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Back To Bed – Nintendo Switch Review

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Nighty night, but don’t let the floor bite! Sleepwalk your way through Back to Bed, a dreamy puzzle game that has just arrived to the Nintendo Switch.

Back to Bed is a game that perfectly looks and feels like a bizarre dreamscape, from flying bowler hats to eyes of every shape and size watching you from walls, windows and inside oysters. You must guide Bob, through levels of increasing difficulty, back to bed using a small impish creature with Bob’s face. Using only objects found in the dreams, such as apples and fish, you nudge the sleepwalking Bob through his bedroom door and into the safety of his bed’s embrace.

Like all good puzzle games, controls are kept simple and precise. Often puzzles involve figuring out the safest route for Bob through the dream world, other times there is real timing required as you move objects in to and out of Bob’s way. Bob always walks straight forward and will turn clockwise when bumping into an object. New mechanics are introduced slowly as you progress and each is accompanied by a wonderfully vague reverse modulated voice instructing that “The clock turns Bob-wise” or “The Dog is not your friend”. Completing all the levels lets you unlock the “Nightmare” mode which requires you to not only solve the level but to also make Bob grab a key to unlock the bedroom door along the way. Falling off the world edge or being hit by an enemy will cause you to lose the key and reset which means there is some real challenge to this mode.

Back to Bed’s art style is fantastic, combining Escher aesthetics in the level designs with Dali-esque and other surrealist art styles to make a fantastical and sometimes unsettling dreamscape for Bob to wander. Between groups of levels there are images of Bob and his imp’s progress done in a similar dream style with words incorporated into the images in various ways. Back to Bed has a wonderfully distinct and almost storybook charm to it. 

So grab the Switch, tuck yourself in and prepare for some not so sweet dreams, Back to Bed is a puzzle game you certainly shouldn’t miss.

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Mat Panek
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.

Follow Mat on Twitter and Twitch

 

 

Disclosure: Back To Bed [Nintendo Switch] was kindly provided by 2Awesome Studio for this review.

 

 

Mars Underground – Steam Review

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Time to get stuck in a loop with Mars Underground, a groundhog day style adventure game from Moloch Media on the PC.

It’s Mars’ first day at a new school in a new town, except it’s always his first day since he keeps reliving the same day over and over. In Mars Underground you progress by exploring, gaining knowledge and exploiting that information daily to unravel the reasons why you are stuck in this time loop. Each cycle begins the same way with your alarm going off and Mars struggling to get out of bed, where you go from there is entirely up to you and dependant on what you have discovered to that point. Skip school and go to the movies to see “One Banana, Two Banana” or try and get into the local cool nightclub. At the end of each day you must take your medication, fall asleep and start again.

There is a very Earthbound look to Mars Underground which suits the style of exploration and discovery perfectly, other effects are layered with this to reinforce that unsettling feeling that is ever present. Sound design matches these visuals with chiptune styled effects and music, eerie soundscapes add to the ever claustrophobic nature present in the narrative. It’s not all doom and gloom though, ominous threats such as men in black, the military, Aliens and shady hooded figures are equally balanced with some good humour.

Every choice you make will lead you down another path but this can sometimes lead to the same burn out some will suffer with classic point and click adventure games. Solutions can be so obvious that you might completely glaze over them and others are so obtuse you might not approach them in the exact way needed to succeed. Missed a specific time period that event takes place? Take your pills and try again. Mars Underground definitely captures the sense of repetition one would feel reliving the same day over and over but it can begin to feel a bit much at times.

If complex and intriguing time travel stories are your thing though, Mars Underground is a wonderfully unique adventure that has so many hidden layers for players to find.

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Mat Panek
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.

Follow Mat on Twitter and Twitch

 

 

Disclosure: Mars Underground [Steam] was kindly provided by Moloch Media for this review.

 

 

Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists – Nintendo Switch Review

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Delve into a world of alchemy and mystery in Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists: Ateliers of the New World, the latest title in the long running Ateliers series by Koei Tecmo. 

The game starts as Nelke, a young and eager noble woman, and her ever faithful maid Misty arrive in the small town of Westwald. The two have made their way there after hearing rumours that an ancient sage relic of immense power, the Granzweit Tree, is possibly in the region. Nelke’s father agreeing to support her on this quest only if she becomes governor of the town and proves herself to be a worthy leader. You must help Nelke turn this sleepy village into the bustling city of commerce her father desires, all while making new friends, meeting challenges and exploring the surrounding countryside.

Being personally unfamiliar with the world of Ateliers and it’s 20 year history of titles, Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists’ story felt a little daunting at first but all the characters introduced are also unknown to Nelke and their introductions reflect this. The game gives subtle backstories where needed through bits of dialog and character interaction. Characters are out of place and in some cases out of time, fans will no doubt love the return of series famous alchemists and newcomers will enjoy being introduced to the varied cast.

There are 3 main areas of gameplay in Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists, being broken down into turns and each turn involves weekdays and holidays with various actions for each. Weekdays include town management such as construction of various buildings or facilities, commissioning alchemy and working on town requests. Holidays on the other hand give you a chance to visit and develop relationships with towns folk, as well as a chance to explore the region, finding materials or battle monsters.

There is a lot going on in Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists, micromanagement is key to success as you need to assign tasks to alchemists and store owners constantly, depending on production demands and town needs. Tasks such as gathering specific materials or defeating certain monsters will often challenge you and keep the game from feeling stagnant. The battle system is refined yet simple with an option for semi and full auto attack modes, this means low powered enemies will be dealt with rather quickly, keeping the game’s pace moving steadily forward. That being said, there is a lot to take in very quickly between the various mechanics and sub-systems and this might put off some players.

One real stand out attribute in Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists is the anime graphic styling. The game has a beautiful aesthetic overall making it feel bright and cheerful. Most of the character interactions are told by visual novel interface with Japanese voice overs for the cast. Fans of anime and the Ateliers series will really appreciate these visual stylings and especially the gorgeous full animation sequences.

Overall, Nelke & the Legendary Alchemists is a beautiful and in depth title with a lot on offer between the multiple systems at play. Some may find it a bit too complex but others will happily spend dozens of hours making Westwald their perfect home away from home.

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Mat Panek
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.

Follow Mat on Twitter and Twitch

 

 

Disclosure: Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists [Nintendo Switch] was kindly provided by Turn Left Distribution for this review.

 

 

The Red Strings Club – Nintendo Switch Review

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Mix equal parts intrigue, corporate sabotage and philosophy, shake well and serve over ice to get the delicious cocktail that is The Red Strings Club, a cyber-noir adventure game of dystopian proportions.

Set in a cyberpunk future on the verge of becoming a dystopia, The Red Strings Club is an incredibly gripping and heavy hitting adventure game that manages to push all the right buttons. Playing as one of three active characters, an advanced AI android, a bartender and a freelance hacker, The Red Strings Club succeeds in pulling no punches. Asking deep and philosophical questions of the player constantly, there is rarely an easy answer to be found and the ones you do find can be shot down just as quickly. Mainly playing as the bartender and information dealer Donovan, you mix drinks to put patrons into the right mindset for questioning.

Being so driven by narrative there is a real fear in deciding exactly which questions to ask and when. Do you wish your intended target to feel guilty? Would they let slip better information for a specific question if they felt overly confident? On numerous occasions I found myself staring at two choices for great lengths; following the logical train of thought for both, unhappy with my options but also seeing no alternatives. There is hidden depth to every choice that can affect the story in a multitude of ways. After each client has left the club you are asked ten questions in relation to the conversation you just had, testing your information gathering skills. Every bit of knowledge will count in the ultimate goal of trying to bring down the implementation of “Social Psyche Welfare,” a plan to improve society by removing negative feelings and emotions completely.

Looking very much like a classic adventure game in its pixel art style, The Red Strings Club has a nice gritty feel to it. Adding to this is the sombre and futuristic soundtrack, giving a sense of tension and importance to every scene. Skylines and neon signs glow in the distance of some scenes making this world feel more modern than stories like Blade Runner but still giving off a very similar vibe. Fans of Science fiction and adventure games will appreciate the world that DeconstrucTeam has created.

A simple and very enjoyable game with narrative that really must be experienced first hand to really appreciate. The Red Strings Club is a game you will easily find yourself playing multiple times to discover everything it has to offer.

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Mat Panek
Retromancer – Collector, repairer & fan of retro games & tech. Atari to Amiga, Nintendo to Sega! LD, Zip, Beta and a proud dad! One half of the TiredParents on Twitch.

Follow Mat on Twitter and Twitch

 

 

Disclosure: The Red String Club [Nintendo Switch] was kindly provided by Power Up PR for this review.

 

 

The 65-inch Nintendo Switch TV

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It is no secret that we are huge fans of the Nintendo Switch. It seems that there are even bigger fans of Nintendo’s hybrid console, just like Suprman9!

Suprman9 has taken their love of the Switch to a level that we reckon is really really cool – turning their bland 65-inch TV into a giant Nintendo Switch, complete with coloured Joy-Con side panels. The Switch TV is the centrepiece of Suprman9’s game room, conveniently named, Nerdvana!

Check out the photos below and then head here to check out the entire build process. Got to hand it to Suprman9, they are definitely super Nintendo fans with some gnarly DIY skills.

[story source: technabob]

Australia’s Last Blockbuster Video Store is Closing

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At the height of renting VHS tapes and video game cartridges for your Sega and Nintendo consoles, it was your local Blockbuster Video Store that you’d venture to for your fix of the latest and greatest films and video games.

Fast forward to 2019 and your bricks-and-mortal video rental outlets are all but dead. Well, in Australia, the last Blockbuster Video Store in Morley, Western Australia was still ticking along, but the owners, Lyn and John Borszeky have announced that their store will be closing its doors for good at the end of the month.

As of March 8, if you are anywhere near Morley, head down to the last Blockbuster store in Australia to grab some stock and/or store fixtures and fittings. So get in there to grab a slice of history, otherwise this will be another box to file in your nostalgic memory.

If you have fond memories of renting movies or video games from your local outlet, let us know about it on Twitter or Facebook.

image source: Community News

[story source: Community News]

Katy Perry and John Carpenter Have Something in Common

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

Pop star Katy Perry is lending her likeness to several characters in the mobile role-playing game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. The first one, Popstar Katy, has the red costume Perry wore during her “Witness” tour. Square Enix, the publisher of Brave Exvius, said that other character designs will be available in future in-game events.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius has been downloaded more than 30 million times worldwide since its launch at the end of 2015.

For the 2002 The Thing, legendary film director John Carpenter made a cameo in the game adaption of his classic horror film. I remember playing the game and thinking that a certain character looked an awful lot like Carpenter. After doing a little research, I found out it was him. It’s one of the coolest video game cameos ever. It helps that The Thing video game is underrated. You feel like you’re in the movie.

image source: Ungeek

Carpenter, who’s a big gamer, probably was allowed to play the frightening game to make sure it deemed a worthy cameo. I’ve watched the 1982 film before playing the game; the game’s visuals are stunningly indistinguishable from the movie.

I’m surprised that more actors, musicians and film makers don’t lend their likeness to video games. I don’t know if artists get well compensated when they do a game cameo, although, with approximately 2.2 billion gamers in the world, the exposure can’t hurt any musician or actor’s brand. Gamers are usually consumers of movies and music as well. Cameos by artists in video games is smart business.

Artists should just make sure that their cameo fits into the journey and narrative of the game. Carpenter’s cameo in The Thing comes out of nowhere, but it works because it fits the acclaimed director’s image and into the game’s universe. Same goes for Perry’s Final Fantasy Brave Exvius cameo as well.

image source: Bloody Disgusting

 

Review: Atari Retro Handheld

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Let’s get one thing straight, this Atari Retro Handheld is not a Flashback portable console by ATGames! There, hopefully we have clarified this point for you all.

This cool Atari Retro Handheld is by powered by Blaze. With its iconic Atari faux wood veneer and Vader lines along its front, this portable system design screams late 70s kitsch. It is like having an Atari VCS woody in your pocket – almost! We say almost, cause you can’t really grab your old Atari 2600 carts and slam them in this handheld, but you can play one of 50 classic titles, including Asteroids, Adventure, Breakout, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Millipede, Sword Quest, Yar’s Revenge  and our absolute fave Atari 2600 game of all time, Missile Command – check out the full list of games below.

  1. 3D Tic-Tac-Toe (31 in 1)
  2. Adventure
  3. Air-Sea Battle
  4. Asteroids ®
  5. Black Jack
  6. Bowling
  7. Breakout ®
  8. Canyon Bomber ®
  9. Casino
  10. Centipede ®
  11. Circus Atari ®
  12. Crystal Castles ®
  13. Demons to Diamonds ™
  14. Desert Falcon ®
  15. Dodge ’em
  16. Double Dunk
  17. Fun With Numbers
  18. Golf
  19. Gravitar ®
  20. Haunted House ®
  21. Home Run
  22. Human Cannonball ™
  23. Maze Craze
  24. Millipede ®
  25. Miniature Golf ®
  26. Missile Command ®
  27. Night Driver ™
  28. Off the Wall
  29. Pong – Video Olympics
  30. Quadrun ™
  31. Radar Lock ™
  32. Realsports Football ®
  33. Realsports Tennis ®
  34. Realsports Volleyball ®
  35. Sprintmaster
  36. Steeplechase
  37. Stellar Track ™
  38. Street Racer
  39. Submarine Commander
  40. Super Baseball
  41. Super Breakout ®
  42. Super Football
  43. Swordquest: Earthworld ™
  44. Swordquest: Fireworld ™
  45. Swordquest: Waterworld ™
  46. Tempest ®
  47. Video Checkers
  48. Video Chess
  49. Video Pinball
  50. Yar’s Revenge ®

The Retro Handheld sports a 2.4″ screen, which surprisingly suits most of the games, however, there were a few that felt cramped on the tiny screen. The unit does come with a composite A/V out interface, so you can plug it into a TV (preferably a CRT) for some big screen action. Emulation was pretty much spot on, with the games playing like their cart counterparts. To round out its retro-ness, batteries, yes, batteries the AAA kind, are required to power this little Atari – relax, this isn’t like the original Atari Lynx, you’ll definitely get a considerable amount of playing hours out of 3 x AAA Duracell batteries.

We were a bit iffy when we first saw the controls, especially the funny looking d-pad nub. Once we started playing, the d-pad and the buttons felt good under the thumbs and were responsive. However, there was one game that was totally unplayable using the nub – not looking at you Pong! Apart from that little niggle, gamers will feel right at home with the controls. Oh yeah, one nifty feature is when changing games, you simply hit the Start and Select buttons at the same time and viola, you exit the current game and go back to the menu to select a new one – this was cool, as we didn’t want to turn off the unit every time we wanted to play a new game.

There will be some that will scoff at this little handheld and others that will absolutely love it for what it is – a portable little Atari that looks like your old Atari 2600 woody and plays your favourite games. We definitely love playing on it (bar the unplayable Pong!), even though we are not big fans of the current Atari SA company. If you can get past this, then this is a little winner.

If you are keen on one of these Atari Retro Handhelds, grab one from FunstockRetro right now! They will even throw in a limited edition Atari Centipede Gold Coin for free – but you better hurry, as this sale ends soon!

Disclosure: The Atari Retro Handheld was kindly supplied by FunstockRetro for this review.

 

Spider-Man PS4: The Hype is Real

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By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

Recently, I received a text message from a friend asking, “Should I buy the new Spider-Man game? Is it worth it?”

First, I didn’t even know she was a gamer. And second, I hadn’t played the game yet. I saw the trailer; I thought it looked interesting, but nothing about a new Marvel Spider-Man game, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, intrigued me. Then, I fortunately played the game at a store demo.

Insomniac Games Spider-Man could be one of the most entertaining video games I’ve ever played. Superhero games are my wheelhouse. I’m not a big Spider-Man fan, but this game and the new Marvel films, starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker, have stealthily made me one.

The web-shooting is so clean and quick. You have a wide selection of weapons, but web slinging, to travel around the city and to battle foes, is a necessity to effectively navigate through the game. Sticking your webbing to a trash can, or manhole cover, and slinging it around to hit your enemies is one of the best fighting options. I find it oddly satisfying every time I do it to goons who have no idea what’s coming.

Swinging around New York City with your webbing is one of the most thrilling things about the game. The graphics are so exceptional; every swing down a new block is like a scene from a Spider-Man movie. The combo of fighting villains, who are sometimes morphed into baddies by others, and swinging to all of the unique locations, makes for what I think is the game of the year. Sorry, Red Dead Redemption II. Insomniac Games has made the definitive Spider-Man game, and, perhaps, the defining superhero game of the decade.

Some of the things I didn’t like about the game was how a certain villain morphs other random strangers, who are dressed as popular Spider-Man villains, into real threats. It seemed a bit gimmicky and just weird. My first time playing, I had a very difficult time with a large man dressed as super-villain Rhino.

Some of the instant call-ins from characters like Aunt May and Mary Jane took me out of the game when I was in the middle of action. It was clever, but it wasn’t needed. Also, the music by John Paesano seemed subdued.

3.3 million copies of Spider-Man PS4 have been sold, and I’m sure it’ll be on a few Christmas lists this year.

image source: Marvel