Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is a surprisingly challenging roguelite auto-shooter spin-off
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
The original Deep Rock Galactic is all about mining for precious minerals, annihilating bugs in the most irresponsible ways possible, and naturally, taking literal years off from mission control's life due to the sheer madness he's forced to witness on a daily basis. As such, I'm sure it'll come as a massive surprise to hear that's also what the somewhat recently released Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, a roguelite auto-shooter spin-off, is all about!
There are some differences since this is a highly challenging singleplayer game, but the concept is mostly the same. You're still mining for minerals, except they're now used to purchase both temporary and permanent upgrades. Similarly, you're still smashing hordes of bugs, except now you also get to loot all sorts of new weapons and weapon upgrades while doing so.
You Should Try: Dragon's Dogma - A difficult yet extremely captivating open-world RPG
- By Ash
- in You Should Try
"You Should Try" is a series of articles where I'll showcase you a game I really enjoy while explaining what exactly makes it fun. This can be any game: new or old, action or strategy, indie or AAA. The only requirement is that it has to be something I've found myself greatly enjoying and in need of sharing with the world.
Today I think you should try Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen - a complex, open-world RPG that will truly make you feel like you're exploring a land filled with monsters and excitement at every turn. Since nearly every single encounter requires special tactics and equipment you're most likely going to find yourself dying fairly often, but that overwhelming feeling of satisfaction once you finally succeed in bringing down a giant beast is exactly what makes Dragon's Dogma so compelling. So if you're up for an epic journey that will see your character grow from a lowly fisherman to a nigh-unstoppable dragonslayer, come and join me as I briefly go over everything that sets Dragon's Dogma apart from the rest.
After five years of quality updates, Dead Cells is soon getting its final one
- By Ash
- in Indie Games
To say that Dead Cells has had a lot of support over the years would be quite an understatement. Between the crossover updates, paid DLC and numerous free additions, the number of weapons, locations and potential builds increased significantly since launch, and the game is much better for it.
Alas, all good things must eventually come to an end, and the same goes for Dead Cells. So after five years of updates, it looks like the upcoming Patch 35 will be the very last one. A real shame since I truly believe Dead Cells could've easily sustained many more updates and DLCs given how fun the core gameplay is, but I certainly won't fault the Evil Empire team for wanting to move onto something new after all this time.
Elden Ring Retrospective - Seven major issues I'd love to see fixed in the DLC or beyond
- By Ash
- in Reviews
With the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion fast approaching, I figured this would be a pretty good time to play through Elden Ring for the umpteenth time and do a bit of a retrospective. However, instead of just gushing about how awesome the game is, I'd instead like to talk about some of its major shortcomings and how they could be fixed - either in the DLC or whatever the next Souls game might be.
This is obviously going to be very subjective as what one person finds annoying another might find utterly captivating. So before you get mad at me, just remember that all of this comes from a place of love. After all if I wasn't a massive fan of Elden Ring, and Souls games in general, I wouldn't have spent the past couple of weeks redoing the entire game in order to get into a proper mood for the new DLC.
Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is launching on June 21st with a rather large price tag
- By Ash
- in News
It has taken an entire year for us to get here, but I'm happy to say that FromSoftware has now finally announced that Elden Ring's first (and hopefully not last) expansion Shadow of the Erdtree will be launching on June 21st. As you would expect, the expansion will bring with it a sizable new world to explore, a whole host of bosses and deformed monstrosities to fight against, a new storyline that is likely to bring up more questions than it answers, and naturally, a wide variety of new weapons, spells and equipment to mess around with.
The one bit of bad news is that the price tag is going to be a fair bit larger than any previous Souls DLC. To be more specific, even the basic version of Shadow of the Erdtree will set you back 40€, which is almost as much as the base game itself. Whether this is a simple price hike or if the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion will contain an absurdly large amount of content, that still remains to be seen. Personally, I really hope it's the latter as I certainly wouldn't mind losing another 100 hours or so to Elden Ring!
Broken Roads Review - A Philosophy driven cRPG that's both Fascinating and Frustrating
- By Ash
- in Reviews
Broken Roads, more so than many other games I've reviewed, made me upset. Not upset because it's bad, mind you, but rather because it managed to get me completely hooked on its world and premise, only to then pull the rug right from under me just as things got interesting. There is a core of an amazing game here, but whether due to a lack of resources or time, that idea just wasn't carried through all the way to the end. So despite having a blast with it, I just can't help the feeling that Broken Roads is actually the first half of a much grander storyline that simply doesn't exist.
If you're curious what exactly makes me say that, as well as how Broken Roads managed to get me so invested in it, allow me to share with you my thoughts after spending the past few weeks desperately scrounging for scrap in a post-apocalyptic Australia that, for once, isn't just ripping off Mad Max!
Vermintide 2 has added a brand new map alongside a chonky, shield-bearing Chaos Warrior variant
- By Ash
- in News
While Darktide is still struggling with regular content patches, the Vermintide 2 team continues to impress. Despite being hard at work on the long-awaited addition of PvP multiplayer, they've somehow managed to find the time to release the "A Parting of the Waves" update!
The recent update brings with it a conclusion of the recent Karak Azgaraz storyline, as well as a huge and elaborate new map to explore. It's also worth mentioning that despite the map being directly connected to the Vermintide 1 remasters, it's an entirely new creation, and quite a solid one at that!