Recent reviews by Reina Hearts

This is the most faithful adaption of The 39 Steps book... to a fault. If you've read the book and enjoyed it, then this game-ish adaption's visual presentation is its only selling point to give this adaption a chance. If you've seen the movie and/or play adaption, then this adaption's narration is its saving grace for wanting to proceed further in this game.

However, with that said, this is a relatively short game clocking at an average of watching the movie adaption twice for a 100% completion. Trochievement-wise, they are more straight-forward than the in-game collectables, which give this adaption of The 39 Steps the more interactive feel compared to any other adaption.

Overall, even if you haven't experienced The 39 Steps by reading the original novel, watched any of the adaption and/or just want a bit more interactive/immersive experience with this particular story, then spending $5 or less is worth it. Also, even if you save that $5 and use it to buy a copy of the book, still check out this adaption's soundtrack regardless since you should [still] listen to it as you read your copy.

Project G is a side-scrolling shooter that casually recommends upgrading your current ship or just buying the next cheapest ship to progess through the levels better, collect more logs easier, and even gather more materials from a previous levels faster... Now, this may sound like a pitch to a mobile game concept or just what AAA wants to do nowadays, but you can buy crates of varying quality filled with random materials of different [rarity-]star levels with the in-game currency to upgrade your current ship to its maximum potential before moving on the better ship to upgrade...

Gameplay-wise, the controls are simple to pick up and play, the UI can get a bit combersome if you're going from the shop section to the upgrade section specifcally, and the only bugs I've faced thus far were only in non-boss-related levels if they don't end like they would when replaying them...

Story-wise, outside of collecting logs after starting from the beginning, only selecting a level gives any context to where in the narrative you are within said level... Otherwise, gameplay takes a higher precedence...

Overall, the game's replayibilty-as-a-progression mechanic is what drove me to this game in the first place and it hasn't disapointed me enough to not recommend it casually-speaking...

Bit Blaster XL is a simple shmup in the best way possible! You are, but, a Bit Blaster ship with fininite amount of ammo, shooting down enemies that could destroy you in one shot/touch all while picking up ammo/coins that slowly gravitate towards you, power ups that [could] change how you shoot down said enemies, and sometimes a shield/bomb/boost to help you last just a bit longer to surpass your own score and beyond...

The store page's description of the game (as of Ver. 3.0) is about as accurate as it sounds! The more you play, the more coins you could collect overall to buy the next [better] Bit Blaster ship and so on and so forth... Each ship carries their own strengths and weaknesses in size, speed, rate of auto fire, and initial shield-to-bomb ratio at the beginning of each round... Depending on one's own playstyle, you may gravitate to certain ship versions more than others once you do unlock all of the Bit Blaster ship versions...

Now, at the time of this review, this game for only 0.99 USD seems like the most perfect game within its own genre... In a way, it does suceeed in using its own throwback aesthetic to its advantage while also changing it up a bit with the concept of fininte ammo and now almost-screen-clearing bombs you can activate manually... However, on a more personal note, the game could not recognize my Steam Controller outside of the game's [controller] rumble feature (thus resorting to me playing this game with a PS3 controller binded with 360 controls controller-wise)... Also, despite it's easy-to-play-hard-to-master gameplay, all of the power ups and potential shield/bomb/boost pickups appear at random (just like the enemies only without a pending visual cue), thus finding that one power up/pickup to appear on the screen that you know will give you that [better] edge may not happen soon enough and/or appear too soon to react to it effectively...

Regardless, this game is still fun for the price and still has means to improve like the previous versions of this game! If you are a fan of arcade shooters like Asteriods (for the obvious comparison/example) or the first few Geometry Wars games, then it's worth putting some time into... I mean, most of the achievements are prety easy-ish to get, there's Steam Trading Cards (if you're into that sort of thing), and the soundtrack is FREE after purchase! Also, you don't have to wait for a [pending] Steam Sale becuase it's cost [less than] a US dollar in general!

eversion is one of those games where if someone tells you to never judge a game by its first impressions, you REALLY need take their word for it! Granted, the platforming-based gameplay is as consistant as the Lovecraftian undertones-turned-overtones, but once you reach [REDACTED], you'll say your first "WHOOOAAAAAAA, DUDE!" even before reaching one of the three endings to this very game! The soundtrack, in and of itself, sets the mood all the way through while also "helping" you find areas to "dimension-shift" through if you play the game without [manually] muting the sound overall...

However, there are certain levels that feel more like solving a puzzle via very particular, yet percise, platforming sequences which, despite being "easy" once you figure them out, can get a bit annoying if you "really" want to collect all those gems... Also, while it is a minor nitpick on my end personally, obtaining the bottom 4 (technically 5 after [REDACTED]) achievements did take looking at a guide in general...

Overall, if you're looking for a deceptive Lovecraftian/horror game that wears that title as that undershirt you find out about after the "subversive" [yet questionable] foreplay section of the overall experience, then I would not be surprised if you already bought eversion like I have... Otherwise, if you're still on the fence about spending 5 bones on a "short" game, then you can try out the free low-res version before buying this high-def version and realizing that not only are certain gem placements different, but a new level/ending can be obtained... Other than that, I [still] wish the soundtrack was available on Steam...

Before I continue, I would like to point out that the time I spend on CALENDULA is not so much how long it took me to beat this "game", but a measurement to how many times I've beaten it overall... I would say the same for Pony Island, but that review was substituted for a guide instead... *sighs* And now, back the review already in progress...

...CALENDULA, without giving too much away, can be broken up into two parts... There's the game that this "game" will constantly try to prevent you from playing and the "game" that's more meta than the game you're trying to play... It's like the difference between an abstract poem of a raven and an abstract poem from Charles Dickens about a raven where despite them both being open to interpretation by the reader, the Charles Dickens abstract poem is more limited because we already know who wrote that abstract poem if we read through it again...

Anyway, as abstract as this "game" can get both inside and outside its puzzle-feeling "gameplay", if one does decide to dive into it, I suggest it should be done with an open enough mind to draw their own interpretations and/or conclusions rather than to prove (or disprove) someone else's interpretations and/or conclusions... This goes double for the "game" and not so much for the game, though, because CALENDULA has its own metaphorical path in comparison to the path (aka "game") that takes you to playing CALENDULA... However, one's milege may vary after one compete playthrough alone, so the experience [positive, negative, or otherwise] may or may not equate to the amount of money use to purchase the game CALENDULA, for example...

Personally, I would recommend it at either the price that one's willing to relinquish in order to play this game or as a wishlist recommendation to remind your [Steam] friends that this would make a potential recommended [Steam] gift to you when a certain future become the current present... I would also gladly buy this for a [Steam] friend if said game was on their wishlist, but I only have one friend before the posting of this review that makes this statement metaphorically foreshadowing until a certain future becomes the current present... Overall, just like Pony Island, it was an experience worth replaying more than once and I would gladly replay this game [again] in my future especially with headphones [again] for a greater experience in general...

If you have read this far into the review's end, then I can honestly see that it is not your fault curiosity has brought you here...

Once upon a time, a lone solar ship challenged the Sun to a race... The Sun laughed at the ship as it kept decending to start the pending night, but that did not deter the solar ship... At the peak of pending twilight, the lone solar ship would fly in the direction of the setting Sun, dodging the random obstacles in an ever-changing field, collecting items like Tris to keep the determination of beating the Sun on its mind, and straying away from the shadows... The more the ship raced the Sun, the better the ship became... Over time, it developed new abilities that helped the lone solar ship on its journey to beat the Sun at this suppose never-ending race... Soon, the lone solar ship could finally beat the Sun at this race... until it ran into a warp portal... and crashed into an unknown obstacle... That tended to happen after a while... The End!

Now that I got that out of the way, Race The Sun is the kind of game you kick back, relax, and hone your reflexes as you complete objectives to level up your solar ship so that you can last longer, pick up items better, make your overall score higher, and to make you look [20%] cooler as you fly on by with style. You can even pull off barrel rolls to either avoid close calls or to show off after completing a region perfectly, for example. Every 24 hours, the obstacles, item placements, and, later on, warp portals change positions as each region is randomly-generated, which can make certain objectives easier and/or harder if you're trying to complete them.

The graphics are very... semetrical outside of the Sun? Honestly, I was paying more attention to the game's soundtrack, which served its purpose of keeping me in the mood as well as a means to continue playing this game even after reaching the solar ship's max level. Other than that, the game did give me a chuckle a few times after gaining certain levels or when reading the sky quotes before starting the first region.

Overall, it's a fun, little "time-waster" with enough challenge to keep you coming back either to get a higher score, to pick up those achievements that you haven't obtained yet, or to finally beat the Sun at a race... If the price scares you a bit, then just wait until it goes on sale... Either way, I'd recommend it alongside its soundtrack and Sunrise DLC!