Guns, Gore & Cannoli (Xbox One) - Review

Guns, Gore and Cannoli is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £6.99.

Guns, Gore & Cannoli is a fun little game set in 1920's prohibition. You play as a mobster, or a group of mobsters if you have a few friends and spare controllers, that have to tackle a new threat...zombies.

Now I first booted this up all on my lonesome and let me tell you it was pretty damn tough. It started off alright, but I soon found myself completely overwhelmed and died a fair few times. And, unfortunately for me, I can't really put this down to anything other than my own lack of skill. This game plays perfectly, controls are slick, responsive and simple to understand. I am just shit.

Even with some couch co-op buddies this game is pretty challenging, more so towards the end, but it's a hell of a lot of fun. And you won't just be fighting zombies either, the devs clearly wanted to melt your eyeballs as there are literally tonnes of enemies thrown at you, including other mobsters, soldiers and zombie rats. You don't even have to keep playing nicely with your friends as after you;ve blitzed through the relatively short campaign you could resort to going all Super Smash Bros. on their arses in the multiplayer mode. Unfortunately though you won't be able to enjoy this game with anyone other than the people that visit you, as there is no online functionality, a massive oversight in my opinion.

Guns, Gore & Cannoli does provide a lot of fun for it's relatively small price. But the fun is short-lived, with a campaign that can be completed in an evening and a multiplayer mode, that whilst it's fun is limited to only local multiplayer. I still recommend picking it up though if you have £7 burning a whole in your digital pocket.

7/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Rock Zombie (Xbox One) - Review

Rock Zombie is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £6.39.

Yeah, that's pretty cheap for an Xbox One game, isn't it? Yeah...there's a reason for that. This game is terrible and not in the 'so bad it's good sense' just in the 'shit why am I wasting my time' sense. Like Toro.

Straight away upon loading it up I didn't like it. After ten minutes I loathed it. The graphics are just awful (seriously the bright palate does not detract from how butt ugly the game is) and honestly look like they belong on the last gen, if not the PS2 era. Gameplay is repetitive and not fun at all, even when it does work how it should.

I guess it's supposed to be a modern take on Streets of Rage. It's a side scrolling beat 'em up yes, but that's where the similarities begin and end. Rock Zombie is lacklustre at best and just downright awful the majority of the time. The music makes you start grinding your teeth within ten seconds and the gameplay will have you grinding them to stumps in minutes. It's very simplistic, which I guess is what's to be expected from a side-scroller, but this takes simplicity to an all new level of dullness. Combat is repetitive and a bit hit and miss on whether you're actually aiming where you think you are (and where your character is pointing before the attack animation kicks in).

In case it wasn't clear guys, skip this one. Even if it's on the best damn sale you've ever seen. NOT WORTH IT.

1/10 SKIP IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Clockwork Tales Of Glass and Ink (Xbox One) - Review

Clockwork Tales of Glass and Ink is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

Artifex Mundi have released another hidden object game onto home console following last years Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart. Clockwork Tales of Glass and Ink has been ported from mobile devices to Xbox One, so is it worth picking up for the big screen?

The good news is that Clockwork Tales of Glass and Ink is a lot better than Nightmares from the Deep, well in my opinion anyway. Graphics are hand-drawn and quite beautiful, but the voice acting is still amongst the cheesiest I've ever heard. 

The controls in Clockwork Tales of Glass and Ink work much better than they did in Nightmares from the Deep. Don't get me wrong, they're still not perfect and I still had a few moments where I was clearly clicking on what was needed but getting the big red circle. Even though this game does feature a lot of hidden object scenes, the story is not solely propelled by these scenes. The game is an albeit very simple point-and-click adventure with some light puzzle elements. Even going straight in on Expert difficulty it posed little in the way of challenge and was completed well within 5 hours. This is probably my biggest criticism of this game, it definitely errs on the side of too simple. 

The story is better too, marginally anyway. You must first save Dr Ink and then the world (obviously) from Gerhard Barber and his big machine. There are some collectable bugs along the way too, with achievements for collecting all of the bugs in each area. It's an easy game to max out the achievements on, although I haven't done this myself yet due to missing a couple of bugs :(

I still think the price is a little high, despite enjoying my time with the game. I think it'd have been better priced around the £5.59 mark we have seen other games release at. If you're dying for some point-and-click, hidden object adventures then pick it up by all means, but if you have a little patience wait for a sale.  

6/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

This War of Mine: The Little Ones (Xbox One) - Review

This War of Mine: The Little Ones is available now on Xbox One and is priced at £23.99.

I know a fair few people who are refusing to even consider playing this game because of the title. Knowing nothing else about the game, other than the fact it has children in it and is about a war has been a deal-breaker for many of my friends. Luckily I am not as soft. I am a Mummy to two beautiful children, and anything depicting children suffering breaks my heart and leaves me sobbing for hours. But I am ok with showing my emotions and believe that experiences like that only serve to make us more well-rounded and empathetic humans. Or maybe I'm just a masochist...

This War of Mine first realised a couple of years back on PC. The console version comes with The Little Ones update. This War of Mine sees you take control of the people left behind in a war. Not the soldiers we are so often playing as, but the people who have had their homes, families and country ravaged by the effects of war. We must help them survive. 

You start off with 3 blokes, Marko, Pavle and Bruno. In the day you are stuck inside your shelter, too fearful to go out because of the snipers and troops on the ground that would kill you on sight. So you can build furniture for your base, get some much-needed rest or eat some of your meagre food to stay just above 'starving'. I restarted the game 3 times, desperate to use my first day in the house the best way I could, before giving up on my third attempt and accepting that what will be will be. There was one of the fellas who could carry much more weight on the nightly scavenging runs, so he became our runner, whilst the other two took it in turns to guard the shelter or sleep (this was only after I had already been raided once and they had taken all of our tiny food supply). 

So I would have him go scavenging every night. At first the places you visit are fairly easy to get things from, no soldiers or thugs in sight, but soon this runs out and you have to start making the more dangerous runs to get the supplies you need. I had given the last of our food to two hungry children that had knocked on and begged, I could;t ignore children. But now I was desperate, everyone was starving and I had found all of the food from the first Shelled Cottage. I went somewhere where others were camped out, hoping that there would still be a few cubbyholes to search for food in. Unfortunately there was no food. The guy was asking me for bandages for his old sick dad, but I had none of those either. He started to get impatient and then violent so I stabbed him. And his dad. 

What happened next was interesting. I went back home and he sat on a previously unnoticed bit of rubble right in the doorway. He was having a breakdown and couldn't be controlled anymore. The other two, when I clicked on their Bios, were questioning why he had committed such a terrible act. The shelter was starting to fall apart and I had only brought back enough food for two.

I'm not going to go anymore into my first foray into This War of Mine, I think it should be a personal experience when you first play it and I don't want to ruin anything for anyone. Suffice it to say there have been tears, questions and times I have truly hated myself for the actions I have taken. But that what this game is about. You're not going to have fun with This War of Mine, you're getting an experience, a story, a narrative we hopefully will never experience in real life. And that is what makes it a must play. 

9/10 BUY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations (Xbox One) - Review

Adventure Time: Finn and Jake Investigations is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £39.99 on the Xbox Marketplace.

I have never watched Adventure Time. I know, I know why bother reading the rest of the review? Well I'm reviewing it for everyone out there who hasn't seen it either, and who possibly has kids mithering for it because 'it looks cute'.

So yeah, I come to this game fresh out of the box, knowing nothing of the world of Ooo past what this game shows me. I have no idea why they live in a tree or even why Jake can morph into various different things in combat. I've been told the game is voiced by the same people who voice the show and that it is a representation of the Adventure Time TV show. And that, I am afraid, concludes all I can give to fans of the show. Now for anyone else who is thinking of picking up this game based on the merits of the actual game rather than a love for the original show, I have a little bit more to say...

I thought this game would be a fun little game to play with my children. An investigation game that doesn't include fine-combing a grisly murder scene or references that would swoop right over their heads and leave them bored. I was right in this, the game is quite a cutesy little point-and-click game which sees Finn and Jake investigating various crimes in Ooo. There's nothing too taxing about solving the puzzles and the children solved much of the game themselves. Like any point-and-click game it features a lot 'this person needs this before you can get through there' type quests, but my children enjoyed these greatly. My eldest is seven this week and he often complained of 'having to do the same thing over and over' so bear this in mind.

It wasn't just the repetitive fetch quests that were dull though, the combat - whilst fun for the first couple of battles - soon devolves into an extremely simplistic matter of bashing various buttons until the enemies are dispatched, which failed to even keep my three year old amused. My son actually told me all about his homework whilst not looking at the screen and still beat the baddies. It really is that easy.

Achievements are easily gained, and the game is easy to complete. There is very little chance that you'd wish to replay it, as the game is repetitive enough the first time around. The game just lacks a little polish and the gameplay is too dull and repetitive for me to be able to recommend it. If you're looking to increase the old Gamerscore and see this below £15 then pick it up, maybe.

4/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

Sparkle 2 (Xbox One) - Review

Sparkle 2 is available from the 27th January on the Xbox One and is priced at £6.39. There will be a 15% discount at launch.

I reviewed their first Xbox One offering, Sparkle Unleashed back when that was released and really enjoyed it. There was just something about its simplicity that made it so much fun. In fact until I received Sparkle 2 I was still playing Unleashed regularly, trying to complete it on hard.

Now there were some things that bugged me about Unleashed, more so the longer I've had the game. The chains around the ball once you got to the more difficult levels were infuriating and seemed like a really forced in way to extend the game. Other niggles that I had at the beginning disappeared the longer I played it, such as the shooter that was on rails along the bottom of the screen rather than rotating from one position. At first this really riled me, but after playing the game for awhile you soon get used to it. So much so that moving from this to Sparkle 2 took some getting used to as Sparkle 2 makes use of a rotating shooter, making it much more like my personal Xbox 360 favourite Zuma.

I remember writing in my review of Unleashed that it could borrow more from Zuma - the rotating shooter being the main thing. Sparkle 2 definitely feels more like a Zuma clone, and I don't mean that negatively - it just feels more polished than its predecessor. They have removed those annoying chained balls and it has made the game infinitely more fun. There are new power ups too which are fun to play around with. You can also add power ups to four points on your shooter which is another great addition. In short they have taken everything I liked about Sparkle Unleashed and improved upon it. This game is easy to pick up, difficult to master and even harder to put down. I did fifty levels in one sitting and completed it in three - in fact such are the levels of my addiction that after completing it I immediately picked the highest difficulty and restarted it. Achievements in this game are generous and not all that difficult, at least if you enjoy the game. They're basically just for playing the game and the different modes available.

At £6.39 I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone who just wants a fun game to play. It really is so addictive and seeing a big chain come together is still so satisfying. Grab it when it releases guys!

9/10 BUY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Big Pharma (Steam) - Review

Big Pharma is available now on Steam and is priced at £18.99.

In Big Pharma you are tasked with running a drug company. You have to create the pills, balance the books and basically make sure you turn a profit from selling your drugs. Which sounds like it'd be fairly simple, but watch the side effects of your drugs - too many and it isn't going to sell. Similarly if your drug is too perfect, you're gonna kill the market. It's a tough balancing act. 

I am a massive fan of Theme Hospital and every year or so I replay it and start looking for a game that comes close to its greatness. If, like me, you came to Big Pharma hoping for that I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.

That's not to say Big Pharma is a bad game. It isn't, it's actually alright. But for me it just isn't in depth enough where it matters. You do have to put a lot of thought into creating the right drugs and working out which machines you need in order to do so yes, but the act of doing this is what cheapens the game. You end up with rooms full of winding conveyor belts that change your pill from one colour to another (increasing its abilities/side effects) before it reaches the end of the line. But it's just not very satisfying.

The magic of Theme Hospital was in the humour and Big Pharma sorely lacks in that department. It wants to take itself seriously but the game play is just too gimmicky in places for that to happen. I wanted FULL management, building, placing of rooms etc. not just pills and profit. The business management side of the game is quite good and will see you making some pretty questionable decisions ethics-wise, but for the most part the game just feels pretty lacking. 

The game works beautifully, I haven't yet encountered a bug. Controls are great and the interface is intuitive. At first it feels really complicated - the tutorials feel never-ending and aren't worded very well in my opinion, but it quickly becomes quite simple and repetitive. And in this price range I just don't think that's acceptable. Wait for a sale guys.

5/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.