Whispering Willows - Fright Night on the Ouya Bus

Whispering Willows is a rather odd title. Not because of its genre, adventure games are not exactly a rarity after all and nor is it because of the theme of the game, horror being a rather frequent popup title on the likes of Steam. Instead its odd because of its origins, being released originally as a Ouya title, then ported across to the PC because it wasn't making a bit of money there. I call it odd simply because the Ouya presence still seeps within the game itself... This isn't exactly a bad thing however...

I say that because if there is one thing that the Ouya did try and be a beacon for was for original gaming, games that usually wouldn't have been given a second look on more traditional platforms such as baby hiding simulators, couch-multiplayer arena games (something that's having a resurgence it seems across consoles and PC) and then there's this.

Type:Rider - Flipping the Script Around

Type:Rider is an odd little concept of a game. Made by a Franco-German TV group that pushes art and design above most else, there's this game, a platformer created to try and teach players about typefaces and text techniques throughout the ages. Its definitely a tall and rather obscure idea to try out but is it one that actually works?

Bird Assassin - Braindead Birdbrains

Bird Assassin is one of the many games which fled the 'XBLA' service to try and find sales on PC. In fact there's quite a few of these trying to compete to get into steam but somehow this one managed to worm its way across onto steam and sadly it isn't a good one. The entire game first off feels cheap and nasty thanks to a really limited graphics set and Xbox button inputs spread across the screens without any regard to what control you are actually using.

Zooloretto - Im Board Now

Here's the thing, not everything works well when you transfer things over, not all films for example can work as books, not all books translated well when you turn them into tv shows and on that note, not all board games work well as video games. Zooloretto is a key example of this in action.

Canyon Capers - Old and Falling Apart

Canyon Capers is a bit of a weird game, placed onto steam by Kiss, this is basically a remake of an old DOS game (Dino Jnr in 'Canyon Capers') where in each level, you have a task, be it collecting all of a certain item, defusing bombs or just finding an exit. Its definitely got its feet firmly planted in retro territory that's for sure...

Hotel & Crystals of Time - Casual Crash

Im not feeling too smart. Ive had these two hanging in drafts for ages and had forgotten to publish them. Whats the answer to me being stupid this way? A two for one post, thats what! Its just as well that its a two-for-one post though as both of these games manage to crash and burn in similar ways, just one managing to do so in a much more spectacular fashion than the other... Where shall we start then... Hotel?

Cinders - Happily Ever After?

For some reason 'Fairytale' films and TV seems to be something that is 'In fashion' at the moment, from dark and blood-soaked versions of old tales (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) to backstory explanation (Maleficent) to large TV drama series (Grimm, Once Upon a Time). With all this in mind comes Cinders, a re-telling of the old Cinderella story set up as a Visual Novel.

Fez - Pixel Logic

Before I even begin this review, I have to start stating facts. Will I be talking about the notorious Phil Fish here? Answer: No. This is about Fez as a game and that's that. Anyway with that quick note out of the way, how exactly does this weird pixel 2D/3D-ish platformer fare?

Real Horror Stories: Ultimate Edition - They Snooze, We Lose

I paid 15 pence for this and I still feel ripped off. What is this? Its a selection of flash pictures, there are things you can click, some things that you cant. The game is never clear what does what, or even why clicking certain things does stuff. Instead you'll spend most of the time hammering the 'tab' to highlight clickable areas, hammering said clickable areas till a blurry and badly animated random thing pops in the screen, yawn and repeat till done. Just leave this stinker alone.

Marlow Briggs: The Mask of Death - God of what now?

Marlow Briggs: The Mask of Death makes no bones about what its supposed to be, it quite clearly is an indie-ish take on God of War, a budget price attached along with it too. In all honestly, I was expecting a rather 'eh' game that either was a little dull, or a game that would try too hard to be wacky and silly. Instead, I got this incredibly fun gem of a game.

7th Guest - Feeeling Lonely?

FMV gaming was a weird little thing that happened around the early to mid-nineties where suddenly gaming wanted real actors and a feeling of a TV show and/or film to accompany their gaming experience. Overall however FMV gaming in my eyes has aged badly and overall was a bit of a failed attempt at bringing movie-like film techniques to games, this is down to poor acting, low budgets and cheesy storylines and nothing really showcases all of this (and more) than one of the games that really kickstarted this off, the adventure title '7th Guest' by Trilobyte software.

Eldritch - Don't Blink...

Eldritch is a rather interesting little title... Based off various mythos, the game chucks you head-first into randomly generated dungeons where the main objective is to try and get out of each one alive. Its basically first person Spelunky. Does it work? Hm... That's a debatable question there...

Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart - Back and Forth and Back and Forth Again...

Hidden Object titles can really vary in quality. Some don't put in any at all and just paste pictures on top of pictures, placing in the minimum of music and hope that nobody notices. Some others on the other hand actually try and put work into their titles with clear plots and well-made graphics. So where does this game fall quality-wise then?

Magical Diary - Pass the Walkthrough Please

Magical Diary is one of those sorts of games which under normal circumstances, I would run in the opposite direction of and if it wasn't for bundles, its usually the sort of game I wouldn't have even touched, let alone played through properly. Magical Diary is essentially a mix of two different Japanese genres, the visual novel and the raising sim. Visual novels being where you follow a story, going off in different paths and reaching the ending. Meanwhile 'Raising Sims' follow a different approach, where the story changes more depending on what skills and areas of expertise you have chosen to follow.

Anyway, lets jump right in shall we?

Zero Gear - Racing at the Homeless Shelter

We should make a department up as gamers called the 'Games Trust' where we rehome abused and abandoned games. Games where the rights have been thrown about the place and promptly ignored, games where the sum total of care given to making sure they still have a future is zero. Games like Zero Gear...

The Game Bin - Penguin Arena

Im thinking of starting a feature here on this blog which I shall call 'The Game Bin'. The name is pretty self-explanatory but I shall explain it anyway, both to be clear and to use up space in the blogpost (gotta get them numbers in!). Any game that I go through here is what I call a game destined for the bin. These games are not however just games that are kinda bad, these are supposed to represent games where I can find little to no redeeming factors at all in playing.

Theres already some games that I am going to place in here that I have already covered (Hello NPPD, Proteus and Where Angels Cry) but any I cover here will have to fit certain things. One: These games must be on Steam or Desura. Two: If a game is a Alpha Funded/Early Access title, there has to be proof that the devs have either given up or abandoned the game completely (So if a dev has promised updates, but updates haven't come, then its fair game).

Understand? Lets hit the first stinker then, Penguin Arena: Sedna's World.

KRUNCH - Go Speed Racer Go!

KRUNCH is an interesting little title, its not really a platformer as there's no real platforming involved, yet it has a lot in common with the likes of Super Meat Boy and its ilk. At the same time its not really a racing title, yet there's a large emphasis on speed, each level pushing you through to the end at fast speeds. Yep... theres no clear genre here for this game... but who cares?

Proteus - Games are Art but Art isnt a Game

Im going to be honest right from the get-go of this overview, I dislike Proteus completely. I dislike it because of what it is and what its trying to be. I am all for the whole 'Games are Art' idea and I can agree wholeheartedly with it. The problem is though that in order to go along with this statement, you cant just push art repeatedly and forget to actually make a game behind it.

Proteus pretty much forgets to do that completely, there's a touch of interactivity in there, by moving around you can make sounds happen when you get closer to things. Its just boring though, some things make some, some things don't really make much of a difference, mostly its just wandering, often with large stretches of nothing exciting. I just cannot recommend this as a game in any way as there happens to be no gameplay behind it at all.

Hexcells - Zen Minesweeper

Hexcells manages to be an incredibly calm and soothing title, a mix of simple and clean graphics along with some soothing music, a UI that reacts easily to everything you do and a distinct lack of urgency throughout. Hexcells is basically Minesweeper, with the stress taken out and replaced with calm, content gameplay.

Lightfish - Qix? Never heard of it.

Lightfish is another Xbox Indie refugee that's headed over for the PC market and its essentially a clone of the arcade game 'Qix', in both games you play as a small icon who has to claim the majority of a large playfield without getting hit by any enemies. Its a pretty simple game and one that has had a large amount of sequels, remakes and clones. It can even be played online, for example you can play it HERE (via JayIsGames). With that, here comes Lightfish.