[Review] A Fistful of Gun

We are back with another review after almost 2 months full of technical issues. This time it's about a shooter which I was asked to try. Do you want to know what I though about it? if that's the case then go ahead and continue reading.

A Fistful of Gun is a retro shooter game that has 2 modes. One of them is the arcade mode in which we have to defeat every opponent that appears in the screen and try to get the highest score, and the other one is the Story Mode, in which we have to free the town from the claws of a tyrannical governor. Each character counts with not only with different weapons but also they have their own controls, adding more variety to the game. Also you can play with either a controller or a keyboard and a mouse perfectly, with the exception of 3 three characters that require a keyboard and a mouse to be used.
The game also counts with a co-op mode where you can play with your friend on the same computer or even online (though it doesn't have much activity at the moment).

¡Merry Christmas!

The retro aspect of the game is very well done. Everything reminds of the arcades where we spent all our allowance back in the 80s and the 90, from the pixel art designed characters and levels to the music and sound effects.

¿Do you want some lead? Then have some lead!

¿Would I recommend this game? Yes. It's very entertaining and it's worth your time.

Extra information:

Developer: FarmerGnome

Publisher: Devolver Digital
Language: English

Available Platforms: PC (Steam)

System Requirements:

- Windows XP or better

- CPU: Dualcore 1.8 GHz or better

- Memory: 2 GB

- Graphic card compatible with DirectX 9.0c

- 600 MB of available hard disk space

- Sound card compatible with DirectX

[Review] 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek

Halloween is here! And there's nothing more typical than going Trick or Treating, watch horror movies, or play horror games. 9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek is not a horror game per se, but it's still a very fitting game for this time of the year. Do you want to know why? then continue reading, that's it if you dare.

9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek is a Hidden Object game which tells the story of a private eye who came to Serpent Creek after receiving a call from Helen Hunter, a famous reporter and her friend. Once we arrive we are attacked by a shadowy figure and soon after that we realize there's something dark going on in the town.

The game does a great job at creating a grim atmosphere. The background, the characters and the different objects we have to pick thorough the game are very well done, and along a fitting soundtrack, voice acting and sound effects it manages to give a creepy vibe from the beginning to the end of the game.

Sadly the plot is really predictable to the point you can tell who the main villain is right away. It's still engaging, but it could have been better.

Welcome to Serpent Creek!

The game mechanics are fairly polished and offers a good variety of puzzles. They are the usual "find all the listed objects", some jigsaws, others were we have to activate all the blocks in a circle to unlock a door, and so on. It also adds a detective mode which will make the player look for clues and then make deductions based on what was found. I personally recommend playing it on hard if you want it to be a bit challenging since most of the puzzles are fairly easy. It also helps to not get tempted to spam the hint button.

A skull, a prosthetic hand, some chloroform, a frozen brain...
You know, the typical stuff you'll find in a wrecked car

Would I recommend this game? Yes. Even if it's not groundbreaking it's quite decent. It'll keep you entertained for around 4 hours.

Extra information:

Developer: Tap It Games

Publisher: Artifex Mundi
Language: English, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, and Brazilian Portuguese

Avaliable platforms: PC (Steam), Android and iOS

System Requirements:

- Windows XP/Vista/7/8 - OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or better (Mac) - Ubuntu 12 or better (Linux)

- CPU: 1.5 GHz processor

- Memory: 512 MB RAM

- Graphics: 128 MB

- Hard Disk: 1 GB of available hard disk space

[Review] Q.U.B.E.

Q.U.B.E was one of the first games I got on Steam and also a game whose game mechanics took my attention almost instantly

Q.U.B.E. (or Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) is a puzzle-platformer in which we are stuck in a mysterious place and we have to find our way out. To do so we have to use our special gloves which will let us push or pull the different coloured blocks, as well as interact with the different elements we will find in the game. It's as simple as it looks like, but it doesn't mean it's going to be a walk in the park. Some of the puzzles will require a bit of logic to be done, others just a bit of coordination, and then there are those which require a bit of both.

Open sesame!

The design of the different levels is very minimalistic. Aside of the color-coded blocks and the “switches” on the wall, everything is white.

There's also no plot in this game and everything is left to the imagination of the player, though that's only in the original game. In the Director's Cut version you get told you're trapped in a ship, and said ship is inevitably going to hit the Earth if you don't do something to avoid it.

Now I mention the Director's Cut version, there are also a few more changes aside of the aforementioned one. On one hand they replaced the kinda unnoticeable soundtrack  of the original game for a more dramatic one that goes along with the plot, and on the other some of the puzzles were tweaked or removed.

Well, this starts to get more and more complicated

Would I recommend this game? Of course. This game is quite good and everybody should at least try it, it's worth your time.

Extra Information:

Developer: Toxic Games

Publisher: Toxic Games

Language: English

Available Platforms: PC (Steam)

System Requirements:

Operative System: Windows XP SP2/Vista/7 – Mac OSX 10,6 – Ubuntu 10 or better

Processor: 2,0 Ghz (Dual Core or better recommended)

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: Nvidia 8000 series or higher (Shader Model 3 compatible & 128 MB or more memory) – Intel HD 4000 or higher (Mac)

Hard Disk: 1,2 GB of free space

[Review] Beat Hazard

WARNING: This game is NOT for epileptics.

I've been wanting to write a review for Beat Hazard for a long time but for one reason or another I haven't done it, that's it until I found the time to do it today.

Beat Hazard is a shoot em'up which, in a nutshell, consists in destroy everything that appears in the screen with your spaceship, and pick power-ups to make your beams stronger. Does this sound boring to you? Worry not, because the developers made sure you're going to have a blast playing this game.

For starters, each level is generated according to the tracks you choose (be it one of the ones included in the game or anyone you have in your computer) which means you have as many unique levels as songs are in your PC, and faster songs will be challenging while slower ones will be useful to practice and get used to the game mechanics. Also you get money to buy perks such as extra lives, weapons, harder modes, and so on.

There's a good variety of enemies too as well as bosses. There are regular spaceships that shoot bullets, meteor that are either floating around or go right towards you as if you have a meteor magnet, mine droppers (which I find particularly annoying because once you're hit by a mine you can't shoot for a while), and magnetic ships, which can either attract you towards them or push you away from them, among others.

If that's still not enough for you then there's the extra content that comes with the DLCs. Ultra adds new weapons, game modes (including a co-op and a versus mode) and new bosses, while Shadow Operations Unit brings new spaceships as well as making it possible to create your own and upload it to Steam Workshop (or just download the one you like the most from there).

I'm having a blast, literally

Regarding the visuals, they are really bright, the colors are quite saturated and stroboscopic effects are used quite frequently (especially when you are powered up to the max) which is why I left a warning at the beginning of the review. 

Health issues aside, my only gripe with the game is how hard it becomes to distinguish the enemy bullets from the background lights once they turn red

I don't know whether I'm blowing up stuff or 
I'm in the middle of an intergalactic rave

Would I recommend this game? Yes. After all it's very entertaining and really addictive.

Extra information:

Developer: Cold Beam Games

Publisher: Cold Beam Games
Language: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch

Avaliable platforms: PC (Steam), Android, Iphone, PS3 and Xbox360 (Xblig)

System Requirements:

- Windows XP/Vista/7 - OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 or better (Mac) - Ubuntu 12 or better (Linux)

- CPU: 2 GHz processor

- Memory: 512 MB RAM

- Graphics: 256 MB

- Hard Disk: 250 MB of available hard disk space

- Sound: DirectX compatible audio card

[Review] Eryi's Action

There are three kinds of platformers. Those like Super Mario Bros which have a decent difficult, Metroidvanias which tend to be a tad harder, and then there are the so-called "trapformers" which are plain unfair. Eryi's Action is one of them and I couldn't help but to try it given I can't say no to a challenge.

The game features Eryi, a green-haired little girl who found out the melon she was so looking forward to eat was stolen by Farta the Troll (How dare she!) and thus she set on a quest to retrieve her melon. A quest that not even Hercules would be able to fulfill because there are a lot of traps set in the different stages, and they will all catch you by surprise. In fact, the game will count the amount of times you've died instead of telling you how many lives you have and, as if it wasn't already hard enough, that'll change some traps in the game.
Talking about the traps, you can tell they were carefully planned and set up in a way even the most experienced gamers wouldn't see them coming. It can get frustrating yet at the same time it's funny and you will want to try it again, and again, and again until you manage to avoid all the traps in the levels and finish it. Also this game is more enjoyable with friends, especially when you're not the one who's playing.

That melon would better be something to die for

This game is also compatible with Xbox controllers, which I personally recommend to use instead of the keyboard because there are moments where you need to be very precise with your jumps and it's easier to do so with a controller than with a keyboard (and as a bonus you'll have something else to throw at the screen if you get too frustrated).
Art-wise both the characters and the scenery are drawn in a very cutesy manner to contrast with the excessive difficulty of the game. Sadly the resolution is stuck at 640x480 which makes it look a bit blurry when playing on fullscreen.

Look, it's the goal! There are totally not any more traps in this level!

Would I recommend this game? Yes. The game is fun despite of how easily it could drive anybody mad. The game is not unbeatable though, since with enough patience you can figure out how to avoid each trap and finish the levels.

Extra information:

Developer: Xtal Sword

Publisher: Nyu Media
Language: English

Avaliable platforms: PC (Steam)

System Requirements:

- Windows XP/Vista/7

- CPU: 1 GHz processor

- Memory: 512 MB RAM

- Graphics: DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card

- Hard Disk: 200 MB of available hard disk space

- Sound: DirectX compatible audio card

[Review] Obulis

Today I'm honoured to launch ZenyaGames, a blog dedicated to review PC games. This time I'll analyze Obulis, a game which I bought a few months ago for 50 cents and surprised me in a good way.

There's not much to say about the gameplay since the game mechanics are pretty simple. The goal of the game is to put the coloured balls inside the recipients of the same colour of the balls, and to do so you just have to cut the chains that restrain the balls and let inertia do the rest. It may seem easy at first but, as the game progresses, the levels get more and more challenging and precision becomes more important, to the point of requiring you to cut the chain at the exact moment or else you will fail, even if you cut it a split second too soon or too late.

I've lost track of how many times I've tried this level

If it requires such precision then it must be a very frustrating game, right? Surprisingly it isn't and that's because of soundtrack. Even if it's fairly limited it's fully composed of relaxing tunes, which definitely helps the player to keep themselves relaxed and focused.

They also did a very good job in the art department. Each set of levels have different beatifully done backgrounds which go along with the soundtrack. But the background is not the only thing that changes, the foreground also does. In one level you can find yourself moving balls through a wooden room while in the other you're putting them inside flowers. This game has its flaws though, In some levels you can find some foreground elements obstructing your view of the ball, which I personally find it a bit annoying, and in others there are invisible walls that block a ball from going further, though everytime it happens is because there's always another way to do it.

It even has flower cannons!

Would I recommend this game? Definitely. It's pretty enjoyable and a must-have for any gamer who loves puzzles. On top of that it costs just 5€ (or even less if you're lucky and find it discounted) which makes it a great deal.

Extra information:

Developer: IonFX

Publisher: Meridian4
Language: English

Avaliable platforms: PC (Steam)

System Requirements:

- Windows 2000/XP/Vista

- CPU: 1.0 GHz processor

- Memory: 128 MB RAM

- Graphics: DirectX 9.0c compatible 64 MB graphics card

- Hard Disk: 50 MB of available hard disk space

- Sound: DirectX compatible audio card