Energy Cycle is a puzzle game developed and published by ‘Sometimes You‘. Energy Cycle is said to be coming out on the 20th of October 2021 on Xbox Series X. Energy Cycle is already out on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and PC. The real question is how efficient are these puzzles. Let’s take a look.
Energy cycle is a very simple puzzle game. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people just need a simple puzzle game. For chilling and enjoying the time and music, or maybe taking a break from high action more difficult games or that’s just their type of game. Bejewelled is a very simple puzzle game, bit more complex that Energy Cycle and it’s doing well. Energy cycle do0es need to make sure it stands out though. Simple puzzle games don’t get noticed easily and are more effective as mobile games but hey, we will have to see.
Here’s how simple Energy Cycle is. There’s a bunch of energy cells and players must click them to turn them all the same colour. Each cell you click changes colour and not only that but all other cells adjacent to it both horizontally and vertically. So it’s not as easy as you’d think. Players will still need to use a portion of their brain. We wonder how difficult Energy Cycle will get. A game as simple as Energy Cycle should have the means to divide the simple gamers from the more better thinking smarter ones.
Like we said. Energy cycle is very simple. there’s nothing much to say here. There’s some tunes which range from annoying to a bit bumping. A game like this should have calming music too. hopefully there’s a way to decide what music you can pick or filter. The visuals are very nice. The background is almost ambient like, nice for relaxing. We hope there’s a chill mode. The cells look cool and the special effects are real cool too. Good details. Imagine how good it will look on Xbox Series X. It will not be on PS5.
Overall Energy Cycle looks like a good simple puzzle game. Doesn’t look too difficult either. It’s definitely not our type of game but we can see the appeal from others. It does what it says on the box. The developers ‘Sometimes you’ have done a good job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker hope that this game does well on Xbox Series X. A good game to add to the library of games you can play on Xbox. Now Energy Cycle might have simple puzzles but it definitely isn’t energy efficient enough for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Gears 5 is an excellent game overall but due to decisions made by the developers ‘The Coalition’ concerning versus mode, they have damaged the game a lot which has resulted in bad statistics. Horde is fun, escape is fun, campaign is fun but versus sucks. One big change to verses that has ruined things in matches is what they did to the Lancer. Let’s take a look.
The Lancer is the signature weapon of Gears of war. Gnasher only fans will say otherwise but just look over all the Gears of War games. The main gun is always the Lancer. We have said this before and will say it again. The iconic things of Gears of War is the Lancer, The crimson omen and Marcus Fenix. Not the Gnasher. So when we see the developers make the Lancer incredibly weak, you know they already messed up. The Lancer is the workhorse gun of the COG army. It’s their main gun. So automatically this defeats the lame argument Gnasher fans make that the Lancer is a support weapon. Rifles aren’t support weapons, they are main weapons. Ask any Marine or person in the army if the assault rifle is a support weapon. Your support weapon would be the snub pistol. The Lancer is too weak.
Look at our X35 Earthwalker video above. You see how weak it is. You get away with running out in the open for that long and survive the lancer. That wouldn’t happen. The accuracy was good as we landed our shots and he still didn’t go down. We have seen people run through lancer fire, reach the shooter and one shot them with the gnasher, which is stupid. Gears of War is a cover shooter game. Therefore players should get punished for running out in the open carelessly. Yes we know the game’s multiplayer meta became the gnasher shotgun but that means the game is cover shooter while the versus is not. That’s a fail. We have seen multiple layers surviving a hail of bullets. Not good. What’s far more frustrating is when you finally down someone with the lancer or whatever and then you fire at them with the Lancer to finish them of as they try to crawl away. Sad thing is that the Lancer takes forever to kill downed enemies in versus. We have seen this many times. down someone trying to run, you down them finally and then you try to finish them off and they don’t die. You have to reload and by the time you finish reloading, they already crawled behind cover. That’s so stupid and the developers haven’t corrected that. How are you almost as tough as a healthy character, while crawling.
The polite people in the comment section informed us that they also removed the damage buff you get from a perfect active reload. This was in every Gears of War game. Just Gears 5 that doesn’t have it semi-lately. Yet the Gnasher keeps it’s buffs from the reloads. This means that Lancer is even weaker than before. In Gears of War 3, the Lancer is a strong weapon. When you get that sweet reload it became stronger than the powerful retro lancer. Compare Gears of War 3 Lamnncer to Gears 5 Lancer. Heck, compare Gears 5 Lancer to Gears of War Judgement’s Lancer. In Judgement the Lancer is very good and very fair. Not the strongest rifle as well. We even saw a reduction to the stopping power of the Lancer in Gears 5. Once again, another nerf. This allows shotgun users to rush you, push through the bullets and still kill you. Low damage, no bonus from the perfect active reloads and weak stopping power. This is a terrible combination. Multiple time we have seen where the Lancer fails and it’s frustrating. Even during an X35 Earthwalker Gears 5 livestream everyone saw that the Lancer once again was useless. People stated that they don’t bother with it anymore.
There are a few people, conveniently they are the Gnasher only user players, who say the Lancer is how it should be. Well congratulations! You guys got what you wanted and guess what? Gears 5 has the lowest numbers of players. Gears 5 is getting smaller and smaller. Their numbers are terrible. New players try, hate it, get killed by Gnasher losers who want montage clips for their youtube channel over and over again and then leave and never come back. Old players are leaving and even veterans of the series like X35 Earthwalker don’t bother with versus as much at all anymore. Gears 5 sadly isn’t doing well. Many forum pages of people complaining about the game and the developers aren’t listening. Making the icon weapon of the game trash is a terrible idea. There’s more to say but we won’t bother. So instead watch something really cool like the video below.
Overall… the Lancer sucks. The Lancer is garbage. The developers ‘The coalition’ has made some very bad decisions. We will definitely be avoiding versus mode a whole lot more. Versus mode isn’t fun. Let’s hope things change but we stopped caring some time ago. There’s tons of other good games to play. Now the Lancer in Gears 5 is garbage and it’s not good enough for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Welcome to another X35 Earthwalker quick review. Lemnis Gate is an excellent game. We will say that right away. Lemnis Gate was developed by ‘Ratloop games’. This game is available on Xbox Series X (off course), PS5 and PC. X35 Earthwalker has played this game for a quite a bit and even did a livestream on it. Here’s what we think of Lemnis Gate so far. Take a look.
In case you don’t know what Lemnis Gate is, most likely because you don’t operate in the best gaming circles like we do, then read our first blog post on the game. Regardless we will break it down simply. It’s a first person shooter game but heavy on the tactical side. The main mode is turn based first person shooting. There’s a small map with objectives like collect the orbs and bring it back to your spawn. You move first and run out to get an orb and bring it back. Then your opponent on their turn will try to get an orb too. The one with the most wins. Except it’s way deeper than that.
You play with the past, present and future. This game can get mind bending real fast. With Halo, you just need to know the map well and have good aim. that’s it. For Gears of War you need to wallbonce and aim well with the Gnasher shotgun. Those games are fun but straight forward. Lemnis Gate forces players to use far more of their brain. They tried something unique and made it work. So remember the example we gave earlier? Well on your opponents turn they will try to kill your operative who goes to grab the orb and instead take it for themselves, preventing you from getting it. You can’t go back to undo that, as it’s now in the past but you could instead use another operative to go in fast and kill the operative your opponent used to kill your first one. With the opponents one gone, your first one doesn’t die and continues to grab the orb and get back to the spawn to score. Do you get it now? Don’t worry, we know it’s easier to see than read to understand. We will put our gameplay video down below.
You get it now. That’s why Lemnis Gate certainly isn’t for everyone. It’s for higher IQ players due to how much thinking and problem identifying and solving it takes to be real good at this game. This doesn’t mean your average player can’t play. They can but they must know what they are getting themselves into. The typical learn as you play and face better opponents os real and applies here. some are going to play and loose for a while before really getting the hang of it which is okay. While others will do good almost straight away while only X35 Earthwalker himself is super intelligent and naturally talented that he dominates and wins already. Seriously though, X35 Earthwalker right now is undefeated. Now about getting good at the game, you can literally play against yourself for practice. Control both player one and two like how a real match would go. You can see if you can beat yourself and try things to see what actually works or not. Very smart move of the developers to allow you a training session against yourself. Use it players, and learn some tricks.
The game looks excellent. The levels are off a good variety in design from a jungle like area to a moon base like place to a waste land with funky rocks and more. We like the different operatives. Really like them. Let’s talk about them. There’s seven in total: Vendetta, Deathblow, Toxin, Rush, Karl, Kapitan and Striker. Each has their own Gun and special ability. Vendetta has a shotgun and her ability is to set up automatic turrets to fire at enemies in range. Deathblow has a rocket launcher and can set mines. Toxin fires toxic balls which hit and covers surfaces in damaging poison puddles, her ability is a teleport. Rush dual wields sub machine guns and can dash fast on both land and air. Karl has a continuous laser beam and can place defensive shields. Kapitan has a machine gun and can throw a grenade. Striker has a sniper rifle and can slow down time. We already have our favourites based on design alone.
Let’s talk about the design of these characters. We really like the designs here. Deathblow sounds awesome. He sounds like a serious veteran bounty hunter or that one dude who you don’t want to mess with. Toxin is a woman but at first look she looks like a man thanks to her big hazmat like suit which makes her immune to toxics. Her voice is amazing. Loved it instantly. Kapitan looks like a hardened woman. someone who has gone through either rough training or moved into this no nonsense attitude. She won’t be playing Halo Infinite with the others. Karl reminds us of Pathfinder from Apex Legends. A high tech talking robot with some whitty puns. Makes sense for a robot. Rush stands out the most. This guy definitely has a mighty accent. Strong Caribbean accent which works well with him. Jamaicans are the fastest people (just ask the Olympics especially in 100m sprint) and yet Rush is the fastest character with an ability based on speed. He has jokes and super confident. Reminds us of a certain Jamaican friend we know. Cool dude, just like Rush. Striker has the least going on. A confident use with a mask who likes a clean kill. Nothing much stand out with him. Lastly Vendetta who might be our favourite. We like Vendetta’s design and her attitude She is an example of finally game developer are putting women in their games with different body types. It’s about time! Bless Unleashed did it and we praised them for it. So many female characters have the shape of Kapitan. Vendetta is heavier in her lower half while top talk was more standard. She stands out instantly and for good reason. We want more variety in character body designs. The Lemnis Gate cast is excellent.
Lemnis Gate gets real deep when it come to tactics. Think about it. When you know someone is sprinting straight for an objective like the orbs. You don’t even need to kill their operative, all you have to do is just grab the orb before they do and run with it. The best players always try to find the simplest way of handling a problem. For example, if you know an operative will get sniped by striker then all you have to do is place a shield on your operative with Karl. The shield will save their life. Just use the shield, you don’t need to always kill the enemy. Always be careful of events that take place in the past like flying rockets from Deathblow. Your next operative who runs out there might get struck by a random rocket and waste your turn. You also need to know which operative might be a good counter for the other. Advanced stuff. We might make a G-blog post on that one time. Advanced tricks and some tips. Just remember to focus and pay attention to what’s going on. Especially in the later rounds where you have 6 operatives running around doing their thing at the same time.
Overall we can proudly say that Lemnis Gate is awesome. It’s very difficult as you have seen and read. Take a ton of thinking, especially to outplay and outsmart your opponent who is also clever. X35 Earthwalker has faced some experienced players already and still won every match. It’s on the Xbox GamePass so try it out for yourself. Now Lemnis Gate may operate in the past, present and future but that’s still many abilities below… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Pumpkin Jack is a 3D platformer game developed by ‘Nicolas Meyssonnier’ and published by ‘Headup‘. Pumpkin Jack is not a new game. It’s already out but it’s coming to the next gen consoles: Xbox Series X and PS5 on the 27th of October 2021. We have never heard of this game before. Let’s take a look.
Pumpkin Jack, not to be confused with Samurai Jack, is set in a spooky world. Halloween style world with spooky scary skeletons (see what we did there?), gargoyles scarecrows and more. Players control Pumpkin Jack, the mythical pumpkin lord. This guy is evil. We know this because he’s following the will of the devil. Yep. If X35 Earthwalker saw Pumpkin Jack, he would kill hat evil pumpkin. It’s a battle go evil vs good in this game.
If you are reading this, you most likely know what’s up concerning this game. FFriends and characters to meet on your adventure including a crow with an attitude and a owl who has behaviour issues. There’s multiple levels, each having “its own eerie atmosphere”. How many halloween spooky environments can they come up with.
We checked out some pumpkin Jack gameplay and it’s what we expected. Clearly has an old school style design layout and concept. it’s a 3D platformer where you run, jump and light enemies to progress. There’s bosses to overcome but players will need to get good (git gud) with the movements of Pumpkin Jack. This means the evading and when to evade to dodge serious attacks and move quickly to deliver the pain. We saw magical abilities, weapons like a shovel and even firearms.
Overall Pumpkin Jack looks like a nice game. got the colours and definitely got the visuals, especially on the Xbox Series X. We even saw a horse for Pumpkin Jack to ride. It’s a platformer adventure with a spooky theme. This explains the next gen console release timing. Halloween is nearby. The developer ‘Nicolas Meyssonnier’ have done a nice job with this game. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to see what happens with Pumpkin Jack. Now Pumpkin Jack has spooky business going on but none of that scares… the ‘Earth Walk!’
The Ascent is an excellent game. Straight out the gate let’s just say this. We at X35 Earthwalker enjoyed The Ascent. This game was a lot of fun. We recommend this game to multiple people but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any flaws. It does. Let’s jump in this quick review by X35 Earthwalker.
The Ascent is an action role playing game where you control an indent. What’s an indent? Basically a slave. Indents are owned by either a person or company or organisation. If you want to know more, then read our first gaming blog post about The Ascent. Simply put you are at the bottom in this world with many others but aim to make it to the top. Players should be prepared for a lot of fire fights, explosives and chaos wherever you go.
As you can see from our first The Ascent gameplay video you get a good idea of what’s going on. Very futuristic, very sad and dark though in terms of the universe you are in. There’s machines, robotic enemies and beings, human enemies and even what looks like wild creatures. We like the different enemy types but are disappointed by the lack of variety amongst the enemies. For example when it comes to the wild creatures like the feral, that’s all we have. Just the ferals and maybe the papa ferals who are just bigger ferals who have additional abilities. There’s no other wild creatures. When it comes to the human enemies they are basically all the same but with different weapons and act differently based on those weapons. The humanoid beings have some sort of variety. Even the robotic enemies are basically the same. That was lame. We needed more variety. This game had the room and environment for such a thing.
What The Ascent did very well though was that the enemies put up a fight. Some enemies will always run to cover to fight. They fire over the top and can’t be hit unless you flank them. There’s melee equipped enemies who rush you and try to get some swings in. There’s a bigger dude who fires semi homing missiles but that’s it though. The most variety goes to the humanoid, the aliens of different races. There’s a massive creature with a hammer reminding us of brutes from with gravity hammers from Halo. Their heavy big swing doesn’t make sense because you could be far away and you still get hurt. Seems a bit glitchy to us. There’s a small annoying enemy that acts like the support. Will run in and set p either a stationary artillery or healing zone. Another one acts is a serious hacker that can mess with your systems, disable you, send a drone after you and even shield its allies (your enemies) from all forms of harm and more. You have to disable them with your hacking ICE abilities. The robotic enemies behave exactly like the human enemies, either ranged or melee but they tend to have more energy weapons. So yeah, throw more exciting enemy variety in.
There are quite a number of characters here is some good flavour. Noghead is a cool dude. He is basically one off those super hackers who can listen in on conversations, extract information from basically anything, bug and plant anything, hack through things and more. He got a hideout, secret set up defence turrets. He got jokes too. Very good character. Then there’s the trash the game… kira. We hate her so much. She thinks she superior to everyone because of the species that she is. she talks heavily down to humans and makes it clear she believes humans are stupid. What’s worse is that we end up having no choice but to work for her. She is so obnoxious, annoying and ugly that we couldn’t wait to kill her. She isn’t a good person either. She steals property, killed a lot, caused destruction and all for her personal goals. Bit more on this later. Characters like Poon make sense, we get his motivation and why he is the way that he is. Simply put, most characters are cool and fit in this world well and make sense. There’s only like two characters that suck… one of them being kira.
The best and coolest thing about The Ascent is definitely the weapons. This is the best part about the game easily. There’s so many weapons. There’s sooooo many weapons. Not as much as Earth Defence Force 2025… nothing has that much! There’s rifles, automatic weapons, heavy and light pistols, sub machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, shotguns and more, including special weapons like a flamethrower, a buzzsaw launcher, constant energy beam and other crazy stuff. The weapons are serious. They aren’t trash either. X35 Earthwalker has multiple times, no actually constantly been switching weapons to fight enemies. Mainly not because it was more effective against enemy types but because it was fun. Again the weapons aren’t trash. All of them are useable. Some off course are better than others… much better, but all especially when upgraded become effective. WE literally swapped for fun and variety. Many games need to learn from The Ascent when it comes to weapons. Make a bunch of weapons, multiple of each type but make them all good with clear advantages to some over others. It can be done. There was a strong hitting rifle that had explosive rounds. There was even Diamondz L45’s dream weapon, a mini shotgun. No, not a small shotgun. A mini gun + a shotgun. It has a very low rate of fire at first but then fires fast like a minigun but each shot is a shotgun with very tight spread though. The Ascent went all out with weapons and we love that.
The augmentations shake things up a lot in The Ascent. They are basically abilities you install in yourself. You could do an energy punch which has some area of effect. You can summon a bunch of mechanical spiders that chase down, pounce on enemies to explode. You can create a life link with enemies and when you damage them, you heal. Call in razor bat like mechs that surround you damaging any who get near you. Do a stomp that freezes and launches enemies in the air with stasis. Jump at enemies with an explosive fiery landing. Even summon mechs who follow you around and fire at enemies, or if it’s the melee mechs then get they get physical with enemies. You can even summon a huge mech armour that you get into. It has a huge mini gun and tons of armour. It’s better than the power armour in Fallout. X35 Earthwalker obtained every augmentation in the game and most except two are good. Some like the one that resets your health to the point of activation are clearly the best. You can truly mix things up and when combined with passive boosters and certain weapons. We created our own combos to handle whatever the game throws at us. For example if robotic enemies show up, we have a build for them since ballistic rounds do way less damage to them so you need energy weapons. We use the augmentation that converts all damage into data damage which robotic enemies are vulnerable too. We won’t give away our whole combos.
Now for the worst part of the game. The ending. It sucked. We don’t believe the good guys should always win and there’s peace in the land. Spoilers in case you haven’t beaten the game yet. The character we hate the most wins in the end. Yeah Kira gets what she wanted, all that power, money and control. All the time while we were under her command we wanted and desired to kill her. She is evil and we hate her, yet she lives and wins. We know she’s powerful as we saw her one shot that large mechanical spider enemy, so she isn’t a wuss and got powerful technology but we were ready to face her. We got powerful augmentations, crazy weapons and maxed out stats, ready to fight her but that never happens. Noghead came in clutch which was perfect as it make sense for a master hacking technology guy like him to do what he did but other from that, the ending sucks. We weren’t happen. We need to kill kira but the game said no. It feels like we got no where in The Ascent which was seriously disappointing.
Overall The Ascent is an excellent game with a few problems. Facing tons of enemies and multiple encounters while travelling is annoying but killing enemies helps you level up, so it’s needed. The trains allow for fast travel and they do their job well and heal you as a bonus. We wish the maps where easier to read when it comes to upper and lower areas as it’s not clear, especially in the Corp zone. The locations and environments work well for a sad depressing futuristic place. We like how the pinnacle isa above the clouds, natural light and beautiful while the deep stink is all death, grime, stink and death. Almost a whole heaven and hell thing going on. Truly shows the difference class makes in the world. It’s free on xbox game pass and it’s worth playing for sure. This is a more quick review so don’t expect us to dive into all the details as there is more to say. Now The Ascent may have numerous crazy weapons but those weapons are nothing compared to… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Iron Harvest is a real time strategy game developed by ‘King art‘ and published by ‘Prime matter‘. Iron Harvest is said to be coming out the 26th of October 2021 on the PS5, confirmed for Xbox Series X in 2021 also but no clear date. It’s already out on PC from 1st of September 2021. This looks interesting. Let’s take a look.
Iron Harvest is set in 1920 but in an alternate timeline. Basically instead of traditional weapons and old uniforms it’s advanced machines. There’s complete war machines with mortars, artillery and more. Those who have such machines obviously have immense advantages. There’s three main nations being named here are: Saxony, Polonia and Rusviet. By the way all this is happening in Europe. Also there’s a new that in europe. The website states “In the midst of this chaos, a new threat appears that will put Europe’s very existence at risk”. Sounds like things are about to go down.
So let’s keep all of this Iron Harvest stuff simple. It’s a big war going on in europe in an alternate timeline with powerful war machines and we don’t mean tanks. We are talking about walkers carrying rifles with giant lances. There’s a machine that moves like a crawling beetle that launches explosives and covers entire areas. We talking real war machines. We talking almost Supreme Commander 2 levels types of war machines… off course not at that level though. There’s cover based mechanics too. So put your units in cover or suffer the consequences. By the way, there’s like 30 different mobile machines and exo-skeletons.
The biggest factor about Iron Harvest is the machines clearly. Otherwise it’s a military war game. So let’s talk more about the machines. Like Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries there is different size and weight machines. There’s giant real huge machines that bring the pain all the way to light and smaller machines that are very versatile. There’s what’s classed as weapon systems. These are powerful but slow “armaments”. Examples would be like real heavy machine guns, mortars and even anti-mech cannons. So there’s a lot of variety going on here which means multiple strategies.
We checked out some Iron Harvest gameplay and it’s what we expected. We see a whole bunch of units moving across the field, some getting into cover, some charging in. We se different walking machines with different functions and the risks. We like that all weapon systems are have a big weakness. They have a cone of fire and slow which means placement is everything. If careless they will get destroyed easily, accomplishing nothing. So more rooms for tactics. There’s also cooperative and competitive multiplayer in Iron Harvest. There’s challenge maps, skirmish maps, ranked matches, ranked ladders and leagues. So there’s room for competitive action right here in Iron Harvest.
Overall Iron Harvest looks like a cool game so far. We like the variety of units. We don’t care about the alternate timeline. We hope the nations and goals are made more clear. So far we are losing interest. We have many thoughts and some concerns. Real time strategy games like this are tough to do right and even harder to balance. The developers ‘King art’ have done a nice job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker will have to keep an ear open for this game. Now Iron Harvest may have war machines but even those are too weak and ineffective against… the ‘Earth Walk!’
The Riftbreaker is a new base building survival game developed by ‘EXOR Studios‘ and published by ‘Surefire games‘. The Riftbreaker is said to be coming out the 14th of October 2021 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS5, PS4 and PC. The Riftbreaker definitely got our attention. Let’s take a look.
The Riftbreaker simply is about an elite scientist/commando inside a powerful and advanced mech suit (they call it mecha-suit). Like Samus Aran, the it’s a woman in the powerful mech suit. She is captain Ashley S. Nowak. The Riftbreaker is all about that survival and base building. So go out there do your research in the field, collect samples and invent new things with survival as your top priority on an alien planet called galatea 37. How did you get there? A one way portal (one way).
The mission in The Riftbreaker is to create and build a base that has the means to allow travel back to earth. Basically become a two way portal. This off course won’t be easy as galatea 37 (the planet) is alien inhabited and some of these aliens are very hostile and dangerous. As in trying to kill you. Your actions on the planet will of course draw attention. The player must venture out and explore the planet in her mech suit, which she calls ‘Mr Riggs’. Extract resources and even capture certain specimens. Aliens might show up. This mech suit isn’t just samples and research. It’s fully equipped for combat and can handle the toughest and most harsh environmental conditions.
This isn’t just a base building survival game. There’s also action and role playing game elements. The mech suit can be equipped with a flamethrower for deep frying aliens. There’s a minigun which off course shreds and trashs all who stands in it’s way. There’s off course energy blades because why not? It’s a futuristic high tech mech suit. It demands energy based weapons. There’s even mortar shells that you can fire at a distance to bring that area of effect damage. There’s even more technology and equipment that the mech suit can get to bring the combat to the enemy. Now off course, there are limits though.
So lets sum up a bit here concerning The Riftbreaker. You are primarily focusing on base building but you must venture out to do research and gain the knowledge to build a base that allows two way portal transportation while defending yourself from hordes of enemies north outside in the field and back at the base itself. You need to build defence towers, erect walls and place gates to protect and defend and stay alive. Sounds simple. Sounds a bit too simple right now. We hope that changes fast.
We checked out some The Riftbreaker gameplay and it’s what we expected for the most part. We like that the attacks on your base from the horde of enemies get bigger each and every day. Eventually you face thousands. So the sooner you complete your mission, the better. How you build matters. You can get tactical with the base building. You can build with the walls to make a maze to stall the horde and set them up. We like the variety of aliens you can encounter during your expeditions out there but we hope they have variety when it comes to base defence as well. The horde better not just be simple enemies. Variety means more strategic builds are required.
Overall The Riftbreaker looks like a very good game indeed. There’s a lot we like about it. We like the whole concept here with the base building and defence while also being part of the action and getting out there. The game looks very good graphically. The visuals are very good too. So much colours and the environment definitely looks like an alien planet. There’s so much to say but we will leave this here. The developers ‘EXOR Studios’ have done a very good job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker look forward to this game. Now The Riftbreaker may have scientific technology and an advanced mech but those things are too primitive for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Hell Let Loose is a World War 2 first person shooter multiplayer game developed by ‘Black Matter‘ and published by ‘Team17‘. Hell Let Loose is said to be coming out Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC on the 5th of October 2021. Hell Let Loose has to offer a lot to get our interest. There’s a lot of war games. Let’s take a look.
Hell Let Loose is suppose to be the World War 2 style. So expect old sandbags, expect old guns, expect old tanks, cheap helmets and stuff like that. Hell Let Loose is big 100 player battles. 50 vs 50. So these are big battles for sure. Players will be everywhere. Seems like Hell Let Loose wants to truly represent World War 2. They did say “You’ve never played World War 2 the way it was meant to be played”. So already gave themselves something to be measured by.
We know that Infantry, artillery and tanks are the main forces here in Hell Let Loose. These matter greatly. We also know that Hell Let Loose is also about strategic resource management too. This hasn’t been explained much but we can imagine that players will have limited resources to spend on tanks, types of troops and off course artillery. So there must be the ability to earn resources too or maybe it’s handed out in time. We have our own questions and need to learn some stuff before the interest can build.
We checked out some Hell Let Loose gameplay and it’s what we expected from a World War 2 multiplayer game. Old style, straight up fights gameplay. We like how the explosions look from bombing runs and artillery. Those look good. It seems like players die real fast in this game which would make sense. Like the old ghost recon game where you died from a bullet or two. Soldiers charging in, tanks on tank violence, using rocket launchers and covering fire. Just looks like another war game so far.
Overall Hell Let Loose just looks like another war game. There are multiple big war games with big battles like battle royal and big open battlefields. We definitely need to see more and get more information concerning Hell Let Loose. We want huge battles with tactical might. Tanks need be legit game changers and multiple troop types to handle different situations like vehicles. Will there be call in abilities? The developers ‘Black Matter’ have done an alright job so far. Now Hell Let Loose may have 50 vs 50 gameplay but those numbers aren’t enough for… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Twelve Minutes is one of those rare games. It’s not our thing but we enjoyed it. It’s definitely a good game and it’s way deeper than players will originally think. It’s one of those games we do recommend players try, especially if you are on Xbox and got the gamepass where you can download this game for free and have a good time time… or maybe a frustrating time. Here’s our quick review.
Twelve Minutes is described as a “top down point-and-click adventure game”. Now if you know anything about Twelve Minutes then you know that you control a dude who is trapped in a time loop. You have a wife who gets accused of murdering her father 8 years ago by a cop (doesn’t look like a cop to us) who then arrested you both and you get killed. Sounds like a happy story. Players need to break the time lop and find out what’s going on.
Very simple premise. Nothing new or ground breaking but Twelve Minutes did a good job of it. The only thing that got our attention from the trailer was the mystery of the story. It was the “what’s going on here” factor. You enter the game and get use to the point and click. You knowing that you have twelve minutes you move around the area looking at pictures on walls, checking doors but quickly learn the time has started yet. Once you get into your apartment that’s when the clock is visibly shown to start. Players have mixed reactions. You know you only have 12 minutes. Some like X35 Earthwalker himself straight away went around looking in every room for anything and everything, picking up every item and analysing. Some just stayed more still and see what is going on. We liked how the game forced players to decide quickly what they are going to do. The plot twist or plot surprise wasn’t all that hard to figure out. It was clear the wife was hiding something and lying. It was clear the ‘cop’ for the most part knew what he was talking about but off course you aren’t going to trust a willing to murder you stranger over your wife. X35 Earthwalker figured it out before the reveal. We did enjoy how the story got deeper and deeper.
The next thing we liked about Twelve Minutes is how deep the interactions in the game is, especially with objects. There’s a cup, you can pick it up, go to a sink you can fill it up. You can then drink it or maybe give it to someone else to drink… but what does that do? Nothing. You find a plant in the bedroom and get the idea of watering it. Turns out you can water the plant. That’s a nice little thing to do but why? If you pay attention and play through the game you will notice that the plant can wither away and lose all leaves or become lush and full of life. In the bathroom you can find sleeping pills. You can put the sleeping pills in the cup of water. You can give it to your wife for whatever reason or maybe try to give to the ‘cop’. Hey, arresting people can be thirsty work. The same spare key you used to get into the apartment can be used to open a vent cover. That fake candle on the table can be used to light up small dark areas… maybe there’s something you need to find. This stuff gets players coming up with ideas and possibilities. Making some players over think things too. Yes Twelve Minutes requires players to have some IQ to beat this game but what’s also needed is patience. Twelve minutes can be described as a trial and error puzzle game. You can get through it, get it wrong and try again while changing just one thing and find what works eventually. This trial and error is backed up by how things have to be done in a certain order. For example if you call the daughter to have her ask her dad to listen and he shows up but YOU are the one holding the picture the you still fail. If you have to do it all over again but make sure your wife holds the picture instead. Doing one step before the other or selecting one option or whatever will ruin the whole thing. Another example would be if you decide to work with the ‘cop’ and do what he says. If you took his equipment then he will attack you, even if you have what he wants. So you have to do it all over again but don’t touch his stuff.
Now let’s go over what we don’t like. How unrealistic it is. There’s options or things you would do but you can’t. Back to the holding the photo scenario. The wife wants to show the photo but you’re the one holding it. Any normal person would hand the photo to the wife but in Twelve minutes you can’t do that. You try to show the photo, you get your nose punched. How stupid is that. When your character learns the truth. Knows about the watch, knows about the wife’s father and her involvement but when he confronts her with clear pin point information, she still acts like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If he said “I know you have a pocket watch”, you can get around that but when he gives accurate information like “I know you have a watch, it’s in the ventilation under the medicine cabinet et in the bathroom” that’s too specific. Yet she tries to act like you’re the crazy one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about and that’s so stupid. He clearly knows! On top of that the dude doesn’t even press her and get aggressive. Like don’t play me for a fool. He just accepts it. Getting all the achievements for this game is stupid as well. Especially when it comes to getting the pictures on the wall achievements and looking at them at different phases and loops. Felt more like a waste of time and at times didn’t Gove you the achievement even when you did it right. There next thing is how telegraphed our character swings with a knife. Giving more than enough time to block or evade like the ‘cop’ does. When you have a knife you can’t do big moves like that. Straight line strikes please at least.
Speaking about the knife, here is our number one most hated thing about Twelve Minutes. It’s an actual fail that breaks and ruined the whole premise of their game which is the time loop. Hear us out. When you try to fight the ‘cop’ with a knife. You do the telegraphed knife attack, get blocked and then knocked down. Okay we get that. The ‘cop’ is a better fighter. So X35 Earthwalker had a brilliant IQ idea. It’s a time loop. It resets for you, keeping your memory and everyone else doesn’t detect anything. Those previous loops never happened for them. This means the ‘cop’ has never fought you before. Yet you remember the fight. So what X35 thought was that if we fight him again we will know his moves and counter them perfectly. This actually worked which made us praise the game for this awesome mechanic. Our character learns! So when we fought him again, he moved his blocked hand and got a stab in. You then get combo-ed and lose. We fought him again and this time dodged the attack after we stabbed him, but then got head butted. Next attempt we moved our head pulled out the knife and got shot in a quick draw. We attempted some more and there’s a series of moves. It looked like maybe the next attempt would work but then the game does something real stupid. When you go to fight him again, instead of us leading with the telegraphed swing, he does an instant right hook to knock you out. That breaks the laws of time loop. The ‘cop’ can’t change his actions as according to him, this is the first time he is facing our character. He doesn’t know about the 8 different times we attacked him and fought. He doesn’t know we are learning his moves. So like the wife saying the same thing every single time, he should the same moves every single time. This really made us annoyed and dislike Twelve Minutes for a while. We actually thought we were on to something. Instead the game wasted our time and took away an opportunity to reward players for persistence and thinking outside the box. This whole game was about thinking and using your head to dove things through the fact that you are in the time loop and your knowledge from previous loops. They took this victory away from us for no good reason. How stupid is that. The game doesn’t want us to kill the ‘cop’ like that but why does that matter since you can kill him in another. You can still kill him. Whatever. Even CoryxKenshin felt the same way in one of his latest videos. Watch from 15:20 to 17:55.
Overall Twelve Minutes is a very good game. It’s nothing too serious. It’s not a long game. It has mystery, deep mechanics but it’s fun, can get frustrating but that’s the style of the game. When you solve something, you realise you was close but missing something so simple and at times small. It’s available off course on the Xbox game pass too, so it’s easy to get regardless. It’s a cool experience and many big content creators have gave this game a try… because it’s trending and they want views but that’s besides the point. We enjoyed Twelve Minutes. Now Twelve Minutes might have a time loop but not even time loops effect… the ‘Earth Walk!’
Centipede: Recharged is an arcade retro game developed by ‘Adamvision Studios‘ and ‘SneakyBox‘ and published by ‘Atari‘. Centipede: Recharged is said to be coming out the 29th of September 2021 on the Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4 and PC. Those horrible insects are back. We got to blast them. Let’s take a look.
Centipede: Recharged is an old school game brought back basically. Remember those fast moving long centipedes that tried to make its way towards you? Well it’s happening again. Seriously? Who likes centipede? They are horrible creatures with a nasty and dangerous bite. They are fast and have harmed people. So we should blast them. So yeah, that’s what Centipede: Recharged is about. Dangerous centipedes are coming your way and you need to blast them but in modern fashion.
As you can obviously see, Centipede: Recharged is modernised. There’s new visuals, new animations and off course some special effects and particle effects. Just think about what they did with Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 and some space invader games. It’s basically a remastering of the old classic games. Same thing basically but everything looks better and hopefully controls better. So those who are a fan of the original Centipede should automatically like Centipede: Recharged.
Yes we are aware that there are other bugs too like spiders and a scorpion but clearly the main enemies are centipedes and plus it’s the name of the game so give us a break here. We like the fact that local co-op play is here too. More games need these options. Good job Centipede: Recharged. So work together with a friend or family and crush those horrible bugs together. Two blasters are better than one… unless you are the one getting blasted. So remember that.
We checked out some Centipede: Recharged gameplay and it’s mostly what we expected. There’s challenges too. Well 30 of them. There’s an endless arcade mode too. So there is some replayability in there. We also spotted some power ups. That’s right, this isn’t the same Centipede you use to know. There’s power ups effects like bombing in a row, side shots and even scaring enemies away. There’s more too so it will be interesting to see what others do.
Overall Centipede looks like another nice modernised classic game. A simple job that so far looks done right. Again, if you liked centipede then you will most likely like Centipede: Recharged. It looks good but we expect more though. The developers ‘Adamvision Studios‘ and ‘SneakyBox‘ have done an alright job so far. We at X35 Earthwalker like what we see but expect more though. Now Centipede: Recharged might have dangerous bugs but those get easily crushed by.. the ‘Earth Walk!’
