Cthulhu Saves the World!

Cthulhu Saves the World! - $2.99 (comes with another game as well)
Time Played Before: 0 Hours
Time Played After Completion: 6 Hours

Review

Sometimes I long for the days of the 8 and 16 bit RPGs. Times were simpler. You leveled your character in the world and dungeons using random encounters and bosses. You gained allies, defeated foes, and looted and plundered your way to heroism and saving the world. I can't be the only one who miss these games. Good thing we have things like Cthulhu Saves the World to brighten those days of longing for the JRPG of our pasts.

 All the nostalgia is just coming back

CSTW (as I'm now abbreviating it, because it takes too long to write out, though because of this explanation of such, I may have made it a moot point) brings back all the memories of early final fantasies and games like chrono trigger. It's all typical old school JRPG fashion, so I'm not going into too much detail about the specifics, but lets just say, CSTW does it right, characters are memorable, the battles are difficult unless you over level, bosses are epic and the story is both hilarious and awesomely cliche.

Damn you narrator and your narrating ways!

I've never actually read any of H.P. Lovecraft's works surrounding The Ancient Ones, but I knew enough to get me along. You play as Cthulhu, who has been stripped of all his powers. The only way to get the powers of insanity back, is to become a true hero. Unfortunately for our squid faced friend, because he is so evil, this will be no small task. He completes tasks both menial and world saving to gain his powers back. I won't go into too much detail, but lets just say the story actually had me laughing out loud not long after the game was loaded. The dialog is just fantastic. My only problem is we never learned who stripped his powers away, we only see a cloaked man on a hill as Cthulhu rises. We never learn why or get revenge on this hooded do-gooder.

Always driving the ladies insane

The cast of characters are quite varied. You keep 4 in a party, and end up with 7 by just following the main storyline, with an 8th hidden in a secret dungeon, obtaining him after you beat him, and he's easily the most difficult fight in the game. For all I know there could be more characters, but I searched the map pretty well. From Cthulhu, to his groupie Umi, to a talking space cat. All is represented in CSTW. I really didn't dislike any of the characters, though I ended up falling into the typical JRPG spectrum with two direct damage dealers, a black mage of sorts and a healer. I could see using any of the group to fight though.

I wonder what an Elder God would name his pet squid..

The sound is great. Music brought me right back to my days of sitting on the floor of my bedroom playing Final Fantasy on my tiny television. The graphics are likewise. Don't come into this expecting new school graphics. This is purely 8 and 16 bit beauty at its finest. The world is well mapped out and towns aren't easy to be lost in. Dungeons on the other hand, tend to be sprawling, with no map system in place. Forks leading different directions are everywhere, and while some dead ends hold sweet sweet loot, many are just that: dead ends. When you near a staircase torches begin to show you're on the right track, but with random encounters, I don't really think the need for the vastness was really necessary. Though, each dungeon does have a set number of random encounters, after that, you're done. You can go into the menu and choose to fight though, allowing you to level up before a particularly nasty boss or two.

Each level up gives you two choices, usually a selection of AOE spell or direct damage spell or stats, along with a paltry addition to your hp and mp. I got my Cthulhu up to 45, and after 40 it seemed spells and techniques were done. It was the same two choices between +15 to stats or +30 to hp and mp, but the game should be completed near that time anyways, so it doesn't really matter.

It is a short adventure, and is never really that hard. It took me almost 7 hours to complete, finding most of the best loot in each dungeon and completing all the secret dungeons I could find. It suits the game well though. This was never meant to be one of those 100+ hours of JRPG gaming. It's an excellent condensed game, which I appreciate, as I don't have the patience anymore to grind endlessly to 99.

Once the game is finished, it opens up a slew of bonus modes. These include a time attack against the bosses with an under leveled party, the adventure again but heavily modified and using different dialog and characters, and a mode called Highlander, which gives you only 1 party member but boosted EXP. These modes are sure to entertain anybody who really enjoyed the game.

All I can say is, for $2.99, if you are at all a fan of old school JRPGs, go buy this. It comes with Breath of Death VII, another game by the same guy, with all the trappings of old schoolness too. I really can't wait to roll that one, because if it's even half as good as CSTW, I can't be disappointed.

And I you Cthulhu, and I you.

Final Verdict:

Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Story: 9/10
Replay: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

You really can't go wrong at $2.99, and it regularly goes on sale for 67% off, making it only $0.99 for both the games. If you ever get that itch for the old school but with some great comedy, give Cthulhu Saves the World a try. You're not going to regret it.

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And now, a new spin. Drum roll please...
Guild Wars...but I have played it to death, just not on Steam. I deem another spin is necessary..
Faerie Solitaire..interesting. Review to be posted soon.

As for Victoria II, my tiny nation of Sokoto hasn't done much, besides beginning to research some cultural technologies. Even after the tutorial, I'm still trying to learn everything. I really hope I can finish it up by the end of January, but we'll see.

Crayon Physics Deluxe

Crayon Physics Deluxe $19.99
Total Time Before: 0 Hours
Total Time After: 5 Hours

Review

Crayon Physics Deluxe is a puzzle game where you are attempting to get a ball to a star. Sounds easy enough. You accomplish this by drawings lines and shapes to try to influence that ball to go where you want. Physics are indeed in play, allowing you to create catapults, simple levers, and any other thing you can think of.

 Some solutions are simple

There are eight separate islands, each with a number of puzzles for you to solve. As you beat levels and add to your number of stars, you unlock these new islands. Each level has 2 stars to add to your total. The first is the obvious one, the one you move the ball to to end the level. The second, took me a little bit to understand. No real tutorials or help is given, so after finishing the first island I was surprised I was missing half the stars available.

You see, each level also has 3 objectives along with just finishing the level regularly. They're the same for every level unfortunately, and one just involves clicking into some menus. The other two are called "Elegant" and "Old School". Elegant means you can only draw one line, along with pins (basically pivot points for your shapes). Old school doesn't allow pins or clicking on the ball to get it started. The last objective is simply saying your solution is "Awesome". You achieve this by going into the menu of the level and clicking awesome over your solution. It's annoying after the first time. I don't want to go through every level and click through the menus. I think its obvious I think all my solutions are awesome, isn't that enough?

If going for all the stars, its going to take some thought

Most of the levels can knock everything off in one play, by only using one shape and not clicking the ball to drive it forward. Some are quite easy if you think about the physics involved and create levers. Others are based on pure stupid luck. The levels with rockets in particular, many of them are just about drawing the shape you want to drag the ball and rocket together and hoping for the best. But most levels are fun and do require some thought and trial and error. Some make excellent use of the environment, adding boats, cars, clouds and other things that also rely entirely on the physics of the level. Making a sled to drag the ball behind a car to the star looks ingenious, and when you do it, you feel proud that you created that solution, even though probably everybody else thought of the same.

This level haunts my dreams

Most my solutions probably weren't the most efficient, but I made them work. I unlocked 141 stars in the end, missing 16. You only need 120 to unlock the eighth island, which only contains one level. I basically completed the first 6 islands totally, but got frustrated with many of the 7th island's levels and only completed them regularly, without the extras.

The physics are sometimes quite wonky. Drawing a line under the ball to a large weight sometimes results in the ball sometimes being the heavier of the two, even on a smaller lever, but overall, it works.

The music can't be anymore annoying. It attempts to be relaxing, but after the first island I was over it and promptly muted it. If there were at least different music for each island, I wouldn't have minded, but the unending song for 5 hours would have been far too much.

The hand drawn world looks good, based upon the presumption you're playing with crayons. The folded sheet of paper for the background gives it a nice touch.

The game also includes a level editor, allowing you to try and puzzle your friends with your own devious designs. I wish workshop were included in this game, because I'm sure some people could come up with absolutely ridiculous levels.

Final Verdict

Gameplay: 7/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 3/10
Puzzles: 8/10
Replay: 8/10 (at least for max stars)

Overall: 7/10

A good puzzle game. I'm sure many have it because of the Humble Bundle, so give it a go if you feel like being stumped via physics. Just don't get too frustrated with those damned rockets.

Sidenote:
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Victoria II is going as well as expected. I finished the tutorial and began my rise to power. I decided to start with a less civilized nation, without many neighboring countries to contend for resources and land with, the tiny nation of Sokoto in Africa. Not sure if this is a good plan or not, as they are ranked 95/125 in the world. We shall see.

The next rolled game comes out to be...
Cthulhu Saves the World!
I have no idea what it is other than an old school RPG. Not sure if an update will be coming this Saturday, as I'll be out of town with the in-laws, depends on if I can sit down and write. If not, Sunday evening or Monday morning a new update will be posted. Hope everybody had a Merry Xmas.

Victoria II update and a new roll

Okay, I really underestimated this game. I really enjoy strategy games, but this takes it to an extreme. I've played it for 2 hours, and am only 2/3 of the way through the tutorial. This makes Civilization or Total War look like a joke. There is no possible way I really grasp this game anytime in the near future.

Each one is about 10-15 minutes, and that's if you get everything the first time through

Therefore, I'll be playing it alongside the others that I roll. I think by the end of January I will really be able to judge this game...hopefully. Yes, it's that ridiculous. If you are looking for an in depth strategy game, I suggest picking this up, it's crazy how in depth it is. I think in actually running a real country, less information would be given to you.

I loaded into a new game, thinking I'd played enough strategy games to know enough to at least get started, and was immediately overwhelmed by the amount of information I was given. Civ's 25 or so civilizations are a pretty good number I thought. Try 125 for Victoria II. That's not a typo. 125 separate countries to try and navigate through the world toward supremacy. From the UK and Prussia to tiny African nations like The Zulu and Liberia.

Yes, each of those colors represent a nation. Some too small to write a name on. And this is only Mid Asia

Every update for other games, I will inform you all how the struggle to understand this game is going in a side note. I don't care how confusing it is, I will get it and decimate my enemies.

Anyways, I'll be playing other backlogged games while I attempt this beast, so therefore, another roll!
And..
Crayon Physics Deluxe. That is more like it. Something I can actually wrap my head around, while I'm struggling to play V2.

Defense Grid: The Awakening

Defense Grid: The Awakening $9.99
Total Time Before: 2.8 Hours
Total Time After Completion: 6.6 Hours

Review

Defense Grid is your prototypical tower defense game. Enemies come in swarms along a relatively set path, you build and upgrade towers and let them do the work. Resources flow into your coffers via kills along with it trickling in over time. Nothing in DG wowed me. I've played plenty of TD games over the years, some do things well, some do things horribly. DG just runs middle of the road, making it a forgettable experience.

You are defending a planet populated by humans from aliens. Doesn't sound cliche at all eh? With the help of your AI buddy, who constantly spouts off the same lines over and over, driving you insane, you build towers up and defend a central location. The location contains "cores", that will help power the defense grid. If the aliens take them, no defense grid. You go through each level, ruining these aliens plans and learning about how your AI buddy wasn't always an AI. Problem is, I don't care. It just doesn't do anything to make the story anything other than a after thought.

The game does look pretty for a TD game, I'll give it that. Explosions and gunfire light up the screen as your enemies crumble beneath you. Each map is modeled well, giving a different feel. From industrial to arctic, they really come alive.  Problem is, that really is all the game does particularly well.

The challenge that other TD games present are just not there. Sure, you can shoot for a high score, beat out your friends, but not once did I feel like I was being challenged to just finish the map. With the right assortment of a few towers, you can complete every map with no difficulty. I tried out every tower, attempted different variations, but by the end, found myself only using the same 3 or 4 towers every map. Most are weak and completely useless, so all my funds went into buying and upgrading the towers that actually produced results. And by produced results, I mean making every map impossible to lose even a single core, until the late levels. Some kind of balancing needed to happen, but never did.

The types of aliens were incredibly underwhelming. You're introduced to a "boss" type alien early in the levels, and he remains the only one throughout the game. Occasionally you're introduced to new species, but none of them actually offer any resistance. The problem is, I never dreaded to see a certain type on the screen. I was never thinking my tower build was wrong because of this one enemy.

Each map also includes challenge modes. I tried each of the variations, and just wasn't ever impressed. Some make enemies tougher, some don't allow upgrading, and some give you an allotted amount of resources that don't increase. They add some challenge to the maps the story never does, but not enough to make me want to beat everybody's high scores.

There are Map Packs that add to the game, but each seem to only carry 4 or 5 maps, and I'm glad I never bought most of them. They continue the dull, uninteresting gaming known as Defense Grid. I really was looking forward to a challenging TD game, that would change things up a bit. Alas, all I received were OK graphics and the same cut and paste TD game we've had for years. The creators do have a kickstarter that somehow raised enough funds to create a second game, so hopefully they somehow change the mold and make it worth playing for fans beyond TD games.

Final Verdict

Gameplay: 6/10
Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Story: 3/10
Replay Value: 4/10 (Really only for beating high scores)

Overall: 6/10

A middle of the road TD game. If you enjoy them, you might have some fun beating your friends high scores and the challenge maps. If you haven't tried a TD game before, don't judge them all based on Defense Grid. It's just your average TD game with some better graphics. And being average is nothing to be excited about.
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In other news, Merry Xmas Eve or whatever you celebrate based upon your beliefs. I'm spinning again right now so that I can get a jump on my days off and hopefully have another game ready for Wednesday, if not, a progress post will be created.

And the winner is...

Victoria II! Finally a game I have never even installed. I actually think it was gifted to me randomly. Apparently a strategy game that plays throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. As boring as most of you probably think that sounds, it's right up my alley. I do have a bachelor's degree in history after all. Not sure what nation I'll be, but if there are any Nordic ones, I will be fighting for their supremacy. Long Live Odin! Depending on how much time I've got to play, I'll have a review or my progress for the game on Wednesday. Again, Merry whatever you celebrate and game on.

Spinning the Wheel

Alright. I'm ready to spin the wheel again after my adventures through the Mountain of Grimrock. As it's spinning, I'm not really hoping for anything in particular, though I'd like a game I've never even touched..

Well, I have played it a little. The wheel decided my fate was to play Defense Grid: The Awakening.
Its a tower defense game, though it looks much prettier than most. I've played a little bit, but don't remember much about it. I

I'll be playing it over the next couple days. I'm not completely sure if there is any story or if it's a straight TD game, but either way, I'll play through. When finished, I'll review and update. Tune in.

Oh, and a side note, I just noticed that steam roulette doesn't appear to work properly in Firefox. I usually use chrome, which works fine with it, but for some reason I opened it with Firefox today and was incredibly confused as to why it wasn't responding.

The Legend of Grimrock

Legend of Grimrock : $14.99
Total Time before: 13 Hours
Total Time after completion: 27 Hours

Review

Legend of Grimrock is new classic when it comes to Eye of the Beholder style games. It does so many things right with little complaint. I knew what I was getting into since I had already logged some time into the game, but I had never gotten very far. Changing my party's makeup and tweaking things never allowed me to pass the first couple of levels. I eventually got distracted by some other game and am now disappointed I did, because if you enjoy these style games, it's one of the best I've played in a long while.

The game begins with you choosing a difficulty, the option of character creation, and an "old school" mode (removes the map. Better get our your graph paper, because you will get lost). Character creation is fulfilling, giving you 4 races with multiple portraits and 3 classic classes, fighter, mage, and rogue. You allot your stats, skills, and traits, depending upon the race and class chosen. There are many options to build the characters you see fit, though some choices obviously outweigh others, since my Minotaur rogue who specialized in throwing weapons completely dominated the game, leaving my other companions more as meat shields and the holders of torches.

The only rough patch in the whole game is the story. Without going into too many spoilers, your party has been sentenced to the Mountain of Grimrock, a prison of sorts. Nobody has ever survived its abysses. Little is known beyond that. You are essentially escaping a huge prison. Some things, like notes that a former prisoner has left behind, add to the story a little, but his notes mainly help to solve puzzles and lead to secret passages.

The only story once you get into the depths of the dungeon, is strange dreams when resting. These dreams, urge you to delve deeper. That something is awaiting you to allow for your escape. They are purposely vague, but really don't drive toward anything. It's even possible to completely miss them if you never rest. I didn't even get any until about the 5th level of the dungeon, because I never had a need to rest.

Is that so?

Now that I've dealt with my minor complaint, onto the praises. The graphics are wonderful. While there are only 3 tile sets in the game, it looks beautiful. Monsters are well rendered, lighting and shadows are done well enough to be incorporated into puzzles. Running the game maxed out at 1920x1080 really makes it a pretty game. While it may not be the realism of some games, it doesn't need that. Sound is really excellent too. If you have surround sound speakers or headphones I definitely suggest using them. You can hear walls opening in the distance when you solve a puzzle, allowing you to direct yourself to them. The marching boots of skeleton warriors or skittering of giant spiders can be heard on the other sides of walls. I got really immersed many times with it.

Giant slugs are the least concerning foe ever created.

Combat is what you make of it. If you enjoy tile based combat like the games of old, it's for you. The combat isn't really traditional turn based, more of an active turn system. Movement is free, allowing you to sidestep slower enemies and dodge missiles and spells with ease if you're paying attention. All attacks are on cool down timers, be it melee, magic, or ranged. This allows you to attack but still stay on the move while your attacks cool down. When multiple enemies fill a small area, movement becomes a premium and strategy really becomes necessary. Keeping your squishy companions against walls, so as to not be struck becomes the only way to get through at times.

Dinosaurs on the other hand...

Spells are cast by clicking on a combination of buttons in a 3x3 grid. Spells are learned through scrolls littered throughout the dungeon, but memorization is a must. You're never given a true spell list, and since combat is free flowing, you wouldn't have time to be searching for the right combination anyways. None are overly complicated, usually using 2 or 3 buttons, making it a bit simpler. Since my mage was specced into Air magic, I only really remembered the skills that were useful to me, 3 or 4. If you decide to take the jack of all trades route, without an excellent memory, things might get difficult. If you don't have the skill to cast the spell, it fails, wasting your mana. Also, depending on your will power, spells you may even know and are well versed in can fail, making a easy fight into a panic.

The grid of magic is a great idea, the spell I'm about to cast is "Light"

The difficulty really depends on your setting. I went with hard, because I almost always do with games, and it was challenging, until the end game where my rogue was just destroying monsters with 2 throws. But the fact is, you will die. A lot depending on your party make up. You are allowed to save anywhere at anytime, with quick saves happening at crystals of life (giant crystals that restore hp and mana and the only way to revive any fallen companions). 

Crystals only appear once each level, if that, so don't count on em.

I suggest saving anytime you make any decent progress. It's quite disheartening to die to a spider, ogre, or even a trap and have to traverse the whole level of that dungeon again, and trust me, they are big.

Slimes aren't fodder in this RPG when you first meet them.

Puzzles are excellent. Some really are challenging, but clues are always given and with enough thought, can be completed. I think at most I ever spent on a single puzzle was about 15 minutes, but never was it frustrating. Not all of them are mental challenges though, many are a test of dexterity as much as your mind. Hitting a switch and having to run through a gauntlet of trap doors comes to mind. Some require you to really look at your surroundings and find hidden switches. I was slightly disappointed with these, since they are all the same in each tile set, never changing position or shape. So when on a puzzle with hidden doors, all you are doing is strafing about looking at the same area on every wall.

This should be fun..

Overall, the game is impressive. It took me a little under 10 hours to compete. I found most of the secrets, notes and treasures the dungeon held, save 2, which I'm quite disappointed with. I believe a single run through would have taken longer, but as I said, I'd already played about half way through before and remembered many of the secrets and puzzles already. Good news is that the game comes with a dungeon editor, so the fun never runs out. Making it even simpler is it has Steam Workshop compiled with it. At the moment of this writing, the list of dungeons both player and developer made come in at 331 separate dungeons. One is even in the middle of recreating Eye of the Beholder, completely from scratch. Even with this beaten, I'm definately going through many of those.

My complete stats and characters moments before the end.

Final Verdict

Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 9/10
Story: 5/10
Replay: 10/10

Overall: 9/10

If you like grid based RPGs or RPGs in general, if you have this sitting in your backlog, install and play it now. If you don't have it, go buy it now.

Tomorrow, I'll be rolling a new game, but for now, I'm going to load up some of these custom dungeons.

The Beginning..

I've had Steam for quite a while now, and lets just say I'm a sucker for the deals. A game for $2.99 when it's regularly $9.99? Sold! Problem is, I have entirely too many games. My backlog grows as new games are released and I have to play them.

This blog will cover my quest to end the backlog. To play the games that would never be played. I'll be reviewing them, telling you if it's actually worth buying if you do see those sweet sweet deals. Especially with the Winter Sale going live within the next week, which will just add to the already incredible list.

This, is the rundown of my Steam Profile Analysis, as created by Lambentstew.com. Try it and see how terrible you should feel about your backlog.

Games currently owned: 265
Games played: 144
Games never played: 121
Percentage played: 54.34%
Total Hours: 1221.6
Total Dollars: $3754.83 (this is not quite accurate as it takes current prices, and a huge number of my games come from either indie bundles or steam sales, still a shocker. Also, this isn't not played, this is my entire library, but do the math, still a lot of money wasted on games never played.)

Well, while it does say it's above 50%, I don't entirely trust that. A good number of those 144 I have played, have only been for less than an hour. A good number of them, just to see if they ran well. If we're to remove the games I've played for less than 5 hours, which to me seems quite little to begin with for non indie games, the actual unplayed total goes to 227. Terrible.

While some of those games include games that refuse to run (I'm looking at you Overlord), and a couple FTP games that just don't suit me, most of them are legitimate titles. To decide what I'll be playing, I'll be using another tool I found online: http://steam-roulette.heroku.com/

With this tool, you type in your community ID, and it rolls through your games, randomly drawing one. This will decide what backlogged game I'll be playing.

The rules I've established for myself are simple.
1. If the game runs, I need to play it, to its entirety. Good or bad, I'm going to give each of these games a fighting chance.

2. If the wheel rolls a game I've already played +5 for, but never finished, I need to finish it. I've got games I really enjoyed, but got distracted by another game during that time, they need to be finished.

3. If the game has already been played for +5 and I have beaten it, I will spin again.

4. while I'll be playing new releases that I get along with the backlog, at least one game needs to be taken off the list weekly, or in the case of rule #2, I need to play it for at least 5 hours.

I may think of more, who knows, but for now, ground rules established. Now, to begin..

The very first roll in this epic journey is one of the #2 rule games, Legend of Grimrock.

Once I finish the game I'll review it and tell you whether you should buy it or play it if it's been sitting in your backlog  (in the case of Legend of Grimrock, you should).