Tag: single player

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. Fueled indeed

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is one of those games that many people have been waiting for. Even X35 Earthwalker himself was looking forward to the day when the Crash Team Racing remake would come out. It was described as a smashing blast from the past. If you did play Crash Team Racing in the past then you have to give this a try and see fro yourself… but what did we think? This is a nice review. Let’s take a look. 

Now straight from the start, original Crash Team Racing gamers will notice that the starting screen isn’t the same. In Nitro-Fueled, Crash comes up from off screen to grab the trophy while in the original he was always on screen within reach of the trophy but that’s just a bit of trivia for you (impressed yet?). Now straight from the main menu the game practically reveals all the modes and tracks it has to offer. Crash Team Racing Nitor-Fueled has all the original tracks plus the tracks from Crash Nitro Kart which was a smart move. We know for a fact that there will be no Crash Nitro Kart remake as Crash Team Racing was the more popular and succesful. Still was a great game though. Overall Nitro-Fueled has lots of content for players and the menu makes that clear. 

Let’s start with adventure mode which is the main meat of the game. It’s just as we remembered it. Four tracks per area, win a race and get a trophy then you can’t renter until you get the boss key of the area. Once all four tracks have been won, the boss will emerge and challenge you to a race. The animations for the bosses, their introduction is very well done. We were happy with them, especially Ripper Roo. It just showed how crazy he really is. If you are new to the game then you need to do some practicing on the area track and get some skills. You need to get your head checked if you think you can be a beginner and beat Ripper Roo. Then everything else played out just like the original. The remake was faithful to the original and the animations really added some new flavour and personality to the characters. Now let’s quickly talk about the graphics. The graphics are excellent. We remember the old looks of the levels and seeing the new looks were amazing. The best looking track has to be Coco park. They made that place look awesome like we want to visit that place, as long as there’s no racers nearby hurling bombs and homing missiles. By the way, how comes Coco has a whole major awesome park for herself, with statues of herself and more?

Many players like to jump straight into online modes. You know how these kids are these days, they beat Oxide and suddenly think they are fast. You can do online battle or race in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. The main thing is off course racing as that’s what most did with the original. Battle was fun but it’s very different from what you get in the adventure mode. Online matches are also the best way to earn wumpa coins. Average races and modes in adventure mode only offer from 80-20 coins. That’s lame as the items that actually matter cost a minimum of 1500. Winning an online match can get you 300, sometimes more and sometimes less. That’s a big difference. Even coming second can get you 165. The problem is winning though. If you suck, then you won’t make as much. Also online is where the real matches happen. X35 Earthwalker, the one true Earthwalker, the legendary soldier himself has dominated online. There are some players who are here to just have fun. There are some who want to win and rely more on items. There are those who think they are fast and get real salty and send messages when they lose. Lastly there are those who’ve got some speed. We’ve had some serious races but so far, no one better than X35 Earthwalker. So basically online is where the real action is at. It does take a bit too long to find a match and takes longer to actually start the match. 

The Grand Prix content that recently got added to Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled brought in a bunch of new stuff that really reveals where the name nitro fuelled truly comes from. Sort of like a battle pass, players can earn nitro to fit up the meter to unlock rewards like vehicles skins, paint jobs, stickers and even new characters. What we were happy to see is the return of Chick and Stew from Crash Tag Team Racing. They are bringing the reports as never before, except Stew isn’t getting a new funky hat every time the camera comes back to him… what a shame… BRING BACK THE HATS! The gran prix also brings in new tracks never before seen. Whole new race tracks. Now we was going to list this next thing under everything bad about Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled but the Grand Prix saved the game. The Bandicoot girls are back. So happy to see them again. Ami, Megumi, Isabella, Liz and Tawna (Tawna wasn’t in CTR) are all here and ready to race. When we didn’t see them in the original release of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, introducing and applauding the victor of the races we were not happy. We remembered them so clearly and they were a part of the whole thing especially since each girl was assigned to a racing team. A different girl who show depending on the character that wins. Now they are back and geared up. It would have been better if they made it so that either by meeting certain conditions or whatever reason each of the girls who show up one by one challenging the player to a one on one like how Super smash bros Brawl did new unlockable characters. Off course make each of the girls have their own difficult going from easy to extremely hard. Just an idea.    

Now Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is definitely harder than we remember the original being. Definitely watch the above video to see what we mean. The difference between medium and hard difficulty is crazy. When we play medium, the A.I are too easy but when you play hard, the A.I are ridiculous. Remember that the gameplay video above is gameplay of X35 Earthwalker’s first ever races on the game, so was still rusty. Even getting the relics seems to be harder, we could be wrong but that was years ago. Well getting the sapphire and gold isn’t hard… it’s the platinums that all the noobs and beginners can only dream about (don’t get mad guys, just joking) but seriously they seem harder than we remember. Well not all tracks are created equally as some like Tiny arena allow for you to make it in with time to spare while others like N Gins lab has no forgiveness and require near perfect execution of crate smashing. The rematch with Oxide also seems a bit harder than before but once you get in front of him, he’s a complete push over. Fans and critics are divided understandably. Some say that it’s too hrs but that’s mainly coming from those who never played the original before. If you are new, then you really need to practice first. You won’t stand a chance against the real drivers who are online. They will do some bad stuff to you… stuff you can’t even talk about. Seriously we’ve seen players been left far behind the group simply because they are just learning. Online isn’t for learning. Then there are the layers who seem like they’ve been playing the original crash for the last 15 years, training for this remake… off course they say the game isn’t hard. So most the options come from Crash Team Racing history. 

Now let’s talk about what the remake did wrong or was not so good. We noticed that you have less control over your power slides in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. It feels harder to control. We just had to get use to it. We knew the remake wouldn’t be able to fully replicate the exact feeling of the original. The hit detection with walls and surfaces seem worse than in the original. We find ourselves during our first races colliding and being shown down by walls when it looks like we aren’t even touching it. Again this is something annoying but something you have to get use to. Even though they brought them back as race-able characters they still weren’t part of the original release of Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled to congratulate the winners. If Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is suppose to be a remake then include everything the original had… simple. They were a part of the game and everyone remembers them. They should have been there. They should have had a cinematic feature where you can rewatch the new cutscenes concerning the bosses as they were great and fun to watch. Beginner characters like Polar, Pura and Liz are discouraged as you get good at the game. Their low speed makes it too hard to compete with excellent racers using high speed characters like Tiny, Dingodile, Ami and Papu Papu. X35 Earthwalker was in an online match and faced a good Papu Papu racer. He was always slightly ahead to due to the difference in character top speed, not skill. In the next race when X35 changed to playing Crash he beat that Papu Papu player without any real problems. The problem is the character speed. The beginner characters are not fast enough. The characters should have no set stats but maybe the vehicles have stats but if they do that, then it’s not an exact remake. So either way beginner characters not valid for good players (that’s why they are called beginner). We don’t see them online (hardly). 

Overall Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is a very good game. Well remade and well designed. Besides the stuff we mentioned there isn’t anything wrong with this game. It’s faithful to the original. The characters and levels look very good. We have the option to switch between the new and old music so you can hear both whenever you pretty much want. The inclusion of the Crash Nitro Kart characters and race tracks was a good move too. We at X35 Earthwalker are overall happy with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. The developers ‘Beenox‘ have done a very good job with this game. Now Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled may be a good remake but what doesn’t need a remake is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

Some Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled gameplay

Aggelos. 16-bit adventure soon here

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Aggelos is a 16-bit style adventure RPG game developed by ‘Storybird Games‘ and published by ‘PQube Limited‘ and ‘Look At My Games‘. Aggelos is said to be coming out the 12th of June on Xbox One and PS4 but already out on Nintendo Switch and PC. This game clearly has a particular target audience in mind. Let’s take a look.

In the world of Aggelos there’s a huge battle going on. Basically the battle takes place in a peaceful kingdom called Lumen. Beings from another dimension has shown up and are invading Lumen. So off course the hero must set out and defeat this evil threat. As you can see, the story is simple and traditional. Everything about this game is suppose to be about the old gaming days. From one look you could tell this was 16-bit styled. That’s what Aggelos is all about.

In Aggelos, players must find magical elements in order to save the world from total destruction. This won’t be easy as the levels and how the game plays should remind some players of Metroid and even Castlevania. You will go past multipolemplaces that you can’t initially explore due to a lack of certain abilities and upgrades. Players will to take note of certain places and what’s required before revisiting. 

Now Lumen isn’t some simple plain place. Players will end up traversing and exploring seas, caves, forests and even temples… ancient temples. We do hope that these different locations show clear diversities amongst them. From the types of enemies, to the types of secrets to the types of hazards. It may be a 16-bit styled game but it’s the year 2019 so we expect up to date type stuff implemented into this game. No excuses. 

Now there’s the main quests that you follow concerning the Aggelos story but there’s also basically side quests which come in the form of tasks and job offered to you by the citizens of Lumen. So it’s sort of safe to say that there’s almost always something to do. We just hope that the rewards are actually worth it. 

Now concerning the enemies there is certainly a variety. Expect fishes, turtle like things, scorpions, little dragons, flying creatures, and much more. There are also large bosses in Aggelos. We have seen a large squid creature, humanoid flying bird, a armoured armadillo thing, large dragon and more. It definitely has old gaming style written all over it. This will off course instantly appeal to some gamers straight away.   

We checked out some gameplay and it does look like an old 16-bit old game but not exactly giving of the same feeling though. You can obtain magical abilities and some powerful high-level attacks. There’s also a chaining system where chaining these abilities you can destroy entire screens worth of enemies in seconds. There’s quite a bit to this game. Sort of deep.

Overall Aggelos looks like a fun game. I’s simple but sort of deep and pretty much accomplishes what it sets out to do. The graphics are good for it’s style and the sounds like an old game for sure. The developers ‘Storybird Games’ did a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what becomes of Aggelos. Now Aggelos may have 16-bit style but it looks lame when compared to the style of… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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They Are Billions. They are soon here

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

They Are Billions is a new steampunk strategy game developed by ‘Numantian Games‘. It is said to come out the 5th of July on the Xbox One and 9th of July on the PlayStation 4. he early PC access is already out (but we don’t care about that). Let’s hope that this game can pull of the zombie theme well. Let’s take a look.   

The world of They Are Billions is set in a post apocalyptic planet where zombies basically rule the world. There’s as the name suggests, billions of zombies but a couple thousands of humans left. The zombies are trying to kill of humanity. The suggests that the zombies have some intelligence or something is behind the horde of zombies, getting them to work together or something. Either way this game is about survival. Keep humanity alive and fight back the billions. 

Just from looking at the game and knowing that it’s genre is strategy, experienced gamers will know what to expect. Expect mechanics like resource management, commanding armies and multiple units at the same time. Basically stay vigilant, aware and keep and eye on everything. All units are important so keep everything and everyone alive. Also, just to let players know, even though They Are Billions is a real time strategy game, you can pause it, to give yourself a breather… but wait… there’s more. You can giver orders, check all the stats and even do some structure building.

Players need to build and manage a whole colony. They Are Billions. So firstly we need something solid. So build walls, towers, gates etc to have a safe area. Next, everyone needs to eat to live… right. So gather food. For building and more you’ll need the basic resources like iron, wood, oil and stone. As your place looks great and secure, people will join you and live there. So keep an eye on the colony to make sure there are no zombie invasions, gather resources and build structures grow and secure the place. 

Let’s get to the more interesting parts. The zombies and combat. There are billions of infected creatures, not necessarily just zombies. There are big monsters with huge amounts of strength and other zombie variations. Players can only beat them by growing their army. Hire and train mercenaries who off course demand their pay and lunch. Some use flamer throwers, others rifles, some melee and more tricks. You literally cannot let a single infected get in. If just one gets inside a building then every colonist and worker with that building is automatically infected. Those newly infected will run around in pure panic and end up infecting other stuff. They Are Billions, plans to be a risky and show not much mercy. If you mess up, it can ruin everything.

We checked out some gameplay and it is what we expected. You see everything from the top but diagonal angle. The workers are hammering away and doing whatever. Your mighty units are marching around, your regular units are on patrol and keeping an eye out. The zombies are truly swarming and very reactive. There could 20ooo on the screen all at once and if you kill a couple of them in a certain location then way, way more will come I=to investigate what happened. Each zombie type has their own behaviour so keep that in mind.

Overall, They Are Billions seems just alright so far. Things are too small to see but the engine does handle the amount of enemies quite well. It’s another resource management game with zombies but the look of the game does remind us of Clash of Clans. Now the developers did an alright job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker hope that this game does well and reaches the intended target audience. Now They Are Billions may have billions of zombies but what has more people involved is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Fort Boyard. The challenge is soon here

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Fort Boyard is a new action party game developed by ‘Appeal Studio’ and published by ‘Microids‘. Fort Boyard is coming out the 27th of June 2019 on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. Fort Boyard is legendary but will this game be legendary? Let’s take a look.

If you don’t know anything about Fort Boyard, then shame on you. Shame on you. Come of your electronic device for a while, go sit in the corner of your room and think about what you’ve done for a while. Just joking. Fort Boyard is like Crystal Maze as it’s a show where real people compete and take on challenges, normally physical to hopefully win prizes. Sort of like Jungle Run. So friendly, all laughs, competition for prizes and aired on TV. Now Fort Boyard is getting it’s latest game.

So if you did a little research on Fort Boyard then you instantly know exactly what the game will be about, what it will offer and what it’s trying to recreate for players. Remember that Fort Boyard is also a party game so that means multiplayer. So like Mario Party, grab some friends and work together to get the gold. After all, those tigers don’t need it. Seriously what will tigers do with all that cash and gold?

There’s many activities and challenges in Fort Boyard. Gather all the keys and do your best. Honestly guys there isn’t that much we can really say about the game. Once you see it for yourself then you truly understand it all. There doesn’t appear to be secrets or anything it’s just a straight up action party game based on a TV show that many have watched. Here’s some additional information on the Fort Boyard game:

  • There are four playable characters
  • 4 collectible keys
  • There are some activities that can be unlocked through collecting clues
  • probably 12 activities in total
  • In multiplayer you can work together or play against each other

We checked out some gameplay and it definitely looks like a Nintendo game. Colourful, nice graphics and seems easy and straight to the point. There really isn’t much to say at all. There’s like a bull riding challenge, water surfing, ducking and jumping to evade getting hit and more. Just fun.

Overall Fort Boyard just seems like a fun action party game. If you like Fort Boyard or just want another game to play with friends or family then that’s what this does. Again, there isn’t much to say about this. It is literally what it is. The developers ‘Appeal studio’ did a good job with this game. Now Fort Boyard may have a game but what’s not a game is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Sea of Solitude. Monsters coming soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Sea of Solitude is a new adventure game developed by ‘jo-mei games‘ and published by ‘Electronic Arts‘. Sea of Solitude is coming out the 5th of July 2019 on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. This gamer is said to have a strange world with strange rules. Trust us. Let’s take a look.

The story in Sea of Solitude is not so simple. Players following around a girl called Kay. She is struggling with loneliness. That can sound very normal but in the world of Sea of Solitude loneliness can turn people into monsters. That’s right. So that explains why she looks like a monster right now. Is this all symbolic? Is this not really happening? It’s a whole big world to explore. 

You will explore a flooded city in multiple ways. Sea of Solitude gives options. There’s a boat, more like a speed boat which is perfect for going across the waters fast and easy. You will have to get out on foot, run, climb and traverse the area. Lastly you can swim in the water yourself and dive under to explore the rest of the flooded city. There can be something under there… and there is. 

Clearly, you aren’t alone in the sea of solitude. There are other monsters and we mean real monsters. There’s one that is swimming around in the sea, a large eel shaped creature that is fast and big mouthed. This monster makes you not want to go into the water. Seriously you won’t stand a chance against that thing in the water. There’s another big monster that’s basically a giant raven that also doesn’t look that friendly but as mean looking as the sea creature. There’s another that reminds us of the Shadow of Vincent  from Catherine. A giant woman who looks like she was submerged in water. Creepy. There’s more too.

Literally this suppose to be some sort of emotional journey or something. The city we believe is suppose to represent her mind or something. We don’t believe she actually is turning into a monster. The water levels and flooded city changes as you progress. This will effect the level itself and new places should come accessible. The fact that the city is flooded is a bit symbolic too. Her mind is troubled and the struggle with loneliness is effecting everything else in her life like how the flood effects everything else of the city. Connected? We think so. So expect to get some feels over Sea of Solitude. You could say that the Sea of Solitude is quite ‘deep’. See what we did there? 

We checked out some Sea of Solitude gameplay. It’s sort of what we thought it would be but creepier. A lot of exploration, a big threat looming in the distance and hanging around, keeping players worried and wondering when the encounter with that danger will happen. You can’t be too afraid of monsters as players will need to face them. Not only to progress but also learn more about Kay and what’s going on. There’s a number of creepy/scary stuff so prepare yourself for all of that. There’s the hands reaching up from the waters giving off a river styx, the hands of the damned type feel. The shadow people watching you as you walk through an area. Lots going on and we like that players will have to get a bit brave to search underwater and certain places where you see or remember danger. 

Overall Sea of Solitude does seem like another mystery, emotional exploration game but not as explorational like Shape of the World, Beyond Blue and Abzu. There is some horror aspects here for some players too. We like what we see so far. We definitely like creative stuff and does make us wonder about some stuff. The graphics are looking good too. The developers ‘jo-mei games’ have done a very good job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker want to see some good stuff concerning this game. Now Sea of Solitude might be deep but what’s way deeper is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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War Tech Fighters. Battles coming soon

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

War Tech Fighters is a new space action game developed by ‘Drakkar Dev‘ and published by ‘Green Man Gaming Publishing‘. It is coming out the 27th of June on the Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PS4 but also the 25th of July for PC (steam). So big robots, lasers, explosions, sort of like an anime. Let’s take a look.

In the world of War tech Fighters, there’s a big battle going on between two armies. Let us explain. The rebel colonies: Hebos and Ares have decide to join forces and work together to fight against the empire… the zatros empire. They certainly don’t have the numbers or machine advantage but they do have what’s considered “the deadliest weapons ever built”… War Techs. Think of them sort of like transformers but not alive and has more fire power. These War Techs will make all the difference and give the rebels a chance.

Since War Tech Fighters this is a space action game, everything will take place in space (no you don’t say). This means space crafts, giant space carriers, small fighter ships, high speed strikers, lasers, explosions and great risk. Think of War tech Fighters like one of those robot anime with people controlling them and they face other machines just like them but off course different strengths, skills, weapons and stats. That’s probably the best way to imagine it.

There isn’t that much to say about War Tech Fighters. It’s a giant robots, space battle action game. Off course these War Techs are made for combat. They have blasters, missiles, lasers, long range weaponry and when things get a bit too close, use those melee weapons like shields and swords. So there is no safe zone for the player. You can always get attacked so keep your mobility high and your damage output.

What we did find interesting is that players can either fight in first or third person view. It’s always great to provide the options. Now a game like War Tech Fighters off course need some level of customisation and it does. A lot! It’s been said that there are thousands of possible combinations thanks to the range of colours, different mechanical parts and off course the weapons themselves.

There is also another game mode called ‘survival mode’ where you literally just survive for a s long as possible with numerous and dangerous enemies all aiming to take you down. This isn’t just for passing time though and players can earn rewards in the process. So there’s a reason to play it.

Your War Tech is some static simple machine. Your War Tech can level up. You gain experience through combat and through exploration. While exploring you can find hidden project parts which grant you access to new swords, research projects, shields and war tech sets. So rewarding players for exploration is a good move. Off course a game, that has space as your playground, needs big exploration. 

Now for smaller details in War Tech Fighters. Over 180 upgradable robot parts, repayable missions, 33 campaign missions and even perks that come with your shields and swords.

We checked out some War Tech Fighters gameplay and things look real good. It’s what we expected. A lot of side strafing, homing blasts, lasers, multiple enemies and a whole lot of space (see what we did there). There are enemies that are huge carrier ships, some look like stations, there are smaller fighters that move at fast speeds and worse off all there are other War Techs too and they also have a range of equipment and weapons so don’t take them lightly.  

Overall War Tech Fighters does seem to do it’s job. Getting launched into space at high speeds, zooming around dodging attacks and projectiles while destroying enemies with big explosions and a range of weapons. The graphics look very good and the details on the War Techs is very good too. It’s literally a space action game. The developers ‘Drakkar Dev’ have done a very good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what will happen with War Tech Fighters. Now War Tech Fighters may have space battles but the only thing truly out of this world is… the ‘Earth Walk!’

For more information check out the link below:

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Minion Masters. The strategies are real

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Minion Masters as you should know already if you’ve been following X35 Earthwalker. If not then shame on you. Minion Masters is an online minion battle game where you use cards to build a deck and then battle against other opponents online. Now this does sound simple… because it is simple but there’s more to it. This game can get really strategic at times. 

There are different minion factions in Minion Masters. They are accursed, zen-chi, empyrean, crystal elf, puff, voidborne, outlander, script and slither. Now you could make things easier for yourself by making a deck with strictly cards of the same faction. This isn’t a bad thing and they normally work really well. Off course each faction has their own strong points and main focus. For example Zen-chi love electricity. Seriously, they are mostly about stunning enemies, making enemy minions and masters useless. Empyrean is more about having tough units and relying on strength to push through. Slither are just weird. They are all about variety by the looks of it.

Now what most players do is mix and match the different factions because all the factions have some powerful and really good cards. Many players, since most gamers don’t have skill but instead copy players who use follow the meta, like to use the Xiao long minion because it’s speed is good, it’s a flying minion so melee minions can’t hit it but most importantly if the opponent casts a spell while this minion is on the field then Xiao long gains frenzy, rage and a shield. So it’s very strong. Another popular card people use is the cleaver. Why? Simply because it’s very fast (speed 10) and hits super hard (300 damage) but it does cost 6 mana though. So yes, watch out these two cards especially. So let’s talk strategy though.

Now when building a deck, there is many things to take into account. Firstly is covering all main battle scenarios you will encounter on the battle field. Let’s go over some. You will need a minion that can act like a tank. A tank is basically something that can take all the hits and damage for the rest of the team. Basically a shield. So get a minion with high health like the blue or red golem. Get a ranged ground minion, which is a minion that stays on the ground but has ranged attacks like the Blastmancer because flying minions are a problem because melee minions can’t hit flying ones. You will also need flying minions too because obviously melee minions can’t hit them. A swarming unit is good to have like the scrat horde. These are good to use against slow hitting targets like the blue or red golems since it takes the slow goes a while to hit one. Those are the main things you need. We will talk about spells later.

So when you are playing matches you have to attack the enemy so don’t worry about sending some units out to fight but don’t send everything out all at once. In Minion Masters you need to pay attention to what your opponent is doing. Some opponents won’t send anything meaning they are probably doing one of two things: waiting for you to make a move to counter you or saving up for a big costly minion card. Do not let them sit and do that. The longer time your opponent has, the more time they have for planning. Countering is easy. If they send a flying minion like the dragon whelp then use ground ranged unit like the drone walker will always win that battle if nothing interferes. If they send a tank then use a swarming minion card like skeleton horde. So covering all main areas, countering enemies are all very important. Also when you counter enemies make sure you spend less than they spent. The script horde costs 3 while the blue golem costs 7. This means you win, not just the battle but the mana cost too.

Minion Masters is like Boom Beach in a sense that maths is useful and makes a difference here. Back to the blue golem script horde example. The blue golem hits an enemy every 2 seconds. Scrat horde summons 10 scrats. This means the golem will take 20 seconds to kill all the scrats by its self. Take into account also that the blue golem has 700 health and each scrat does 10 damage per second. This means the script horde can in theory kill the blue golem in 7 seconds but more like 8-9 seconds since the blue golem is still killing scrats. So scratch horde wins. So use maths to find the best counters for each minion. Then you can get even more technical. The cleaver does 300 damage every 5 seconds. You can help the cleaver get multiple attacks on a target or master simply by using spells or other minions to support the cleaver or distract it’s attackers. Now briefly about spells since they are easy to understand. Each spell is different. Some like the fireball do straight up damage while others like the chain lightning will stun enemies while doing less damage. Some spells like toll of the dead will summon a minion. There’s lots you can do with them.  

Last of all we encourage players to use their creativity and skill to create good or creative decks and do well in matches. Do not be the type of players that have no talent or skill at all so they go with whatever cheap strategies they can find and copy from others to desperately win matches. One for example is using the storm bringer master and having, multiple crossbow guild cards. They set them up in the back of their field and if you try to send a minion to stop them, they have the divine warrior who has a shield to delay, or even beat whatever you send, wasting your mana. It’s pathetic, lame and requires no skill. X35 Earthwalker himself has the cards to do this but he doesn’t. We have standards. We repeat, don’t be lame and pathetic as no one will respect you. The developers, ‘BetaDwarf‘ need to nerf this card. Either reduce the health of the guild, reduce the spawn rate of the minions coming out for example.

There’s a lot you can do in this game. Minion Masters make it sure that there are multiple strategies and approaches you can come up with. Many like to have a strong tank unit and have it being healed by the priestess. Others use the all flying minions decks meaning if you have no anti air at all then you are in serious trouble.

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Hellmut. Let’s see what’s up

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Hellmut: The Badass from Hell is a bullet storm dungeon crawler game developed by ‘Volcani‘ and published by ‘Grindstone‘. It already came out on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC. Hellmut aims to throw players into the centre of fast paced action and danger. Let’s take a look.

Now the first thing we will say about Hellmut: The badass from hell is that the story isn’t clear. We honestly aren’t entirely sure what the story is. According to the intro cutscene we know there’s a mad scientist who somehow summons a demon and asked for eternal life (along those lines), not sure why anyone would trust demons of all things but whatever, the scientist is mad remember. The demon then summons more demons who then attack the lab, while the big main demon kills the scientist leaving him as just a skull and spine. A being called the ‘eye of ka-ra’ shows up and grants the skull life, giving the scientist a chance to fight for his body and probably get revenge. Now we see the green test tubes and know that monsters are in there but when the eye of ka-ra offers the mutation forms as rewards for challenges it sounds like those forms were never his and completely new. Whatever, simply put it’s about fighting to get back what’s yours.

The tutorial does introduce you to the basics of the game and does that well but that’s all it does. There’s actually a number of mechanics or items in the game that wasn’t explained or made clear. Also it doesn’t fully prepare you for what’s coming next or gives enough combat. So players will get a shock on their first run of the game in terms of how much you’ll get swarmed and the difficulty. That isn’t bad as tutorials don’t need to fully explain everything, it’s okay to have some things be figured out by the player. A tutorial should explain the basics and that’s all really but when an emphasised item in the game like those red soul stones aren’t explained clearly, as to what they do, it’s a problem.

You enter the game and from the start get to pick from two transformations: Rat king and Stitchmonster. These mutations are the main focus of the game. Players can transform into them at anytime. Rat king is a longer ranged fighter who fires exploding rats. He has 150 health and his secondary shot is like a shotgun spread shot of your primary weapon. Stitchmonster has lots of health with 250 and has a single hammer throw attack. It’s secondary attack is basically an explosive ram attack which can get you in trouble if used badly. There are many more mutations like Slimeball which fires single shot slime projectiles and while the secondary fire is a huge bean that does serious damage in the direction you selected. I call that beam the boss killer. There’s another one. Ragnar is basically a undead norse god which fires two machine guns at the same time and the secondary attack is odin calling down purple lighting around you to harming enemies who are too close to you. We like the different mutations and some are clearly better than others. The fairy orc is the worst in our opinion by far. We just use it as a shield. Now if you are using a mutation and you lose all your health, that mutation dies and you are forced back to your skull form. You can quickly transform into another mutation or fight on as the skull but you can’t use the dead form until you revive it using a resurrection orb which you can buy or receive as an additional award.

In the levels, you will walk around and traverse the place until you enter a room which shouldn’t take along at all. Once in the room monsters will spawn. Kill them all. That’s it. Go from room to room fighting monsters and demons. Some rooms may have a treasure chest which contains either a weapon, soulstone, or a permanent stat boost like movement speed, rate of fire or damage. Some rooms have a mini boss in them, while other rooms may have a tome for summoning the eye of ka-ra, some rooms have a shop and one always has the exit portal. So get in a room and fight for your life, literally as the enemies don’t play around. With a wide range of enemies with different attacks patterns and abilities, you need to recognise the enemies and what they do quickly and stay alive. Some like skeletons, go up to you and slash you, while others like the hovering robot fires projectiles. Some enemies chase you down while others move around with their own pattern and only attack when you enter their range. Some can borrow underground where they can’t be hit but can still hit you, just wait until they resurface. Some are fast while spree are slow. Some summon more demons while others can poison you. Lastly some rooms allow you to run back out once the enemies spawn so you can fight them in a single line through the path (cowards way0 while some rooms trap you in with a laser wall for a period of time. We honestly prefer it if every room prevents you from leaving once the enemies spawn. It’s easy to run out and fight. 

As we’ve mentioned there a shop in each level where you can… well… buy stuff. There are two types of merchants there. One big guy that sells weapons, armour and weapon buffs while the other sells, medkits, a resurrection orb and a red soul stone expansion bag. Make sure to visit the store every level. One, because you’ll need the medkits to stay alive and two, because you may find some useful weapons and upgrades. It’s a good variety. All the weapon descriptions are quite humorous. Humour and being silly is a theme throughout the whole game. The game isn’t serious and the advice given at the loading screens, to weapon descriptions to character interactions is all jokes, and taking everything lightly. Humour works well and and definitely in a game like this where everything is colourful and pixel graphic style. Will someone please explain the purpose of the red soul stones. We bought the expansion bag and still have no idea what it does. No we won’t look it up. We will figure it out ourselves as well always do but the game should tell us, or if it unlocks secrets, then a hint should be given. Inside the shop is also a arcade machine which let’s you play space invaders but a Hellmut: The badass from Hell version of it. Literally the same game, the enemies move left and right while discoing over time and you just have to shoot them. Instead of a mother ship, it’s the eye of ka-ra that occasional goes across the screen. Nice touch and a different pace to the game but here’s a another weakness of the game. What do we play that game? What do we get out of it? First time we played, we went to level 22 and then exited and received nothing. Our coins didn’t go up, neither did our red soul stones. Is there an end to this game? After some waves it gets boring real quick. Hellmut should have spiced up the space invaders with something different in it.

Now Hellmut: The Badass from Hell isn’t a big game at all. You can complete a run very quickly and that’s what the game seems to aim for. It’s all quick gaming for quick fun. If you have a couple of hours to spend then you can play this game doing multiple runs and unlocking different transformations. You won’t spend the whole day on this game. There are 8 levels and four bosses. This in a way reminds us off Spelunky. A quick game with a few levels but has good replayability. All the levels and the bosses are randomly generated. So you won’t be getting the same exact layouts at all. There is some form of pattern though. Hellmut however; does have a different function from the other games.  There’s a tournament mode where if you enable it, your runs will always have the same seed. This means you will have the same layout, same enemies, same items everything. This is good for competing against your friends. This way you and your friends can all face the same thing to see who does better. It’s great that they put in an option like this. 

 The bosses have quite the gap in terms of difficulty. Some bosses are very easy to beat and don’t put up much of a fight while others are very difficulty and take a long time to beat. For example there’s one that acts like a vampire and flies around and can’t be until it starts to do attacks of it’s own. Some bosses have high attack damage and they can hit you multiple times in a row   wiping out mutations within seconds. This brings us to one of the main points about Hellmut: The Badass from Hell. Game difficulty. Hellmut, for the average person is a difficult game. For X35 Earthwalker? It’s sort of easy and we will explain why later. Why the game is hard for the average person and gamer is because it’s a fast game and the enemies do high damage. Regular enemies can kill you within seconds if you aren’t careful. Especially those red dragons who are the strongest enemies in the game. If you get too close, they will breathe fire at you and it does a lot of damage. When at least two hit you with the flamethrower, it could literally be over just like that. The blue ogre looking monsters who charge right into you do a ton of damage as well. Your only healing is the medkits. Well there is a cure pill that you can get your hands on in a room but that’s rare. So primarily you rely on medkits which are limited since you can only get two in each store. You can acquire more by beating bosses too. So players really need to avoid getting hit as much as possible. Sounds obvious but it’s really important here.

Let’s wrap things up. There’s more to say but I don’t want to say anymore. The good things about Hellmut: The Badass from Hell is that it’s quick, lively and enjoyable. The humour, graphics style and colours help make it more appealing. The game concept is simple and easy to understand and get straight into. Wide variety of weapons and enemies which help mix things up. The tournament mode is an excellent idea and will have it’s uses. Gauntlet mode is basically endless waves of enemies coming for you and the test tube in the centre of the stage, which you need to protect. This mode also allows other players to join you in the combat which is a big deal. The amount of replayability is good for what this game is. You have to unlock all the mutations which requires you to beat the game multiple times and the random generated levels helps with keeping the gameplay exciting. We also like the music options. There is Modern crap, old school and mix it. Mix it is currently our favourite.

As for the negatives, the level designs are too simple. Traversing the levels doesn’t feel exciting at all. Once a rare glitch happened which caused some enemies that died to stay on the field and not do anything but stand there. This stopped us from getting to the next level. Story wasn’t clear, some items like the red soul stones weren’t clear as to why we collect them and what we use them for. The space invaders style arcade game in the shop gets boring real quick and still don’t know why we should play it or what we even gaining for playing it. Only a few levels has this problem but because of lighting a square wall in a room may blend in with the floor colour making it hard to see. Lastly games like this benefit from and need co-op campaign. Hellmut: The badass from Hell is the kind of game you play together with a friend or family. Leaving co-op only for gauntlet mode isn’t good enough.

Overall Hellmut: The Badass from Hell is a good game, especially for the size of the development team. It’s great for when you have a couple of hours to spend and want quick quite chaotic action. Nothing serious though. We would say 7/10 right now. Hellmut: The badass from Hell may have multiple mutations but even those can’t do a thing against… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Minion Masters. Master those minions

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Minion Masters is a fast paced online minion battle game developed by ‘BetaDwarf’. Minion Masters recently came out on the Xbox One. We are currently glad it did. Players must pick a master and then summon and use minions to get the victory against other masters. It is a simple game but that’s only at the surface.

In Minion masters, there are multiple masters and they each, off course, have their own abilities which allow for different strategies and combinations. The masters are also capable of defending themselves too. Each master has three perks for players to unlock as the match progresses. For example The Stormbringer fires an arrow at enemies with his bow that deals 35 damage every 4 seconds. His first perk is that he gets global attack range meaning as he can hit anything, including the enemy master who’s literally on the other side of the battle field. The second perk is that all his ranged minions gain marksmanship which basically increases their attack range. Last perk double the attack speed of the Stormbringer meaning he fires, every 2 seconds. Now there are many other masters too like Mordar, Settsu, Volvo and more. 

Now more about the minions in Minion Masters. Minions require mana in order to be summoned. Maximum amount of mana you can hold is 10. The biggest strongest minions require 8-10. Your mana builds up naturally and it’s up to the player to decide when to summon and what to summon. Before you can even use your minions in combat, you have to build a deck, using the cards you obtain. These go in a cycle, sort off, and then when in your hand, can you choose to use them. So yeah, build a deck from your cards, jump into a battle, select which card to use and then designate where you want to summon that minion. It’s very simple.

Now there are different types of cards in Minion Masters. Mainly minions, spells and buildings. A minion is your main card as it’s a unit that will attack any enemy units nearby (most of them do) and make their way to the enemy base to strike at their master. The spells are exactly what you think, spells. They can be anything from a healing fireball, to an actual damaging fireball, to a lightning chain strike that stuns, to a storm of arrows etc. Buildings also have varied purposes too. T.here are buildings that summon minions, buildings that give you experience, buildings that stun minions or buildings that are turrets which fire at enemy buildings and minions. Minion Masters seems to have a similar style to Yu-Gi-Oh. How? Minion Masters have minion, spells and buildings, while Yu-Gi-Oh has monsters, spells and traps. Pretty cool right?

Now there are very limited game modes in Minion Masters and this is one of the weaknesses of this game. There’s just normal battle where you face an opponent in a 1v1 online match. Then there’s teams where it’s 2v2. That’s the main body of the game. There’s also a challenge mode where you face A.I masters in standard battles. Once you complete the challenges, that’s it, you are done with them. That’s a fail on the games part. Maybe when the season resets, the challenges reset too but that’s far too long. Players need a game mode where they can fight against others that aren’t actual players for practice or training. The other two modes are expedition and mayhem. Expedition puts players on a big map that’s full of enemies and totems (it looks like a totem). Players must travel through the land and beat enemies to gain might and interact with the totems. Now this mode would have been great except for two major issues. One, it’s only like every three or four days you get a expedition. So in between you are stuck with just normal battles where your rank is constantly on the line. Second, each enemy you see on the map is a forced online ranked battle. We Dom’t even get a break from those battles. They put you in match making and you face a real person. That’s dumb. It should have been A.I like the bosses. Mayhem is basically different matches with twists to it. For example a recent one was a regular match except random cards in your hand either have increased or reduced mana cost. 

The game does allow for a lot of strategy to be involved. Different units for different purposes but you have limited space so pick well. Many want a priestess to heal and keep stronger units alive but she has very poor damage and moves super slow and may not keep up with unit she’s healing. Some use dragon help to attack ground units but with very low health a single fireball will destroy it. Some use the brothers of light unit but they cost 10 mana and can be killed sort of quickly by good air units. Some have the priestess heal the brothers of light and save a fireball to counter incoming air units. Some save the haunted hugger minion for ground only minions so that they can possess without resistance and can pass on to the next unit. There’s also the people who want to ruin the game with lame cheap strategies. Some just spam the crossbow dudes building which produces crossbow dudes and then play strombringer to increase their range with the marksman perk. There’s always those types of talentless, uncreative, no skill players who find cheap things and use that for their easy victories. If it’s not obvious, we at X35 Earthwalker hate cheap stuff. The biggest dumb thing about Minion Masters is that when we tried to livestream the game it breaks after every match. It won’t go back to the hub or main area (whatever you call it). It just shows the winning players masters standing there. We had to close down the game and reopen and the issue still persists. We won’t livestream this game ever again until they fix it.

Minion Masters is a simple game with simple content. Ranked battles is the meat of the game and occasionally a event comes along that gives a slight break. How you get new champions is badly done. You either spend real money to get rubies or you play and collect shards to get them. One costs real money while the other takes a long time. Every match you win grants you a pitiful amounts of coins. What’s good is that some masters are on a free cycle where players can play them for that set period of time like a week for example and see if they like them or not. How you get new cards is fair as completing daily challenges grants you coins but you only get one daily challenge a day, even though there are three slots (lame). You get coins for levelling up too so use them to buy power tokens to spin for new cards (random) and you also get a few shards with each spin. So keep playing and eventually you will get what you want. 

Overall Minion Masters is a fun game and it’s easy to understand. It has it’s issues and some annoying things that need to be sorted. There is more like the team keys system but even that is based on chance. You can’t play locally or with friends but you can have a good time online. You find matches quickly and it works for the most part. Something you play for a bit and then don’t touch again until tomorrow or an expedition is going on. Now Minion Masters may have many cards and minions but even all of them combined are nothing when compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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Riverbond. On it’s way

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

Riverbond is a new hack and slash dungeon crawler game developed and published by ‘Cococucumber’. Riverbond is said to be coming out in the third quarter of 2019 on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. A game like this looks very welcoming but we all know it can’t be that innocent and safe. Let’s take a look.

The story in Riverbond is quite interesting. Players head out on a journey, which takes place down a river. Get it? This isn’t an ordinary trip. It’s an enchanted river and the lands are continually shifting and moving. The world is collapsing and so there isn’t much time. Player must also rebuild the passage that goes to the great beyond. Whatever that is. So players have to save the world by the looks of it by figuring out what’s happening and the solution has to do with the great beyond. Interesting but still simple.

Now Riverbond takes place in a voxel world. What’s a voxel world?… well… A voxel represents a value on a a grid. It’s all 3D though. Think of it as cubes placed together. So if Riverbond has a voxel world, basically the style of the game is all cubes. The lands are made from cubes, the characters, and the water is designed in a cube style. It’s easier to understand when you see the game yourself. When you do however; the first things or should we say game that comes to mind is… Minecraft. The world world and characters and stuff is basically cubes. Blocky. 

This style obviously gets attention and when done right and with the right colours, can look really good. Even better is the fact that the voxel world in Riverbond is destructible. So be careful of what you destroy. There is real time physics s don’t think for one moment that the block will just stay in the air. Gravity is at work. There are 8 worlds and each off course is different and have their own threats and obstacles. Speaking of threats, since it’s a hack and slash, expect lots of combat, many enemies and lots to slow you down. There are even bosses as well. The developers have described them as deadly but cute. 

There is said to her over 50 different weapons and guns. Good to see that there is some variety to the combat. Long ranged combat and off course close range slashing. Best of all though is that Riverbond is multiplayer. That’s right, 1-4 local. So not only can you invite friends and family over to play, you don’t have to save the game and go to the menu to bring them in. It’s drop in, drop out style meaning they just have to hit start and they jump in where you are. That’s an excellent option. Great job developers. That’s what we like to see. Riverbond about to get some action from gamers.

We checked out some Riverbond gameplay and it’s what we expected based on the games description. You run around as a small character wielding large weapons and fighting through the many enemies. There are different skins for players to unlock like the shovel knight skin. Big enemies that have dangerous attacks, you can destroy structures and pillars, knock down bridges, smash through trees and much more. The co-op multiplayer looks fun as you can all team up against enemies and turn the tables thanks to the extra back up. We hope Riverbond has a means to make the game difficult even when there’s four players attacking enemies. We wonder if the game is difficult at all.

Overall Riverbond does so far look like another little fun game. Nothing huge and complicated at all. It seems like another game that we can get friends to quickly play and have a laugh and fight together. The graphics are very good for it’s style. The level design is good too and shows good creativity. We like the variety of enemies from pigs and crocodiles to golems (we think it’s golems). We like what we see. The developers ‘Cococucumber’ have done a very good job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker look forward to seeing what Riverbond has to offer gamers. Now Riverbond may have a collapsing world but even that isn’t as serious as… the ‘Earth Walk!’

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