Super Toy Cars (Xbox One) - Review

Super Toy Cars is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

Ever wondered what it would be like to play a budget version of Mario Kart? Wonder no more!


Nintendo won't give us Mario Kart on our beloved Xbox One's and Sega have still not inserted my pleas to bring the excellent Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed to it either, which leaves the playing field wide open for someone to release a kiddie-friendly racing game. By which I mean a game so colourful it'd make LSD induced hallucinations look bland.

Super Toy Cars gives you a few different race tracks for, you guessed it, toy cars to race around. There are a number of cars to buy and mod, with an upgrade available for each part and a few different colours and paint jobs to choose from. You get points for completing races, and these points unlock the next sets of races.

The problem with this game is that everything feels half-assed. I cannot enthuse about this game at all because it is just so lacking. I spent a few hours with it, as has my son, but really neither of us were having fun! We we're going through the motions because it needed to be reviewed. Everything about Super Toy Cars feels like a cheap rip off of the bigger budget racers. Even the power-ups you can collect are boring. And none of the AI character's seem to use them, which is just weird!

This game could have been salvaged had it been for a few things, if it was more polished it would have been infinitely better, but as it stands I keep driving through the environment. A little creator mode would have gone a long way to entertaining my son and I too. The ability to make tracks for your family to play may well have kept us playing that bit longer. As it stands this game simply isn't worth even the relatively small £7.99 price tag, which is a huge shame. Skip it guys.

3/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Quest of Dungeons (Xbox One) - Review

Quest of Dungeons is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.19.

There are a fair few roguelike dungeon crawlers now on the Xbox One, most of them are pretty good too. So does Quest of Dungeons measure up?

Quest of Dungeons is a solid addition to the indie market. Procedurally-generated pixelated goodness abounds and never actually feels 'grindy', which is still fairly unusual in this genre. You can pick a character from four different classes (five if you have completed it) and head on into the dungeons to complete quests and more importantly GET MORE STUFF!

I'm very OCD when it comes to games. It takes me ages to complete games because I like to explore every nook and cranny, well as long as the game is good! In fact I have still not completed my play through of Fallout: New Vegas as my OCD gets so bad that I can't continue quests in case going further in the story locks me out of one side quest. It's tough being me. Anyway Quest of Dungeons is just one of those games, I am yet to leave a floor before I have gone through every room with a fine tooth comb, I just can't do it!

Usually I advise you guys that games like this are good for the odd ten minute session, load up have a quick go and get out. But that is not true for this game, in fact I spent three hours on it today in one gloriously uninterrupted session whilst my daughter napped. The same can't be said for many of the roguelikes I have reviewed previously. This may be because this one feels a little more strategic than most, after a few goes you start to predict where the enemy will move to so you can get the first hit in, or even better get them to step on a trap.

I found trying to play with the analogue stick a little fiddly, but that was easily rectified by using the D-Pad. I had to turn on auto pick-ups, because it was just too damn annoying to keep pressing to pick everything up. At first my screen was way off, but I did find the screen size adjuster eventually and then 2x zoomed the game and now I'm in pixel heaven. It's beautiful. The music in the game is brilliant too and I actually found myself absent-mindedly humming it earlier as I went to pick my son up from school.

Of the reviews I've written up today this one is the cheapest, but you know what, it's the most fun too! It's the one with the best replayability by far and is priced fairly, which is something I rarely say these days. Go get it!

9/10 BUY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

King's Quest: A Knight to Remember (Xbox One) - Review

King's Quest: A Knight to Remember is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99. Alternatively you can buy the Season Pass for £31.99, which gets you all future episodes and a bonus Prologue and Epilogue.

King's Quest was apparently a very popular game in the 80's, but I'd never played it or indeed heard of it before the reboot was announced. I'm gonna excuse myself by saying I wasn't born until quite awhile after release.

Anyhow King's Quest s the story of King Graham, as told by him to his granddaughter Gwendolyn. Voiced by the amazing Christopher Lee King Graham is telling Gwendolyn stories from his past and it is these stories that you will play out in the chapters to come. 

This first chapter sees you play through the Knight'e Tournament in Daventry. I will not go into anymore story than that. This truly is a game that you will enjoy infinitely more if you experience it for yourself. Suffice it to say that the writing in this game really is top-notch. It's witty, clever and brilliantly acted. The game is both beautiful to look at and to play. Controls are responsive and the quests are great. There are plenty of times where you can meet a sticky end, these moments are fantastic, as we see old King Graham and Gwendolyn make some funny remarks about what you've just done. 

Usually for games like this there is just one solution to each of the puzzles you are faced with, but in King's Quest there are multiple ways in which to solve each problem. It is hard to say what effect this will have on the story as it continues, but it makes for an interesting change. The characters you meet along the way are all really, well, characterful. They're hilarious and so memorable. 

King's Quest is a game I thought I would love anyway, I love this type of game and I am surprised that I hadn't heard of this one. It is hard to think of someone that wouldn't like this game though, it is honestly so well done. Whilst the Season Pass does sound pricey at £31.99 I'd be tempted to recommend it, as for that you get all five episodes and two bonus ones. For those who may be comparing this to Telltale's price points, which are usually around half the price, King's Quest is easily double the game, with this episode probably taking somewhere between 7-8 hours to complete.  If you're on the fence at all I would recommend that you pick Chapter One up and try it out, but honestly I don't know who wouldn't want to continue hearing from King Graham. 

10/10 BUY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart (Xbox One) - Review

Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart is a hidden object game, a game type I'm not entirely convinced has a home on the home console. Nevertheless it's there, so here I am to tell you whether or not it's worth your money.

If you've never understood why people play hidden object games then, just skip past the rest of this review and don't bother with the game. It plays exactly like every other hidden object game ever. If, however, you have a penchant for finding mundane items in a pile of mess then read on!

Now I have to confess to having wiled away a little too much time on hidden object games in my iPad. But I mostly only play these when the tots have taken over the TV and I want a mindless five minutes. They usually have some cheesy story rammed in between the various screens depicting different piles of mess for you to zoom in on. Nightmares from the Deep is no different. You play as a museum curator who has taken delivery of a pirate to display in your museum. You unbox him, place his weapons where they should be, and lo and behold he awakens and robs your daughter. The rest of the game is you following him around to save her.

I won't go into more detail than that, partly because I never like disclosing to much story in my reviews but mostly because the story was so dull I stopped listening. But I for one never play a hidden object game for the narrative, so how does it play?

Obviously hidden object games rely on you pinpointing the position of sometimes tiny items in a pile of mess, so they should be accurate. Unfortunately there were a number of occasions where I was clicking on an item from the list but I hadn't 'found it'. This is ok when you're playing on 'Normal' but when you play 'Expert' there are penalties for missing. You can skip the hidden object parts though and play a game of Mahjong instead. I like Mahjong, but I like to use the D-Pad to play something which you cannot do in Nightmares from the Deep, which leads to you skipping over some tiles accidentally.

Overall I'd say that there is a reason that hidden object games haven't really made the move over to consoles yet. They work on tablets, arguably, but on a home console they really don't. The graphics and animation really look dated, at least for this game. I don't really see who they are marketing this game at, maybe they're hoping to score a bit of the bored housewife market and take them away from Candy Crush Saga. I don't know, but I really don't see who else would be picking this up.

3/10 SKIP IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

TownCraft (Steam) - Review

TownCraft is available now on Steam and is priced at £6.99. It is available for both Mac and Windows. This review was played on a Mac.

TownCraft is a slow game, incredibly so. it's "a chill-out crafting and cit-building game" that takes the chill-out side of things very seriously. I have actually fallen asleep playing this game, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

TownCraft sees you build a medieval town from the very beginning and grow it. There are no stats for your player for you to worry about, hunger and tiredness are not a problem to your little sprite. You simply collect and build, rinse and repeat.

This game will obviously not be liked by everyone. Anyone who solely loves the bang-bang pew-pew of an online shooter are not catered for with TownCraft. At all. Looking for  change of pace though? Well this one might do it for you. Unless you like your story to progress at anything other than a snail's pace.

It's a game type that I feel has been done to death, and TownCraft doesn't bring anything new to the party. It's simplicity is both its best and worst feature. Its great to burn an hour or so on when you just feel too burnt out to concentrate, because you really can't go wrong with this game. There isn't ever a sense of urgency, just do what you want, when you want. But it's also so simple that if you're even slightly switched on when you play, you will realise rather quickly there are better things you could be doing with your time.

It feels like they were gonna do more with this game. There are items in the game that would have a use, if the game was more immersive. Instead, all you can do is sell them. There are a myriad of things that would have made this game a better one, playing as 'God' would have been waaayy better, as you're character is just so damn slow.

Another problem I had, so many other Mac users may is that I had to move my dock because it kept interfering with the game interface. I had my dock at the bottom of the screen, set to disappear unless it was hovered over. I had to move it to the side, because I kept accidentally opening up Sims 4 when trying to use the buttons in TownCraft. Not good. Sims 4 takes ages to shut back down.

I'm struggling to think of anyone to really recommend this game too. As I said if you really want a change of pace, maybe check it out. But it's definitely not one I'd say you need. There are many other city-building games that are better, and offer more of a challenge. If you're the most casual of casual gamers who does;t really enjoy a challenge, then try it.

4/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Why Online Gaming Isn't For Me

It came to my attention recently that I had had a game for quite some time and still hadn't reviewed it. And as I pondered the reasons I had left this particular game so long, there was only one answer I could come up with...it's a game that relies on you playing with people online.

I used to play quite a bit online. The fella and I had a little group of people we would play CoD with. They were people we'd met playing the game and they were genuinely nice, friendly people. It was really great.

Unfortunately not everyone you meet online is nice, particularly not in the gaming world and even more so if you're a female. This isn't a woe is me piece about how people have ruined gaming for me, because that simply isn't the truth. But figuring out why I hadn't written up my review yet just got me thinking about it and I really wanted to just share with you what it can be like to be a 'girl gamer' online.

The first problem is the fact that I am 'othered' straight away. Again, not by everyone, but by enough that I don't feel comfortable. I'm not just a gamer like you and your friends are. I'm a 'girl gamer'. No one calls you a 'lad gamer' (do they?!) so why should it be different for me? Automatically I am set apart simply because of my gender, something that really shouldn't matter.

Now here my more rational side has to interject and state that for every person that has threatened to find me and rape me, called me fat without ever seeing a picture of me, or asked for 'proof' of my being a female (namely rude pictures) I have met some wonderful people too. Some have been through game lobbies, but for the most part these days I meet the nicest gamers ever on Twitter. It is through Twitter that I found the confidence to advertise my GamerTag, for the people I interact with on Twitter to see what I've been playing, and maybe even play something together.

But it is the more horrible people that are the loudest in your headset. They are the ones making sure they are heard. And whilst I've more often than not had support from other gamers, it can still get to you. It makes you incredibly conscious of how you are playing, because god forbid I die in game and get told to go back to the kitchen. It takes the fun out of it when you're so completely stressed at the thought of someone maybe watching you on kill cam and seeing you miss a shot.

And maybe it is my fault for the games that I have chosen to play online, we all know that CoD lobbies aren't the nicest lobbies to be in for anyone. But I shouldn't be made to feel like I have less of a right to be there than anyone else. I'm not the best player in the world, far from it. But I game to have fun. I don't want to get into slanging matches with anyone, I don't want to question your abilities. I just want us all to play nice.

Nova-111 (Xbox One) - Review

Nova-111 is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £11.99, with a 20% launch discount available.

Nova-111 is a turn-based, puzzle/adventure game with real time strategy elements thrown in. Yeah, all those rolled into one big package. Yikes. But is it any good?

You play as a ship who has to navigate these caves looking for scientists, treasure and upgrades. When you start out you can basically only butt heads with the enemies, luckily for you that's pretty much all the first set of enemies can do too. Later on though the enemies start to get a little more difficult. You soon encounter little aliens that connect some kind of tube to you an suck the life right outta ya. There are little bomb dudes, charging dudes, guys with armour and many, many more to be found. Thankfully you are given a few upgrades to help you out with these tougher aliens. You get a myriad of tools to help you make it through the game, including a laser. Because no game in space is ever complete without one.

Graphically the game is great; a cutesy cartoon style that works really well. You have a little fog of war so you can only see a certain amount of squares around you, and you can't see past rocks until you've broken them.

I did have an issue in the tutorial where I had to restart it. This happened a few times, when I was told to move back to dodge I was in a position where I couldn't move backwards, only up. The game would not let me do anything so I had to quit out and start the level again. Very annoying.

Overall the game works well although it's a game that, in all honesty, isn't for me. As much as I enjoyed my time with it, I found it pretty frustrating. I think it's the mix of everything that kinda ruins it for me, had it been either turn-based or real time I'd have probably liked it a whole lot more. As it is, it is a middle of the road game that tries to spin too many plates at once.

It is a good game for loading up to kill ten minutes though. Although saying that I did that and didn't finish the set of three caves in one sitting. When I went back it started me right back at the beginning of the cave system, which was pretty annoying.

If you fancy a bit of a challenge then Nova-111 could well be the game for you, I found it pretty damn challenging. But if you're in no great rush I'd definitely recommend waiting for a sale.

5/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

This review was first featured on www.completexbox.com