May 22
Review of The Starship Damprey
So this review going to be short and concise which is apt because that’s very much what The Starship Damprey happens to be. It’s a 2-3 hour-long experimental adventure in which you explore the confines of an empty spaceship and try to discern what happened there. Not the most original premise but the way Level 5 tells this familiar tale makes it a bit more interesting, this is mainly because they tell you almost nothing. This is a game with no tutorials, no hints, and no explanations, it’s just you and a quiet dark claustrophobic space to fumble around in.
May 21
Review of Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov’s Revenge
The RTS genre has been a hard one to crack for consoles. Much like the FPS, something about the mouse and keyboard set up really just makes it feel so much better on the PC. Starcraft 64 and Command and Conquer both tried their hands at bringing the RTS experience to consoles int he past and even newer games Halo Wars and Stormrise never really caught fire. This immensely popular genre seems like it could work on a bigger screen that’s farther away than your desktop monitor (heck, I could even imagine motion controls working well), so why has it not done well so far? Does Frima Studio’s latest entry into the genre finally bring the RTS experience to the home console, or will this remain a genre best left to the PC?
May 20
Review of Sanctum 2
Sanctum was an interesting game, a Tower Defense/FPS hybrid that balanced those two genres quite well and had a really neat aesthetic. It definitely garnered a lot of attention and it gained quite a multiplayer community from what I’ve heard, as such it only makes sense that a sequel was in the works and is now on our review plate. That said I personally think that the original game is the superior of the two titles because while this game fixes a lot of the issues the first game had (and we’ll go into that soon enough) there’s too hefty focus on multiplayer here that does more to hinder than to help. If you’re already neck-deep in the Sanctum community and have a reliable foursome to conquer the invading hordes with then you can disregard this review but if you plan on playing alone or with randoms then you may want to keep reading before you whip out your wallet.
