REVIEW: Bush Hockey League (Nintendo Switch)

Review by GamingCouchPotato.co.uk Staff

Bush Hockey League is an ice hockey game set in the 1970s, Bush Hockey League is the name of the fictional league you will play.

There are two modes of play, an Exhibition Mode, which is your classic, jump into the action type game. And the Story Mode.

You can choose to play with Retro Controls or Advanced controls. The lack of any kind of instant tutorial mode, will really leave you trying to figure out the controls yourself, which is so frustrating, as when you first play, you will have no idea what button does what and end up losing your first game by a huge margin. Way to go developers, make a game that instantly puts off the player! Not like you didn't have 5 years to figure out the basics for porting this game to Switch.

Now there are tutorials, they are just not instantly available, bizarrely you have to play through the season, lose loads of games, and then you will randomly have one, which then unlocks more abilities for you to use. I do not understand such a ridiculous system. Look it is simple. Tutorial Mode, Exhibition mode, and Story Mode. Everything unlocked from the start, so you can enjoy the game, and the more you play the better you get. Anyway, I feel like I am getting angry now, so let's move on.

Once you do start to play, things that instantly stand out are often the little things, the look of the characters, the coaches, the music, the commentary, all look and sound great, and that was the first thing that started to pull me in, if only a bit.

If you have friends with a Switch Lite, or others to play with, I would highly recommend playing some exhibition games first, so you can get a hang of the gameplay, once you do that, you can try the story mode, which has you take over the Schuykill Hinto Brews, a minor league team in the middle of its season, your job is to help them reach the playoff. 

Loading times seem endless, I half expected to hear that old sound of a ZX Spectrum loading up, whatever happened to Solid State Memory being the thing of the future? Anyway, the loading screens are fun though, with newspaper stories popping up chronicling the stories of the team. 

The story mode does have some good points, but by the time you find them, you will probably have had a hockey fight with your Switch.

Exhibition mode is the way to go, with friends. It is fun, and once you get the hang of it, there is plenty of gameplay to have, but as a single player game, the story mode is terrible.

The Good

In general, the game looks good, the sound effects and music are all of high quality.

The Bad

Nearly impossible to see the puck on a Switch lite, the goal keepers are beyond useless, and the game crashed multiple times for me, which is a serious no-no, for what is a new release on the console. And when I see that the PS4 release from 5 years ago has the same issues, then that points to a lazy port from the developers.

The controls are terrible, you never really feel in control when you are defending, and lining up a solid hit is way too hard, keep in mind I played in novice mode. And it takes forever to unlock more control options, which you have to endure endless losses in the story mode to ever reach. Not a fun experience.

Overall

A game that was broken 5 years ago, that has not been fixed in the port to Switch.

I was looking forward to playing an old-fashioned arcade Hockey Game, instead I got a broken port. 

I score Bush Hockey League a very disappointing 3 out of 10.

Genuinely gutted the game is so bad, I really thought it would be better.

Released 14^th April

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Bush-Hockey-League-2187029.html

REVIEW: Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 5 (PS5)

Review by GamingCouchPotato.co.uk writer

The latest Supercross game is here, and this one has a ridiculously long name, just like previous games. Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 5 will from this point on be known as Supercross.

For those who don't know, Supercross is a fancy name for Dirt Bikes, in other words, powerful motorbikes that race on dirt. This game takes the official 2021 championship, and allows you to play in it. All the official tracks, bikes and stars are here. It is about as complete as you can get.

The control system might seem a bit strange to new players to the franchise, it offers a twin stick experience, which although tough to get used to at first, quickly becomes second nature. You need to use both analog sticks to precisely control the rider, this is most important when it comes to the smaller jumps, but also while sailing through the air on a big jump, trying to get that extra bit of flight.

The tracks can feel tight at times, meaning there is not much room for error, this is where the technical aspects of the game come before what you might consider a more arcade type feel. Luckily the game allows you rewind bars, so if you land on top of another rider, you can rewind and try to get it right. And as your ability to rewind drops, you can land tricks etc to refill the rewind bar.

There is a pretty detailed career mode, that has everything you could need across 3 classes.

The Good

The graphics are decent if not outstanding, which you would expect on a PS5. People new to the genre should enjoy the game, as it offers enough to keep you interested.

The Bad

The tracks can feel a bit repetitive, and the game really isn't that much of an improvement over previous games in the series. The difficulty settings too are not weighted very well. Easy is way too easy for a start, moving up to medium, and medium is way too hard.

There is an injury system, whereby you can spend credits you earn, to heal up, but it becomes pointless as you always have plenty of credits.

There are some graphic glitches/bugs I noticed too, which simply should not be there on such a big release.

Overall

The physics of the game feel authentic, and if you have not played any of the previous games in the franchise, then this is the one to get if you enjoy a bit of Supercross. However, can you justify paying £40+ for this, when you can get last year's version for half that? Probably not. (Available here https://amzn.to/3uf7nro)

I score Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 5 on PS5 a 6/10. (8/10 if you have never played a previous version)

Out now on PS5 at https://amzn.to/3N1lb1z

REVIEW: Beyond A Steel Sky on Xbox

Review by GamingCouchPotato.co.uk

Beyond A Steel Sky is the sequel to classic cyberpunk science fiction point-and-click adventure game Beneath a Steel Sky, released on the Amiga in 1994.

It has only taken 27 years to be made! So, it better be good.

You play as Robert Foster, you live in a community in the desert wastelands, a child had been taken after a brutal attack, and it is your job to tracking them down and bring them home. You find yourself travelling to Union City, one of the last mega cities on the planet, a planet that has been ravaged from war and political strife.

Union City is a seemingly perfect utopia, controlled by AI, everyone seems happy, everything seems wonderful, but with anything that seems so perfect, when you scratch beneath the surface, you find out that things are not at all what they seem.

Instead of a 2-dimensional world, that the previous game lived in, the modern point and click adventures takes on a much more 3-dimensional appearance, and a feeling of more freedom with that. Beyond a Steel Sky is very much a cyberpunk thriller, but within the point and click genre, whereby you will have to solve puzzles, speak to people, find out what is really going on, and try to solve the abduction of a child. And while that is a very serious subject, the game does have a humorous side within its Cyberpunk world. One of the achievements you will want to get is to make a robotic butler fall over, to do this you need to hack into the laundry machine, and change some settings so that the water over flows. You then return to the butler, and ask him to do the laundry, follow him downstairs, stand back and enjoy the hilarity. Many of the puzzles will need you to hack machines, but often you will need to engage in a lot of dialog with people, to find out the information you need, sadly this can sometimes feel a bit tedious, when you just want to get on with the game, and not just listen to seemingly endless dialog.

Early puzzles include helping people, who in turn reward you with things that will help you to solve the next puzzle. Similar in game mechanics to the Telltale games like Batman: The Enemy Within and Tales from the Borderlands, if you have played those games, you will instantly feel comfortable playing Beyond A Steel Sky. Although Beyond A Steel Sky does feel much grander in scale than those games.

The Good

The graphics are superb, everything looks and sounds great, and despite a few dodgy voice acting, overall, the acting and graphics are top quality. The game is easy to play, the puzzles are logical, and never too difficult. 

The Bad

A relatively short game, and as mentioned earlier, some of the dialog can be a bit tedious.

Overall

If you are a fan of point and click adventures, or the Telltale series of games, then you will instantly fall in love with Beyond A Steel Sky, and feel right at home as you play, it is far from perfect, and a little short, but even so, it is a game you should consider adding to your collection.

I score Beyond A Steel Sky a very strong 8/10

Out now on PC

Release date 07/12/2021 on Xbox

https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/Beyond-a-Steel-Sky/9PP6MFZBQ6VH

REVIEW: Intruder on the bridge on PC (Steam)

Review by GamingCouchPotato.co.uk

Intruder on the bridge is an adult, visual novel, but it does go a bit further than the usual visual novel in that it actually has a few mini games, the main one of interest being a Galaga like minigame.

Let's start with the story.

"Intruder on the Bridge tells the story of Captain Dyce, a Galactic Union officer in command of the largest spaceship ever built: the Ventura. He will have to face a mysterious conspiracy that caused his brother's death. Unfortunately, all leaders of the Union seem to be involved in the conspiracy. "

As with all visual novels, there will be a lot of reading and watching, so the story often needs to be very good to keep your attention, the advantage that adult visual novels have, is that they are adult in nature, so you will have nudity and sex scenes, and that adds an element of interest, since you will want to unlock all the scenes you can.

Now the game is not just about sex, in fact that is not even the main interest of the main character. So if you think you will just start up the game and see "action" straight away, you will be disappointed, you need to play through the story to get to the good bits!

You play as Captain Dyce, his twin brother has been killed, and you take his place, to try and solve the murder, you will need to talk to all the crew of The Ventura as well as cover up the fact you have switched places with your deceased brother. Along the way you will be faced with choices to make, different questions to ask, each in themselves will affect the story moving forward, this instantly gives the game that all important replayability factor. Especially if you want to unlock all the animations and scenes.

The game as a whole is very "Star Trek" like, the look of the aliens, the characters, the machinery, the space ship's interior. You can tell that there is a lot of inspiration from Star Trek from almost the first moment you start playing. You could argue that Captain Dyce even looks a bit like William Riker! As well as having his interest in the ladies!

There are a few minigames, the previously mentioned Galaga like shoot-em-up, this comes into play when your ship encounters an enemy, the mini game loads up, and you control the ship with your mouse, while shooting at waves of enemies, and eventually a boss. There are various weapon upgrades to collect as well as special weapons that last for a short period of time, rockets, lasers etc. You can of course skip the mini game, but where is the fun in that. Complete the level and you go back to the main game and the story continues. There is also a mini game which is literally a first person shooter, run around an alien planet, kill the aliens, rescue some crew. 

There is also a very simple combat mini game, whereby you are face to face with someone, and have to choose basic moves to fight with, this mini game is not the best, and you will get through it very quickly.

The game boasts 3000 HD images, that really are incredibly rendered, full HD, and very impressive. There are also 50 separate animations, these are mainly part of the story, but also include various scenes that are adult in nature.

I did read some complaints about the dialog from people saying the translations were poor. And as far as I can figure out, the developers "Space Samurai Studio" are Italian, however I thought the dialog although far from perfect, was fine, and nothing seemed particularly off for me. If you are playing an adult visual novel, and you are moaning about the grammar used, then you really are taking life too seriously.

The Good

The rendered images and animations are of a very high quality, everything looks incredible. The story is decent, and the mini game is a lot of fun.

The Bad

There is no voice acting as such, other than a few groans, so everything needs to be read, the sounds in general across the game are quite poor, and although I understand the reasons for not having voice acting, (Keeps the costs down), it can make a big difference in a game of this nature.

Overall

If adult visual novels are your thing, then I honestly don't think you can go far wrong with this game, the story is decent, the graphics, animations etc all look great, perhaps a little expensive at just under £12, but I am sure there will be a sale at some point.

I score Intruder on the bridge a solid 7.5/10 with the total understanding of the context and genre that this game sits in.

Out now on Steam (Over 18s only please)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1700550

REVIEW: Pretty Girls Four Kings Solitaire on PC (Steam)

Review by GamingCouchPotato.co.uk Staff

I never thought I would be reviewing a Solitaire game, but here we are.

I recently reviewed another "Pretty Girls" release called Speed which you can see here, I gave that game a strong 9/10. Well, the good people at Zoo Corporation have asked me to take a look at their newest "Pretty Girls" release, this time it is Solitaire. Yes Solitaire, that game everyone gets free with their PC running Windows. So, what is different about this game that sets it apart from the Windows version?

Well, it is the "Pretty Girls" of course. But that aside the gameplay still needs to work for the game to be good.

There are a few different versions of Solitaire going around, slightly different rules. Since this game is from Japan, the rules are a little different to what I was familiar with, but in many ways, this is a superior version.

They also use more clear terms for the various parts of the game, in the classic version you have "Stock, Waste, Tableau and Foundation", in this you have "Deck, Hand, Field and Table". Much easier to understand if you are a newbie to this game.

The main difference I can see is that in the 4 Foundation lines or Table lines of cards that you need to complete to finish the game, is that each line has to be completed differently.

In the classic game, you start with the Ace, and have to follow the order of the cards all the way to King. In this version that is only the case with one line. The others start with a 2, a 3 and a 4. And of those, each card has to be followed not by the direct next card in order, but in one line a gap of two, the next a gap of 3 and the last a gap of 4. This photo should help you understand what I mean.

You still have to end on a King, but getting there now needs a bit more thought. 

The cards you place in the field, can then only be moved to the table, unlike classic rules you can't move field cards around. So, when taking cards from the hand, it now becomes all the more important, where you place them on the field, because you may inadvertently block yourself in a future move.

I know this sounds confusing, but when you get the hang of it, this really does make this a superior game.

Throw in leader boards, with the fastest to complete at the top. Differing difficulty settings, which work as the harder the setting, the less space you can use in the field, and you suddenly have a really challenging game.

There are limited shuffles allowed for when the deck has been emptied, and a couple of cheat moves allowed, to take a card from any position in the field and automatically place on the table, all depending on the difficulty settings. Your usual achievements can be gained too, giving you something to aim for.

The beautifully drawn "Pretty Girls" can all be positioned with different backgrounds once you have unlocked them, great for creating wallpaper images for your PC. There is no nudity, just busty Japanese style girls to amuse you. Plus, the classic Japanese voices which always make me chuckle. 

The Good

This is the best version of a Solitaire game that I have ever played. The bells and whistles of the Pretty Girls are fine, but the game itself is well designed, and once I got use to the rules which were a little different to what I was used to, I am happy to say this is a superior rule set.

The Bad

There is a menu regarding the rules, which I found a little confusing, perhaps could have been explained a little better, but I think some of it was due to me being convinced I already knew how to play, and not really noticing that the game literally tells you what card you need "Next" and I didn't notice it.

Overall

Zoo Corporation have done it again, they have taken a simple card game and made it better. 

I score Pretty Girls Four Kings Solitaire on PC a super strong 8/10

Released 18^th March on Steam at

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1910020/Pretty_Girls_Four_Kings_Solitaire/