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Games Reviews

Review: Among Us (2018)

Among Us is an online multiplayer game developed by Innersloth from 2018 that over the past few years has gone viral seemingly out of nowhere. In 2020 this little known game became one of the most played games on almost all platforms, skyrocketing in popularity as an easy game to play during the various lockdown situations internationally.

The game is a digital variation on the games ‘werewolf’ (you may know this by other names colloquially), in which one person is the murderer and everyone else has to vote for who they think the murderer is over a series of turn. Among us has you play as the crew of a space ship undergoing very simple tasks while you keep an eye out for a player or two out of the ordinary, either committing crimes or being ‘sus’ by not properly carrying out their tasks. The game is simple to pick up and there isn’t really much mastery to it, but it does give a group of friends a good time.

Orange Among Us Icon - Download in Colored Outline Style
The iconic player character model from the game

Visually, Among Us utilises a 2D cartoonish, smooth and blobish style that is matches the simple nature of the game, the player models have also become iconic despite their simplicity becoming a meme online. the visuals are nice although not amazing but they are only really there for visual representation while you communicate with other players.

The Gameplay is simple and anybody of any age can pick it up very quickly, this has led to it becoming vastly popular with school age children much to many parent and teacher’s bemusement.

INDIs Game Night: Among Us

The game has no narrative or plot so to speak beyond there being a murderer on the spaceship that you have to find. the atmosphere of the game however has been one of great fun but can also create an adversarial atmosphere amongst players, but this is much to it’s advantage, allowing players to very much get immersed in defending themselves (even when they are the murderer).

Overall, Among Us was a huge hit in a time when it was desperately needed for some group fun online. It has since decreased in popularity, however I believe it will be a staple of the multiplayer online party game scene for some time to come.

Overall Score: 6

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Games Reviews Simulator

Review: Aircar (2017)

Aircar developed by Giant Form Entertainment, LLC, is a very short first person VR flying car simulator, and to be honest there’s not a lot more to say about it, the game, whilst an excellent immersive experience of flying a small vehicle over a cyberpunk-esque city, hasn’t got a much depth, but it’s not really trying to, it is all in all a very good, if short, display of the immersion VR can offer.

Visually the game has two sides, the interior of the car, and the exterior. the interior is incredibly well detailed, absolutely grounding anyone who plays it into a very real looking vehicle. The problem is the quality of the visuals of the outside, whilst the the expansive distant views do look great from far away, when up close in the city the low polygon graphical detail does take you out of the immersion, meaning the real game takes place speeding above and around the city rather than through it.

File:Cyberpunk city (4065413356).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Image- Wikimedia Commons

The gameplay is incredibly simplistic in its control of the car, and that works very well to the games overall accessibility, there’s no learning curve, just get in the car and go. the controls are fluid and responsive, the only minor criticism would be that the speed of the car sometimes, even with the boost feels too slow, though again, this is a very minor criticism of a great minimalist control scheme.

Whilst of course there is no narrative or characters in this short simulator, the atmosphere of this world, whilst simplistic is very calming, its the definition of an escape. something so easy as flying a car around a futuristic city can offer a half hour of down time that you don’t come buy that often. the relaxing new age atmosphere gives players a chance to get away from the stresses a market littered with faced paced long form games.

Overall Score: 7

(Game Available on Steam)

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Games Reviews Uncategorized

Reviewing every game I own

Yes, you heard it right, every game I own will be getting the full review treatment whether it be an old crappy movie adaptation or a timeless classic such as Skyrim or a game I have barely touched that is sitting in my Steam Library (there are a lot of those) I will be reviewing them. But of course, with reviews we have to have some rules in place:

For each game I review I will be looking at three main areas:

1. The visuals- how does the game look, how does it hold up today, is it disgusting mess or does it have views you could sit and look at for days? How do the character models look? This will be scored out of 3 (1=bad, 2=okay and 3= good. A game can also get 0 if it is truly horrendous).

2. The game-play- is it Janky, dated, falling part with bugs and other unforgivable obstacles to smoothness, or is it just unnecessarily complicated or boringly simple? Again this will be rated using the 1,2,3 system.

3. The narrative- now I know what you’re thinking, some perfectly good games don’t have narratives, and this is true plenty of games are made around their game-play or feature and intentionally limited story-line. But the feel and atmosphere and character of a game I believe can also contribute to a narrative, and so this will be an aspect of many games I will look at. (again using the 1,2,3 system).

The last point will be given by me if i think the game deserves it or wowed me, a bonus point if you will.

I must play each game for at least 1 hour, even if I have played it before in the past so I can get some idea of different aspects of the game without spending too much or too little time on it. I will NOT be including mobile games. Keep up with my upcoming posts to see how each game did on this long and fraught journey into some wonderful and absolutely dire games.