Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark

Cost
$9.99
Format
Digital
Size
2.95 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], Steam

Release Date
5/13/15
Developer
ItalicPig
Publisher
Team17
Modes
Single Player

Schrödinger’s Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark (here after referred to as the Cat Game) is a platformer by Italic Pig and Team17 with a bunch of puzzling and a heavy heavy physics background. And not physics like in game shenanigans like Portal, no physics as in physics jokes and puns. Seriously. If you are a Stephen Hawking-aphile you’re going to be laughing your ass off and trying to high five a lot of people who have no idea what the hell that joke even meant. Do you think puns related to the Higgs boson is the absolute top level of comedy? Then you probably have a lot of social issues but at least this game is for you! The story goes that all of these particles have escaped from the Particle Zoo and you need to get them all back. Now I’m not saying that if you don’t get the references you’re not going to enjoy the game. I’m just saying they made a game whose name is based on a experiment that if you put a cat into a box and it has a 50% chance of dying is the cat dead, alive or both?

Physics be funny!

So how do you go about finding and capturing these 100s of Gluons and Muons and other particles? Scattered throughout the levels you will start to collect four different Quarks. These are small brightly colored objects and they are EVERYWHERE. After you collect a bunch of these Quarks you combine them, 3 at a time, into 14 different combos. You create things like Copter, that lifts you to areas you can’t directly jump to. Missiles allow you to blast through walls and Dig allows you to, well, blast through the floor. There are a total of 14 abilities and most of these combinations are given to you by the game but a few have to be discovered by you as you play. The Cat has all the typical platformer moves to go along with these abilities like a limited attack move and jumping but you’ll be using the abilities A LOT.

There are two different types of levels you will be playing in the Cat Game. Hub style open area levels are where you are just trying to collect those Gluons and other escaped particles and pretty much just get yourself to the next main puzzle area. In these types of levels Quarks are everywhere. They end up being a non currency because of how easy they are to get. You can just enter and leave levels to load up on quarks. You can easily get 50 or more of each Quark so it’s not really if you are going to be able to get through the level, just how you are going to do it.

Get those Glouns

The puzzle levels, by contrast, are the complete opposite. You are typically given only the exact number of Quarks you need to complete a area and then any extra are taken from you before you start the next section. My problem with these sections are they need to be done pretty much perfectly. There is typically no way to backtrack to reacquire Quarks you lose through using your abilities. If you need to Copter up to a area but fail to make the ledge you need to get to, or perhaps you just fall off the ledge, you literally have no way of getting back up there. You need to pause to the menu and restart checkpoint. It takes you out of the game and it would of been more in-game to simply have a place to fall back to that got you the Quarks you needed to re-start that section again instead of having to constantly reload.

The game is also randomly generated so every time you play you’ll get a different layout. I assume this is why the level design is so so boring. The Cat and other NPCs and enemies look really top notch. As you collect more and more Quarks it really fells like this mass of creatures always there when you need them. But the levels themselves are pretty much made from 3 elements that just repeat and repeat and repeat. You have a ground element that you can break, a rock element that you can not break, and the goo element that harms you. That’s about it.

Although you can complete the game without getting all the lose particles there is a achievement for capturing them all. Each level typically has a few signs that point out how many of each are left in the game and how many are left in the particular area you are in. There is no fast travel level select here though. Up until the end of the game you area able to backtrack to previous areas but it is quite the chore to do so. Any game that tasks you will collecting and finding so many objects should by law, Ampere’s Law, (Google physics reference!) have a level select.

The story and acting are top notch, but the repetitive and boring level design are a unfortunate distraction from the solid platform/puzzle gameplay. The difference between “Open Quarks Quarks Everywhere As Far As The Eye Can See” and the “Puzzle Only As Many Quarks As You Need And Not A Single Quark More” levels is such a huge disparity and with how abundant the Quarks are in the open areas it seems like it would of been more enjoyable to play if the player just got unlimited Quarks in these areas. Anyone who enjoys platformers and puzzle games fun should give Schrod’s Cat a chance, especially at the bargain price of just $10. You might also pick up some amazing physics info you can throw out at your next dinner party. Or not. Probably not.

• FINAL VERDICT

Splatoon

Cost
$59.99
Format
Retail and Digital
Size
1.80 GB
Available On
Wii U [Reviewed]

Release Date
May 29, 2015
Developer
Nintendo EOD2
Publisher
Nintendo
Modes
Multiplayer and Single Player

Splatoon is a third person multiplayer turf-war shooter from Nintendo. It’s the Big N’s first true attempt at an online shooter. The game was announced at E3 last year in 2014 and was made available for the masses less than a year later. There was definitely excitement and intrigue upon the games announcement. And that has carried over and multiplied until the release just this week. With much hype comes the chance for a big let-down, so Nintendo has to tread lightly. Nintendo is jumping into a whole new genre for them and a whole new franchise. There are two things that can always be predicted with a Nintendo game. It has the chance to have brand new revolutionary things that the world has never seen before. And it also has the chance to completely skip out on key features that other games have nailed down for years. As a Nintendo fan, I always hope for that first thing and fear the latter.

Splatoon’s second-to-second gameplay is incredible. It provides some of the most fun online shooting I’ve ever had a chance to play. You play as a squid kid, called an inkling, with special powers. As in normal shooters, you have a gun, some grenades, and various ways to take down your enemy. There are different guns that are great in different scenarios, from high powered assault rifles to long range snipers. That’s about where the comparisons stop when it comes to every other shooter out there. The HUGE difference maker and home-run hitter when it comes to gameplay and execution, is the INK. Each team has a different color ink to work with. It might be green vs pink. It might be blue vs yellow. In the various game modes, the ink is everything. The main gamemode is called turf war. It’s a quick three minute battle where the objective is to cover the map with as much of your color ink is possible. At the end the score is tallied up and whichever team has more ink percentage wins. The stage starts out completely ink free; when you shoot ink from your fun onto the floor it covers that area in your ink. If it stays there the whole game, that would go towards the teams final ink tally at the end. However the other team can just as easily spray their own ink right on top of yours and take over the area. It’s a constant battle for dominance. Of course you can also take out the enemy with your ink guns as well. Another game mode is like king of the hill, called Splatzone, but with an awesome twist. Instead of gaining points by standing in the area and fending off the enemy, you gain points by making sure the whole area is dominated by your teams color. There’s a lot more strategy involved than the average king game, because you don’t need to stay in the area at all times, you can leave the spot and kill bad guys or flank around, as long as you keep an eye on that Splatzone. Both of these game modes with the ink being the center of it all is so much fun. In a world were deathmatch is king and almost every other game mode falls to the wayside, Splatoon’s ink is the reason why these new game modes are so much fun.

On top of the gamemodes being “ink”centric, the ink provides so many new gameplay opportunities. The biggest thing revolves around your inkling being able to turn into a squid and swim through the ink. With a touch of a button, you can transform into a squid and fly through the ink at double the speed when compared to running. This is also how you reload/refill your weapons. You have an ink container on the back of your inkling. And you can see it drain away with every shot fired; you can then duck into your ink to refill your tank back up. This feels intuitive and natural very quickly, as does swimming around in the ink itself. The most important fact about all this ink diving is that you can only do so in your own team’s ink. Meaning if you are playing on the green team, you can only swim around and refill in the green ink. And if you walk around in the enemy’s ink, you will slowly take damage and you won’t be able to move at all, almost like you’re stuck in mud up to your knees. You also have a special meter that fills up whenever you cover areas in your ink. Once the special meter is filled, you can use your specials, which are similar to kill steaks. Some of them drop down a huge tornado like missile from the sky, others provide a safety bubble around your inkling for a few seconds, and others allow you to shoot a huge rocket from your back for maximum carnage. So the whole game revolves around the ink. Along with it being your weapon to splat and take down the enemy, it’s also used for the game modes themselves as the goal of the game and also it’s used for traversal, gameplay mechanics, and more.

Some of the gameplay mechanics that can be done with the ink is truly revolutionary to the genre. When being attacked by an enemy, it’s not simply about going behind cover or firing away, the ink adds so much more. As soon as a gunfight starts, you can drop into your ink and flank around him before he even notices. Remember the ink on the ground would have to be your own color to do so. But even though you can go into the ink, the enemy can still hurt and kill you while you’re underneath, and there’s still a bump and ripple effect around the submerged inkling, so they can still see you with a quick eye. Flanking around some enemies before a gun fight even starts and catching them off guard is very satisfying. Of course camping is a huge annoyance in shooters, so you’d think ducking under the ink and hiding would be a major camping problem. But it’s not really at all. First off, you can’t shoot while underneath, so you are actually in a more dangerous spot since the enemy can still shoot and kill you while you are submerged. Secondly, since EVERY game mode and so many gameplay elements revolve around the ground being saturated with your own team’s ink, players are constantly shooting and covering the ground with their own ink. So even if you think hiding under the ink and waiting for them to pass is a safe thing to do, they can start shooting and killing you without them even noticing because they were just planning on taking over that area and turning it from green to pink for their own team’s sake. The map design is also quite open, and the range of the weapons is rather low, so camping is almost entirely nonexistent, which is awesome. Another amazing gameplay ability with the ink is climbing up walls. Covering the walls will not help your team gain points, only the ground counts. But it can help you climb up to new areas or perches to jump off of and catch the enemies off guard. The amount of tricks that you can learn and conquer over time is thrilling and really sets the game apart from the average shooter. The ink really makes this like nothing else I’ve ever played before.

The controls themselves feel very nice, you can use the gyroscope to aim, but I recommend just going with the dual sticks like a normal shooter. There are a few cool abilities when it comes to the touchpad on the gamepad. If you have the inkstrike special, you use the screen to tap on the map where you want it to land. But the main reason you will use the touchpad is when you respawn. You can choose to just start right back from the original spawn when you die, or you can click on any teammate on the map and launch into the air and land right next to them. Be careful though, the location you will land appears on the enemies’ screen, so if it’s a really hot spot it might be an instant death. Powerups and special abilities can really ruin an online shooter. In destiny the game got really out of hand, as every five seconds it felt like I was getting killed by a massive sun orb or titan punch. In Splatoon, every special powerup can be extremely effective. But a skilled player still has the chance to see it coming and avoid it. It’s a fair balance for the most part.

Progression, weapons, and perks is a very important part about any online shooter. Is there diversity? Is there balance? Is it fun to unlock new things? These are all questions that need to be answered with an emphatic yes. Every time you launch up Splatoon you spawn in Inktropolis, the game’s hub world. Inktropolis is awesome. It’s colorful, vibrant, and full of life. It feels like a real place and really sets the tone for the world the game takes place in. The hub world is filled with other Inklings of real people online. It’s very much like Destiny’s hub world, the Tower. Only difference is characters are not walking around in real time. It’s just there in game characters with their names, their gear, and a miiverse message. On the left hand side of the city there are a set of stores, where you can buy your gear and weapons. On the right hand side is where you’ll find the single player, the local multiplayer, and a black market dealer who can sell you rare stuff for a lot of cash. And straight ahead is where you can jump into online multiplayer. The stores on the left side are where you’ll find yourself running into as often as possible. There are four different stores, each one of them specializing in a different item. The shop keepers are full of character and impossible not to love. There’s a horseshoe crab helmet wearing salesman of guns, a big shrimp who sells shoes, a jellyfish who sells shirts, a girl who has sea anemone for hair with a clown fish living in it. Each character is funny and unique, for example the sea anemone girl is very shy and unsure of herself, meanwhile the clownfish on her head is often screaming at you and telling you to hurry up and pay. All of the buyable gear has unique look and style. On top of that they have abilities attached to them. Each hat, shoes, and shirt has random abilities and it’s up to the buyer to pick which one they like the best. There are abilities that range from giving your weapon a bit of extra damage power to making your movement while swimming under ink invisible. Picking those perks that best utilize your play style is crucial. None of them seem overpowered; they just give small advantages in different styles of play. One example of these abilities is one that allows you to use your specials longer. So when you cover enough area with ink and you gain your ink bazooka, you can use it for an extra few seconds thanks to the extra ability in your gear. However if you have the inkstrike, which is an airstrike of ink, it’s a onetime use special. So there’s no point in having the ability of being able to use your specials for longer. So it’s your job to switch out the gear to better help you with whatever play-style you choose.

The weapons are done smartly as well. At every level you unlock a new gun pack that you can choose to buy with your coins that you unlock in multiplayer. Some weapons are certainly better at different jobs than others. There’s SMG style guns, mid range assault rifle style guns, snipers, and rollers (which I’ll get to in a second). The sub-weapons, your grenade and mines, are good for different styles of warfare as well. And of course those powerful specials can be deadly. Here’s the very smart thing Nintendo did with the weapons. Instead of allowing you to pick individual guns, subs, and specials, you have to pick packages. Meaning you can’t just pick that best SMG mixed with that best grenade mixed with that best special. Otherwise quickly the game would become top heavy with the “best” weapons. Think how Call of Duty games often have three or four guns that everyone always uses with the same perks that everyone uses with the same equipment and same kill streaks. ACR, Stopping Power, Claymores, Scavenger Pro, Harrier, Attack Choppper, Nuke from Modern Warfare 2 anyone? (If that went over your head, ignore it.) The way Splatoon handles the weapons is in packages, and each gun has a couple different package options. For example if you like the .52 Gal gun, you have two different options. You can pick the one that comes with the Splash Wall sub and Killer Wall special. Or you can pick the package with the Seeker sub and the InkStrike special. If you like the Aerospray gun, you can have the package with the Seeker sub and Inkzooka special. Or the Aerospray with the Ink Mine sub and Ink Strike special. These different packages create different play-styles and allow for fair balanced gameplay.

To jump back to the Roller class I talked about earlier, there is a style of weapon that is called a Roller and these can be very deadly but also can be easy targets. Imagine when you are painting a wall; you use big rollers to spread paint across large areas, a lot quicker than a paint brush. This is the same principle in Splatoon. Roller weapons can be used to spread ink across large areas very quickly, and they can get kills by running over other players like a cement roller.

Single player is surprisingly fun. The story is very simple and nothing special. But the gameplay takes everything from the multiplayer and adds so much more. The bad guys are silly, creative, and a lot of fun to kill. When you jump into single player, there are hub worlds filled with four to six levels and they climax with a very Nintendoy boss battle. The single player also unlocks weapons for multiplayer, including the very fun Aerospray.
The graphics in Splatoon are very very pretty. Colors are vibrant and bright. Animations are slick and cartoony. In single player the enemies are lively and fun. The gear, weapons, and maps all have unique and fun looks. The music is very hit and miss. Splatoon does a great job of creating its own unique sound, but some of the songs lean more towards annoying than. The more laid back and quiet songs in the city, shops, and hub areas are all awesome. But some of the music during gameplay is pretty bad and others are amusing and memorable.

For the most part this review has been filled with all the good of Splatoon. But there are definitely some major problems, luckily they can be fixed and it seems like Nintendo is working on them. First off, there are only 6 maps. 6 maps for a launch of a multiplayer focused game is kind of absurd. Also there are only three game-modes in multiplayer. Add on the single player and it’s not half bad, but it definitely needs more. Thankfully Nintendo is on top of that. Already, less than a week after launch they’ve updated the game twice, one new map and two new weapons. At the moment, the top level is 20, which is doable in a decent amount of time. There is no prestige. I’m definitely hoping Nintendo ups the top level or adds a prestige. Probably the most baffling design choice is that there is no voice chat. A 4v4 online shooter without voice chat is unheard of today. But Nintendo us stuck in its ways. Luckily, in the short matches and tight gameplay, it isn’t missed quite as much as you’d think. Nintendo has promised to continue to support Splatoon with new maps, weapons, game-modes and more in the near future and far far beyond as well. If Nintendo can support this game more along the lines of PC Arena shooter over the next two years then this game has the real chance to grow into a classic.

The love and support for Splatoon is very real. Nintendo fans and gamers a plenty are all about this game. Its new unique gameplay is exactly what the genre needs. Nintendo has created something truly special in Splatoon. The game is balanced, fun, and challenging. All the crazy gameplay, movements, and gunplay allowed through the ink is unlike anything I’ve ever played before. Nintendo needs this game to be a big hit, and I think it has a very strong chance to be. It’s not perfect, but the problems are not design problems, they are fixable issues that can be addressed in time. The Splatoon community will play this game for a very long time as long as the Big N continues to support it.

• FINAL VERDICT

The Swapper

Cost
$14.99
Format
Digital
Size
416.05 MB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4

Release Date
6/5/15
Developer
Carbon
Publisher
Curve Digital
Modes
Single Player

The Swapper is a clone based puzzle game from Carbon and Curve Digital. In a story as old as time you play a character that is trying to escape something with no recollection of why you are trying to do it. What is it about puzzle stories and amnesia? The Swapper’s universe is a hub world where you acquire orbs to open doors to get to other hub worlds. There are a large number of puzzle rooms to solve to get these orbs. Your ability in The Swapper is the ability to project up to 4 clones of yourself, all of these clones are linked together, so if you move forward, all your clones move forward also. Even if that would send them off a cliff. As long as the personality you are controlling lives, all the other deaths don’t count for anything which in itself is a interesting ethical and morale question I don’t plan to get into here. But if cloning morals is something you are interested in then by all means go rent the movie The Island, or don’t as it’s not that great. If fact many puzzles require you to eliminate old clones to allow new clones to move forward. “Jerry #325! How you doing down there? Don’t mean to be a bother but can you just go ahead and walk off that cliff and fall to a very painful and final death. Here let me give you a little nudge.” I’m sure Jerry #325 would rather just say thanks for creating me and I’ll just retire to the suburbs and live out my clone life if my services are no longer needed, but no, off a cliff with you.

Cloning for profit

One of the nice features is that each of the hub areas has a number of orbs required to move on and there are more orbs available then needed. So if one room proves too difficult, and for some reason you are not familiar with a little know website called YouTube to get some help, then you can keep going at other puzzles and come back later. And up to the very last area there is nothing from keeping you from back tracking and getting every little secret completed if you so desire. Puzzles ramp up their difficulty at a steady pace with new ideas and obstacles thrown in all the time. There are lights that stop you from making clones, there are lights that stop you from transferring your consciousness to another clone, there are your typical push plates you need to stand on. All of which is made harder because every step you take, all the clones take also. “Ok, Jerry #785 you need to stand on that plate so step forward, oh god. Jerry #854 not you. You keep still. Just what the hell are you doing Jerry #95425658545754?” It adds a nice depth getting everyone at the correct starting spot so each little jump and push ends up meaning all the clones are just where you need them to be. It’s not uncommon to get to a new room and know right away what you are supposed to do and it still taking you some time to figure out how to get the timing just right so that you can actually do it.

Colored beams are about the only color

The areas look nice but besides the colored lights that make up the obstacles the game is a very drab and boring shades of gray. The story plays out as you go through the game in a series of terminal notes that you read and interactions with another NPC that is on their own journey. The actor of the NPC is fine but it’s one of those weird silent protagonist stories that no matter how amazing or horrifying the situation is the hero never says a single word. I can forgive it here as the story to second to the puzzles and the interactions are short and to the point.

Overall The Swapper is a fun puzzler that does some very unique things. The length will definitely be determined by either your amazing puzzle mind or the fact that you leave YouTube open on your computer. And I would say you are doing the game and yourself a disservice if you YouTube your way through The Swapper.

• FINAL VERDICT

Sparkle Unleashed

Cost
$7.99/th>
Format
Digital
Size
242.44 MB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed]

Release Date
6/3/15
Developer
10tons
Publisher
10tons
Modes
Single Player

Sparkle Unleashed from 10tons is like Zuma; or Zuma is like Sparkle Unleashed. I don’t know which came first or if it even matters. Sparkle Unleashed is a marble triple matching puzzle game. Marbles come at you in a long row and you need to shoot marbles into the mix, creating matches, before the line passes you by and you lose. There are a 107 of these levels to complete.

I’ll be honest and say when I heard this was coming out my first thought was, “This is going to be a crappy Zuma clone. Play for 5 minutes and then trash it a quick review and move on.” But I was wrong. It’s not going to win any game of the year awards (unless there is a Marble Puzzle Game Monthly and if there is please forward me the subscription information), but when you think it’s going to be a 1 trick pony and the pony actually does 3 or 4 tricks, well your expectations just got blown up by 400%!

Shoot those marbles!

The graphics are exactly what I thought they would be. The marbles are nice and shiny but the backgrounds are dull and static. The music is standard puzzle fare, not something I plan to load up into my iPod and jam out to at the gym. There is a story to all this and it is fully voiced. The story pops up every few levels and is your standard puzzle storyline, something happens to the world and your only hope of fixing it is to shoot marbles!

Every time you complete a series of levels you earn a power-up. Cool things like Fireballs to destroy random marbles and things that will change marble colors for you. The best is that there is a actual tech tree and these upgrades are by your choice instead of just handed out at arbitrary times. There are 6 different paths and 3 upgrades to earn in each path. How you earn the power-ups in game is when you make several matches in a row a power-up will appear. You then need to shoot it to activate it. This adds another level of strategy to as to when you are going to activate a power-up and also that fact that whatever you shoot at it disappears. So if you are on a combo run and a particular color isn’t going to benefit you, you can shoot it at a power-up to get a new option.

Power-ups as far as the eye can see

I am color blind and typically these match 3 games are a pain to figure out. For me especially the green versus yellow marbles. Sparkle Unleashed luckily has a color blind option and the quality of it is impressive. It adds a symbol over all the marbles that is really high quality. I can see a lot of people using this as their default view as it really makes the different marbles pop.

Sparkle Unleashed is a game that is great to just start it up and play a few levels at a time and at a $8 price point it get a recommend from me.

• FINAL VERDICT

SteamWorld Dig

Cost
$9.99
Format
Digital
Size
241.05 MB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], PS4, Steam, 3DS, Vita, Wii U

Release Date
6/5/15
Developer
Image & Form
Publisher
Image & Form
Modes
Single Player

SteamWorld Dig is a platformer by Image & Form that presents itself in a mining game style. The game almost entirely does take place in a series of mines and you do dig a lot but instead of crafting together some new gadget deep in the mines everything is brought back to town and simply sold off for money which you then turn around and spend on new upgrades. Things like longer lasting lights and faster and more dangerous pickaxes.

Some of the MANY upgrades

This is a randomly generated world and the exact location of ore and things like that are completely random to your playthrough. The game plays out over a series of mining shafts, each one going deeper than the last, where your job is to get loot and work your way down through a series of challenge caves. There are 3 main caves per level that provide basic starter upgrades like the ability to run and double jump. There are also a series of challenge caves that provide smaller puzzle environments that reward you with orbs and ore when you complete them.

Overall there are around 10 different enemies that you will encounter. Ranging from small beetles that only move in a set pattern in a set area to explosive drones that seek you out. It’s a nice range or types all with different styles of attack and defense. Nothing jumps out as; wow what an amazing concept for a enemy, all of them have their place and unique abilities.

One of the cool things in SteamWorld Dig is the escalation of speed. The further you go down the mine shafts the harder the ground gets to break up, BUT With some good upgrading and use of your abilities you start to cut through the rock like its not even there. What was once a chore to move your way down starts to feel like a hot knife cutting through butter. This is especially prevalent if you go back to the first area from one of the later stages of the game.

The graphics are very well done. Kind of a 16-bit engine with all the shiny abilities of the ONE thrown on top. Not over the top like a lot of “retro” games are doing, just a nice clean look that is perfect for the game. Kind of a retro robot steampunk. It is called SteamWorld after all.

Gameplay

One of my biggest complaints of all of these dig style games is that it’s fun to work your way down, but always a pain in the ass to get back up. SteamWorld Dig solves this problem with a series of placed teleporters that shoot you back and forth to the surface. A extremely nice addition. On top of that you can purchase unlimited personal teleporters. (One at a time only). These are permanently placed just about anywhere in the world. The kicker is they cost orbs which are a rare resource. Get a little too teleporter happy though and you’ll lock yourself out of some upgrades as the number of orbs in the world is a set number.

A thing to note is the game only saves when you go back to town. So a death in the mine is considered a game over, with a money penalty and load back into town with who knows how much progress lost. It’s important to not only think of town as a place to unload loot and get upgrades but as your one and only save point!

One thing that disappointed me was the opening tutorial was a nicely laid out story mode with interaction with other characters that made me think this was going to have a nice in depth story to go with it. Unfortunately as soon as you get to town everyone turns into a standard merchant NPC and your interaction with them for the entire rest of the game is simply a few lines here or there about what you are up to. It was a let down to see so much promise of story go down the drain so fast.

Town is slowly growing

The overall game is not that long and can be beaten in under 2 hours and 30 minutes. Which there is a achievement for doing that. In fact each playthrough is rated on 4 criteria. You are trying for 0 deaths, over 20k in loot cashed in, over 150 orbs found and doing the whole thing in under 2:30. There is definitely a speed run type mentality to this game with how fast can you clear the areas and with how few upgrades. And although there is a lot of loot, you will really need to scour the entire game and all the bonus caves to get everything unlocked.

Overall SteamWorld Dig is a lot of fun to play. It would of been nice to see the story more filled out but the gameplay and graphics are top notch. Being a single player game it is a little on the short side with a average run probably taking 3 or so hours but the randomly generated worlds give it a fresh feel each time and speed run type gameplay give you something to keep coming back for. For the $10 price tag I fully recommend it.

• FINAL VERDICT

Mega Coin Squad

Cost
$14.99 / £11.99
Format
Digital
Size
0.88GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed],Steam

Release Date
05/20/15
Developer
Big Pixel Studios
Publisher
Adult Swim Games
Modes
Single player, local multiplayer

Mega Coin Squad, brought to us by London based Big Pixel Studios is a frenetic 2D action-platformer for 1-4 players locally. You have the option of 5 playable characters from the beginning (with another character being unlocked later in the game), each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Each character has a short backstory as to why they are on Mega Coin Island, but long story short, they all need money and Mega Coin Island is the answer.

Your goal is to make your way through Mega Coin Island collecting coins and banking them in the piggy bank on each stage. At the beginning of each stage you will be given your target number of coins to bank, which you can do at any time by returning to the piggy bank in the centre of the stage by pressing Y. If you get hit whilst holding coins, not only will you lose a life, you will also lose the coins on hand at the time. There are power ups which decrease the amount of coins lost when hit but more on that later.

Each character starts with the ability to jump, dash and shoot fireballs. The attributes that differ are Speed, Acceleration, Weight and Power. As you can see from the screenshot below based on best times, Chunk was my favourite character (quite fitting), simply because of his power.

My doppelganger minus the grey in his beard.

During each stage the landscapes will change periodically giving you new opportunities to grab coins and also bring along new traps and enemies. You really need to pick your battles depending on your current upgrades and power-ups. You don’t really want to be messing with spike pits unless you have the invincibility power-up handy for example.

In Mega Coin Squad there isn’t really an option to take your time and be cautious. Each stage has a time limit and if you don’t bank the amount of coins required, you need to restart. This keeps the gameplay fast paced and edgy. On more than one occasion I found myself on the edge of my seat trying to avoid the traps and enemies because I didn’t want to get hit with 900+ coins on hand.

Mega Coin Squad is split up into 4 different areas, each with 4 stages. In the final stage of each area you are tasked with defeating all the enemies that spawn in waves and banking the Mega Coin for that area. These final stages don’t have any challenges attached to them and they are generally a lot easier than the regular stages which I found to be a bit strange.

Each stage has 3 challenges to aim for. Don’t get hit, bank all coins needed in one go and beat the par time. For each challenge you complete, you get a Diamond to obtain a random upgrade. These upgrades range from new weapons to double jumping and power-ups you can pick up during the stages. With these being random, each play through almost always needs to be approached differently. A few times I found myself a few stages in praying for the double jump ability to be unlocked because without it, the ever changing landscapes are harder to reach.

The local co-op for Mega Coin Squad is really where the game shines. You have 4 game modes to choose from, Bank the coins, Mega coins, Death match and Hold the rainbow. Bank the coins and Mega coins works similarly to their single player counterparts, Death match speaks for itself and Hold the rainbow is like the Oddball game mode in Halo. You have to find and keep hold of the Rainbow ring whilst moving to generate coins. I played local co-op with my 4 year old son and we had a blast. It really had a super smash bros. vibe to it for me, not necessarily in gameplay but how manic it was battling to grab the most coins.

Multiplayer goodness.

Even though the soundtrack and 16-bit graphics are most definitely retro, it doesn’t feel like an outdated game. I know there’s been a big influx of retro styled games, but it really works with Mega Coin Squad. Big Pixel Studios really did a great job with the music. It keeps in sync with the frantic pace of the gameplay and it certainly kept me pumped to keep on playing.

Even though the gameplay is great, there are a couple of niggles in Mega Coin Squad. Firstly is the length of the single player. My first playthrough clocked in at around an hour, and that was with completing all challenges for every stage. This could be quite disappointing for some but if you are wanting to complete the game, achievements and all, you’re going to have to play through it at least 6 times plus bank a total of 100,000 coins.

My only other issue was the lack of online multiplayer. That would have been immense. Not everyone has 3 other people to play with at home, so online multiplayer really would have added so much more to an already fun filled game.

All in all, Mega Coin Squad is a fantastic, action packed platformer with very little single player content and lacking an online multiplayer. However, don’t let that put you off. The gameplay is intense and brilliant, the random upgrade system along with the random environments gives you plenty of variety within the small world and the local multiplayer is crazy fun.

A digital copy of Mega Coin Squad was provided by the Developers for the purpose of this review.

• FINAL VERDICT

Spy Chameleon

Cost
$4.99 / £3.99
Format
Digital
Size
0.48 GB
Available On
Xbox ONE [Reviewed], Steam, Wii U

Release Date
05/22/15
Developer
Unfinished Pixel
Publisher
Unfinished Pixel
Modes
Single player

Unfinished Pixel’s first foray into the magical world of the Xbox One comes in the form of Spy Chameleon, an action-puzzler. You play as an undercover RGB agent whose goal is to complete each mission without being detected. As far as any story goes, that is pretty much it, but it doesn’t really take anything away from the game.

Spy Chameleon tasks you with completing 5 missions, each with 15 levels. Each level has 3 challenges to complete. A par time to beat, 10 flies to collect and finding all the ladybugs in that level (anywhere from 1 to 3 per level). There aren’t many levels where you will be able to complete all 3 challenges in 1 run, so you will be replaying levels a lot if you want to nab all the challenges.

During the missions, you will need to avoid detection from CCTV, Robot Sentries, Rats and others by using the environment as cover from their field of vision. To successfully navigate through each level you quite often need to make use of your camouflage ability. Each colour is represented by the corresponding colour on the controller so Y is Yellow, X is Blue etc, which works really well. For example, if there is a tin of green paint spilt on the floor you can use your green camouflage to disappear from the enemies field of vision.

Blending in like a pro.

Spy Chameleon does a great job at introducing you to new puzzle mechanics and I never really got bored of doing the same thing over and over because there was plenty of variety going on. The flip side of this though is the difficulty seemed to fluctuate throughout the missions due to the tutorial levels for each new mechanic being introduced.

I found a handful of levels really required pin point accuracy and timing to beat the par time, but for the most part you are given plenty of breathing room. For a puzzle game I would say the frustration level stays pretty low throughout, which was a nice change of pace for me.

Towards the end of the game and not exactly a challenge.

Unfortunately, not everything is as enjoyable as the puzzles in Spy Chameleon. A few nights back I was playing for about an hour and a half and progressed to level 58. When I came back the next day to carry on my progress I had been reset to level 8. None of my stats were saved and I had 40 levels to redo. I’m not 100% certain what caused the reset, but I have seen others mention it when putting their Xbox One in sleep mode. So anyone wanting to play Spy Chameleon, be aware that you could lose progress if you’re not careful.

Something I really like about Spy Chameleon is the achievement list. It’s pretty uncommon for an Indie Developer to include a good achievement list. You’ve got your standard game progression achievements, a handful of random tasks to do like annoying the same fish 25 times and some skill based ones too for completing all challenges on Hard mode and finishing all 75 levels in under 18 minutes (I’m currently at just over 20 minutes). The par time for level 18 is currently incorrect and although it can be done with the incorrect par time, the Developers are aware of the issue and a patch is in the works.

Spy Chameleon does a lot of things right. The controls are on point, the puzzles aren’t frustratingly difficult or fiddly and it was thoroughly enjoyable. The fluctuating difficulty did catch me off guard a few times but it’s not a deal breaker. Apart from the loss of progress, I had a blast playing Spy Chameleon and Unfinished Pixel got the pricing point spot on.

A digital copy of Spy Chameleon was provided by the Developer for the purpose of this review

• FINAL VERDICT