PC Reviews

I recently finished fighting my way through the zombie infested streets of New Hexington, New York and I must say I got my money’s worth. I almost constantly shotgun deep in waves of zombies and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were some close calls and I was almost certain I wasn’t going to make it, but here I am, alive and kicking.

Dead Pixels offers three gameplay modes. There’s Dead Pixels, The Solution, and Last Stand.

In Dead Pixels you are taken back in time to July 15, 2024 and a calamity has fallen over New Hexington New York. After a toxic waste spill contaminates the water supply, the dead start to rise from their graves and start to attack the living.

The military tried to intervene, but failed miserably and had to retreat. You’re part of the five percent of humanity that are still alive, but don’t fret as there’s a means of escape. Strewn across the city a group of survivors with a helicopter gives out rides to all who can make it to the LZ.

With the help of a map you happen upon, you’re able to map out the fastest route to your freedom. Now with your route planned it’s time to hit the streets and run for your life as the zombie horde pursues you relentlessly.

As you run for your life you’re able to loot abandoned houses and other establishments for ammo, guns, and other valuables. You can sell things you come across at traders and also pick up new weapons, ammo, and medical supplies. Some traders even want specific items, and will pay you handsomely for them so keep an eye out. You’re also able to buy character upgrades that will increase your base skills. The trader also doubles as a hub to save your game progress.

There are multiple zombie types throughout this game to keep you on your toes. They range from the common shufflers, to the bile spitting zombies, to fast zombies that rush at full speed and become uncomfortably close rather quickly.

The Solution: It’s been two months since the zombie outbreak in New Hexington and the Government is still looking for a solution to the zombie problem and you, yourself may just be The Solution. In The Solution you play as one of six inmates whose goal is to make it to the city’s power plant and start its triggering system. After you do so if you’re able to escape the city you will be granted a presidential pardon and set free.

In this game mode each of the six inmates have different stats and you’re not able to level them up any further so your selection needs to match your play style.

Also traders no longer appear on the street, but you’ll still be able to buy ammo and guns by calling in supply drops on your walkie talkie. However, you only get a handful of supply drops so use them wisely. The same goes for saving progress. Each save requires an ink ribbon like the old Resident Evil games. Finding the best time to save your progress is of paramount importance.

Last Stand: Three days after the army has pulled out of the city there is still a small group of survivors who are looking for an escape route. They make their way to the airport only to find a massive horde of zombies lurking about the entrance. Low on ammo the group knows they can’t win prevail head on. Out of no where Hurley, the Last Stand’s Protagonist, turns on a boom box and lures all of the zombies into the mall opposite of the airport. With the way clear the other survivors make it to the airport but you’re now trapped in the mall with the zombie horde. You know you will not make it out alive, so you decide to make your last stand and go down fighting till the last bullet.

When you start Last Stand mode you choose either time attack mode or survival mode. In Time Attack mode you fight through six waves as fast as you can. In Survival mode you just survive as long as you can. Regardless what variant you decide to pick the setting is the same and so are the traders. In this mode you’re confined to the mall setting with traders lining the back wall. Each trader shares the same inventory so you can only buy a certain amount of supplies. This helps to feed into the bleak outcome your story will have.

Overall I have to give Dead Pixels my blessing. Even though the game is somewhat short, the different game modes and level difficulty make it worth checking out. Each game mode also allows for Co-op, but sadly only Local Co-op is supported.

+Multiple game modes

+Local Co-op

+Decent replay value

Review Score: 7/10

Author: DoubleZ

1,582 total views, 9 views today

I am extremely excited to do this review. This review will seem late to most, but we figured that a review was necessary due to the upcoming 13^th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco in March. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is up for both Best Game Design and Game of the Year.

These nominations don’t come as too much of a surprise for me. XCOM: Enemy Unknown is very easily my Best Game of 2012. Which is odd, because I am really not a big fan of turn-based tactical role-playing strategy games.

I think Firaxis Games knocked it out of the park in this remake. XCOM: Enemy Unknown feels like the classic Heroes of Might and Magic PC game mixed with a tabletop Warhammer squad all neatly packed into the Unreal Engine 3.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown puts you in charge of the XCOM (Extraterrestrial Combat Unit). This unit is the most technologically advanced military unit the world has ever seen. However, the invading aliens actually have superior technology and weapons.

You start off with a four-person squad, which can be upgraded to a six-person squad. There are four classes that you can mix and match in this squad: Assault, Heavy, Support, and Sniper. Each have their perks, but my favorite class is the Sniper. Snipers can cover your guys from far away while doing a crazy amount of damage, so I always had two of them in my six-man squad.

Right away you figure out that rushing ahead to reveal spots on the map or potential alien foes is not the greatest idea. It is usually best to strategically place your guys while moving forward so that they’re covering your guys’ backs. Otherwise, your guys will wind up being completely blindsided by a squirrely alien or three.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown has a difficulty that is analogous with its predecessor UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994). It’s very hard. Moving too far ahead too quickly in a map will give your foes a first crack at you, which increases your chance for a death.

This aspect is what I think makes XCOM: Enemy Unknown “Game of the Year” for so many people. A character in your squad dying is one of the worst feelings I have had in a game in years. You could spend 8 hours leveling up a character (For me it was my Heavy class character nicknamed ‘Brick’) and once that character dies, it’s gone.

But, with the incredible downs that this game brings, there are amazing upsides. Any time I could do an autopsy on a new alien that I had brought back to the lab to get new technology for my XCOM was very exciting. Getting alien guns for my Sniper was priority one for me. It definitely paid off. The subsequent alien goo splatter of a critical headshot I would get with their own technology just felt great. And, even completing a mission without a soldier dying is very rewarding.

There were so many times I would find myself completing missions, but I would still feel like a complete failure.

Spending money wisely is so important in this game. I can’t count how many times I would have to load up an older save because I incorrectly spent too much money and was left with $8 or $10 and didn’t have enough money to buy more soldiers.

In conclusion, buy this game. It is recognized industry-wide as THE game of 2012. I still find myself coming back to XCOM: Enemy Unknown three and a half months later and getting emotionally invested into the game almost immediately.

+Extreme replay ability

+Even if you aren’t into turn-based strategy games, it’s still amazing

+Great character progression

+Fun, tightly controlled mechanics

+Action packed critical strike cut scenes

-There are still some minor bugs

-Multiplayer may be too steep of a learning curve for some

Review Score: 9.5/10

Author: Samg

1,583 total views, 10 views today

I only caught wind of Path of Exile on Tuesday, when I watched this trailer:

I was very skeptical of Path of Exile after watching the trailer. All I thought was “Meh, it’s free-2-play which probably means pay-2-win. But what’s the worst that could happen? It ends up being like Tribes:Ascend, Blacklight Retribution, or PlanetSide 2 in terms of money=satisfaction?.”

So, I gave it a shot. Turns out, my preconceptions were wrong. The kiwis over at Grinding Gear Games (GGG) have vehemently said that this game will always be free and that they will never shoehorn a pay-2-win system into the game. Except for buying a bank tab, everything in their store is cosmetic enhancements only.

I started up the game 25 minutes before open beta is released and I am 1816^th in line. I expected this launch to have the normal server issues every game does…

Path of Exile connected and my sessions started seamlessly. Has this ever happened, especially in Beta? Now I have to make a choice between six character classes (Duelist, Marauder, Ranger, Shadow, Templar, and Witch). Right away Path of Exile is different. Your classes only give you a small advantage in some areas. The meat and potatoes is in the talent tree.
This talent tree, I can safely say, is the best I have ever seen. I have played many games that utilize a talent tree, including WoW, Diablo3, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and numerous other titles that have released in the past ten years that had this function. It’s formally called the Passive Skill Tree. I find myself staring at it for minutes at a time just getting lost in the different possibilities of what I could create. It’s like a modern Mona Lisa that Grinding Gear Games magnificently crafted.

I snapped out of my Passive Skill Tree daydream and realized I should actually play the game. I chose to start as the hulking Marauder. I perfer big weapons and big characters (Tanks). The Marauder is basically the Barbarian from Diablo2/3 (mostly because I made him that way) which means he leaps and cleaves.

I started on the beach and killed a few things. Some gems dropped. They looked like spells. This is when I found out that spells are items that you use to augment your weapons and armor. Those individual spells level up separately from your character. The maximum character level is 100 and the maximum spell level is 20.

I kept killing things and kept meticulously placing passive skill points because a complete respec of your character is not possible. You only get single passive point respecs from six quests in the game, otherwise there are Orbs of Regret which can reset one passive skill point. To some, this seems very annoying. To me, it brought me back to my Diablo2 lanning days. Every point was a thrill.

Eventually I rolled into town and decided to empty my bag. I was expecting the same old “vendor trashing” routine that seemingly every ARPG or MMO has implemented in the last 7 years. Not in Path of Exile. Those crazy New Zealanders at Grinding Gear Games even switched that up. It’s basically a bartering system: different items you sell give you different currency.

At first I was frustrated. This seemed so unnatural. The Scrolls of Wisdom I was getting, that would identify magic items, could be used as currency? Even Portal scrolls I was chucking at vendors. This was pretty innovative and refreshing and feels less like balancing a checkbook and more like prancing around with a unique Easter basket of goodies.

And like everything else in the game it started to make perfect sense. I finally acquired just one currency I needed for a nice skull-smashing two-handed mace. It cost me 1x Blacksmith Whetstone. Now it was time for me to partner up with groups.

Group finding is fairly easy. There are bulletin boards in all the major towns that post the public groups or you can just press the “S”(social) key. I quickly found that you gain more experience in a group and you can hoard more items.

Another good thing about Path of Exile is the community. Sure, there was the passing comment on Global Chat (Highly recommend disabling this immediately) that had a pretentious “I was in the closed beta, na na nu boo boo” feel to it. But still, everyone I grouped with was supportive and fun.

Item drops in groups is also very well done. Everyone sees everything that is dropped. There is a really cool caveat to this. There is a timer on the item with your name next to it. The rarer the item, the longer the timer. I believe the intervals are 2,3,5 and 10 seconds. A lot of currency I was seeing had the two-second timer. So, even snatching up currency became fun.

To get those drops you have to fight. And I think GGG did a great job on combat. It’s not as tight of controls as Torchlight II or Diablo3, but it’s definitely more rewarding. Jumping off of a cliff onto a bunch of exploding foxes just felt like it was right. Ground smashing golems and tons of spiders was equally as rewarding.

My Marauder could leap into an entire mob of guys and destroy them in seconds. While I did this, I had to monitor my potion situation which, again, is unique. Potions aren’t expendable. Your flasks that fill up gradually with either damage or kills (not sure) also have abilities on them. You get 5 slots to mix and match mana and health.

I am only about 13 hours into the game and roughly level 24 and I can safely say that I will stick around with this game for quite a long time. I would recommend this game to really anyone. It’s free, it’s a ton of fun, and it has that addiction component to it that is fresh and not extremely played out like the rest of the competitors in the genre.

So far, Path of Exile has delivered on a higher level than any of it’s predecessors last year. That, coupled with the price allows me to give this game a 9/10.

+Expansive Passive Skill Tree

+Great community

+New take on a genre that is tried and true but has felt worn out as of late

+PvP (limited, but still present. Quite a nice surprise.)

+Easy to learn while being extremely intricate

+It’s free. I mean, c’mon. FREE.

-Turn of Global Chat when playing

-Combat could be slightly tighter

Review score: 9/10

Author: Samg

1,584 total views, 11 views today

To the Moon was released November 2011 on Freebird Games website, then it came to Steam in September 2012, and now I’m finally playing it now in January 2013. I think it’s safe to say that I’m a bit late to the party but, better late than never right?

To the Moon is an Action RPG that puts you in the shoes of Dr. Neil Watts and Dr. Eva Rosalene who are employed by the Sigmund Corporation. Their job is to travel into the memories of dying clients and alter them so that they can achieve their dream before they die.

Dr. Watts and Rosalene’s newest client is Johnny. Johnny lives in a gorgeous house overlooking the ocean, with a stereotypical light house near it. When you arrive at the house you meet Johnny’s caretaker Lily, her children Sarah and Tommy, and Johnny’s doctor. You learn from Lily that Johnny’s last wish is to go to the moon. When you initially enter his memory he doesn’t remember why. It’s up to your sleuthing skills to piece the mystery together.

In order to travel back through Johnny’s memory you must first find mementos’ of his that link his memories together. Most mementos are trapped behind a force field. The only way to destroy the force field and access the memento is to establish five memory links. You receive memory links from items that have significant meaning in Johnny’s life. They’re typically found in the current memory you’re inhabiting. When you do break through the force field and are able to access the memento you also have to prepare it through a small mini-game.

As you go back farther and farther into Johnny’s memory you find out more about his about his wife, friends and ,believe it or not, what seems to be a hidden past. Every story element serves a specific purpose and the designer, Kan Gao, did a magnificent job making sure it did.

What kept me going to the end was the story and the secrets. I wanted answers so bad that I kept playing nonstop, and in the end when everything came together so well I was glad I finished in one continuous session. Despite the games short length the story more than makes up for it, and is worth checking out. It has won several awards and if you experience To the Moon too you will see why.

I wish I could go more in depth with the storyline but I’m afraid I can only tell you so much about this game without spoiling most of the plot twists and secrets. As I said the secrecy and finding out the truth is what makes the game.

+Great musical score

+Superb story

+Funny characters

Review Score: 9/10

Author: DoubleZ

1,585 total views, 12 views today

I just started playing Ten Million a few days ago and the throwback graphics, surprising customization, and addicting Platformer style game play had me coming back for more.

In Ten Million you control a man imprisoned within a castle. His only means of escape is to secure a score of…you guessed it, Ten Million points. How do you earn these ten million points you ask? Naturally the only way one can earn points while stuck in a castle. Proceed with the dungeon crawling and monster hunting!

In the beginning there are multiple rooms, but the only one available to travel through is the dungeon door. When you enter it is an immediate race against time to fend off the monsters that are dead set to kill you. Along the way you will also encounter treasure chests and doors you must unlock to progress farther.

Now here’s the twist, gameplay is puzzle based. At first it took me a little while to get used to it but once I did, I found myself in a groove. You must match tiles, of three or greater, together in order to fight monsters, unlock doors and treasure chests. Matching multiple tiles together and getting longer chains increases the effectiveness of the tiles.

There are seven different tiles you can match. First, there are the combat tiles which give one the option of sword or staff. The sword deals physical damage and the staff does magic damage. Learning what vulnerabilities the monsters have is the key to successful combat. Here’s a short list of the other tile types:

- The stone and wood tiles are materials you collect to fix and upgrade rooms.

- The key tiles are used to unlock treasure chests and doors while dungeon running.

- The chest tiles are used to gain gold. Gold is used to upgrade weapons and armor.

- The shield tiles are for protecting yourself from monster attacks.

- Last but not least is the star tile. The star tile is the wild card which can be used with any other tile to make matches.

As you progress farther and travel through more trying dungeons you might find it hard to advance, but fear not as there is a solution to your problems. Enter our aforementioned rooms that weren’t available to you earlier. All the materials you have collected during your runs aren’t just for display. Materials you’ve amassed are used for rebuilding said rooms. All six rooms in total contain something to upgrade your gear or train your skills.

Now I haven’t quite made it to ten million points so I don’t know what’s going to happen when the task is complete. But if you want to find out you’ll just have to earn your own Ten Million.

+Interesting game concept.

+Old school graphics and music.

+Fast and addicting gameplay.

Review Score: 8/10

Author: DoubleZ

1,586 total views, 13 views today