Underworld Ascendant is an immersive first person dungeon crawler that is heavily based around the much loved Underworld Ultima in which you play The Avatar (sadly not the airbending variety); a hero tasked with venturing into The Stygian Abyss, in order to do battle with the demon Typhon and his undead hordes.
Simple is better. It's a phrase I’ve often heard thrown around and it’s generally true. Avoiding the pitfalls of complication and the attempts to innovate can lead to a smoother experience. While sometimes this is a good motto to follow, occasionally people can take it a little too far. Not far enough where the experience is completely diluted, but enough where the simplicity can get a bit on the old side by the end. This is where I found Furwind on Xbox One to fall. By no means is it a bad game from any standpoint, but it is simple, almost to a fault.
It’s hard to imagine that there is a way to kill a zombie that hasn’t already been demonstrated by some form of media. But that doesn’t mean the influx of zombie games is slowing down; in fact, it appears there are still billions of zombies to kill yet. At least that’s what They Are Billions on Xbox One wants you to believe.
When it comes to racing, it’s fair to say that gamers are pretty well catered for. Whether you’re after the high-speed thrills of Formula One, the two-wheeled mayhem of MotoGP, the off-road antics of the world's finest rally courses, or even a casual stroll through the local countryside in some of the fastest supercars on the planet, there is very little that you can’t enjoy. There is however one other racer now available for players to master. Welcome to European Truck Racing!
The roguelike genre has seen a resurgence in the last ten years, with many developers attempting to innovate and mix up the well-tread formula. Streets of Rogue is one such game, mixing the roguelike action of something akin to The Binding of Isaac with the strategy and immersive possibilities of Deus Ex. It is a mostly well done and solid mash-up that accomplishes the goal of giving the player a deep and varied gameplay experience that is ripe for replayability as well as multiplayer fun.
If you were old enough to enjoy the horror genre around 9 or 10 years ago, then chances are you may just remember Decay from the moment it first arrived on Xbox 360. It lit up the Indie Game section during its four-part outing with unexpected scares. Now though, returning back all these years later sadly doesn’t quite prove as frightful, but that’s not to say it isn’t at least worth a look.
This first installment of The Lost Legends Of Redwall is available on Xbox One, PC via Steam and soon PS4. Redwall is a series of books written by the sadly deceased Brian Jacques, who had gone on record as saying he didn't want his creation turned into a video game, but Soma Games managed to persuade him otherwise and he was apparently fully on board prior to his passing in 2011. Soma Games have placed the game in the Winter before the events in the first Redwall book, and the stories in the games are not going to be remakes of the novels, but rather new stories that take place in the universe of the Redwall books.
Another week, another Ratalaika Games release. This time it’s a game called Bouncy Bullets. And from the title, you’d think it would be some kind of first-person shooter. You’d be wrong though. The game does have bouncing bullets, but it’s really a 3D platformer with just a little bit of shooting sprinkled in for good measure.
After downloading a patch, I could finally play the DLC, but another bug prevented me from completing its final area. But even when it does work, Keepers of the Void struggles to reach the heights of the main game, let alone its superior predecessors.
In Pawarumi, cyberpunk meets Aztec as pilot Axo rebels against the Council - a superpower of the local universe. Axo pilots a powerful battleship, Chukaru, and employs the weapons at its disposal to put an end to the Council's rule. If you're a fan of cyberpunk and shoot 'em ups, then fasten your seat belt because you're in for an action-packed, albeit brief, ride.
It crept up on me. No, not a ravenous Demogorgon looking for its dinner, but the first season of Stranger Things on Netflix. It arrived with no considerable hype or build-up, instead dropping seemingly from nowhere all at once. One of the reasons I love Netflix, and the generation of entertainment we are currently enjoying, is discovering the next binge-worthy series. This was it. The series was well received all round and spawned a companion game for mobile devices which was also widely praised. Three years later and three series’ in, the franchise enjoys continued success, and as a result a more ambitious companion game has been released to Stranger Things 3.
There have been a plethora of titles giving gamers a shot of retro nostalgia recently and SolSeraph is next in line. This time around, SolSeraph seems to be taking inspiration from the SNES classic, ActRaiser. But what initially seems to be a sweet homage to ActRaiser, eventually falters, as SolSeraph can’t capture the same endearing balance of action platforming and top-down strategy that made ActRaiser a classic.
Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God is the latest in a long line of KEMCO titles to arrive on Xbox One in recent months and in this adventure players step into the shoes of a young girl named Patty, and her younger brother Gino, who are the children of a famous local Tavern owner.
If there’s a mad scientist involved then usually what you’ll be looking at is either the latest episode of Scooby-Doo, or some shady futuristic sci-fi adventure. Fission Superstar X is in the latter of those categories and brings a wacky protagonist straight out of the same weird and wonderful reality you’d expect of a crazed cartoon episode.
Coming from Ratalaika Games, purveyors of strange titles famous for a cheap price point and very easy Xbox achievements, Attack of the Toy Tanks promises a new twist on arena based combat. Featuring the aforementioned toy tanks, the mission is simple: destroy enemy tanks while attempting to keep your cute plastic battle vehicle in one piece.
