Recent reviews by K7 Avenger

GOTYAY

Totally sick game. The game is very tight, for length, mechanics, and choices, and the setting features futuristic Science-Fiction (though set in an alternate 2015), corporate and government espionage and surveillance, stealth, gadgets, pseudo-hub worlds between missions, and a retro 80s neon sci-fi visual style and great electronic soundtrack, which I would never listen to normally, but totally complements everything about this game. Your play style really determines how much you enjoy it, I think. If you run in and knock out every guard and just bee-line the objectives, it's a relatively fast (short) game. However, getting the S rank in every level by 'ghosting' through, completing the optional objectives, and finding the collectables in each course becomes a great stealth game. I'm a huge fan of Perfect Dark and Clandestine, so this game is right up my alley.

Better than Blind Forest, which itself is remarkable. Tighter controls, better aerial manoeuvrability, more upgrades and play-styles on offer. Plenty of new mechanics that keep unlocking throughout the game. Boss battles feel different, but still really good, there's still some escape sequences, and the soundtrack is terrific. Definitely grab this if you enjoy Blind Forest.

Terrific base-building/RTS/hack-and-slash hybrid. The game's tempo ebbs and flows between base building and finding resources, to surviving wave attacks from enormous hordes of alien space dogs. While you can incrementally build a stronger base, with better towers and research to provide better weapons and defences, so too the waves of alien creatures get stronger and stronger, and the tension and threat of that safe ground falling behind you while you work hard to keep ahead of the arms race gives this game a satisfying player progression and Sense of Accomplishment™ in each survival run. This Prologue only has a glimpse of what the Survival game mode is like, and still nothing is known about what the campaign will be like. As an Alpha tester with close to 100hrs in this game at time of review, this is a GOTY contender for me, and is definitely the game to keep your eye on for the full release.

It's a cute, vanilla, slice-of-life VN without explicit mature content or, as far as I can remember, language, which is nice. Grounded and relatable characters and settings, without fourth-wall breaking or meta-VN content, is refreshing and provides a stable, relaxing read without wondering if some twist or meta-analysis will pull you out of the story. 5 head pats out of 5.

It's a brilliant game of strategy and micromanaging your ship and towers, balancing your efforts in creating a maze of effective towers for each wave and enemy type, destroying and blocking paths, collecting debris, and using your own arsenal to directly support the defense effort. The game shines when you unlock every weapon and tower available and have free reign to find the best strategies for each level, trying to break into the leaderboards.

The engine is finely polished and smooth, and a tremendous effort from a relatively small development studio has produced a game that looks gorgeous, features an impressive and satisfying physics system, responsive and intuitive controls, and sound design that provides useful player feedback. This game runs like a champ despite enormous destruction, particles, and debris and physics calculations.

I definitely recommend X-Morph: Defense.

I could describe Clandestine as a cross between Splinter Cell and Perfect Dark, with the asymmetric co-op giving the second player an overseer role. As a fan of Perfect Dark, I would happily call this some kind of spiritual cousin, sharing many aspects of the experience. Such elements include stealth and aggressive approaches to objectives; a hub world comprised of the organisation's HQ with characters to talk to and discuss your mission progress; a killer soundtrack (find it on bandcamp); and a deep and believable story that takes the hero to exotic locations around the world, even if this game takes place mostly indoors.

Throughout the game, you will unlock more equipment to use, two outfits, and different varieties of pistols, with different handling and damage stats, that you will customise your loadout with each mission for a varied style of play. This option is a great feature, and it goes so well with having multiple ways to complete each level. Your choices in earlier levels also dictate what play styles or options are available in later levels.

There are a couple of bugs still that I know of, related to achievements, but by all means the game is 100%-able. Check the community guides and discussions for these issues.

The game is designed with cooperative play in mind, so definately play this with a friend. However, you can beat it solo on the hardest difficulty without issue, if you are so inclined to play it alone, maybe without distraction.

While the cutscenes feature some quirky animations and lip synchronisation, the game is full of charm and little bits of developer love and attention, from notes, newspaper stories about game events and even your own personal exploits, and extra story content hidden around the levels.

I definately recommend Clandestine whole-heartedly, now that it has reserved a place in my top games of all time.

Voodoo Vince: Remastered is a terrific 3D platformer, with sharp writing and wit, creative level and enemy design, and a unique and upbeat soundtrack to fit its many themed levels, such as its classic New Orleans' Jazz vibe.

The performance options are quite limited, with preset low, medium and high settings for fullscreen or windowed, but otherwise the game runs beautifully and looks like a remastered classic should. After a couple of patches by the developers, the game runs perfectly fine at 100 fps (the engine cap I think, maybe it's around 100 or 110). I have only very limited playtime with a keyboard+mouse use, but I would strongly recommend using a controller to play this, although it supports seamless transition between input methods, with UI and buttom prompts changing on-the-fly.

Anyone who played the original Xbox version will enjoy this faithful remaster, and anyone new to the game will enjoy the creative and challenging platforming and puzzles, and will certainly laugh at the crazy characters Vince meets on his journey.

Reviewed after finishing the game in its entirety.

Edit: Nomiated for The “Suspension of Disbelief” Award

An A-grade, premium Kebab removal fantasy simulator. It will take about two hours to fully upgrade your airstrikes with napalm, helicopters with missiles, and every other tool at your disposal to exterminate the people of the mud, at which point you would have finished the 4 missions and can aim for a high score and the achivements. You probably won't reach it though, as I had reached 2:34:33 on the second mission before I had had enough, and only got to #13th global ranking.

Theres enough content and grind to level up while remaining interesting and fun. Learning the best strategies, and when and which support ordinances to use makes for efficient and destructive gameplay.

Kebab Removal Music is recommended.

Definitely worth full price.

Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten is perhaps the best tower defense game I ever played. It introduces new enemies and heroes (turrets) at a comfortable and accessible rate, so you never get swamped or overwhelmed, and with 3 difficulty levels for each stage, there is plenty of replayability and opportunity to level up your team.

Every unit and enemy has visible health, damage, range, bonuses and stats readily available for you, such that there is no information or mechanics hidden from the player. You even have complete control over the timing, being able to pause the game to micromanage, or play at various speeds from 0.25x to 16x game speed.

The in-game world has enough charm, and the characters enough personality and depth, to drive the story and the gameplay progression.

I say tower defense, but there are also plenty of RPG elements, such as buying and upgrading weapons and armor, upgrading abilities, and even naming your recruits and heroes, and customising the colour of your recruits' clothing. Naming your knights after King Arthurs' Court of Camelot, for example, or your Mages after your favourite magical girls, lends tremendously to immersion.

The performance is excellence on almost anything. I get around 40fps on an old dual core Thinkpad at 1152x648, thanks to the native C++ engine and the game's 2D nature.

A staple of any tower defense library. I hardly can wait for the sequel.

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Note: I have played through this game several times before the Deluxe upgrade, when it still used the Adobe Air framework, (if I recall correctly,) which was bothersome to install on Linux, and had a resolution cap of 800x600 and a framerate cap of 30fps. The Deluxe HD upgrade allows 60fps gameplay at almost arbitrary resolutions.