Recent reviews by Brandon Heat

A demo for the Steam Deck that is full of Valves quirks and recognisable sense of humour.

Obviously, as a free demo, length is not going to be a big aspect, with it clocking in at under 30 minutes, but as an avenue to show off some of the capabilities of the Steam Deck, and in particular the gyroscope aiming, it absolutely nails it's targets!

Best for: Blue Collar Workers

Hidden Folks is Search-em-up with a slight twist in that each component comes accompanied by a sound effect made entirely by a human beings mouth.

Rather that just give you a person to find, it does mix things up by also asking you to find some quite small items, and later in the game, you are also asked to find some items that cannot be seen until some other action is taken on the map, such as pulling a lever, or putting out at fire etc.

To help with this, you are giving descriptive clues, some are more obvious than others!

The maps get progressively larger and more complicated with many moving parts, and these are broken up in between with palate cleansers in the form of helping to move an item from one end of the map to the other to complete the path.

It's a relatively short game, depending on how good your eye sight and ability to interpret the clues are, and it would have been fun to have a couple more palate cleansers, but overall, this is a fun little gem if you are ever interested in the hidden object genre.

Best for: Waldo Hunters

Osmotic Studios and Fellow Traveller are back at it again with another Dystopian Big Brother themed narrative game, and once again, they have nailed the concept. The game is full of twists and turns, and the revelations come thick and fast.

From minute one, the heavy cloud of suspicion hangs heavy over you, as you know that despite all the access you are being given, there are so many secrets and closed doors, and throughout the entire time, you just cannot avoid the feeling of being a pawn in a much larger game. Ultimately, despite being given copious amounts of access to everyone's data, you know you are seeing only fragments of truth, and yet, you have no true control over revealing the truth no matter how hard you try.

This won't be for everyone. Aside from a little dragging and dropping, and a hell of a lot of reading, there is very little interaction, and it more akin to a choose your own adventure style book, but for anyone who enjoys conspiracies, or big brother states, this cannot be recommended enough!

Best for: Members of The Nation (iykyk)

Last Day of June is a Puzzle/walking simulator game full of emotion and character, based around a couple in love living through memories of a traumatic event in their life. Your task is to seemingly manipulative the players within the story in an attempt to change the course of history and fate for the couple in question.

Straight away, the artistic style shines through, with an interesting use of colour schemes. Happy or hopeful moments are doused in a vibrant autumnal orange glow, whilst moments of despair are bathed in a cold frost blue. This is especially effective, as the game contains no spoken words throughout (barring one brief moment where a background anguished "no" can be heard), and the graphical style means the characters are almost featureless from a facial perspective, and yet, the game never struggles to convey it's message at any point, and pulls you along from the very first minute, with an ending that most will likely not predict.

The game is relatively short, taking approximately 4 hours to get everything done at a pace that still allows you to soak up all the nuances of the story, and at a normal price of £14.99, for some this may be a put off, but trust me when I say, the 4 hours spent on this game are at a peak performance level when it comes to story-telling, and well worth the price of admission.

The only downside that can really be levelled at the game is a distinct lack of any replayability (unless you rushed through the first time), but with a story that will no doubt stay with you for days afterwards, this is a harsh assessment of the game. For some, the story-line might hit very close to home, so warning to anyone who has lost loved ones at a most unexpected time.

Overall, this game is a must to play if it's in your library already, and for anyone else, grab it if the above sounds appealing!

Best for: Emotional Movie Aficionados

From the developers/publishers of other mobile style games such as Tennis to the Face and King Oddball, Spellspire is in a very similar mould. This is a spelling game dressed up (very loosely) as a dungeon crawler, whereby spelt words damage enemies encountered, who each have a timer before attacking you.

There are wands to unlock, some having elemental bonus that will help against particular enemies, and armor that will also help with reducing damage, or maximising coin gain etc.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the design of the game, but there are two main drawbacks.

1. You are at the mercy of the random letters granted at the beginning of the game. You can only use a word once, and if you are unlucky enough to find very few vowels or an abundance of useless letters (x, z etc) then you are doomed to failure.

2. There are far too many floor to navigate without any variety on offer. The enemies might change a little, but the gameplay will never change, so beating level 1, will be like beating level 51, and that gets old fast. Changing the wand/armor doesn't change how you play, and aside from some enemies freezing your letters, the gameplay becomes old fast.

Of course, keep in mind this game is really designed with mobile in mind, and spending 10 minutes playing whilst on a lunch break or on a bus will be fine, but judged purely as a Steam game, it can't be recommended unless you plan to only play for an hour or two (and at a full price of £6.99 that is far too much to ask)

Best for: Oxford English Wizards

Tennis in the Face is a simple geometry based puzzle game where you control a tennis player (Pete Pagassi) to hit multiple to knock them out.

The game is set over 8 chapters, each with about 10 levels in, and should not take you more than a few hours to gather all the achievements and get the goal crown from each level (gained by finishing the level with a certain amount of balls/exploding cans left over)

The game is incredibly casual, and is something you would expect to find on an Android/iOS device, but for fans of these types of games, you will still enjoy.

The music can be incredibly grating at times as it is very repetitive and does not change throughout the entire game, and this becomes increasingly a problem if you find yourself stuck on a level. Possibly, this game is something you will want to play with the sound off, or your own music playing instead.

Overall, it's hard not to recommend the game, as although it may overstay it's welcome slightly, and lack variety, it's clear from the off what time of game this is, and the price is charges for it is not egregious, so for what it is, it's perfectly serviceable.

Best for: Energy Deficient Tennis Fans

I tried to like this game, but after giving it a few hours, I just cannot find it within me to truly recommend this game.

The game certainly has things going for it, such as its early atmosphere, and graphically, it's certainly acceptable when considering the price and single developer background. The story-line is also interesting enough early on to push on, sometimes even through indirect methods such as the abandoned environment.

Unfortunately, these good aspects are overcome by some glaring issues that really destroy this good work, and make playing the game rather unenjoyable.

At times, the map seems sparsely populated. This could be construed as a deliberate attempt to convey the feeling of isolation, but rather, it proves a hindrance, thanks to the slow movement of your character, giving you ample time to notice how every tree looks the same, and how little there is to look at. Movement is so unbearably slow, that just walking around looking for something becomes an arduous chore.

Another large issue is with the sound design, namely, the ambient sound effects. They are so overbearing, it takes only a small amount of time for it to become grating, with sitting in front of the game becoming pretty unbearable. The bland colour palette and oftentimes dark (too dark in some parts) make viewing for long periods hard on the eye. There are quite a few spots where the game seems pretty directionless too, and for some this might not be a problem, but it's something that should be considered.

It's not a terrible game, and at sub-£10, it's far from a rip off, but just not enough for a recommendation.

Best for: Apocalyptic Tortoises

While the concept of the game is fine (You are a brain, which can jack in to the mind of other beings which you use to protect yourself whilst seeking out the enemy to destroy it), the execution of the game is awful.

Firstly, the text on the whole game is absolutely tiny, and even those blessed with a larger than normal screen will need to squint. It's not just the size of the text (oo-er, that's what she said) that is the issue, but the font as well.

but that's is not what let's the game down the most. What leaves me totally unable to recommend the game are the controls. They are some of the worst controls I have ever had the displeasure to use in a game. They are so unnecessarily complicated and convoluted, I was left to wonder if the developers decided to make the controls the difficulty in the game, rather than worry about A.I. and terrain causing issues.

This causes the game to end up as a terrible copy of 'Worms' where every get's to go at once, but nobody knows how to move their avatar properly, almost discovering how to, before inevitably using a jet-pack to flail about for a few seconds, before plummeting face first in to an explosive item laying innocently on the floor.

Best for: Masochistic Mind-Jackers

Crossing Souls is a game created by developed by a team who clearly have a deep affection for the 80's/early 90's, and this love and affection absolutely shines through in this gem of an indie game.

With pixel graphics, VHS-styled cut-scenes, and a story-line that would not look out of place in a Blockbuster rental, this game oozes with style and nostalgia for anyone with any history or knowledge of the the 1980's movie/tv/music scene.

The game is your platformer with slight variations in move-set presented by switching between 5 different characters who all have unique abilities needed to navigate the platforms and puzzles throughout the game, most of which are very straight forward. In a weird reverse-metroidvania style, you actually lose these abilities as the story progresses.

The game is very heavy on story-line and in particular text boxes, which may put people off, but there is a genuinely touching story-line that will please most people who grew up watching The Goonies/Hook/Back to the Future etc. The ending is particularly poignant.

Boss battles throughout the game are all fun, although the last couple do ramp up the difficulty quite sharply, although not to the point of being unfair. Much like with real retro games, working out the attack patterns will go a long way in helping to beat these bosses without dying.

At a run time of approximately 8-10 hours (depending on if you decide to read the text or not), this game gives great value for money.

Best for: Marty McFly's

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap is a faithful remake of the original, first released back in 1989 for the Sega Master System. This remake sticks exactly to the flow and story-line of the original, complete with secret door locations and weapon effects etc, but brings it screaming in to the present with a complete overhaul of the music, sound effects and graphics.

The graphics are absolutely fantastic, imbuing the game (which for it's time was already full of character) even more character, and really enhance the experience.

Of course, there are options for you to use the games original graphics and sound mode (both chosen seperatley, and can be switched out during the game) so for those with a very fond memory of playing this game 20 years ago can get their nostalgia kicks.

The game is not particularly long, and the whole game can be completely completed in approximately 6-7 hours, but the games enjoyment stays consistent throughout, and never drags.

For anyone who has not had the pleasure of playing the original, this is still a gem of a game if you have any love for 2D platformers.

Best for: Wonder Boys