[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