Recent reviews by Jordan Voletic

Roguelite games are ten a penny at the minute, so to stand out each of them has to have a unique mechanic. That mechanic in Godrop, is that it’s all about ramming. Instead of traditional weapons, all your ship can do is ram straight into the enemies.

Pressing the ‘transform’ button turns your ship into a ghost like figure, able to ram into enemies and destroy them. Smaller enemies are destroyed almost instantly, whereas larger enemies have more health. With these, you continue piercing them until they blow up. They often have weak points inside the ship you can target for maximum explosiveness.

But, transforming drains energy. When you are in a non-transformed state, you are slow and vulnerable to attack. Transforming not only lets you attack but massively increases speed and manoeuvrability, this is essential to avoid the bullet hell style situations later levels place you in. Therefore you have to go against your gaming instincts to boost only to dodge, as in this game that will mean you can’t attack. It’s a fun trade-off and definitely adds the pressure.

Of course, being a roguelite there are plenty of upgradeables. There are standard ones which increase health, energy, defence, speed and attack power. Then there are some more specialist ones which increase certain stats like knockback or recharge rate. Then further on there are even more specific ones such as life steal, or modifications to your weapons that let you leave a stream of light or lose piercing ability in favour of ramming.

This large array of different collectables means there are loads of different builds that you can enjoy and each run will feel different depending on the path you go down. After defeating the enemies in each room, you are given the choice of where to go next. Interestingly, each path is defined by the upgrade you’ll get at the end of it. So you can choose the path with an upgrade for your attack, or defence. This means that you can properly define the upgrade path you want to go down as the choices are much more in your control than the more random way most roguelites hand out loot.

On the visual side, the graphics are 3D rendered on a 2D plane, with lots of different ships and asteroids floating about. There are a few anime pictures here and there, and of course when things get hectic there are loads of bullets and lasers flying about. In these sort of games I sometimes find it difficult to discern the player character amongst all the madness, but I had no such problem with Godrop, it manages to keep the player properly highlighted throughout.

Later levels feature huge bosses which are great fun to fight. It’s not all perfect though. The game has a problem with refresh rate, and I couldn’t get vsync to work properly. Of the four main levels in the standard run, there isn’t a huge amount of variety in terms of enemies or backgrounds. There’s also quite a few translation mistakes, but none that cause any problems.

I’m willing to forgive the shortcomings though, as this game is only £3.86 at time of publication. That’s a great price, it’s the type of game you might play for half hour here and there and you’ll get a lot of fun out of it, it’s really good value, and a game I would be happy to recommend.

https://www.voletic.com/reviews/godrop-review-pc/

3.5/5

What can I say about Victoria 3 that hasn't already been said?

Nothing. It's a rough diamond, but I like playing it and have got my money's worth, look forward to the future.

i love

but get the expansions

Am Madness is a somewhat difficult game for me to review. It’s released as a retro revival type game, taking it’s inspiration from ZX Spectrum classics like Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner, intending to capture the spirit of those titles but bring it into the modern age.

The reason that I find it difficult to review, is that I am not of that era of gaming. I don’t have any fond memories of that computer, so when I play a game that is intending to capture the essence of that period of gaming, it doesn’t click with me, I just don’t have the nostalgia.

There is perhaps one benefit though, I have no rose-tinted glasses, and I can approach these games as a true neutral. On the surface, Am Madness is a standard platformer game, in which the approach is to gather up all the keys on a screen, which opens up a portal to the next screen. Slightly underneath the surface, you’ll realise that this is an extremely tough game, it takes no prisoners.

Each screen is jam packed with enemies, with the keys placed in extremely awkward situations, making it very hard to grab them without being touched by an enemy, which is an immediate kill. Some levels have other hazards, like fire on the ground, which also kills you. The one saving grace, is that the developer patched out an earlier feature which also had falling from too great a height kill you too. Whilst I understand that did happen in game of that era, it made some levels too difficult, the not fun kind of difficult.

Luckily, with the aforementioned change, I think this game falls just on the right side of difficult. Yes, it’s extremely hard, and yes, it can be extremely frustrating but the game still remains fun. It manages to pull you in, and make you want to get through each screen, learning the patterns until ultimately you can get through, and get that little rush of endorphins from doing so.

From a visual perspective, I like how it looks. The graphics are nice and clean, and there’s it’s always obvious where you need to go and what you need to do. The one caveat to this is the text graphics, they look really out of place and could do with being ‘retrofied’ to fit the rest of the games design. Additionally, I’m not a huge fan of the music. It’s relaxing to an extent, but it just didn’t click with me.

Am Madness additionally features a bit of an unnerving story underneath, each level hints at you being chased by some kind of devil, and things ramp up accordingly. It’s a nice addition, and I’m glad the developer didn’t just stick with the bare minimum of game design.

Ultimately, I quite like Am Madness. It may be extremely difficult and at times outright frustrating, but it has a certain charm and earnestness to it that I really enjoy. I would recommend this to anyone that wants to spend an hour swearing at their screen and smashing their controller, and support a small developer whilst their at it.

Full review - https://www.voletic.com/reviews/am-madness-review/

Video Review - https://youtu.be/8TUTNq_YC6w

Write Up - The original Zool came out in 1992 for the Amiga computer, with the game being ported to several home consoles and other computers of the time period. It's not exactly the most loved platformer ever made, so it's a little surprising to see it get a remaster.

Zool Redimensioned intends to take the original Zool and remaster it for the modern age. This is quite definetly a remaster and not a remake or a reboot, it uses many of the games original assets, but increasing the field of view massively and the smoothness of the gameplay. It really makes a difference compared to the original, actually being able to see what's coming up helps out a lot.

Zool Redimensioned features 28 levels, and as it's a traditional computer platformer, these levels are largely full of random stuff. One level is full of sweets, another is full of toys or of plants that have come to life, it's that sort of thing. There's no real coherence in the level design, but that's to be expected of an Amiga platformer from the UK. It also no longer features the chupa chups that were very prominent in the original, probably due to licensing.

Redimensioned is actually quite a fun game. I wasn't expecting to like it too much as I wasn't a huge fan of the original, but the quality of life upgrades really do make a difference. It's made by Sumo Digital Academy, which is a group of developers within Sumo Digital mainly composed of young graduates, with this company intending to give them an introduction to actually releasing full games. I think they've done a good job with this remaster, they've managed to upgrade it in all the ways you might expect, but keep it faithful to the original, which is important in a remaster. Those looking for a complete remake should look elsewhere.

That's not to say the game isn't without it's frustrations. They changed the scale of all the characters and enemies in order to fit modern HD displays, which brings with it some problems, as on some levels the hazards can be extremely tiny and difficult to see, especially at speed. Additionally, because the game is so full of random enemy designs, it can sometimes be tricky to know what is supposed to be an enemy and what is supposed to be a collectable, leading to some moments of annoyance. The game plays at a very smooth 60 fps, and the controls are extremely tight, so when you do die you don't often blame the game, which is exactly right for a platformer. Some of the later bosses can be a little difficult, but luckily the refined controls keep things moving.

Having said that, I did enjoy my time playing this game. I beat the full Redimensioned mode in about an hour, which isn't too bad for a platformer of this age. I blasted through all the levels, so if you're someone who likes to collect everything it will take you a fair bit longer. There is also a classic mode which is a lot harder, and doesn't feature the modern niceities of being able to restart at the same level after you die, so if you're a hardcore gamer that level may inspire. It also features an emulated version of the Sega Megadrive port of the game, which is a somewhat strange inclusion and I think the Amiga version would have been a better include.

It's currently sitting on steam at £7.99, which I think is a fair price overall, and I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of early 90's computer or amiga platformers, as the charm those games brought, this one still manages to retain. It has a lot of fun, nostalgic gameplay, and I think it's worth the cost of entry.

Video Review - https://youtu.be/6SG2pmjxo8s

Write Up -
If someone asked you what games are hidden gems on the PS3 and Xbox 360, chances are that El Shaddai, Ascension of the metatron would come up a fair amount of the time. Originally released back in 2011, it's sat dormant on those consoles until now, with an upcoming re-release on Steam.

El Shaddai is a hack and slash adventure game, set in a mythical world heavily influenced by christian mythology. You play as Enoch, a scribe sent from heaven to defeat seven fallen angels, whom have taken up residence on Earth. It features a lot of random religious references and spiritual lingo, but really all of that is designed to set up the story rather than provide any kind of deep lore.

Shaddai features influences from other games in the genre such as Devil May Cry, and it has a fairly simplistic battle system that gets more complex as the game goes on. You are able to attack, jump, dodge and steal weapons, and then by using a combination of strong attacks, special attacks and guard-breakers, it's possible to string together combos that are more satisfying and provide a deeper level of engagement than it may first appear. I generally find the combat in this game fun, but the caveat to that is that it takes quite a while before all the different elements finally come together, a good two or so hours into the game. Up until that point, the combat does often feel repetitive, so its worth sticking with it. I wouldn't say this game is quite at the level something like Bayonetta 2 or Devil May Cry 5 is, but those games are much more recent so it's not really fair to compare.

The game does feature other elements than pure action, with a lot of platforming sections and of course some very light puzzle elements too. It doesn't feature the most groundbreaking gameplay you'll ever find, but it's still quite fun for what it is.

Where this game truly shines, is its art design. Every level is completely different, featuring fantastical designs that look like they are straight out of a painting. They constantly change how the game looks, and it really keeps things fresh and interesting to look at. There are some levels that feel as if they go on for a little long, but the game remedies this by making the level afterwards completely different. I really like it, and I think it holds up well. Sure, in 2021 there are much more games with great art design, especially by indie studios, than there was back in 2011, but I think what they did with this game really does still look great, and it's probably the best part about the experience.

On the technical side, there are some problems with this port to the PC. Firstly, the good parts. It runs at a solid 60 fps, and you can run at several resolutions. Since it was released in 2011, the GPU demands are not steep, and it will run well on most systems I imagine.

Now for the not so great parts. The first is not such a big deal, but the cutscenes look much lower quality than the in-game graphics. I assume this is due to how the files have been ported over, but it can be a little jarring to go between them, especially as this game has quite a lot of cutscenes. The second part is a little more annoying. The game features very strange graphics settings, which I'm sure people familiar with game development might understand, but to the average gamer they don't mean anything. Render Target Format, Depth Stencil Buffer, Vertex processing, it doesn't mean a lot to me.

I just left them at default, but I've no idea if that was the right or wrong option and it's something I think they really need to sort out, because it will marr an otherwise fun game. The multisampling option in particular doesn't seem to work, when I select anything other than the default option various graphical effects seem to just dissapear, and I get invisible objects. It's very odd, and not optimal because the game could use some anti-aliasing.

Finally, let's touch on the price. According to the information I was provided with this review code, the game will release for £16.19 for the first two weeks, then go up to £19.99. There is also a deluxe pack featuring the game, artbook and soundtrack for £20.44 for the first two weeks, before going up to £40.97. Personally, I think these prices are too high. This is a re-release of a game from 2011, and whilst it is considered a hidden gem and fairly liked by those who know it, it wasn't a huge game and there's not going to be too many people familiar with it. When you look at games that are in a similiar vein, i.e Japanese games from that era that have been re-released on Steam, such as Bayonetta and Vanquish, they are both sitting at £14.99. My opinion would be the game needs to come down to £14.99 to be in parity with those games, so we'll see.

Overall, I do think El Shaddai holds up well and is still worth a play. The art direction is just so cool, and It's just great to see something so different, I really like it. The action and gameplay holds up okay, so my recommendation would be that if you like this sort of game and have never played this one before, give it a purchase, if not, perhaps wait until it comes down in price before giving it ago.

good game, about 20 hours long

Raging Justice is a game that attempts to emulate the classics, but ends up being vastly inferior. Bland gameplay, unremarkable sound and ugly graphics make for a game that does not stand up to it's claims.

https://youtu.be/Tm0Yz0nPQCs

Agents of Mayhem is.. just okay. It's pretty much average in every way you could think. However it is unashamedly a game - it's sole purpose is to try and make people have fun. I think if the game halves in price, it's definetly worth a purchase and a weekend playthrough. Full review here - https://youtu.be/UIiURnxwVWM

Overall SmuggleCraft is a nice little game, it has a simple objective and kept the scope of what it was trying to achieve small, so that it could do what it wanted to do effectively. Often indie games fall into the trap of trying to do too much with too little, but this game really benefits by doing a few things and doing them well. I think it's a really fun game and worthy of being in anyone's Steam library. Pleas check here for the full review - https://youtu.be/SXrMOJW0gFg