Great news for Nintendo Switch players who are fan of city-building games.
Lethis Path of Progress is a PC game developed and published by Triskell Interactive. Seaven Studio will help port this amazing game to Nintendo Switch, there is no official date of release or price set yet but it should be arriving later this year.
Here are some screenshots of the game:
Trailer:
NIS America was originally release date for NPG Maker MV for the PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in North America and Europe on February 26, but this will no longer be the case. Today, NIS America sent out an email to the press stating to postpone the original release date for a later date in 2019.
The release for RPG Maker MV will be delayed due to ongoing issues with development. Until they are resolved, the release date will be postponed for later in 2019. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to all those who are looking forward to this game, and we are taking action in order to deliver the best possible product to our fans. For more information regarding RPG Maker MV, please visit the official website. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and we look forward to meeting you with our next announcement.
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Ethan: Meteor Hunter is a 2D puzzle and platformer game that combines heavy use of physics puzzles to try to bring variety to the genre. The game is developed and published by the French independent game studio called Seaven Studio. Ethan: Meteor Hunter can be seen at a high level as a mixture of Super Meat Boy with Braid and it’s a geat indie game that comes to the PlayStation 3 platform and should please those who likes to solve complex puzzles in a variety of physics-defying ways.
The story of Ethan: Meteor Hunter is told in a one minute cut-scene without dialogue at the beginning of the game and serves as a pretext for the adventures of the protagonist, Ethan the mouse. Briefly, you must collect various pieces of a meteor that destroyed their home, while facing obstacles created by his evil neighbor.
The controls are simple and intuitive as one should expect from a platform game, and allow you to move your character with the left analog or digital directional. An interesting mechanic that I would like to see in other games.
In addition to cross platforms, Ethan: Meteor Hunter provides a mechanism that allows you to stop time and arrange blocks to solve puzzles. This works more or less like its predecessor Funky Lab Rat allowing you to move and rotate the blocks to be able to solve the puzzle. Most of these challenges are great and will make you think hard and sweat to solve them, but some get to be so difficult that they become frustrating. Keep in mind that you can take your time on a single puzzle when playing.
Initially you start organize blocks of woods to get through the levels but with the progression in the game, new elements are introduced like metal blocks that conduct electricity, flames that burn wood blocks, wall jumps, and more. The game always tries to add something new and this helps to avoid boredom and repetition of just having similar phases.
The game offers dozens of stages distributed in 3 worlds in each theme. The stages range from the simplest with some platforms and puzzles, some even more elaborate you should use a pogo stick to climb vertical phases or control a small airplane in the best shoot-em -up style. Each phase has collectibles and a time to beat, plus a quantity limit use of mechanical handling the blocks further increasing the longevity of the game.
The difficulty mentioned above makes some levels are true challenge. There are lives at stake, and if you die will return to the last checkpoint you activated. On more than one occasion I found myself for 20 or 30 minutes at the same stage, trying to overcome some tricky puzzle or a section of cruel platform. Stages with pogo stick and fights with bosses, in particular offers no checkpoints and if you die during any point – you will go back to the beginning of the stage and you’ll have to redo the level.
The visuals are simple but it does fulfill their role, although some animations are not very fluid. The loading time and retries are very fast, which is always good in a game in which you will make mistakes and die over and over again.
Overall, I would give Ethan: Meteor Hunter a solid 8 out of 10. Despite some very frustrating moments in the game, I had a great time playing the game. The gameplay will surpass its spiritual successor Funky Lab Rat. If you enjoy a 2D platform with a combination of puzzle and physics, Ethan: Meteor Hunter is for you.
Velocity Ultra is a shoot ‘em-up action combining elements of puzzle and speedruns. In other words, your goal is to reach the end of the stage that is at the top of the screen. But the grace of Velocity Ultra are its unique gameplay mechanics.
You will learn each skill in a progressive manner, at the beginning of the game you’ll learn how to control the spaceship (which can be done with the analog stick or D-pad). Then understand how the boost works: holding R1, your ship goes faster – however, you feel that the “screen” actually goes faster.
With time, you will see other essential skills such as teleportation (hold the square button and aim where you want to teleport), press the circle or the right analogue stick to throw bombs, while X shoots (both munitions are infinite). All of these skills are explained so that you understand perfectly – believe me, when you’re in the final stages, will be using everything at once and it can be a little overwhelming.
The only criticism of the gameplay is in relation to the pumps on the right analog . To launch them , you need to ” squeeze ” in the desired direction when needed, and not just ” hold “. If it was ” hold ” (think Super Stardust for an example), it would be much better. In the final stages you will be pressing the right analogue stick numerous times and it is tiring, besides not being precise enough. And believe me, despite the X to shoot, you will use the bombs in 80% of cases rather than the normal shot.
Another criticism is in relation to the teleportation ability, even after holding the square button, it is still strange aim where you want to be transported. There’s even a bizarre collision problem with that, some rare times you teleport into a wall (but you can leave without problems, which is not so critical). But during the frantic action is difficult to hold buttons and aim correctly with the left stick. However, this is a more of a personal issue, I’m sure many people will have no problems with teleportation even targeting through the square button.
In addition to the 50 levels in the single-player mode, there are 20 missions that need to be unlocked by collecting hidden items in the campaign. The missions are a variety of challenges, how to pass a faster phase as you can without touching the wall, for example. But there are also missions that have nothing to do with the gameplay of the game and refer to classic shooters of the past, such as Space Invaders and Lunar Lander.
Velocity Ultra is an excellent addition to the PlayStation 3 library. There is a great cost-benefit ratio and huge replay factor (in addition to everything said in the review, you need to get a perfect rating in all 50 stages for the platinum trophy. Believe me, it is very challenging – but completing the campaign is not so much, so there is a perfect balance).
Overall I’d give 8.5/10. Velocity Ultra is a fantastic game and you need to have it in your game library. It is easily one of the best games of the year and one of the best shooters of recent times. The game runs on the PS3 in glorious 1080p and 60 frames per second without any hiccups. Some may find the graphics simple, but for me they serve their purpose and the artworks shown before the missions are simply beautiful.
An important observation is that the game, despite having gone to the PS3 and PS Vita, has neither Cross-Buy nor Cross-Cross-save. The reason is that the Vita version was developed and published by FuturLab, while the PS3 version was in charge of CurveStudios. But it does not matter, the game is good and deserves your money twice, three or even more times. Velocity Ultra is one of the essential titles from PSN and you should have it. Velocity Ultra is available on the PlayStation Network Store for $9.99.
Pool Nation is a billiards game developed by Cherry Pop Games and published by Mastertronic. Officially released for the Xbox 360 last year, it has now been released for the Playstation 3 console. Featuring photo-realistic graphics; and different modes of gameplay which include single player, endurance, versus, and online; Pool Nation offers players a wide range of options to fit the skills and the preferences of each player. Players will also have the choice to either play in single matches or in tournaments with skilled players worldwide when playing online.
As person that doesn’t play these sorts of games a whole lot, I started with the tutorial since I don’t like to be lost in the game for too long before moving forward in the game. The tutorial is very useful to learn to play the game and how to use the controls. Once you get through the tutorial, you can choose to play in the single player mode, which is divided into the tour mode and the endurance mode. The tour mode lets you go against other characters as you compete in different locations to win the tournament. Playing in this mode, can be a bit challenging, for whatever reason playing with avatars are always challenging for me, and it’s actually easier to play with real people. They offer an Aim Assist, which will help you to win against the avatars, and playing without it can easily be impossible. I didn’t think that was fair, but I guess at least they offer you some assistance. Another nice feature of the Aim Assist is that you have three different choices to set it, which can either give you more information or less information depending on how challenging you want the game to be. You will also be presented with different challenges in each match during your tour, and bonus matches matches are unlocked when you earn two or more stars in the match that offers the opportunity to unlock the bonus match.
Another choice within the single player mode is the Endurance mode, which offers survival-style mini games with the objective being that players will have to pot the balls on the table as fast as possible the limit of balls are added to the table. This mode is quite straightforward and fun to play.
For the multi-player mode, you can either play with local players or online players. I actually was not able to find online players to play with me, perhaps because of the timing or another issue, so it’s not a feature that I have been able to try yet.
One of the things that I really liked about Pool Nation, is the amount of control I had over my shot, which made the game quite easy to play. Pool Nation allows you to have control over the spin, jumping the ball, and the power; which makes this game really stand out from other pool games I’ve played.
The graphics of the game are very realistic, almost 3D-ish looking when viewed from certain angles. You’re allowed to view the table from either the down cue or the overhead view of the whole table, which you can change throughout the game. The lighting and shadows really add a realistic feel to it; many other details can also be seen, such as the actual reflections on the surfaces of the balls. Overall the graphics are very well done, very easy on the eyes. The sounds of the action on the table are also very realistic and well done, though the music in the background didn’t do much for me.
I did like playing this game, though I did not love it as this is not really the sort of games I’d go for. I specially liked the Endurance mode, it was very fun and straightforward. But I do recommend it for those that really like to play pool, this is a very well-done game, and it offers quite an array of different modes to play it in. Overall I will give this title a rating of 7 out of 10. If you’re a PlayStation Plus member you can get this game for only $5.09 and for everyone else this title costs $8.49 at the PlayStation Network store.
Twisted Lands Shadow Town is a point-and-click hidden-object adventure puzzle game; developed by Alawar entertainment Inc, the same company that developed the highly rated “Snark Busters: Welcome to the Club” game. This new release aims to give players a horror-themed casual game that consists of a collection of point-and-click puzzles with hidden objects and some aventure portions as well.
A man wants to go treasure hunting in the hopes of finding something valuable in the middle of a shipwreck, and invites his girlfriend along for the ride. Upon finding some objects that seemed valuable, he decides that they should head back to the shore. His girlfriends asks to see the object that he found, and as he pulls it out of his pocket to show her, he is sprung into the water. When he wakes up, he is in a spooky beach covered in fog in what appears to be another dimension, and his girlfriend is nowhere to be found. The objective of the game is pretty simple, players will be solving numerous adventure-game style puzzles in order to find his girlfriend and escape the island. Also featured in the game are a few animated cut scenes which helps bring the story to life.
The game consists mainly of point-and-click hidden-object puzzles that incorporate some brain teasers; players will be collecting useful items and solving puzzles in order to move forward in the game. Spread throughout the island, are several hidden object locations in which players will find search-and-find games. And one twist added to Twisted Lands Shadow Town is that in each game, one of the hidden objects will actually become a useful tool to the players which will be added to the player’s inventory in order to solve later puzzles in the game. The puzzles are very elementary as far as difficulty is concerned; and although it is recommended for mature adults, I did not find that the content was inappropriate in any way for children, and due to the level of difficulty of the game, I think that children would be a more appropriate audience for this game, not that adults wouldn’t find it fun, it just wasn’t challenging enough to entertain an adult. All in all, the puzzles are very straightforward and easy to solve.
Players will be referring to a journal in order to keep track of what needs to be done; and as the player opens new levels and moves forward in the game, the biggest problem of this game will make itself known to the player. There is an enormous amount of backtracking to find hidden items because items will only show up on the spot when they are needed to be found, so the player will have to go back again and again to find them, which can be quite annoying. To summarize it, players will pretty spend most of their time wandering across the same rooms over and over again looking for new hidden objects in order to complete puzzles and be able to move on in the game. I honestly think that this was a strategy to make the game appear much longer than it actually is, which to me does not make a lot of sense since they actually offered a plot with a lot of potential.
The graphics are modern and very detailed, the colors complement each other, and overall they are quite well done. I loved each new scenario that I came across in the game even though I had to revisit them way too many times. The soundtrack was okay in the beginning of the game, but after listening to it for some time, I had to mute the tv because it became so annoying. Even now that I think about the soundtrack, I feel quite disturbed at how repetitive it was. One other thing that I wanted to add, is that I feel that the background music could be have been less annoying if some dialogue was present in the game.
Overall the game does offer a good plot and some fun to it; I loved the graphics, and I’d recommend this game, especially for those players that into hidden-object puzzles. I myself love hidden-object puzzles, and this another title that’s worth having in your game collection if you’re into this sort of games. I’m giving this title a rating of 7 out 10.
Twisted Lands: Shadow Town is available on the PlayStation Network for £9.69/€11.99.
Space Ogres 