Blood Bowl 2 (Xbox One) - Review

Blood Bowl 2 is available now on Xbox One and is priced at £39.99.

I have dabbled in tabletop Warhammer games. Well, actually I guess I should say I was dragged along to Games Workshop by a group of my friends as a teenager - the nerdiest of which would one day be the father of my children. I was never really interested in it if I am honest, preferring to spend the summer holidays at one of the lads houses setting up five screens and five consoles for another 'Summer of Gaming'. These are some of my fondest memories of my teen years, I mean who can beat seeing Final Fantasy 7 on a few different CRT screens on a coffee table, whilst we made towers out of the multipacks of coke we were drinking?!

Now I've shown you just how cool I am (read: unpopular with the 'cool' lot at school) let me explain why I included that little bit of Dannie Kitten history...I've always been more into video games than the drawn-out games played in Games Workshop - where you could quite literally miss your curfew if the dice weren't your friend that day. Standing for hours whilst people deliberate is not my idea of fun. Couple that with the fact that we only had one Games Workshop anywhere near - which also happened to me right near 2, yes 2 GAME's, a Gamestation AND an Electronic's Boutique (remember them?) I ALWAYS found something else to spend my paper round money on. The friend who would one day end up being my co-op partner for life however LOVED Warhammer and still would if it wasn't for 'those pesky kids'. So Blood Bowl 2 seemed like the perfect way for him to relive some teen memories, and for me to maybe finally understand why everyone loved it so much. I'll be regurgitating a lot of what Mr Dannie Kitten said about Blood Bowl 2 in this review, because (I HATE that I'm saying this) he's better at it than I am. :(

Blood Bowl is a fantasy version of what I thought was American Football. I've now been informed that it is Gridiron, which I've never heard of but it still looks like American Football to me. You have to get the ball from one end of the 'board' to the other, via turn-based play. It's very tactical, which is the main thing that drew my analyst fella to it really. But it also relies on the luck of the draw really, with random statistical probabilities of tripping, being knocked out or even murdered. The controls are simple and intuitive, but for a newbie like me the tutorial felt like a drag. I found it fairly difficult to simply understand and even more difficult to actually make sense of during gameplay. This game is NOT a game that is easy to pick-up-and-play. It is a time-sink, for people like me anyway, obviously people who already have a good understanding of these games will not have to spend as much time as I did on the basics. It's typical turn-based rules - you can only move so far if you want to complete an action too etc.

There's a campaign which sees you play against various teams to regain your teams former glory. Or some such nonsense. No one plays game like this for a story, right? There's also a multiplayer mode, both online and offline. In offline mode you can actually share the controller, which is good for those of you who only have one. In multiplayer there are 24 pre-made teams featuring 8 different races, and there are more races available via DLC. You can also customise your own team for multiplayer modes only. Local multiplayer works really well, but unfortunately I am yet to actually find a match online.

Graphically the game is fairly impressive and a vast improvement on the previous console version of Blood Bowl. The takedown animations are gritty and every tackle is done in slow-mo, which really does look great. The sound effects and everything involved in these slow-mo takedowns really adds a depth to the game that I didn't really anticipate and for me it far surpasses the fun of playing this in its traditional tabletop format. I mean, seeing an orc being crushed is much more satisfying than moving a little metal dude off the board.

Overall Blood Bowl 2 is a pretty decent game, but I am struggling to figure out whether it will do well or not. To me the people that go into Games Workshop don't just go in to play a game, they go in for the camaraderie, to look at other people collections. They play these games yes, but they also put a hell of a lot of time into making their teams and painting the figures - something that the console version can't compete with. With the disappearance of many Games Workshops from the high streets though this might be a good alternative for the long time fans. For newbies I think the game is just about welcoming enough to offer some fun, but be prepared to sink A LOT of time into it.

6/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

Adventures of Pip (Xbox One) - Review

Adventures of Pip is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £9.99.

Retro inspired platformers are everywhere these days and in my opinion they need to be something really special to stand out anymore. It isn't good enough anymore to just make a game with retro graphics and expect it to sell well, there needs to be something more.

Adventures of Pip has just that, with a game mechanic that I haven't seen appear in a game of this ilk before. That's not too say it hasn't been done, but I haven't played anything like Adventures of Pip on my Xbox One as of yet. The story is straight from an old Mario game, an evil bad guy has kidnapped the princess. Queen DeRezzia wants to destroy everything in the Pixel Kingdom and Pip is the unlikeliest hero ever because he is just a single pixel. But this apparent weakness is his greatest strength, as Queen DeRezzia's magic doesn't affect him like it affects everyone else; because he is just a single pixel he is immune to her spell.

Let's cut to the chase a little here, Pip learns how to transform between his single pixel state and that of a boy with a sword - infinitely more useful against Queen DeRezzia's minions. You can switch between these states almost at will - you do need to kill an enemy with the Bitstream inside them to return to the 8-bit boy who can wall jump, and another enemy to begin super-charged 16-bit Pip complete with sword - but you can switch to single-pixel Pip with the touch of a button. It's a mechanic that works very, very well, with each of Pip's three different states behaving very differently from the others.

Adventures of Pip is definitely one of the more interesting nostalgia inducing games released of late. The graphics are great and the transformations between single pixel, 8-bit and 16-bit Pip are really cool. It's not the longest game in the world, but it doesn't have to be - there's nothing worse than a game that has been inflated so much that it becomes dull. Adventures of Pip is still fun at the end, something not many games are anymore. It has been out a little while now, so a sale shouldn't be too far away, but I definitely recommend you try this game.

7/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

Polychromatic (Xbox One) - Review

Polychromatic is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.99.

There have been a few twin-stick shooters released on the Xbox One in this past year, all priced around the same mark my favourite of which has been Ultratron by a smidgen. Does Polychromatic knock Ultratron off the top spot?

Well, no. We all know what a twin-stick shooter is and how to play them, so I'm gonna skip over that particular explanation. Polychromatic takes the twin-stick genre back to the bare bones, only giving you three modes in which to play and no real campaign to speak of and using extremely simple coloured shapes to depict yours and the enemy ships

. This was part of my problem, I kept losing my damn ship in the mass of colour. Not cool.

But Polychromatic does have a nifty little dash button, triggered by tapping your bumper (either of them). I'm sure that for some of the bigger twin-stick aficionados out there does could either be seen as a new necessity or something that takes away from the purity of a twin-stick shooter. I saw neither because I kept forgetting I had it and so ended up using it about twice.

I feel like Polychromatic's simplicity works against it. For me it is priced at the top end of a twin-stick shooters price point and so is trying to compete with the big guns. And Polychromatic just doesn't measure up. I struggle to understand who would have thought it a good idea to come in at the same price as Ultratron and Tachyon Project, two twin-stick shooters that do what they do pretty damn well. Grab this one in a sale if you just don't feel like you already have enough twin-stick shooters in your life.

5/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

GunWorld Xbox One Edition (Xbox One) - Review

GunWorld: Xbox One Edition is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at $1.99 (US only).

I think I'm getting less patient as I get older. Actually I know I'm getting less patient, especially when I have to venture into the outside world with my family *shudder*. But this impatience is spreading into my gaming life. I have absolutely no patience at all for games that are incredibly difficult for no other reason but to piss off the player anymore. I find them more frustrating than I can handle these days and end up snapping at my poor fella if he dares speak to me after dying yet another time.

So maybe I'm the wrong person to be reviewing a game such as GunWorld. But I'm the only one here and I like to give my readers a variety of games to read about. So I sat down and prepared for the ultimate in frustration gaming.

If you don't know about GunWorld you may be wondering why I was so prepared for anger. I spoke to the developer on Twitter about GunWorld a little before I got hands-on with the game. He delighted in telling me how difficult it was, for even him to complete on certain settings. In fact there is a prize going to the first person who gets a certain achievement; Child of the 80's. Get this and you will win every future game from the company. Google how hard the achievement is, I dare ya.

Up to now very few people have beat the final boss of GunWorld and I would love to say I am one of them. But I am not. Not even close. I find the game almost impossible to play. I'm afraid my review can't be nearly as in-depth as I would like. The graphics are a nice nostalgia hit and there seems to be a fair bit of variety in guns etc. But you know at this price if you fancy a REAL challenge just grab it. It costs less than a cup of coffee.

I'm not going to give a star rating because I can't play enough of the game so it wouldn't be fair.

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.

Penarium (Xbox One) - Review

Penarium is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £7.19.

Everybody loves the circus, in fact I'm going tonight with my son. Penarium is a circus with a twist though, the kind of twist that would be right at home in a SAW film or something of that ilk. Penarium sees you play as Willy, a farmhand who has always dreamed of visiting the circus. So much so that he jumps at the chance to go with the stranger who turns out to be the sadistic ringmaster of this hell-circus.

I really struggled with this game. It's incredibly difficult, or it was for me at least. It requires you to have lightening fast reflexes so that you can save Willy from turning into a pile of red mush. It starts off easy enough and introduces just one new method of death per level. I had to retry the second level. Twice. Told you I sucked.

Willy has to dodge homing missiles, circular saws, massive icicles, big red balls and more in his fight to survive the circus from hell and the actual tasks you are given pale in comparison. The arena is a wraparound too, so in theory you can go of left and come in on the right. The thing is I forget I can do this so it only ever counts against me, as weapons can do this too. I died a LOT. Then just as I thought I may be able to get my head around going off on one side they went and put spikes on the sides so you can't. Self Made Miracle are SADISTS.

The graphics are cute and the game is pretty funny, but it's a little too frustrating for my liking. I don't like replaying things over and over and I had to with Penarium. Only get it if you have a lot of patience. Oh and if you're a masochist.

5/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review. 

I Am Bread (Steam) - Review

I Am Bread is available now on Steam and is priced at £9.99.

There has been a slew of absolutely mental 'experimental' games on Steam in recent years. Games like Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread have really taken off, which is probably purely because of how funny they are to watch people play on Twitch and YouTube. But how is I Am Bread to play for yourself?

These games have gained popularity because of how difficult they are to play. The controls are deliberately extremely difficult to use, let alone master. I Am Bread is no different, it thrives off making you scream out in frustration as you get stuck on yet another environmental set piece.

You play as piece of bread, who's sole goal in life is to make himself toast. To do this you must make your way through various rooms in the house, until you find a source of heat good enough to toast yourself on. Let's be honest you've probably all seen Let's Plays of this game by now on YouTube.

I Am Bread is just as frustrating as you imagine it to be when you're watching it. The controls are ridiculously difficult, I honestly struggled to even move my piece of bread, let alone flip it over to the toaster! I didn't plug in a controller though, as I only have wireless ones so I was stuck using keyboard and mouse. I do think it'll be a little easier with a controller, but not much more. Honestly I bet there have been a fair few broken controllers whilst playing this game.

If you're after a game that'll give you some cheap laughs then you could do worse than picking up I Am Bread. But in all honesty I had more fun watching it on YouTube. I don't do well with frustration.

4/10 TRY IT!

A codes was provided for the purpose of this review.

Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings (Xbox One) - Review

Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings is available now on the Xbox One and is priced at £12.99.

I've never played a baseball game on a console before. Hell, I've never played baseball in real life. I feel like it's basically rounders though, and you literally can't go through school in England without having been tortured by a weekly rounders match. In the rain. And the mud. OUTSIDE. Eurgh.

Rather than a photo-realistic sports game a la any EA game ever, Super Mega Baseball is a super fun cartoony-style game where the characters have tiny legs, humongous bobble-heads and silly names.

For all of it's silliness though it is actually a fairly in-depth sports game, or at least it is to me. You use your analog stick to pick the kind of throw you will do (all of which mean nothing to me) and can control the speed and force that you throw too. For the batters it's a simple game of working out when to press A to swing your bat and kinda pointing it in the direction you want to bat it. Then you have to choose which base you will attempt to run to and move any other characters that may be on the field. I sucked at this part, but for once I can categorically say it is my fault. The control system for this game is really well done. I'm just crap.

There are only two modes in the game, Season or Exhibition, but I have to admit to wondering what other modes you may need. You can either play just one game, or go in for a season as the names suggest and both can be played with friends, locally. The Season mode is more in-depth and sees you having to manage your team too, a welcome addition for many of the more hardcore baseball fans I'm sure. You can also mess with the difficulty levels, changing them from between 0-99 to make it more or less difficult, meaning you can truly tailor your experience to suit you.

This is a good little sports game, but I feel like it is priced slightly too high for what you get. Maybe it's just because I'm not a sports fan but I did find the game kinda boring really. It'll likely be in a sale in the lead up to the holidays, so if you can, hold out until then.

5/10 TRY IT!

A code was provided for the purpose of this review.