PLAY! ; PLAY! Zine

REVIEW: HyperX Cloud Stinger

HyperX has caused quite a stir in the market of gaming peripherals with their Cloud headsets. However until now we have mostly seen high end headphones intended at the enthusiast market. Now we have a chance to take a look at a headset intended for gamers on a budget. Cloud Stinger We received the Stinger headset as a sample s we got only the headphones themselves and therefore cannot comment on the packaging and other additional features but it is safe to assume that they will be a bit more modest than other Cloud headsets. However the headphones are very interesting and are completely covered in some kind of rubberized plastic. First thing I noticed is that the headset is extremely light which I think…

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PLAY! Zine #97 – September 2016

Space. The Final Frontier. Where no man has reached before. A No Man’s Sky… August was marked by various space-themed games, but none of them as much as No Man’s Sky. Everyone seemed to anticipate it – some expecting it to fail, some expecting a new legend to be born. We’re not sure whose prediction was right, but you can certainly decide for yourself with the help of our review. In other news, we have visited the biggest European gaming convention – Gamescom in Cologne. There we have learned much about the upcoming titles and had an opportunity to try out the latest games and gadgets. A few episodic games came out in August – Batman got the first episode of his Telltale treatment, while…

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REVIEW: Space Run Galaxy

If we had to describe Space Run Galaxy in short, it would be something like this – “Cargo needs to get from point A to point B. Here’s a ship and watch out for pirates and giant space squid. Especially the squid.” The game falls into the Tower defence genre, but if you thought all you’re going to do is build towers over and over again, level after level, you’re sorely mistaken – Space Run Galaxy has much more to offer than that. The game’s plot is set 20 years later than its predecessor, and this time you’ll take on the role of an unnamed pilot in service of the first game’s protagonist, ex-military pilot and space racer who goes by the macho name of…

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REVIEW: LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars The Force Awakens is a movie that was a huge success business-wise and most of its viewers loved it, but not without a „price“- many think that the movie feels too much like the first Star Wars, that it uses too much of its ideas and parts of script points. Something similar can be said about Star Wars The Force Awakens game – it’s an interesting LEGO game set in the Star Wars universe, but it’s done in a way that has already been seen before. Older players will generally be interested in what The Force Awakens has to offer when it comes to humor. Just like the LEGO movie, the game takes the story already familiar from the movie and mostly follows…

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REVIEW: Furi

After the debacle that was Afro Samurai 2, the players still had an unsatisfied thirst for Takashi Okazaki’s style. Furi is there to scratch that itch in the form of a short but very complicated boss rush. When we say boss rush, we literally mean that. The game’s goal is to run through 11 bosses and save yourself from prison you’ve found yourself in and from which you escape at the beginning of the game. You’re accompanied by a strange NPC with a bunny mask and he guides you into each successive boss fight with very cryptic descriptions. The game is completely “Anime” even if the design is quite specific. Every boss is different and specific in its own way. You fight them in phases…

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REVIEW: Quadrilateral Cowboy

When you have the ultimate hacking machine armed with a 56.6k modem and staggering 256k of RAM memory, it only means one thing: you answer only to the highest bidder! After the intro mission, the first thing you do in game is to physically make of the above-mentioned “beastly” hacking machine. You successfully start up the system on the new computer; load up your first serious hacking job. Then you meet on the field and get into action. Your in-game computer is a retro-futuristic VR machine meant to simulate various “hacker jobs” that you’ll perform during the game. One can understand that you’re not “paid” for the execution of direct – true – hacking, rather you do a hacking simulation of the desired location and…

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REVIEW: Necropolis

It might be hard to believe, but there are people out there who looked at the appeal of the Souls games and thought to themselves – let’s take this winning genre and shroud it in a mysterious visual style, hint at the depth and beauty of the combat system and sprinkle it all with those famous randomly generated levels that make each new playthrough a unique experience and… do it all wrong! No, seriously, it’s as if something like that took place while Necropolis was created, a game that draws inspiration directly from the Souls games and that’s literally where all further development stops. It’s easy to see how shallow Necropolis is when we compare it to its role model, with its precise combat system,…

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REVIEW: This is the Police

Boyd is the chief of police with only half a year left until retirement. Drained and fatigued by his stressful job, full of pain-killers and whatnot, an alcoholic, an image of a man who’s done and seen much in his life, a man whose time has passed and all he can do is wait to finally get booted from the only job he knows how to do. Determined to make up for everything, he decides to spend the rest of his employed days by bettering his pension fund. Half a million in 180 days, easy money with the Mob behind your back. This is the Police gives you an opportunity to play with authority as a manager of all of the police, detective and SWAT…

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REVIEW: Dead by Daylight

Horror games have been an inspiration to many game programmers for decades now. The feeling of helplessness and not so great chances of survival was light motives that lead the whole genre to constant improvement. Those who played Alone in the Dark or maybe Resident Evil when they were younger know too well that they had to carefully plan out every step and move in order to progress. And this did not change over time. The graphics changed, the gameplay changed, the setting changes, but one rule was clear. The atmosphere always had to be on point. The one thing that never seemed to be up to par was the AI. Even today there are games whose artificial intelligence isn’t on an admirable level. But…

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REVIEW: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Imagine being introduced to brand new restaurant, walking in out of curiosity and ordering their specialty. After the first bite you realize that you have a culinary masterpiece and you enjoy every bit of it, thinking how you will surely come back and recommend the place to everyone. Several years later (7 to be exact) you come back, order the same meal again and while it’s beautifully decorated, this time it tastes like something that was sloppily reheated and thrown on the plate. This is kind of what playing Catalyst feels like. Instead of praise and a glowing review about the new sequel to the legendary game, we struggled to count its merits even in single digits. Many years have passed since the first game’s…

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