Recent reviews by KCChiefsFan

Remember the 1980's? Ronald Reagan, MTV, Swatches, and in the arcades a new form of gaming was taking over from the pinball and skee-ball tables, video games.

Atari became the leader in this category with classic games like Asteroids, Tempest, Breakout, Red Baron just to name a few. These games and more are in the Atari Vault collection!

They have managed to package together recreations of many of the classic arcade games from the early to mid 1980s, each with beautiful graphics and sound comparible to the original games. Also in this collection is pictures of the side art of the machines, the flyers that were released to arcades describing the game, and even leaderboards to compare your score on games with others around the world.

Now, the controls on some of the games can be a little squirlly if you are playing with a mouse and keyboard, especially for those games that originally used driving wheels, or rollerballs for controls, but the games are still playable.

Also included in this collection are games from the orig Atari VCS, or 2600 game system. Adventure, Tank Battle, 3D TIC-TAC-TOE, just to name a few.

Since the original release, new games have been added like Atari Baseball, Atari Soccer, Firetruck, Destroyer, and others, so there are quite a few games both in the arcade form and in the 2600 style. The total number of games now is 150.

There is also multiplayer with this collection, although I have not personally played it, so I will not rate that.

This collection has more games than the 'Atari Anthology' collection, but it would have been nice to have also had the video clips with Nolan Bushnell describing the beginnings of Atari, the popularity of the games, etc; but still, there is a lot of value in this collection.

If you want to travel back in time when video games were new, and the classics were just being released, it is hard to go wrong with 'Atari Vault'.

The 1980s. Ronald Reagan, Rubik's Cube, MTV, and in the arcades, games like Pac-Man, Centipede, Space Invaders, Defender and others are eating up the quarters of America. Jump ahead in time a little and a new technology, the laser disc player, is brought into the arcade in the form of a game/animated movie called 'Dragon's Lair'. In this game, the player 'plays' the movie, that is, at certain points in the game the player is given the option to choose how the character moves. Choose the right option and the story continues, choose wrong, and the character faces a gruesome demise.

This is that game from the arcade classic, remastered, and with higher definition in color and scale. The game is beautiful to look at, with vibrant colors, and is reminiscent of movies like 'The Secret of Nimh', which is clear as the graphics are from the same creators of that movie, Don Bluth Studios. You play as a knight, 'Dirk The Daring', a bumbling, dorkish, every-man type hero who is out to save 'Princess Daphnie' from the dragon.
In this journey, you have to navigate through many traps, obstacles, and monsters, before finally reaching the 'dragon's lair' to slay the dragon and rescue the princess. Each of these challenges is animated beautifully, and it is the look of the game that is its strongest asset.

If there is any fault or criticism of this remaster, it is in the controls and response time. Dirk is controlled by means of your keyboard, with the Spacebar being used as your sword control, and the arrow keys as your left, right, up, and down. There is the option in the game to turn move notifications off, but unless you have the game memorized, leaving them on is advised. There is also the option to turn off the notification in the game of when to move, but again, leaving it on is preferable.

Not long ago, an upgrade patch was released for this and for Dragon's Lair II, bringing them both up to the same interface. What that patch has done has made it to where even if you select the correct option for the main character to move, the game will sometimes not recognize that, and the death scene will play as though you picked the wrong option. What this means is that depending upon how many lives you have selected, (You can have 3 or 5), you could be playing the same scene over and over again.

Aside from the control issues, this is really almost a direct port of the arcade classic. Later on a follow-up game, 'Dragon's Lair II Time Warp' would be released, as well another classic 'Space Ace'. These two have received the same remaster treatments as the first DL, and playwise, suffer from the same issues.

Grading this game on a 1 - 10 scale, I would give it a solid 8. Graphically, it is a wonderful homage to the arcade version, it is its controls that in the end let it down.

Bejeweled Twist

Popcap is known for making some fun and enjoyable puzzle games. Their Bejeweled series is one of the most popular puzzle series available.

After the success of Bejeweled and Bejeweled 2, they released Bejeweled Twist in 2008. Basically, it is the same game as Bejeweled and Bejeweled 2, in that you match colored jewels on the board to remove them.
The 'Twist' in the game comes from the fact that movement comes from rotating 4 gems to make your matches. As you match gems, a power bar on the side increases, thus granting higher points and bonuses for more successive matches, and if you do not match consecutively, the power is reset along with your bonus.

You can also create 'special' gems, like in the original games for matching more than 3 gems at a time.

During the game, once you've past the 1st level, under the power bar is a row of gems that if you match in a particular sequence, your power and bonus is increased at a greater sequence, and if you can get it to x10, you have the opportunity to create a 'Mega' or Fruit Gem. These fruit gems when matched give massive points, as well as remove all other gems of the same color, however, missing a match in sequence, cancels the opportunity to create the fruit gems, and you have to rebuild your bonus again.

There is also the added feature of in the classic game of timed bombs, that count down each time you turn without making a match. If the bomb reaches 0, you are given a opportunity to 'defuse' the bomb by spinning a wheel, and as long as the wheel doesn't land on the bomb symbol, you can continue, however, with each succeeding bomb reaching 0, another bomb space is added to the wheel, increasing the difficulty.

Besides the classic game, there is a 'Zen' mode, that plays with no bombs, and is just for matching as long as you want to play. 'Blitz' mode is just like the 'Classic' game, except that you only have 5 min for each game.

They have also included 'Challenges'. This is a mode where you complete goals, such as creating certain 'special' gems, matching a particular color, matching so many in a row, and such as that.

Graphically, the game looks good with vibrant colors, and interesting fades and transitions between levels.

I have spent many hours with this game, and find it a good diversion from the usual fare of action/shooter games that I normally play.

Games can last anywhere from a few min to an hour or more depending upon how good and how many matches you can find. Normally my games last approx about 30 min each time.

In short, Bejeweled Twist is a fun way to kill some time, and a good addition to the Bejeweled collection.

Bought this game as part of a bundle pack from Bundle Stars for $1, and honestly that is about what the game is worth.
If you have played Elf Bowling: Hawaiian Vacation, then you will recognize the format for this game, as it is EXACTLY the same, which is really simple, since both games use the same game programming.

The single player game took me about 2 hrs to complete, which then unlocks a free mode, where you can select if you want bonuses in the game, which tricks and taunts if any, or just a standard bowling game.

The game does have multiplayer, but it isn't online multiplayer, but instead 2 ppl can play on the same machine, taking turns.

Scoring this game on a 1 - 10 scale, I would give the following:
Graphics: 5 - pretty standard, nothing amazing.
Gameplay: 5 - average bowlling with some interesting tweeks, but it doesn't hold a lot of replay value.
Presentation: 4 - other than the opening cutscene there is nothing as far as any type of goals, or unlocks, short of the free play mode, and trophies for getting so many strikes, strikes against certain zombies, etc.
Sound: 5 - average sound effects and music, nothing spectacular, but fits the style of the game.
Overall: 4.75 - If you can get the game on sale or through a bundle as I did, that is the best way, otherwise I would not pay full price.

The only reason to buy this game is if it is REAL cheap, like I got on a Bundle Stars sale for less than $1, because that is what the quality of the game looks like. It's like the developers took the Unreal Engine of the time, and used as little of its capabilities as possible, leading to a game that is unpolished, glitchy, and a pain to play.

The controls of the game default to the standard WSAD keys, with the mouse being used to shoot the main gun as well as the machine gun of the tank. Now this would not be an issue, except that about 90% of the time when I would click the mouse, it would instead bounce back to my desktop, like I was switching tasks. In open country this wouldn't be such a bad thing, but with enemy tanks and soldiers still shooting at you, the results can be endless replaying of the same areas as you keep dying.

As stated before, this game uses the Unreal Engine, (I believe from the first UT), and those graphics do not hold up well over time. Small details such as seeing land mines, seeing where soldiers are firing from, distinguishing enemy tanks from dark rock mounds, all of these problems are present.

This IS a budget game, make no mistake, but it is the poorest example of a budget title, and if you buy it at full price, you are paying too much!

Buggy, very slow, is a poor representation of pinball from a company that should know how to make these games, with their history with TPA. The exclusion of DX9 support is a bad decision with so many people who still have older cards and systems that use DX9. The only saving grace is that if you own tables on TPA, then that crosses over to SPA and you don't have to repurchase the same tables, but this is little consequence when the play is so bad.

UPDATED 10/10/18 - With over 600+ hours now invested in this game, I can now safely say that Pinball Arcade comes as close as you can to actual pinball play as any simulation or game on the PC today, Pinball FX, and Pro Pinball included. If I were to break this review down in scores of 1 to 10, I would give each of the following these scores:

Presentation: 6/10 - A wide range of tables, producers, styles, and time frames of pinball, from the basic bell & whistle games to the more recent electronic gems like Addams Family. My down marks for this is that the PC version does not include the history of pinball videos that the Android version does, which to me greatly enhances the package, or lack thereof, also as of mid 2018, Farsight has lost the license to Bally and Williams tables, so the classic tables like PinBot, Addams Family, Twilight Zone, and others, are no longer available for purchase, so unless you were fortunate to buy these tables prior to their removal, you are missing out on about 45 - 60% of what Pinball Arcade had to offer..

Graphics: 8/10 - Since Farsight got the licenses for these tables, their dedication to accuracy shows. Some pieces, and tables, are missing, due to contractual agreements, but wherever possible, FS has stuck as close to the original design of the table as they can. There was recently an update to DirectX 11, and if you have the system to run it, the graphical improvement is definitely noticeable.

Gameplay: 7.5/10 - Gameplay only suffers IMO due to an over adbundance of the need to "nudge" or shake a table, and if you are someone like myself who doesn't use this 'ability', the tables seem to penalize you by the ball consistently draining on side lanes, taking odd tracks, and a general REPEAT of the same ball play even in multiple player games. Also, as Steam Achievements are included in PA, once you have obtained a few decent scores on a game, it seems as the difficulty is somehow magically increased, thus making further achievements difficult if not almost impossible (Addams Family Super Bear Bonus for example). Aside from this each table has its on nuances and tricks, from Terminator 2, to Haunted House.

Variety: 6.5/10 - It is here where PA shines as they have tables from the major players in the profession, Bally, Williams, Gotlieb, wide-body tables, multi-level tables. (Again, as of this year, the Bally and Williams tables are no longer available for purchase.)

Price: 6/10 - As has been mentioned in other reviews, the pricing model for PA is IMO its biggest weakness. There is a monthly or so free table, but the other tables all have to be purchased, either seperately, or through Season packs. I have all of the tables except for a couple from Season 3, all but 3 from Season 4, and none from Season 5 yet, and had these season packs gone on sale at an earlier date, I could have saved about 20 - 30% of my total cost in the game. Also, even though PA is cross-platform (Steam, IOS, Android, console, PC), purchases on one platform do not carry over to the others. The before mentioned missing history videos are a part of this as well. Since Farsight has lost the Bally/Williams licenses, they have repackaged the remaining tables into new packs, and in some cases, you would be paying for a table more than once, just to get a table you don't own.


In conclustion, Pinball Arcade is a great recreation and a good way to travel back to the time when smokey rooms, stale coke, and the sounds of pinball machines filled the air. It is not perfect, but then what is?

One of the best first person games to come out. Great story, awesome weapons, graphics stand up even to today's standards. I have replayed this game many times, and enjoy it more and more every time I play. Some of the Steam Achievements can be a little tough to get (ex. going through Ravenholm with only the gravity gun), but still an awesome game. One of my all-time favorites!