Author: George

Faeria is one of the many CCGs (Collectible Card Game(s)) out there, and one that is fully digital at that.

Sporting a lot of favorable reviews, Faeria has become one of the few respectable card games left (that don’t have pay-to-win elements).

But how does it play out? Does it deserve positive reviews?

The review will be split into Storyline, Gameplay, Visuals and finally, Personal Thought sections. Without further ado:

Storyline

Ok, like most card games, the Faeria team has really put some effort into creating a deep and interesting universe.

I won’t bother with the story too much since it doesn’t affect gameplay, nor is it needed to play.

The base gist here is that you are an Outer God, a weaker version of celestial being creating miniature worlds.

There used to be an old, infinite world, but Ouroboros, a creation of the powerful Elemental Gods, who is stronger than any God separately, decided to destroy the world as it disturbed its peace and quiet.

Ouroboros was sealed for this, and to prevent him from devouring the new smaller worlds, the Gods decided to pour their energy, the Faeria, into the corners of the world.

Now, as the races saw how powerful Faeria can be, they struck a deal with the Outer Gods (the players).

The mortals will give the Outer Gods some artifacts which contain memories of the world (the Outer Gods can’t read them without a mortal link), and the Outer Gods will help the mortals utilize Faeria.

The mortals have many factions, but they are all separated into the following subcategories; Prairie, Lake, Forest, Mountain, and Desert.

Gameplay

So the storyline was centered around the gameplay.

You begin with your avatar and a hex of Prairie land above. Your purpose is to create a path to your opponent and kill him with your monsters.

Generally, every turn you’ll be getting at least 3 Faeria (mana points used for summoning).

Afterward, each player can perform 1 of 3 moves, and/or move their monsters before ending their turn. The 3 possible moves are:

• Gain an extra Faeria.
• Draw an extra card.
• Place land.

The first 2 are self-explanatory.

PLacing land is a bit more complicated. You see, there is a map full of empty hexes. You must reach your opponent by building land. Alternatively, you might want to go for the Faeria Wells usually near the corners.

When you place land, you either place 2 Prairie Lands or 1 of each Elemental Land (Ocean, Forest, Mountain, Desert). You can place land either adjacent to land placed before, or adjacent to one of your creatures.

If a creature is situated next to a Faeria Well, you gain an extra Faeria every turn.

Faeria is used to summon. Every creature has a specific cost.

Additionally, most creatures have a specific land requirement to be played. For example, a creature might need 2 Mountain Tiles to be placed before it can be played. Some creatures have more complicated requirements like 2 Ocean and 2 Mountain.

That’s why it’s very important to manage your lands between having more land (and thus control of the map) or more Elemental Hexes (in order to play powerful creatures).

Every creature has an Attack Value, Health, and sometimes, an Ability.

They cannot move or attack the turn they are summoned, but every other turn, they can move one space, and/or attack any adjacent enemy creature and/or opponent.

The abilities vary from giving more movement, to straight-up buffing or debuffing other creatures. Some creatures are ranged.

There are many different strategies and deck builds that revolve around the game’s 4 elements and some strategies that involve the use of multiple elements.

Due to the game’s “pay once-play forever” policy, every card can be collected within a reasonable amount of time and grinding, without needing to pay more.

The game also has monthly tournaments and leaderboards, as well as official e-sports competitions (again on a monthly basis).

It is also an updating game, with new cards and features released to shake things up a bit.

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Visuals

The game doesn’t have outstanding visuals, but it isn’t really needed as it is a card game.

That said, while it can run on most PCs, it still remains pleasing to the eye, with things like card artworks and maps having solid looks.

All in all, it is what you’d expect from a card game.

Personal Thoughts

The game certainly offers much, and it does so by asking you for money once, in the beginning, and giving you everything after that.

Faeria is an awesome game to begin if you want to go for a card game that is either fully digital or if you want to avoid the mass-producing, popular card games that fall victim to power creeping, and pay-to-win policies.

I recommend this game to any of the above, and even to anyone who wants to try out something new in a card game, in the form of land management.

Absolutely worth it if you can find it on a sale or get it as a gift.

Final Verdict

Storyline: 7.0

Gameplay: 8.0

Visuals: 6.0

General Rating: 7.0

What do you think of Faeria? Do you like its “Land Management” gimmick? Do you think it should be free-to-play (and have microtransactions) like most other card games? Leave a comment down below.

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Rome: Total War is a game developed by The Creative Assembly and released in 2004. It belongs to the Total War Series of games, and is one of the best strategy games ever made. It went on to have 2 (not so successful) expansions and 1 sequel.

What makes Rome: Total War so great. Can it still be played? Thes review will be split into Storyline, Gameplay, Visuals, and finally, Final Thoughts sections. Without further ado:

Storyline

The game doesn’t have a storyline. You are the leader of 1 of the available 20 (+1) factions, and your goal is to have the biggest empire known to man. More on that on the gameplay section.

Gameplay

The gameplay is the classic “pick a faction, manage their economy and armies and rule the world”.

So, you begin by choosing one of the available factions. Normally, there are the 3 Roman factions as the only choices. Eventually, you will unlock the rest of the 8 unlockable factions by winning campaigns.

However, by messing with the game’s files, you can have all of the 20 factions unlocked. There is the +1 “Faction” of Slaves (who are just the rebels), so if you want to play with them, you have to keep 1 other faction unplayable, but you can switch as many times as you want.

The most important game setting is Short or Long Campaign. In the Short one, you have to destroy your closest enemies (depending on your Faction) and rule at least 15 Provinces (towns).

In the Long Campaign, you must control at least 40 Provinces plus the grand city of Rome.

Each faction has a specific cultural tag, but that doesn’t affect gameplay. For reference, the cultures are Romans, Eastern Cultures, Barbarians and Greeks.

You begin the game with your Faction and its starting Provinces. From there, you will have to manage the economy, make sure the people are happy (lest you get a revolt and lose your Province to the Rebels) and plan your strategy.

Regularly, it’s not so hard to start snowballing if you are aggressive during the early game, and if you get to have a huge amount of money, it’s game over as you can just bribe any large armies that don’t contain a rival’s Faction Faction Leader or Heir.

When you attack, you have the option of playing the battle in the 3D battlefield or let the AI automatically resolve it.

In-game battles have a lot of depth and strategy and are quite hard to master. You have to be clever with every unit band you own, and there is a lot of micromanaging.

You also have to learn unit weaknesses and strengths.

Besieging a town (or defending it) is extra hard, as you also have to manage your (or your opponent’s) siege equipment, and make sure they don’t take hold of your Town Square.

Auto Battling is much faster, but is really bugged. On higher difficulties, Auto Battles almost always end in defeats (unless you have a tremendous advantage).

Naval battles are always automatic.

Generally speaking, the game tends to be extremely easy on lower difficulties, but absolute hell on later ones.

The game also has the diplomacy part. You can make allies, trade with other factions, take map information, or even demand tribute.

But besides the diplomats, you can also train Spies to send to armies and Provinces. A good spy may even open the rival’s Province gates for you, thus eliminating the need for siege equipment.

And you can train assassins as well. Assassins can either kill a target or burn a building. They tend to start weak, so I advise you to give them easy missions to train them before you start taking generals and Heirs.

Each Faction has a basic thing they’re really good at, and every Faction has a set of exclusive units. Though most of the normally locked Factions are very weak (which is why they were locked in the first place).

But hey, if you want a good challenge, there’s nothing better than taking the Scythians on Very Hard difficulty.

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Visuals

The game has outstanding visuals for its age. Back then, they were impressive. Of course, they’re nowhere near today’s triple-A standards.

This is a game that you can easily play without getting a headache, like other games of that age.

All in all, the graphics have aged very well.

Final Thoughts

As I noted, the game’s visuals have aged pretty well. That goes for the whole game in general.

You can still play this game today and be entertained. There is even a mobile version for more portability.

And the fact that it’s old doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it as much.

I highly suggest you buy this on mobile devices. However, on PC, I think that buying its sequel, Total War: Rome II is a far better option.

But there is a reason why many consider this one of the best games of all time. And you won’t regret playing it.

Final Verdict

Storyline: –

Gameplay: 8.0

Visuals: 5.5

General Rating: 6.8

Have you played this game before? Have you tried it on mobile? Want to learn more on file manipulating for more factions? Just leave a comment below.

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A game that is frequently compared to Minecraft, Don’t Starve is an action-adventure survival game with a mix of roguelike. The game was released in 2013 and received numerous updates since then.

Besides Don’t Starve, this review will cover Don’t Starve Together, i.e. its multiplayer version.

Is the game really worth it, or is it just another Minecraft clone?

This review will be split into storyline, gameplay, visuals, and finally, the personal thoughts section. Without further ado:

Storyline

The storyline is quite enigmatic at best and is fully accessed by finding a specific gate in the overworld.

Through that, you will play the game’s campaign mode, which has 5 stages, each with different requirements to fulfill.

By playing and finishing it, you find out what this world is, who the antagonist is, and why you are there, but not much else.

Gameplay

Being a survival game, your main goal is to survive. But that is harder than it sounds.

I will talk about the Reign of Giants version in this review, not Shipwrecked, as it more closely resembles the original game. I might add the other expansions at some point of course.

Essentially, (almost) everything in this game is hostile. Day or night, autumn or winter or spring or summer, it doesn’t matter.

The most hostile thing is Charlie. Charlie is basically the antagonist’s right hand (and the main antagonist in the multiplayer version).

Her only purpose in-game is to instakill you in the night. If the night comes and you don’t have a valid light source nearby, you will die from Charlie.

Generally, your first goal should be to forage grass tufts and twigs in order to build your first tools.

Then, using an axe, you cut some trees to have wood for a fire at night.

Generally, though, you will want to explore and fill out your map, foraging while you do. Eventually, you will find a good enough position (there aren’t many requirements for a position) to build a base.

In your base, using gold that you must find, as well as some other items, whether base or refined, you will build basic structures that allow you to discover newer, more advanced recipes for newer, more advanced weapons, tools, and miscellaneous things.

These are the extreme basics. The game gets far more complicated. Let’s start with survival.

Having a base helps nothing with surviving (other than being able to have better equipment). Any hostile mob can just waltz in your base and kill you. So you have to be very, very careful.

Besides not getting killed by mobs, you also have to sustain your hunger and sanity.

Hunger is pretty straightforward. With an empty stomach, you lose health. Most basic foods don’t fill you up that much, but you’ll build a crock pot, and through experience (and by experience I mean the Don’t Starve wiki), you’ll find the best recipes.

Food goes rotten after a while of not being eaten, but you can preserve it longer if you store it in a freezer.

You can also create various farms of most edible things in order to have a constant form of food and not need to scavenge the already limited resources.

Sanity is something that you will usually want high. As it lowers, you start hearing and seeing things and shadows, the lower it gets, the more corporeal they become.

After a point, the shadow creatures will be able to hurt you, and you hurt them.

While your goal is to survive, a lot of times you will need to kill them as they give you an item that is essential to start building magic items and weapons.

The sanity is heightened or lowered by various acts within the game. Most of them make sense in the real world.

For example, picking flowers and sleeping well raises sanity while digging graves and staying up at night lowers it. There are many things that you will have to learn.

Every character’s sanity is a bit different, as some characters are scared more or less easy, and others can raise sanity using unconventional ways.

Now about the seasons. The game always starts in autumn, which is by far the easiest season. It then cycles to winter -> spring -> summer -> autumn until you die.

The rule is that seasons last a specific amount of time depending on your expansion.

Each season (besides autumn, I guess) has something for which you must prepare, lest you die in a few days into the season.

Winter is extremely cold and each night lasts way longer. You must have prepared a lot of heat sources for when traveling (except if you want to spend the whole season by your campfire), and warm clothes. Not preparing correctly will result in death by frostbite.

During the winter, food is preserved much longer, but farms never grow anything.

Spring is full of rains and thunders, and, not only you must build a lightning rod, you must also build umbrellas and other clothes to keep you dry.

Becoming wet is mostly just a nuisance, but it could become deadly as you could freeze.

Of course, due to constant rain, sanity drops rapidly during the spring.

Summer is practically hell on earth. The only good thing is how long days are.

In summer, you must do the opposite of winter. You must find a way to stay cool (you even have endothermic fires instead of the usual fire pit). Failing to do so will result in death by overheating.

Not only that, but food spoils much faster. At least farms grow food much faster as well.

Every season has its own seasonal giant too. They are hostile mobs, but super tanky and very hard to beat, and extremely dangerous. Killing one grant you unique items.

The map generally has a lot of different areas, each with its own danger and things to look out for.

The game is definitely not beginner-friendly, and it will take you a lot of attempts to find out what you must do and why.

Each character has very unique strengths and weaknesses that you must take into account while playing.

The most frustrating thing by far is that death is permanent (except in very rare cases). You can be trying for hours and maybe days, only to lose all progress because you died while not paying attention. Then you must repeat the whole process from the start, which becomes tedious fast.

Fortunately, that is not the case for multiplayer, as there is a (relatively easy to build) item that revives your fallen friend at the cost of Max HP (which can also be fixed).

The combat is very weird. If you have a melee weapon, you can left-click something to automatically attack it once. Repeat until one of you dies.

The problem is that, as you cannot move when attacking, and since the mobs try to attack as well, you must do quite a lot of kiting to battle properly.

Combine this with the fact that every mob has a different attack animation and wind-up time, and you have the recipe for hard.

All in all, the game is pretty complicated from the get-go, and permanent death doesn’t make it much more pleasant than it already is.

However, the game counts score based on the number of days you survived, so I can see why they did it.

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Visuals

The game’s graphics are very cartoonish. That’s not bad at all, it actually helps you have lots of fun while exploring and interacting. The game is actually praised for its graphics.

The cartoonish graphics make the game playable on the worst of PCs, without any fps problem, which further adds to the game’s tally.

The SFX are also nothing short of amazing. Besides the SFX for the game and mobs (which are awesome), every character has a witty line related to their personality when you try to right-click something.

The reason I’m saying this is because when they do, the make a sound effect, and each character has his own specific organ from which the sounds come from.

Personal Thoughts

So the game is frequently compared with Minecraft. The game’s creators have stated that Don’t Starve was heavily inspired by Mojang’s colossus.

But the 2 games are nothing alike. Don’t Starve is far more complicated than Minecraft will ever be.

Sure, you can build a lot of unbelievable contraptions in Minecraft, but the basis is building, you use your brain for the rest.

In Don’t Starve, you must memorize tons of things and make lots of mental notes for every phase of the game.

Minecraft gives you the freedom to do what you want, while Don’t Starve expects you to survive.

While it boils down to personal preference, there is a reason why Minecraft is more popular (besides being more kid-friendly).

Final Verdict

Storyline: 6.5

Gameplay: 7.8

Visuals: 6.5

General Rating: 6.9

That’s it for my review. Di you play Don’t Starve? Do you prefer it more than Minecraft. If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment on the comments section down below.

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The image(s) I used is/are from this/ese site(s):

www.igdb.com

Antichamber is a puzzle game like no other. Designed to break your mind, it will sure make you spend hours trying to solve it.

The game was developed by a single person, a feat that is quite impressive.

This review will have a storyline, gameplay, visuals, and finally, a personal thoughts section. Without further ado:

Storyline

The game doesn’t have any storyline, except maybe the weird ambiguous ending.

Still, there is not much for debate, as there is no dialog nor clues that hint at the existence of a structured story.

Gameplay

Ok, so the gameplay is pretty much… to break the rules of physics.

Unlike the other similar puzzle games, this game doesn’t use core laws of nature like reflection or gravity. Instead, it utilizes paradoxes and creative thinking.

Let’s start from the start.

You begin in a single room with an interactable wall to set your preferences and settings.

There are 2 main walls that matter. The left wall (taking the “settings” wall as a point of reference), which is originally empty, and the right wall, which only has a single square.

Across the “settings” wall is a glass pane that shows a room with 3 doors, 1 of which has an “Exit” sign above it.

The right wall is the main wall. It is essentially your map. You’ll be using it to navigate through the maze. Now, the maze works a bit weird.

First things first, you can exit the maze at any time using the “Esc” key from your keyboard. Doing so will not make you lose progress at all, instead, all your progress will be noted on the map. However, you will lose progress made in that specific puzzle you made if you did not complete it.

Every time you “escape”, you have the choice of returning to any point of the maze in order to re-explore it or take another path (as most intersections have more than 1 choice to take).

Your final purpose is to complete the map.

The left wall keeps the images from the game’s hints. As you explore, you will find many hints scattered. These hints don’t give you the solution, rather, they literally hint towards it.

So, every hint will be stored on the “hint” wall, which you can click to see better.

I mentioned that the game utilizes creative thinking and paradoxes. Time for an explanation.

The maze is not a maze in the traditional sense. You will have to be very creative with your choices.

For example, you might face 2 options of taking the stairs either up, or down, with the correct option being to go back from where you came from.

This is where paradoxes come in. Sometimes, the room you came from won’t exist and will be replaced with a different room, should you go back.

You may find different results and room if you walk, or run.

Heck, you can even teleport to another room simply by looking through some window-like things.

At some point, inside the maze, you will find a “manipulation” gun, which gives you… well, limited manipulation abilities like placing tiny blocks or changing shape sizes.

There are many “manipulation” guns, and I better let you find them on your own.

Generally, this game contains many impossible object geometries and it can be a real brain teaser.

So, once you complete the core set of puzzles, you gain access to the exit door, which will lead you to the final puzzles for you to solve. You know that it’s over when the game’s logo appears, a Möbius strip.

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Visuals

The graphics are whacky. I really mean it when I say it. The game will make you feel like you took psychedelic drugs, with all the colors and the mind games. Other than that, it’s an indie game. The graphics aren’t triple-A, but they aren’t pixel art graphics either.

Personal Thoughts

The game is a roller coaster. And I don’t mean it in a bad way.

Generally speaking, this game will probably surprise you with all its mind bending puzzles. The always colorful environment certainly helps with this.

What’s for sure, the game is not going to take you mere hours to finish, like other more story-driven puzzle games. The game will take you days to finally finish, not out of sheer hardness, but from its stubbornness and content.

I certainly recommend this game to all you puzzle lovers as it will surely give you a challenge.

Final Verdict

Storyline: –

Gameplay: 8.8

Visuals: 6.5

General rating: 7.7/10

If you try this game out, let me know how it was and how you liked it in the comments down below.

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The image I used is from this site:

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A decade-old game, InFamous stands out surprisingly well for its age. The game was given free to most that bought a PlayStation 3 in 2012 as part of their welcome back program.

The review will have a storyline, gameplay, graphics & SFX, and finally, a personal thoughts section. Without further ado:

Storyline

The game begins with our protagonist Cole MacGrath, just an average bike messenger boy, delivering a package in his hometown, the fictional Empire City.

A mysterious man calls Cole and offers him 500$ to open the box. Though hesitant at first, Cole opens the box, which triggers an explosion that is the game’s start.

Afterward, Cole recovers for 4 days and discovers upon waking up that he has newfound electricity-based powers. He also learns that after the explosion, a new epidemic plague has broken out, the city is in quarantine and various mafia gangs have assumed control over the 3 islands that make Empire City.

Cole, while trying to survive with his best friend Zeke, is soon dubbed a terrorist, and is blamed for the explosion, as well as having powers.

This ruins Cole’s relationship with Trish, his girlfriend, and an angry Cole, alongside Zeke, tries to escape the city through the barricades the police have set up.

After an unsuccessful escape attempt, Cole is recruited by Moya Jones, an FBI agent that tells him that the package that he was delivering him had the Ray Sphere, a bioterrorism weapon that absorbs the energy of all living beings in a huge radius, and transfers then to the host, thus giving him powers.

She offers him a deal. Help her find her husband, John, who disappeared during the explosion with the Ray Sphere, and retrieve the Ray Sphere. In return, Moya will clear Cole’s name and help him escape town. Cole reluctantly agrees.

The rest of the story is through the missions that you will be given. It should be noted though, that while the base story and ending are the same, many smaller details will change based on your decisions and the game’s Karma System. You can do the heroic actions or the evil ones, thus growing your reputation either way.

The game has a deep storyline that is continued in comics (even the game’s storyline is illustrated in a comic style way), as well as its sequel; InFamous 2. I will say one thing, the story is full of twists and complications, betrayals, etc. One thing is for sure, you will sympathize a lot with Cole.

Gameplay

Having electric powers, the gameplay revolves entirely around them.

Generally, you are in an open-world scenario with inaccessible due to story areas, accessible areas that don’t have any electricity that is infested with bad guys and Cole is weakened due to the lack of a source of power, and areas with electricity that either Cole has liberated or hasn’t.

You can liberate areas by doing side quests. Liberated areas have almost no enemies inside.

You begin with just your basic attack, which is a thunderbolt that you can shoot from your hand. You also have the power to create a huge shockwave if you fall from a high place.

As you restore electricity to the city, you gain more powers, like throwing electric grenades to healing people or absorbing them for energy.

Most attacks use up points of energy. You have a specific amount that you can increase by finding specific objects throughout the city.

You can also recharge your energy by absorbing the electricity from a nearby source, or by grinding on rails that are charged with electricity (like train rails).

By completing quests, comboing enemies and discovering and executing new combos, you gain experience which you can use to improve your attacks.

The game also has the aforementioned Karma System. By doing the choices in the main story missions (and some side quests) and by various action (healing or killing civilians for example), you gain Karma points towards that direction.

There are 6 levels of Karma, 3 for each alignment. The 3 hero levels are Guardian, Champion, and Hero, while the evil ones are Thug, Outlaw and Infamous.

Your Karma affects how people treat you and your upgrades. Evil upgrades tend to be more catastrophic and powerful, while Good ones err on the utility side.

Your Karma also affects the color of your powers. You shoot light blue lightning as a good character and red as evil.

Karma can change from one side to the other provided that you do the sufficient amount of actions toward the side you’re aiming.

There is only one case where you can’t change your Karma ever, but that spoils the story, so I’ll leave it to you.

The path you choose won’t affect gameplay drastically, but if you want to be good, you have to be more careful when fighting in crowded areas, and if you are bad, citizens might start throwing debris at you.

There’s also no post-game story or objectives, other than the classic 100% everything.

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Visuals

The graphics in this game are anything but dated. If you just see/play the game, without any prior knowledge, you could never guess it’s from 2009. The effects and attacks are also very well made, and every area is rural and dark, passing the story’s tone and theme excellently.

Personal Thoughts

The game had very positive reviews, all well deserved. Even today, the gameplay and the story are something unique that everyone should try out.

The game even has some form of replayability, as you’ll definitely want to play the game a second time to see how it is to be good instead of evil or vice versa, and what changes it brings to the story.

Besides, it’s the only way if you want to 100% the game.

The game was criticized for the repetitiveness of the enemies, as most enemies as you advance seem to only gain more HP.

I think it’s an excellent game that anyone who has a PlayStation 3 should try.

That’s why it has so many sequels and media after all.

Final Verdict

Storyline: 8.2

Gameplay: 7.8

Visuals: 7.0

General Rating: 7.7

Have you played InFamous? Which was your favorite part? Leave a comment down below.

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Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion (or Q.U.B.E.) is a single-player, first-person, puzzle adventure game developed by Toxic Games.

Both games are compared to puzzle adventure legends Portal 1 & 2, but in reality, they only share the genre.

This review will have a storyline, gameplay, graphics & SFX and finally, a personal thoughts section. Without further ado:

Storyline

The two games, despite being sequels, have a completely different story, with different characters, and even different gameplay. The only common theme story wise is that Q.U.B.E. 2 comes after the events of Q.U.B.E. 1, but you don’t really understand that until the ending(s).

Q.U.B.E. 1 begins with you, the player, waking up in similar fashion to Portal 1. You notice a pair of strange gloves, and soon, you are contacted by Commander Nowak.

The Commander claims that you are an astronaut that was sent from the International Space Station abroad a mysterious cube-shaped vessel near the moon, which is also on a collision course with Earth. She also claims that you suffer amnesia, probably a side-effect of space traveling.

You were sent there with the purpose of deciphering the vessel, causing it to explode and avoid collision with earth. Without many options, you decide to move on.

You find out that your special suit can interact with various colored tiles inside the vessel, and you use this to advance. While you’re solving puzzles and moving on, all with the support of the Commander, you soon lose contact, and your transmission is interrupted.

Suddenly, another voice is heard from the transmitter, a man who calls himself 9-1-1. He tries to desperately warn you that the commander is lying about everything, and you are in fact, a lab-rat, trapped in an underground facility, forced to solve puzzles for data.

The game carries on with both persons trying to convince each is right, and unfortunately, there is only one ending in which one of them is right. That’s some wasted potential. However, you can find many threads where people argue who was right or wrong, even after the ending.

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Q.U.B.E. 2 begins in a somewhat similar fashion. You are a female scientist named Emilia Cross, and you try to traverse some kind of ruins. Through the rest of the game, you solve fashions in manner, again, similar to the previous game all the while having the support from the mysterious Commander Emma Sutcliffe.

The game is more plot driven than the last, so I won’t spoil it too much, but this time there are 2 different endings to choose from, which are, in my opinion, a bit vague. You will also find out the game’s connection to the first game.

Gameplay

The 2 games differ a lot in gameplay between them (maybe due to the 6-year gap it took for the sequel to be released), with only the core gameplay remaining the same. Let’s begin from the original:

In Q.U.B.E. 1, you have a suit that basically has 2 actions; retract and extract. You will be traversing a mostly white tile facility, but in it, there are a few colored tiles you can use your suit on.

• Red Tiles are able to extract for up to 3 times depending on your needs.
• Blue Tiles are jump pads. Extracting them basically activates them.
• Yellow Tiles come in sets of three. You have to choose which one to extract, and depending on your choice, you gain different results. Generally, it creates sets of stairs.
• Green Tiles produce a green block or ball, which can be interacted with the other tiles. Usually, you will be using the green object as the key to the puzzle’s solution.
• Purple Tiles rotate a portion of a wall/floor (depending on the position).

All puzzles will be using some sort of combination of the above blocks. Later in the game, more elements will become available, such as gravity, AI movement manipulation, and light reflection.

If you get your hands on the Director’s Cut, you will also gain access to various speedrun challenges, as well as some extra story. The speedruns are a bit different than the original game, as you won’t be interacting with colored tiles that much.

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Q.U.B.E. 2 changes quite drastically. Your suit now can interact with several special tiles, and it’s up to you which colored tile should you use to solve the puzzle. There are 3 colors to choose from: red, green, and blue, each with roughly the same function as the previous game.

As with the previous installment, there are many other things to interact with, like moving platforms and magnets among others.

Finally, about the SFX, again, I congratulate Toxic Games. The voice actors are amazing, and especially in 9-1-1’s case, you can really hear the desperation in his voice.

Q.U.B.E. 2 in specific has a lot of ambient sounds near statues, that are actually quite plot-relevant. Very polished in general.

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Visuals

The graphics in both games are amazing. It was developed using Unreal Engine after all. Especially the scenery in Q.U.B.E. 2. To be honest, the graphics look a lot like Portal’s graphics, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t any good!

Personal Thoughts

The Q.U.B.E. series is, in my opinion, unfairly compared to the Portal games. Each game has its own distinct storyline and gameplay, and they don’t overlap. I don’t even get the comparisons, you can just play both sets of games and be a happier person.

The puzzles are challenging and will keep you on your edge. The story is immersive and with twists and turns. Even the mood of the game is generally quite eerie, which fits the story of a stranded person looking for a way out without any information.

Final Verdict

Storyline: 8.0

Gameplay: 8.5

Visuals: 9.0

General Rating: 8.5

Have you tried any of the Q.U.B.E. games? Did you like them? If you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to chat, feel free to leave a comment below.

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The images I used are from the following sites:

https://www.igdb.com/games/qube-directors-cut

https://www.igdb.com/games/qube-2

Yet another mobile game, Super Spell Heroes (or SSH) is a 1 on 1, match-3 real-time take on battles with a twist of elements (how exciting!) Bet you haven’t heard of it though and that’s why I’m here. Hopefully, by the end of this review, you’ll have found your newest mobile game addiction.

As a mobile game review, it will be split into 3 parts: general, gameplay and personal thoughts. Without further ado:

General

Developed over a year ago (as of the time of this review) by Sviper GmbH, SSH is a promising game with tons of potential.

The basis is that you are an all-powerful wizard who uses elemental magic and must defeat the forces of evil.

The game is played 1v1, real-time, and it’s based on a match-3 system. That also makes it a real-time strategy game, and it has some collectible card game elements to it.

There are changes to the game usually every month, but some months might have more updates than others.

The monthly basis is the very least. As a new game, from a relatively unknown developer without many resources, the game still does its best.

There is no competitive scene, not in the form of esports at least. You can compete for the most shards (which serve as the game’s ranking system).

With enough support though, everything’s possible and I’m sure that an esports scene is in the plans if the game becomes very popular.

There are a handful of characters in the roster for now, but every character has (besides a unique way to play) a bunch of different builds you can try.

As mentioned, the game is relatively new, and it doesn’t have the proper resources to advertise itself, nor enough features to support a ton of newcomers.

But we stick with the potential, and this game has plenty for anyone willing to support it.

Gameplay

Does the gameplay justify the patience we must give and the support we should offer? I certainly believe it does.

As I said, you control a wizard in battle. There are 10 wizards to choose from, but you’ll start with only one. Each wizard masters 2 of the existing 5 elements. When you unlock them, you get their basic deck along.

Every deck has 9 cards separated into 4 spell tiers:

• Basic spells, marked by a grey gem. There are 3 basic spells in each deck.
• Advanced spells, marked by a green gem. There are 3 advanced spells in each deck.
• Elite spells, marked by a light blue gem. There are 2 elite spells in each deck.
• Ultimate spell, marked by a purple gem. There is only 1 ultimate spell in every game, and it usually serves as the deck’s win condition.

When you play, you will get some random spells and mana dropped. However, at the start of the game, only basic spells may drop.

As you cast more and more spells, you fill up your spell charge bar, and once it’s full, you unlock the next tier of spells.

Mana is the non-spell elemental blocks that drop. In order to cast a spell, you must connect it with two or more mana of the same element.

The more mana you use, the more powerful your spell will be, and the more you fill up your spell charge bar.

This leaves you with a very hard choice though; do you use all of your mana in order to fill up you spell charge bar faster and cast more powerful low-tier spells, or do you play conservatively, saving for that one big juicy ultimate spell? The choice is up to you.

Every character will have a plethora of spells from each category to choose from, and your deck (and character) determines your playstyle.

Some characters share the elemental mastery over 2 elements, but even they have different choices of cards and by extension, different core playstyles.

You don’t even have to worry about wizards having the same set of spells (which will happen often, trust me).

The ones with the same elemental pair usually have very distinct playstyles due to their unique spells. The game even encourages you to play with everyone!

There are 5 elements in this game and roughly, each has a unique playstyle. The game began with 4 elements, and the fifth element of water was added recently.

I can definitely see more elements being released, but now, I’m guessing they’ll focus more on using water along the rest of the elements first… Anyway, the five elements are:

• Fire, the first of the 2 elements you’ll be acquainted with at the start of the game. Fire tends to be pure damage (or support for more damage later), with many nuke spells.
• Nature, the second of the 2 elements you’ll be seeing at the start. Nature is defensive by nature (pun intended) with lots of heals and blocks.
• Light, the spam element. Light typically tries to spam you with repeated spells or by refilling your mana. By spamming, they also reach higher spell tiers faster and quickly overwhelm their opponents.
• Earth, the hard-hitting element. Generally, earth has a mixture of offensive and defensive spells, and they all revolve around the same concept; high risk/high reward. Typically, when you cast a (very slow) earth spell, you get a weakness token, which reduces the damage you can do for a while. This offsets the fact that earth spells are extremely powerful, both offensively and defensively. Earth is very good at disruption too.
• Water, the annoying element. Since there is only one character that uses water, I don’t have the full picture, but generally, water wants to… flood the opponents field with water tokens and disrupt their plays. These tokens start to timeout when they reach the bottom of the board, and your purpose is to turn them into ice tokens which stay until your opponent has no more moves left, after which the explode, dealing huge damage.

There are characters of every elemental pair possible, bar anything with water. Water is only combined with earth, for now.

By winning battles, you earn shards (which as aforementioned are the game’s ranking system) and move to new areas. every new area allows you to unlock some new characters and some new spells for each character. You can unlock these things by doing quests which appear as you play the game.

Quests also give you spells you already have. The purpose is to collect enough so you can upgrade the spells you want to use.

As you upgrade spells, your wizard gain experience, after enough he’ll level up, gaining more max HP.

You can boost almost everything in this game by watching ads. You can also pay directly for cosmetics and cards.

There are also clans that mostly serve as ways to gain an extra spell because they don’t offer too much in particular. Personal friends, however, are better, as, with every win, they strengthen the friend bonus chest you get once a week.

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Personal Thoughts

This game is pretty fun to pass the time. The experience is more casual than other, more competitive games, but it takes just as many skills and mechanics. Like most mobile games, your reaction time must be top-notch.

The game surely serves its purpose despite its age and humble beginnings. I believe that with enough support, it can become a big enough game to rival the top ones.

As for the matter of P2W. This game certainly gives you an advantage if you pay, but which game doesn’t. Fortunately, it isn’t as bad as Clash of Clans for example, and you can happily play the game for free without fear of being terribly behind.

Honestly, I’d rate this game as much as Clash Royale, because, even though it’s nowhere near as competitive, it has tons of potential.

General Rating: 7.5

Do you play this game? Have you started it after reading this review? If so, feel free to send me a request on Facebook, Messenger, Viber or Email. Just ask so in the comments.

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