Time for another Goodie-Bag! If you missed the first one, the main theme for this recurring column is that the games listed here must be A, fun, and B, fifteen bucks or less! There's a LOT of these games out there, so I, as your prophet Donlevy, will do my best to recommend the best of the bunch!
Also, for Part Two here, I have a little mini-review of one of the recent games that's on the list. Look for it at the bottom! :)
Papers, Please
Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: Lucas Pope
Platforms: PC & Mac via Steam/GOG
Genre: Puzzle Simulation of the border inspection variety
What sounds like a mundane and boring concept, checking papers as a border inspection agent, quickly becomes a morally testing and detail-intensive introspective simulation that is equal parts fascinating, and terrifying. As a border inspector for the fictitious country of Arstotzka, you are tasked with letting through nationals and immigrants, and keeping out possible terrorists and those without the right authorization. Papers, Please might be considered the adult equivalent of "One of these things is not like the others," in that your duty is primarily to highlight discrepancies among the growing amount of required papers. Soon, you will also be required to X-ray potential suspects, and alert the authorities and detain certain individuals. As the days go by, sometimes ending in a terrorist attack, you will be called upon for inspections, and in between have various choices presented to you, such as letting in a family without their papers, or holding another passport for a shady organization. All the while you must preserve the well-being of your family, purchasing medicine if they are sick or making sure they are properly sheltered.
It's a special kind of tension that results from awaiting to see if you accidentally missed a discrepancy, and perhaps let an unscrupulous fellow in by mistake, and hearing the *click-click* of a warning appear on your desk. Papers, Please, is certainly more than it may at first seem, and multiple playthroughs are encouraged with the multiple endings the game offers.
Glory to Arstotzka!
The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures
Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: FreakZone Games
Platforms: PC via Steam, future releases planned for Wii U and 3DS.
Genre: Retro Action Platformer
Hell yeah, it's a game based on the Nerd himself! In the style of the many games he plays, AVGN Adventures is fast-paced, over-the-top, and absurdly difficult. In fact, the game is just a little notorious for being too hard. Still, I recommend the game to fans of the Nerd wholeheartedly, and even someone looking for a crazy platformer.
You essentially run and shoot your way through the various platform stages, each with a bizarre and amusing theme (ex. Assholevania). You can unlock additional characters, each with a special move and style of play, and there's plenty of references and cameos to look for as well. You will undoubtedly die a lot, mostly from insta-death spikes and skull-blocks. It really pushes the notion of fairness, and you will likely end up as engraged as the Nerd is. Still, I think it's fun for what it is, and it is charming in its own twisted, strange way!
Hotline Miami
Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: Dennaton Games
Platforms: PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam/GOG, PlayStation 3, 4, and Vita.
Genre: Top-down Arcade Action
Oooooh yes, I was waiting to add this one. Relentlessly fast-paced and brutal, Hotline Miami is strange, twisted, addicting, and insane. From a top-down perspective, you control a character known only as "Jacket" as he enters multiple dens of gangsters and viscerally takes them out, spurned on by visions and psychoanalysis from the various masks he dons. Fuelled by an absolutely stellar electronica soundtrack, Hotline Miami is drenched in its neon-stylized 80's setting, backed up by a staggering amount of ultra-violence.
You choose an unlocked mask and are let loose into the gangster hideouts, and you have a one-hit life. You have to be quick and precise to take out the enemies systematically and survive. If you die, one button press puts you right back into the action. A score at the end rates you on your time and effectiveness, and contributes to the high replayability of the game. Hotline Miami is bloody and brutal, and I mean it. Not for everyone, especially you young folk out there. But the soundtrack? That's for all to hear.
Orcs Must Die!
Normal Price: $9.99
Developer: Robot Entertainment
Platforms: PC via Steam, Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
Genre: Third-person Tower Defense
I...have to admit that I'm not normally into tower defence games. A lot of people talk about their favourite ones, and how addicting they can be. I can't speak for anyone else, but damn if I didn't get sucked into Orcs Must Die!. It probably helps that game plays from a third-person perspective, as opposed to the usual overhead view, and that the combat and controls feel much more in-depth and responsive. As most TD games go, your objective is to protect a certain point, in this case a portal, from the hordes of Orcs that charge toward you. You have various weapons and traps you can use and set to stem the tides, as you must prevent a certain number of Orcs from crossing the portal. This game has a killer style to it, and a really pleasing and inviting aesthetic (you know, for a game where you kill a bunch of orcs), and similarly, the traps and weapons are all super cool, and you'll need to use them all to complete the many different stages/levels in front of you. It certainly has a few stages that stretch your abilities, but I always felt that with a new strategy, any level could be overcome. Easy to play, and a good mastering curve, I highly suggest giving this one a shot, even if you don't like tower defense games!
Of note is that there's a sequel with improved gameplay and levels, and a co-op mode! I haven't had a good playthrough of it yet, but at fifteen dollars, it makes the list in spirit! See if you can't catch a price drop for the bundle on Steam, I'm always seeing it go on sale.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Normal Price: $14.99
Developer: Starbreeze Studios AB
Platforms: PC via Steam, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Genre: Puzzle Adventure
In stark contrast to some of the other entries on this list, Brothers is sombre, emotional, and incredibly investing. Brothers is a twin-stick puzzle adventure that has you take control of two brothers, each with a different trigger and analog stick (with a controller, ideally) as you guide them across the land to find a cure for your ailing father. Brothers is a stunning and beautiful game both aesthetically and narrative-wise. You truly feel like you're on a breathtaking journey from beginning to end, as you traverse the ever-changing landscape from rolling hills, to icy peaks, to war-torn battlefields of a mysterious war. Brothers expresses everything from the characters and the environments through both subtlety and visual power, without anyone ever uttering more than a grunt. The puzzles are not always obvious but never obtusely difficult, and it helps keep a constant flow and pace to the adventure. Like Journey from the previous list, I feel like Brothers is a game where everyone will relate to and take away something different and something special from playing the game, and that in itself is enough for me to recommend a playthrough.
Shovel Knight
Normal Price: $14.99
Developer: Yacht Club Games
Platforms: PC via YachtClubGames.com, Wii U, 3DS, Mac and Linux to come later
Genre: Old-School Platformer/Adventure
Aha, oh Shovel Knight is just pure joy! And it's barely a month old! Shovel Knight was created out of a successful Kickstarter, and the result is something quite special indeed! The game takes inspiration from many classic NES games like Mega Man, Castlevania, Ducktales, and Zelda II, and merges the best of them all into a cohesive, triumphant, and epic retro adventure, while still maintaining a special identity of its own.
You play as Shovel Knight, who lost his beloved Shield Knight when they entered the Tower of Fate, and he retreated into a solitary life. When the Tower comes to life again and the evil Enchantress rises to power, Shovel Knight grabs his trusty shovel to bring shovel justice to the Enchantress and her Order of No Quarter, a group of knights that stand between Shovel Knight and the Tower. There's not much more to the story, apart from some witty and funny dialogue and more shovel jokes than you can shake a...er...shovel at.
The controls are incredibly simple, with the normal run left/right, jump, and attack buttons, with "down" used in air to use your shovel as a sort of pogo-stick and jump on enemies (like the cane from Ducktales), and the "up" used in conjunction with attack to utilize one of the many items you obtain as you play at the cost of magic (like Castlevania). The controls are tight and simple, and makes for some smooth and excellent gameplay. There's a hugely satisfying difficulty curve that makes the transitions between early and later stages as smooth as they could be, and the overall level design feels refined and fair. You will more often than not die from a silly mistake, rather than through any fault of the game, and it's that balance of difficulty and player skill that really makes Shovel Knight shine.
Each stage feels wholly unique and memorable, as do the bosses you fight and items you receive. Boss fights feel deliciously old-school, where pattern recognition and timing play crucial roles. The neat thing is that you are not required to use the items you found on the stage, or elsewhere, to defeat them. As long as you have your trusty shovel, you're good to go. That being said, the items (called relics) themselves are great, and some are hugely useful. Admittedly, some will be used way more than others, but there's just the right amount of them to make it balance properly when the situation requires another relic.
You select your stage via an overworld screen (a la Super Mario Bros. 3) and you can access several special areas and boss levels at a time, as well as two villages where you can buy items and upgrades for your health, magic, shovel, and armour. This offers you a degree of freedom, where you can tackle some bosses in several different orders, although there isn't a real strategy to be found by playing certain stages first, unlike the case with Mega Man.
Each area has various enemies, and mounds of dirt and rock that when shovelled, reveal precious gems that add to your currency. The catch here is that as you shovel about the levels, if you die, you do not lose a life, rather, you lose some of your gold in relation to how much you possess. This can mean that if you happen to be a rich Shovel Knight and you die, you're gonna lose quite a lot. But fear not, good Shovel Knight, for you have one chance to make it to the place that you died and retrieve three winged bags of gold from where you met your end. Die again before reaching the bags, and they disappear forever.
This method of a life/death cycle is a little unusual, and it really stinks to have sometimes basically lost all the gold you gained on the level, but the trade-off is that it encourages you to SPEND SPEND SPEND when you're in the villages, so as to not lose as much money if you die.
This can mean all the difference if you choose to go balls-to-the-wall and do the entire stage in one go. To elaborate, the stages themselves are actually quite lengthy (maybe a bit too lengthy at times), and to balance that out, there are various checkpoints set up throughout the levels in the shape of glass orbs. Well, you can actually destroy the checkpoints so you gain the large amount of money from within the orbs, but rendering the checkpoint useless as a result. Yeah, so, if you got greedy on one of the longer levels and died, you're going to be doing the entire level over again. That's some Ghosts N' Goblins craziness right there.
The stage graphics and sound are superb. Meant to be an homage to the games of the past, the soundtrack is brimming with chiptune awesomeness, and the graphical palettes are evocative and well-used. Some might say it's the presentation that makes Shovel Knight the love letter it is to retro gaming, but I think it's also thanks in equal part to the balance of gameplay that Shovel Knight makes its own.
I personally have...mixed feelings on newer games trying to emulate the style of classic 8-bit or 16-bit games. Some titles take the Mario-style platforming to an exact clone, and try to put in fake-pixel graphics to achieve the intended result. I believe that's missing the point. And it's also why I adore Shovel Knight so much for what it is. Sure, it's not technically 8-bit, but the heart is there, and the gameplay definitely is. Shovel Knight doesn't just try to emulate classic games, it learns from them, and that makes it a huge success in my books. And hey, as icing on the cake, there's plenty of collectibles to find, an arena to participate in, and a New Game Plus mode that amps up the difficulty, but allows you to keep your items and upgrades!
Just an excellent game, truly.
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