nev with IIWYM reviews, signing off. Look forward to the Mass Effect Retrospective, featuring a guest contributor!

IIWYM: Terraria

Hey everybody, this is Nev with IIWYM, here to give my thoughts on Terraria. I've not been posting for a while, but I'm going to be coming back soon with more reviews!
On the note of the Darksiders II review I've been talking about and was the first thing I was GOING to review... That's been indefinitely delayed. I haven't played it in some time... And I don't WANT to play it again to refresh my memory. That should be a tenative review for now.

Anyways, I wanted to put some words out there about Terraira if you haven't heard about it already. Terraria is a complex game, the closest would be Minecraft on a 2d plane, but that doesn't really do it justice. Your "Goal", if it can be called that, is to defeat the Wall of Flesh in the underworld and release the spirits of light and darkness. They tell you this nowhere in the game, and unless you check the wiki, you might never learn. But fortunately for you, I HAVE checked the wiki, so I can tell you that even though I haven't been through everything there is to go through, Terraria still has a TON of replay value and entertainment.

It even has multiplayer! It's horrible multiplayer that uses a server system from the 1990's, and I thought I was finally done digging through IP addresses. I thought we'd finally moved on from that nightmare. I was wrong...

Anyways, Terraria has alot to do. You start with a zero starting point and slowly build up a town, hire NPC's, gather money, dig massive caverns, hunt for underground treasure, explore the jungles... There's TONS of value here.

It would really take me multiple pages to talk more about it, so let me give you my comparison to the other obvious world shaping game: Minecraft. I have to say, I think this game is better. The world feels more complete, the NPC's have valuable functions, the look is a bit nicer rather than Minecraft's and the sprites feel better, and the "Gamefeel" is great. It's very easy to lose yourself in it and the progression is much better designed. You advance through material tiers and areas much more fluidly than Minecraft, which has some, while more realistic, not as fun material tears. Plus, Terraria is much more heavily FANTASY, with mythical materials, eyes of cthulu, and so on and so forth.

I suppose this is timely, precluding the release of Terraria on consoles with a ton of updates that the creator assures us will NOT ever appear on PC versions, which really makes him come across as a real $%#&, considering Terraria was promised support and updates over time to keep it fresh. It got ONE update, and console people are going to get a new final boss, new material tiers, new monsters, and other tweaks that PC gamers who have been playing for years will NEVER SEE, by all accounts.

Anyways, I've ranted long enough. Terraria is currently a steal, as I don't think it's been any more than ten dollars for a game I've clocked 117 hours into. If you haven't bought it already, do so.
Terraria gets a BUY ANY PRICE.

Meanwhile, coming up on my schedule for IIWYM is a Mass Effect retrospective, a double review, and a few thoughts on why you should give games a chance even if a trusted reviewer hates them through a game that really made me the person I am today. I owe alot to this game that for the time shall remain secret.

With that, this is Nev for IIWYM reviews, signing off.

Guns of Icarus base game Review

IIWYM reviews...

Guns of Icarus: Base game


Urgh.

That's my sad opinion of this game.

Maybe I should go on.

Guns of Icarus was something I was actually looking forward to for some time. A friend told me about it, and  I will freely admit one of my secret loves is anything steampunk, and this looked to answer that. Airships! Gatling guns! Trading missions! Impossibly cool goggles and leather jackets with fur around the necks!
Well, I'll say Guns of Icarus delivers that, certainly... But it's all very soulless... Which I suppose is strangely appropriate, considering the world is an APOCALYPTIC take on Steampunk, which... Isn't quite what I expected...
Wait, hold on.
*Looks at the icon for the game*
"Guns of Icarus: This is not the future I expected"
...
Oh, hahahahahaha. I get it.

Regardless, the basic premise of the game is that you are a lonely airship captain, trying to transport your cargo across long distances while using the Guns of Icarus (Ahhh, I see what you did there) to defend your airship. The single player DOES capture the loneliness quite well, and each basic mission starts with a little blurb, ususally "OMG Everybody's dead". Well, a bit more eloquent than that, but... Yeah.
Also, I find it a bit hard to buy that there's an apocalypse when I'm shooting down dozens upon dozens of fighter aircraft. A lotta airfields must've survived the apocalypse.
Anyways, you pilot your way across the landscape, picking your route that always leads towards an ending, which I won't spoil... But I will say...
I thought...
WHAT THE F***!
...
Just a word of advice.
But I supposed it fit in with the theming, so...

Moving right along to the main problem: The game is SOULLESS. You feel this as you run about repairing things and shooting pirates, your only two activities in the game. Now, I will say, to the designers credit, there's some SERIOUS tension when you're nearing your destination, there are pirates everywhere, everything's on fire... That's a great sensation.
...
The problem is, there's really not much point to it all. It's just a series of wave survival with varying difficulties. Plus, add to the fact that this game is... Well, it's not pretty, to say the least, even on the misleading "Fantastic" graphics quality.

Now, in my ideal vision, this game would have bartering with other ship captains, some exploration of the ruined towns to find loot items, upgrades, more RPG mechanics. These things could be used to make it a great game!
The world is interesting, and there's some really good ideas available here, and there's nothing quite like the relief that comes by barely surviving a really tough mission. And then there's multiplayer, which I thought would relieve some of the soullessness, but it in fact is MORE soulless since you don't get a map to pick your route, you don't get to modify your ship layout, and you don't get any reward other than a little score number and some smiley faces. So, IMO, don't bother

But on the other hand, I got this game for two dollars, and I would really say that I got my money's worth.
I REALLY wanted to like this game. I was prepared to shout from the rooftops; "Steampunk fans rejoice! for there is now a game that takes your favorite thing and does it well and is awesome!"... Sadly I can't do that, because this game is not it. But it could have been, maybe with a bigger budget and a larger team (This game SCREAMS "Made in a garage by five guys"). And that's the saddest part of all.

This game recieves a....
BUY IT BARGAIN
Review.

But I do recommend getting it, it's worth spending the four hours or so it'll take to give the campaign a run-through. If you grab it for like a few dollars, then it's totally worth your time.
And now, I'm sure you're wondering why I put Base Game in the title here. There's an MMO of the same name released at the same time, and from what I understand that's a superior experience... But it has no player base.
Regardless, this is a review of the more solo game.

This has been Nev with IIWYM reviews, and I hope you join me next time when I *FINALLY* get to that Darksiders II review I've been wanting to do.

Impressions: Hawken Beta

IIWYM...
Shares impressions on...
Hawken Open Beta

                Now, I'm doing something a bit unorthodox here, reviewing a game that hasn't even technically come out yet. But nowadays game companies tend to release an open beta for games and they will sit in beta for YEARS. In fact, I think Huxley is STILL in beta, and it's been... What, three years I think?


          Irregardless, I've been playing a LOT of the Hawken Beta. Hawken is a first-person mech multiplayer shooter with some RPG leveling elements. It's a really bonkers idea, and it has in its inspirations everything from Mechwarrior to Counter-Strike. It's really working it's magic on me, whatever it is. It follows standard multiplayer dogma, play in teams or on your own and eliminate anyone with a different mech than yours (That's not on your team, of course). The game is already well-designed, if a little bit threadbare, but this is to be expected due to the nature of betas.

         What I didn't expect though, is how BUTTERY SMOOTH the game runs. It rarely encounters problems, and only once have I had a crash to desktop. Though I do get a visual glitch that makes everything look bad whenever I alt-tab away, most games nowadays go into conniptions when you minimize them. Dern these fancy golden pixels everything is made out of.

        Moving right along to the gameplay, it's quite interesting compared to the work-a-day shooters (Your CODBLOPS, your Battlefield, and so on) as you tend to live for far longer, and can repair your mech mid-battle to stay in the fight. The weapons are relatively well varied even this early in the game's release. Add to this the fact that  engagements are longer than usual, and you have time to adjust your tactics mid-fight. Plus, the weapons aren't Hitscan, so your aim, timing, and knowledge of trajectory is REALLY important. Movement and speed are very valuable in this game, and I've often gotten my metal cans handed to me by a Scout mech with a flak cannon.

      The game, like any other, of course has some problems.

Playing with friends is Nigh Impossible thanks to the lack of a grouping system, which is so baffling especially when the majority of the game modes are worked so strongly around moving and acting as a team. In fact, your mystery earpiece man occasionally says "We fight together, united we are strong...Alone we fall".
Funny how you'll spend as much time trying to get into a match with a friend than being in one.

Plus, trying to do more than one friend is a NIGHTMARE, and really shouldn't be attempted until they get some form of grouping in the game.
If this game releases without it... SHAME on it.

In terms of the gameplay side, the leveling of your mechs can make things a bit stacked in favor of the players who have a better equipment selection. Though it's still VERY possible to defeat a much higher level opponent, you'll have a tougher time of it and will likely need to use more skill to win. Add to the fact that these people are likely much more skilled, and some problems arise.

The last problem is a term of variety. As of press time, the game has only three mechs of each class, plus a fourth medium class mech that you're given for free. Also note that this is one of the game's best and most versatile mechs, and I continue to dominate players with much more expensive mechs with it with enough effort and occasionally luck.

Also coming to mind is why I'm even bothering to REVIEW this, considering it's absolutely free to play and is scheduled to remain so even when it hits full release. But like all F2P things, it has some things that cost money, and they're relatively cheap... But it has Microsoft Points syndrome BAD, as nothing costs an even amount of money. Everything is like "171" or "223" points.

But regardless of this, the game is still a blast, and I can always recommend something that's free without any harm to my reputation, and in this case I can recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of stomping metal war machines or is tired of your usual case of Shooteritis.

Now we get to the tough part. See, this game is FREE, so it's not really part of my ratings system. Instead, I'll give an idea of the kind of money that the game might be worth investing in at the present time.

I'd say this game is really worth an investment of 20-60 dollars.

If they up the amount of content in the game and get the party system working, this number will SKYROCKET, as there's alot of enjoyment to be had here.

All in all, don't let Hawken pass you by in the usual blaze of things. It's no risk to yourself, so feel free to give Hawken a good try. See if you like it.

Alright, this is Nev with a most different IIWYM review, and I'll be doing another usual review on Darksiders II later this week, and things will be heading back to their usual state.

See you next time with IIWYM Reviews!

Is it worth your money? 

Reviews...

FABLE: THE JOURNEY

For Xbox 360 Kinect

There’s something to be said about motion controls: They suck.

And I mean generally terribly so. The detection on modern motion devices, especially the Kinect, with its extremely dodgy detection, especially compared to the generally superior Playstation Move experience. Not only that, the games have generally been as @#&% as the detection. A truly amazing experience for the kinect has been a long time coming, and I think this is it. It’s a real RPG adventure with serious mechanics for the hardcore gamer who doesn’t want to be held down by a controller.

Now, my experience with the game started about an hour in, so forgive me if I miss a bit. Basically, you’re this character named Gabriel who gets these magic gauntlets… somehow… and must head to various shrines around the world of Albion to gather stones to make them powerful enough to defeat an ancient evil. It is quite literally the classic Hero’s Journey, which is incredibly appropriate. The game revolves around the interaction between Gabriel, his horse Saren, and the blind seer Theresa. And unlike most fable games, surprise surprise, the characters are extremely well developed! Gabriel is unwilling at first but slowly becomes a hero, Theresa is very witty and often a sarcastic counter to Gabriel’s attitude, and the rest of the small supporting cast is generally well built, except for the wandering fortune teller… Who everyone but me seemed to hate.  The fellows I played with said they found him INCREDIBLY annoying… But fortunately he only appears in two or three places and at least Theresa’s responses to him are very witty and I found them hilarious.

The gameplay revolves around your combat spells, which are in your right hand, and your manipulation spell, in your left. You start off with just a bolt offensive spell, but unlock three more over time, particularly the…

*SPOILERS AHEAD* (To see the spoiler, highlight it with your cursor.)

Shard spell. By the time you get this spell about 3/5 of the way through the game, the rest of it basically plays itself if you use it right. It’s a bit overpowered, but the enemies don’t quite scale up to the sometimes annoying difficulty of the rest of the game.

*SPOILERS OVER*

Now, avid readers may note I haven’t talked about something that plagues all motion games: Detection. 

Now, there’s a very good reason for that.

While the detection is BY FAR the best that I’ve seen in a game *For Kinect, and if you get it set up right you’ll be flinging spears and fireballs and tossing hobbes around like the prodigal son of Merlin, which is RIDICULOUSLY fun if you get into it, it still has a few problems in certain spots, but the detection is overall good, if a tad imprecise in places. I remember an optional challenge where you have to hit two targets with a fireball within about five seconds of each other. Now, when you consider that Fireball takes about three seconds to charge and if you miss you have to do it all over again and the detection can be occasionally dodgy (Especially with the left hand spell) it can get VERY frustrating in spots. But for every time the detection is dodgy, there’ll be a time you’re toasting horsemen with a series of fireballs left and right and everything is good again.

The game, overall, has a good bit of filler fluff in it, especially early on. The game is DEFINITELY strongest in its last act, where you’re taking on some massive bosses, putting all your spells to use, particularly the temptress, who I won’t spoil because this boss is… pretty freakin cool.

And I haven’t even gotten to the horse riding, which is a pretty darn cool mechanic, where you sit and take control of the reins of your carriage and steer yourself around hazards while admiring the often INCREDIBLE scenery (There was one moment late in the game where you watch a lighthouse tumble to the ground right in front of you as your horse blazes past in glorious detail.) This game is definitely deserving of the full 1080p treatment, and you WILL feel justified buying that HDTV now.

It looks great, the music and sound is fantastic as well, the gameplay is the most solid experience I have ever had on kinect, and the story of the journey and the fascinating interactactions between Gabriel and Theresa, the massive boss fights and the blast of a spellcasting…

This is the kinect experience that we have all been waiting for, and thank god it finally came.

This game earns a…

BUY IT ANY PRICE

Score, the highest available in my system

In closing, people have always been saying that the kinect is just Microsoft’s attempt to catch up to the Wii’s massive hardware sales, and that they really didn’t care enough to put anything good on the kinect. Well, that my friends and listeners, has finally changed for the better. Fable: THE JOURNEY is the game I think we’ve all been waiting for, and it deserves WAY more press than its been getting. If you’re a kinect owner, go out and get this one right now. I think you’ll enjoy it.

This has been Nevermore with IIWYM?, saying good luck on your own journey, and see you for my next review.


UPDATE: Fable:THE JOURNEY has just come out for Games on Demand on Xbox. Now, if you have Kinect, you have absolutely no excuse to not play this game. Go on and get it now!

IIWYM Reviews!

IS IT WORTH YOUR MONEY?

J.K. Rowling’s BOOK OF SPELLS

Well, this is my first review, and I’m going to start my review by asking you to do something. Now, if you own a playstation Move, but have heard nothing about this game, slowly raise your left hand. Now pull it back towards your face slowly until it contacts with your nose. That’s the penance for not giving an exceptional experience the recognition it deserves, for it is the single best experience I have ever had with motion controls, and had me giggling like a schoolgirl when I started learning about it, and I’m NOT a harry potter fan, let me say that right off the bat. But this? This is a definitive motion control experience and should not be missed.

To start off with, I’ll give a basic summary of the game. You use the Move as a wand, and the included techno-wizardry book as your spellbook as you listen to interesting stories and learn to cast spells to become a real wizard. It tears me to bits it doesn’t go much farther than that, but I suppose that’s what sequels are for, no?

The game starts off with you using the Move camera to take a Wizard’s picture of yourself. Now, this is ridiculously cool, to start off with, ESPECIALLY for Harry Potter fans. You then go on to learn several spells and learn stories from the spellbook, using the move to practice each motion and then using the spell in a limited situation, usually a magic space where some simple problem will be happening. The graphics are great to look at, and the motion experience is excellent, if, like most new technology, it occasionally goes extremely wonky, but none of this detracts from the overall experience. This experience is EXCELLENT, and really imparts the feel that you’re actually a powerful wizard with the ability to change the world with the flick of your wand. Also notable is the book itself, which has some really cool effects, like lifting the book up to look through 3d holes in the book. It builds itself nicely as well, to a test at the end of each chapter that puts every spell you learned in that chapter to work.

And now, here’s where things hit a small snag. During the game, it’s clearly built up that the final test will take ALL the twentysomething spells you learn to pass, some massive test, some big adventure that will challenge you on everything you learned.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE!

*LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD*

The final test is just like the ones before it, even though you have to unlock the last chapter by beating the other ones. Sure, you use one or two of the spells you learned in the earlier chapters, but not during the test and not in any significant way. You DO learn some of the signature spells from the movies and books in the last chapter, and you do some interesting stuff with it, but it in no way compares to what the experience might have been to have your brain, your wits, and your aim challenged with ALL the spells you learned, especially since one or two of these spells only get used once, like the Cleaning spell.

*SPOILERS OVER*

And in conclusion, I walk away from Book of Spells with the sheer experience engraved on my heart, very happy, but a tiny bit disappointed. But I implore all of you who read this, give this game the sequel it deserves. Because if this experience was expanded and made into some sort of more interactive adventure, it may be one of the coolest things ever created.

IS IT WORTH YOUR MONEY FINAL VERDICT!!!!

This is the place where I rate the game based on my personal review criteria, and the thing you, as a potential game buyer, want to know the most. “Is this game worth the 20/40/60/80 dollars that I’m about to pay for it?”

In short, my reviews follow this final score criteria.

BUY ANY PRICE-

This means the game is an excellent value to buy at any asking price, and indicates an experience that I’m willing to venture will be worth whatever you pay for it (Within reason, don’t use this as an excuse to buy some game for $200)

BUY IT CHEAP/RENT IT-

This means that the game is good and a solid experience, but may have some faults that detract from the experience or some other issues, and is also not a must-own game. That doesn’t mean it is bad in any way, it just means that it might be worth waiting until the price is good, or comes down a bit for triple-A games (Standard $60 titles)

Rent it is about the same quality level, but indicates a polarizing experience that may not be quite for you, so I’d suggest renting it to see if you like it before committing to a buy, if any.

BUY IT BARGAIN

This means the game is ultimately flawed, but there is still some definite fun to be had here. Games with this rating should be bought for very cheap, like a big Steam sale or so on.

DON’T BUY IT!

This should be pretty self-explanatory. This game is very flawed, and overall is NOT worth your money. This score is only reserved for the very worst games, or experiences that are extremely repetitive or in some other way nothing you haven’t seen before.

But now, back to The Book of Spells.

This game earns a…

BUY IT ANY PRICE!

The experience alone is so worth the price of admission, just the sheer feeling of being a powerful wizard with a magic wand is enough alone to justify a purchase. It’s done extremely well, even if it can be a one-trick pony. But then, One-trick ponies usually do their one trick EXTREMELY well, and this trick is an amazing one.

Thanks for tuning in to IS IT WORTH YOUR MONEEEEEEEEEEEH! Reviews.