It’s always a joyous occasion to get a new game, don’t you think? Endless Legend’s Guardian expansion released last week, and, along with a copy to review, this slightly crazed welshman also received a code for Endless Legend. Fortunately for one lucky reader, I’ve already got the game, and have permission to give the code away…

…Ah, wait, I may have misled with that last sentence. Give the game away? Not quite that simple. After all, first come first served is boring, and I do want to see some passion. So I want to hear a story. Not a long story, 300-500 words. But a story, and stories of Auriga, the dying world of Endless Legend are definitely going to be preferable. Don’t worry too much about accuracy to a world you may not have heard of: The faction summaries give some useful information, as do Amplitude’s forums, and for the rest, know that Auriga is a sentient world, and slowly… It is dying, entering an Ice Age from which it will not recover.

So maybe you’ll write a brief segment of life on this world, of the Broken Lords, condemned to eternal life at a terrible price they may not be able to pay. Maybe you’ll write how Auriga’s sentience, or its impending doom, was discovered.

Obviously, no friends or family of myself need apply, as they’d be disqualified. Sorry, I know a couple of you love writing fiction, but that’s only fair.

For the rest? Entry is very simple. Subject line is “Vignettes of a Dying World Entry”, email is, as always, themadpembsman@gmail.com , the winner will be announced at the end of the month, and they’ll have their steam key the same day.

Best of luck to all of you, and mentions shall definitely be made of top-tier entries!

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So, as you might have noticed, this one, and all the other articles, have been a little late. The downside of being the sole writer, really… You think you have a schedule, and then all sorts of things come up to play. Nonetheless, it’s been both interesting and harrowing, so I want to concentrate on certain things that have been going on. Shitty things, that go on behind our backs all the damn time, and we have yet to come up with a coherent response. Although that’s slowly beginning to change. Beginning to.

Kickstarter Fraud

You may not have heard of 2Awesome Studios. Lord knows I hadn’t, before the news hit. They’ve been making a game called Dimension Drive , and their Kickstarter failed. Now, normally, this wouldn’t be news, and you may be confused at the fact the link is to a Kickstarter that’s not even a day old. This is one of those “Good News, Bad News” things, and the Good News is just that… Dimension Drive, and 2Awesome by extension, have been given a second chance. The Bad News? How they failed the first time was, as you might have guessed from the title, due to shitlordery. Yes, I’m sticking to that wording. Essentially, someone promised 7000 euros, and… It was fraudulent. This is by no means the first time this has even happened this month, as Kiva Bay’s Feminist Deck project came very close to falling for a similar scam earlier in the month.

Yes, We’re Still Problematic

Another article of note in the week-and-a-bit’s news is by Zoe Quinn, one of many voices speaking up about industry “standards” that are toxic and shameful. It’s called Risky Business , and for the hard of reading among you, that’s part of the joke… A joke that, sadly, is all too real. As she says, there are hefty NDAs in a lot of AAA companies, crunch all over the place, imbalanced hiring practices, and yes, harassment is still a thing, and these things will continue to be Things That Happen until we say they shouldn’t. Until we educate smarter, not quicker. Until we realise, en masse, that It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way, and actively hunt for ways to improve, even if it means admitting Mistakes Were Made.

Guess what? That works for a lot of things. I’ve been writing this, for example, for almost a god-damn hour at the time of writing. Forty minutes of that has been the last paragraph, and deleting everything that comes after it because I’m not happy with what I’ve written. I could give up, throw my hands up, and move onto noteworthy releases and news. I’m not going to, because we need to see the Elephants in the Room. Plural.

We, the gamers and journos and industry figures, from top to bottom, have to look within ourselves, and deal with the things we don’t like about ourselves, the industry we’re in, and why we’re thinking what we’re thinking. That last bit is important, because we try to justify our bullshit all the time. Crunch Is Just Fine, Because We Can Fix The Bugs (Haha, I don’t see that all too often, and there’s other dimensions to the damage Crunch does.) I Can’t See It Myself, So It Can’t Be Happening (There’s a lot of things you can’t and won’t see. With luck, for example, I will never personally know the horrors of war, or being made homeless, and I hope you’ve managed to avoid these things too.) This Person Is Solely Responsible For This Game Being Bad (In most cases, it’s much more complicated than that. Your parents can’t really take sole responsibility for you being born… Think about how they met, what led to that, and you’ll quickly realise “Oh, hey, there was that person who hosted the party where they met, and the friend(s) that convinced them to go… Funnily enough, there’s a game that talks about how this happens in the game industry too. Rather tellingly, it’s called “The Writer Will Do Something“.)

It’s not an easy fight, and it’s one that has to be fought while still staying as healthy as possible… But even you, the reader who’s reading this right now and thinking “BUT THIS PERSON ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG“, can do your part. Take a little time each day to think why these issues crop up, time and time again. Crunch isn’t new. Sexism and Racism in games alone definitely isn’t new. And getting angry at people who turned out to have seen the problems early… Well, that ain’t new either, folks…

…Okay, now for interesting releases and news of the past week.

Things Wot Came Out (Of Note)

First of note is The Witcher 3. Much discussion is going on over the game already, from the writing (for good or ill) to how amazing the hair is. It released yesterday, it’s £50, and it’s apparently long enough to justify that price tag. Axiom Verge, coming in at £15, is a metroidvania that’s definitely attained some notice, so take a look, see if you like it. Quantum Rush Champions, another contender for the Wipeout Spiritual Successor throne, released a demo last week, and Invisible Inc also came out (Which I’ve reviewed today. QRC Demo’s free, Invisible Inc is currently £12, rising to the base price of £15 soonish.) Finally, a couple of note that I missed were Boss Monster (£5, a dungeon building and looting game based on the card game of the same name) and the release of Star Trek 25th Anniversary on Steam and GOG (A classic series, and a classic game… Can you do better than Kirk used to, and keep the redshirts safe all the way through? Also a fiver.)

Hanako’s released Black Closet, a procedurally generated game of school intrigue, and, of course, relationships at an all girl school, Bethesda/Id have given us the first teaser of Doom 4 (All… Er… 12 seconds of it, with an announcement we’ll know more at… sigh… E3), and Twitch are at least trying to reduce their stream lag.

And that’s a brief summary of the week!

…Okay, and a bit.

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Source : Early Access backer
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam , Official Site

INSPIRED BY… More than just Power Rangers, Saban, come the hell on…

“IF IT ISN’T STARFORCE! CEREBRO SHALL BE MINE, TO SHINE MY RED LIGHT ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND STOP THE WORLD IN ITS TRACKS!”

“TRANSITMANCER, YOUR TRAFFICKING IN EVIL ENDS NOW! WE, STARFORCE, SHALL -” Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there. I was adding my own mental soundtrack to Behold Studios’ Chroma Squad, a turn based strategy game about being the cast and studio of a Sentai studio.

For all that I outgrew some sentai shows (like Saban’s Power Rangers, who unfortunately didn’t like Chroma Squad, judging by the “Inspired by” that Behold had to slap on their title splash…), I don’t think I’ll ever really outgrow the Sentai genre, where bright, colour coded heroes fight rubber monsters and hammy villains with acrobatics, cheap pyrotechnics, and occasionally, forming a giant robot to SAAAAAVE THE WURRRRLD. Just writing that last sentence makes me grin, so you can imagine that I bought an early access copy of Chroma Squad as soon as I could humanly manage. The game is now released, and… It’s already a somewhat different beast to how it was earlier in production. Not completely different, but… Somewhat. I’ll occasionally mention some of these differences for contrast.

This is not a spoiler. They promised giant robots, you *get* giant robots.

One of the first things I’m going to mention, however, is that, as a game, it nails the broad feel of Sentai studios and their works. You start with extremely cheap costumes, and, if you’ve done well, by the end of Season 1, you’ll have upgraded to… Just really cheap costumes. Each “episode” is basically a simple, objective based fight, usually involving three kinds of enemies: Mooks, Mooks Who Can Shoot, and the episode’s Big Bad (In the case of Season 1, this includes the Fat Alien, the Cardboard Boxer, and the Transitmancer, the mysterious and enigmatic wizard of traffic!), and this also fits the feel of a Sentai show. Your well being depends on being popular, and so a lot of the challenge comes from pleasing your audience, whether through being cool with the fans (Signed photos, for example), or fulfilling audience challenges in a mission. Heck, there’s even a few “live episodes”, where the power of your fans literally powers you up (And yes, this is a thing actual Sentai shows do, it’s pretty awesome.)

Writing wise, it definitely has its strong points. There’s one episode which, if you hadn’t played in Early Access, you’d never know was a reference to the fact that, originally, the hostage really was a lady who’d not been paid enough for a speaking role (Bravo, Behold, for not only changing that up, but referencing it!), and the good natured moment where a fan bursts into the show to take a guest role (And the cast are won over by their passion) is really sweet. It also says a lot that among the first upgrades you can get is an SD Camera. Not HD… SD. I dread to think what they were using before I bought that.

Wait, where the hell did you come fro- Oooooh, *neat line*!!!

This isn’t to say that I don’t have some criticisms. I kinda liked being able to get hold of individual ingredients, but, presumably based on feedback, that’s been replaced with item lottery boxes. I’m also not a big fan of only having one skill upgrade to my team members per season, because the combination of these factors makes the first season… Well, drag on a bit. The special abilities don’t really need to be used until the finale of Season 1, and it makes the first season, despite its good writing, feel a litte slow. Only a little, though, and it picks up again once you get a Giant Robot, more costumes, and the first possibilities of the promised branching storyline.

Still, I can’t deny that I’m having fun. I’m enmeshed in fulfilling the fan challenges, finding ways to make my limited toolbox of abilities work best for me, and I like the fact that there are two parallel stories going on (The actual Sentai show, which is suitably silly, and the drama surrounding the studio, which I won’t spoil). For £11, it’s definitely got enough content (5 seasons, extra game features that unlock as it goes on, upgrading), and it claims multiple endings, so… If you like light strategy titles with some management thrown in, or Sentai shows, I don’t think this is a bad purchase. It’s not, as it stands, an amazing purchase… But it’s got charm, it’s got a sense of humour, and it does have surprising levels of challenge, even if that’s mostly been on the studio end.

It’s not *all* great though… LOOTBOX, WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME SO?

Chroma Squad released April 30th. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to fighting evil. Oh, and playing Chroma Squad.

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Source: Early Access backer
Price: base price £14.99 (Sale going on right now)
Where To Get It: Steam Page , Official Site

Start with two, maybe get four. Stun *all* the guards.

Even as a member of the awesome technological rebellion that is Invisible, Incorporated, I feel sorry for the security. One poor soul has been tazed for the third time in a row, and is no doubt thinking he might want to seek out a medical professional for what is obviously narcolepsy. I can’t feel too sorry, however, as the IT department of this particular company seems to want to eat my babies. This is just one of a large set of feelings I have for Invisible Inc, the latest offering from the creators of Mark of the Ninja, Klei Entertainment. Most of these feelings are positive.

The game boasts that it has 2 animated cutscenes, and I must admit, when I first saw that boast, I was leery of the release product (I’ve been following it since it debuted on Early Access), but my fears were put to rest within minutes. You see, the atmosphere in this game doesn’t depend on cutscenes. It depends on emergent stories, and I’m happy to report that what’s under the hood matches the aesthetic and themes of the game really well. So let’s go into that.

Sometimes, it can go horribly, disastrously wrong. And by god, it’s entertaining!

Invisible, Inc, despite its name, is not about a Syndicate like corporation, smashing all before it with soulless, mind controlled soldiers. It’s cyberpunk as all get out, and II are the little people, fighting back against the corporations that sought to stamp them out… And almost succeeded. The game’s premise is that the few free members of Invisible Inc are on the run, and have 72 hours (3 days) to, if not win their fight against such entities as Sankaku, the droid centric Japanese corporation, or the German arms supremos, [insert], at least kick them where it hurts. And all we have for that is the means to quietly slip into corporate buildings, a friendly, but limited AI, and not very much else. While options open up the more you play the game (characters who are better at killing, characters who can disable machinery, more hacking options), and you will get more powerful if you play your cards right, at the beginning, you’re up against it, and the clock is ticking.

Gameplay wise, it’s turn based, squad level strategy with some RPG elements. Two to four agents infiltrate a building, either beat down, hack, or avoid security measures, and try to both rob the place blind (Your finances and levelling up are dependent on this) and complete their objectives. And it’s pretty intuitive. There is a tutorial that gives you most of the basics, and the rest is quite helpfully shown in tooltips, in one of the three vision modes you can quickly switch between. And here’s where it gets fun.

Tactical View, where the necessity of hacking that one camera drone becomes so very clear.

See, Klei thought their design through, and it shows. It’s isometric, but not only can you rotate the view, you can switch to “tactical” view, which reduces the clutter, or “Incognita Mode”, which is where all the hacking takes place. It’s a risk reward game, where rushing will, done well, ensure the steadily creeping Alarm Level of the building won’t screw you over at a critical moment… And, done badly, will quickly and efficiently see you cut down, your cause lost. But there are very few moments where I’ve put down my keyboard and muttered “That was bullshit”, and, on reflection, most of those were definitely my fault. Like the time I went for a safe that I knew would take more to get to than the three turns it would take for the guard to wake up… And neatly trapped myself, with no backup because I split my agents too often. Or the time I hacked a camera drone, and realised afterward that it had nowhere to go.

Stacking the deck either way, allowing you to fine tune your experience, are Rewinds and Expert Mode checkboxes. Rewind modes are your “Oh sod, I didn’t mean to do that” button, allowing you to turn back time… But they’re a limited resource, adding a layer of tactical depth that remains intuitive. Meanwhile, expert mode restricts you in challenging ways, like adding a turn timer (Oops, now you can’t just sit back and think about it, because there’s ten seconds left to do something aaaaaaaaa-nuuuuu!), or making enemies harder. At its base level, though, the game encourages stealth over violence. Killing most guards will not only up the security level, it’ll cost you money, and that cost… Can quickly ramp up. Add to that that ammo is not always a guaranteed find, and… Well, it’s better to be dodgy, or sneaky, than to be violent, is all I’m saying… And I love it.

Do not do this unless you are confident each agent can handle things.

You’ll love it too, if you like turn based strategy and cyberpunk, or roguelikes and cyberpunk (As the levels are procedurally generated). If you’re not the patient type, however, or strategically minded… Don’t say I didn’t warn you when I say this game definitely wants you to think really carefully about whether you want to hack that Daemon protected safe open, or try and knock out that guard.

Invisible Inc released on the 12^th of May. A camera droid is watching me write this review, and it’s creeping me out a little.

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