Previews & Early Access

Down to Hell PC Preview – Hack and slash and die

16May

By CraigNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

Down to Hell PC Preview – Hack and slash and die

I haven't had much experience with 2d hack and slash games, so when I was presented with Down To Hell by Polish developers Red Dev Studio S.A. I figured I'd take a shot. It's very early in its development stage, so it's bound to be a bit janky, Let's find out! Gameplay In Down to Hell, you play as a mysterious lone swordsman, whom after being saved by a girl becomes indebted to her. The girl has become kidnapped by demonic forces, and it's up to you to save her. The gameplay in Down to Hell is very straight forward. The entire game consists of slaying demons that spawn in waves between sections of 2D platforming. There are a few bosses present in the current build. However, it feels like you have to grind out a lot of enemies for the experience to get strong enough to stand a decent c...

Steel Division 2 Beta PC Preview – Grand Strategic Gold

30Apr

By Craig1 Comment

Previews & Early Access

Steel Division 2 Beta PC Preview – Grand Strategic Gold

Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to play some of Eugen Systems new World War II Real-time strategy game Steel Division 2. Having played the first Steel Division, I was thoroughly excited to give the sequel a proper try. This time around, the RTS action takes place on the eastern front, instead of Normandie. Steel Division 2 will be the first game from Eugen Systems to be independently published. I was a bit worried Steel Division wouldn't get a sequel due to almost half of the development team going on strike over unpaid wages in early 2018. Steel Division 2 was initially slated to be released on Steam on April 4th but was delayed to May 2nd. It has now been delayed again until June 20th so that the dev team could take player feedback and make changes to the game where ...

WillowBrooke Post PC Preview – Running Your Own Post Office

25Apr

By KevynNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

WillowBrooke Post PC Preview – Running Your Own Post Office

Ever wanted to be a postman? Run your own Post Office? Meddle with peoples post? Well, now you can in Dante Knoxx's WillowBrooke Post, Published by Excaliber Games and released on Early Access through Steam on 27th March. Upon starting the game, you receive a letter from your parents asking you to look after their Post Office in the village of WillowBrooke whilst they go on holiday for a year. You catch the next train to WillowBrooke on New Year's Eve. When you reach the Post Office, you find another letter from your father on the counter explaining your role and duties at the post office, when you continue to explore the rooms, soon after you're joined by the shy yet friendly Postman Pete who gives you some tips before suggesting you head to bed. When you wake up and head downst...

16Apr

By KevinNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

Etherborn PC Preview – Effortless, Surreal and Puzzling

Altered Matter bring us the gravity bewildering adventure Etherborn. Will it's simplistic artistic style prove to be a winner winner chicken dinner, or should it be fed to the dogs? Time to meditate and enter the weird and wonderful world before me. Gameplay A soft whispery voice guides me, I must follow the dulcet tones to discover the truth. There is a calming nature about this voice that makes me want to do as she is saying. Etherborn is best played with a controller, but keyboard play is possible for the PC owners that don't have a controller. You can jump, run, inspect and move. This game looks perfect, I love simplicity. So what is it all about? Well if you ever have a stressful day at the office and you fancy not shooting zombies to get it out of your system, well this g...

A Plague Tale: Innocence Preview – Dont Go Down To The Woods Today

5Apr

By Stu N1 Comment

Gaming, Previews & Early Access

A Plague Tale: Innocence Preview – Dont Go Down To The Woods Today

I was lucky enough to get a preview key of A Plague Tale: Innocence which is developed by Asobo Studio and published by Focus Home Interactive which was an alpha copy of the final game that included the first 3 chapters of the game. I played the game on PC (via Steam) but it will also be available on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. A Plague Tale: Innocence is an action-adventure stealth game set in the plague-ridden kingdom of France in 1309 in which you play Amicia De Rune, a young woman who finds herself after a tale of unfortunate events, alone and on the run with her younger brother Hugo. Let's see how this tale turns out and what's hidden in the deep depths of the woods... Gameplay Without giving too many spoilers of the game, you start off with Amicia with her father and the...

20Mar

By CraigNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

Satisfactory – PC First Look

Satisfactory is a game I've been looking forward to trying out since I first saw the reveal video from E3 2018. Developed by Coffee Stain Studios for the PC Satisfactory is a first-person open world factory sim. Satisfactory is currently only available on the Epic Games Store, but it may come to Steam in the future. Gameplay Once you begin Satisfactory, You find yourself in a drop pod on your way down to the surface of an alien planet. You're then played a little introductory video on the screen in your pod stating that your objective is to build a factory from nothing. The factory is being made to send resources back to Ficsit Inc. for some mysterious purpose. Once you've landed, the first thing you notice is how beautiful the landscape is, but we'll get to that in a minute. After break...

22Jan

By CraigNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

Katana ZERO – Hotline New Mecca

Katana ZERO is a hyper-violent fast-paced side-scrolling action platformer developed by Askiisoft and published by Devolver Digital. It is being released on Windows and MacOSX via Steam in March 2019. Originally shown off back in 2015, It has been met with mixed opinions ranging from excitement to rolled eyes. Some have said that they considered it TOO stylish, whereas others have praised it as an immensely impressive offering from the small studio Askiisoft. This preview is based on an early release version of the game. Gameplay Katana ZERO is a single player neo-noir action platformer featuring fast-paced combat and instant death, similar to Hotline Miami. In Katana ZERO you play as a Samurai in a cyberpunk styled city. You set out on missions using his ability to se...

Atlas PC Review – Yo Ho Ho and a Barrel of Rum Required

21Jan

By KevinNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

Atlas PC Review – Yo Ho Ho and a Barrel of Rum Required

Grapeshot Games and Instinct Games bring us Atlas, a game of ruling the high seas. Have they managed to collect all the pieces of eight, or are they lost at the bottom of Davey Jones' locker? Time to slip into my eye patch and bandana and find out for myself. Gameplay Standard WASD movement keys? Check. Mouse rotation? Check. Click to attack? Check. Well what else do I need to know, let's take over the joint. Atlas at first seems to be a standard survival game. All the attributes are there, food, water, health, crafting, yup, looks like a survival game to me. Walk in the park. Instructions appear on the screen in ghastly text, 1/10 in the corner, so I should probably read them. My reading skills are not the quickest, I like to understand the instructions and take them all...

SCUM Preview – Crawl, Walk, Run, Make Computer Game.

14Sep

By KevinNo Comments

Gaming, PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

SCUM Preview – Crawl, Walk, Run, Make Computer Game.

Gamepires & Croteam bring us the delightfully named SCUM to check out for PC. This prison island multiplayer survival game looks like it could be hard to escape from. Time to don my bright orange prison gear and make a hasty shiv. I'm going in. Gameplay I decided to jump right in to the single player mode to learn the controls. First I had to create a character, so I gave him my stats. Not the best plan given my actual age and size, but I might as well be realistic. Points are spent on skills, so work out what will be most useful. Upon entering SCUM I found I could move around using the WASD and mouse and there seemed to be plenty of places to go. After investigation I found a path down to a river and a dam, it looked interesting so I went and investigated. I jogged down, and 15...

Shoppe Keep 2 Preview – Granville, Fetch Your Hammer!

3May

By TC Staff WriterNo Comments

PC Reviews, Previews & Early Access

Shoppe Keep 2 Preview – Granville, Fetch Your Hammer!

Shoppe Keep was a wonderful shop management title, played from a first-person perspective with a strong focus on just selling items to customers. It didn’t really venture further than that, and it was hard to get into due to the progression system feeling lacklustre. Shoppe Keep 2 is here to change the game. Shoppe Keep had always been a fun experience no matter how many times I revisited it. Sadly the initial enjoyment of earning enough money to upgrade the store ending up feeling like more work than it needed to be. Customers didn’t flock in, but those that did lobbed your items like a tired bull trying to cause chaos. Shoppe Keep 2 arrives on Early Access with a much stronger focus on management than its predecessor. It also seems to feel just as sluggish in gameplay as the previous ...