September 2021

Grime Review

Grime is metroidvania meets dark souls in a lovecraftian-esque twisted setting. This game drops you deep into the world to rise up to where you had fallen. As a monstrosity with a black hole for a head, your goal is to work your way up through each of the unique areas to the land above and to remember your past. Destroy and absorb all that oppose you in this interesting and unique game!

Visuals and Music:

Visuals on this game are extremely odd and that’s a good thing. There are a ton of interesting designs of NPCs and creatures that scatter this twisted world. Long elongated arms, tentacles, and contorted shapes frequently appear in the creatures of this universe. Love the artwork and design in this game.

Music and audio is on point with creepy high pitched or deep rumbling voices from npcs keep the tension up and feed into the vibe of the game. Music does a good job with an eerie soundtrack with escalating crescendos when finally absorbing an enemy that you spent multiple attempts to defeat.

Story:

The story for the game is fairly straightforward. Defeat enemies and absorb their remains to become more powerful. I feel like a vast majority of the story beats do happen late game. This causes the main backstory of your character to happen all in one section, which I felt it would have been much better spread across the game, allowing me to piece together my past. I do enjoy the characters and the smaller beats of story that do happen in each of the individual sections, so overall, I found the story pretty good.

Gameplay:

Grime’s combat is very well done with the dark souls esque style with tons of weapons with unique animations. Combat is punishingly difficult, and as a long time souls fan, I found it more frustratingly difficult than most of the souls games. You get a meter of breath to heal but can only hold 2 breaths(heals) at a time (excluding using items), which you can refill the meter by parrying abilities with absorbs or killing enemies with one of the perks.

Stats and upgrades are really well done with the ability to gain new perks based on enemies you have absorbed. DIfferent weapons will benefit from different stats based on the playstyle you want to use. Armor is strictly cosmetic with a few pretty cool designs. Personally I wish that armor was not cosmetic only and had unique armor values so you could set a more solid playstyle.

Since this is a metroidvania game, it has plenty of platforming which I think is well done. Plenty of interesting abilities to traverse the sprawling tunnels and to get to hard to reach places for items. I did have a few glitches where I would teleport beneath the world when dashing, but for the most part graphical bugs and glitches didn’t mess up my gameplay.

Overview:

Grime is a great dark and twisted metroidvania that I do recommend for metroidvania fans, but with a caution that this game is very punishing and difficult. The game has beautiful visuals and a soundtrack to go with it. Story is good, but could do better with it’s pacing. Gameplay is really good, but could do with a bit more in depth armor system. Nearing the end of the game, I did experience more issues with bugs, which I do feel the game could take a bit more polishing. Overall, it’s a great twisted game and definitely recommend it.

Rating: 4/5

The game is available on GFN and on Stadia via Stadia Pro.

Check out our Grime gameplay videos on Youtube!

GeForce NOW – Guess who’s back? Back again. EAs back. Tell a friend.

A couple of months ago GeForce NOW said it was matter of when rather than if big publishers would come back to the service. Today they are following through with this as EA are coming back to GeForce NOW today. Today EA are adding 4 games to GeForce NOW and these games are Battlefield 1 Revolution, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Unravel Two, Dragon Age: Inquisition. These games are in addition to Apex Legends that is already on the service. This is a new partnership between NVIDIA and EA and more games are expected over the coming weeks and months. The games will be available via Steam and access via Origin is being worked on. We are led to believe that an EA Play subscription will work with GeForce NOW but will confirm this when the games go live.

Along with the partnership a number of stats have been provided by NVIDIA these include an updated figure of how many gamers are playing on GeForce NOW and this number now exceeds 12 million. 1 million people have played Apex Legends on GeForce NOW. Over 20 million hours of gameplay are streamed on the platform each month. 80% of the devices that access GeForce NOW could not access the games if the platform was not available be that phones, tablets or underpowered PCs. GeForce NOW is now available in over 70 countries including Brazil and Australia.

We have a video as we discuss the EA news below. Our normal GeForce Thursday show will still take place today at 8pm UK 3pm Eastern but felt this news needed an extra video!

On top of the EA News it is still GeForce NOW Thursday and we have 6 release day games, the EA games and the Epic Game Store free game. My pick of the new games is Hot Wheels Unleashed and we are giving away a copy of the game to our members on YouTube tonight during the show. Kelly and myself had a look at Hot Wheels and really enjoyed the game.

The full list of the games is

AWAY: The Survival Series (new game launch on Steam)
Lemnis Gate (new game launch on Steam)
The Eternal Cylinder (new game launch on Epic Games Store)
Hot Wheels Unleashed (new game launch on Steam and Epic Games Store)
INDUSTRIA (new game launch on Steam and Epic Games Store)
The Last Friend (new game launch on Steam and Epic Games Store)
Rogue Lords (new game launch on Steam and Epic Games Store)
Europa Universalis IV (free on Epic Games Store, September 30)
Battlefield 1 Revolution (Steam)
Dragon Age: Inquisition (Steam)
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst (Steam)
Unravel Two (Steam)
Rustler (Steam)
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist (Ubisoft Connect)

What do you think of the news today?

GeForce NOW adds 12 more games

Welcome back to GeForce Now Thursday’s with the Cloudy team. This week focuses on the amazing people at Team 17 and their new titles coming to GFN, making their total 40 games.

Searching Team17 on GFN will bring up a myriad of titles across many genres. Escape prison in the hugely successful Escapists series (The Escapists is also the Epic Games Store free game of the week), wage war in the Western Front in the brutal Hell Let Loose, and test your faith in Blasphemous; a beautifully violent pixel art adventure set in a distant religious land with horrifying bosses and plenty of deaths. Oh, and who can forget Worms?

Games Coming This Week

5 day-and-date releases will be hitting the platform this week, including the highly-anticipated Kena: Bridge of Spirits. Alongside this, it’s time to manage survival after the apocalypse in Team17’s Sheltered 2. Want to manage your survival whilst armed to the teeth and running from a zombie horde? World War Z: Aftermath has you covered.

Sheltered 2

The apocalypse has always been a nightmare scenario, but also makes a great video game. This one, however, isn’t here to make survival easy. Manage your group of survivors and create relationships with other factions. Whether that’s a positive or negative relationship is up to you. Just remember; no respawns allowed. Decisions are life or death, so choose wisely.

“It’s been twenty years since the world as we knew it ended. The last of humanity splintered into opposing factions. Will you unite or conquer? Building upon the original 2015 fan-favourite, Sheltered 2 brings new challenges and deeper strategic gameplay. You are tasked with creating a leader and building up your faction whilst managing resources and tackling threats both natural and human. Everything from starvation and dehydration to radiation poisoning and enemy raids can prove fatal.”

Sheltered 2 is available now through Steam. We will be having a playthrough of this on our YouTube channel soon so keep your eyes peeled.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Become Kena; a sprit guide in search of a sacred mountain shrine. Whilst exploring a forgotten village, you’ll encounter corrupted spirits that will be ready to fight at a moments notice. Build a team of Rot to help enhance abilities, whilst also using the spirit world to uncover the secrets of the abandoned village.

“A story-driven, action adventure combining exploration with fast-paced combat. As Kena, players find and grow a team of charming spirit companions called the Rot, enhancing their abilities and creating new ways to manipulate the environment.”

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is available now through the Epic Games Store.

Here’s a look at what else is coming this week:

Beyond Contact (day-and-date release on Steam, September 21)
Kena: Bridge of Spirits (day-and-date release on Epic Games Store, September 21)
Sheltered 2 (day-and-date release on Steam, September 21)
World War Z: Aftermath (day-and-date release on Steam, September 21)
Sable (day-and-date release on Steam and Epic Games Store, September 23)
The Escapists (free on Epic Games Store, September 23)
Darwin Project (Steam)
EVE Online (Epic Games Store)
Gas Station Simulator (Steam)
Miscreated (Steam)
Professional Fishing (Steam)
Zanki Zero: Last Beginning (Steam)

That’s a wrap for GFN Thursday! We’re heading into some of the biggest releases of the year as the year starts to come to a close, so expect plenty of surprises! As always, game on!

Sheltered 2 is out today and is headed to GeForce NOW!

Another day and another game heading to GeForce NOW on release day this time Sheltered 2. The follow-up to 2016 Sheltered this game is a survival game. The developers have implemented changes from the original like and have stated.

Boasting revamped combat systems, a new 3D art style, and punishing challenges, Sheltered 2 builds upon the original game, bringing new challenges, deeper strategic gameplay, and the perennial threat of extinction to the end of the world. With both internal and external hazards to overcome, the wasteland is a dangerous and unforgiving place to go alone, and as the faction leader, making sure resources are managed, survivors are fed and happy, and relationships with rival factions are maintained will be the key to surviving the punishing world of Sheltered 2.

Sheltered2

Factions: The factions system allows players to forge relationships with other groups to provide their base with resources and support, or they can grab their weapons and take things the old-fashioned way
Resource Management: Players will balance the needs and wants of their survivors, manage scarce resources, craft items needed to maintain the shelter, cook meals, and build equipment to keep their group alive, and with the expanded power system players can generate energy in new ways
Faction Leader: New for Sheltered 2, the faction leader is the most important member of a shelter, boasting their own unique and powerful traits, the faction leader will be pivotal to success, with their death meaning game over
An Unforgiving Wasteland: Starvation, asphyxiation, extreme temperatures, and combat are just some of the challenges players will face in the harsh wasteland
Combat: In Sheltered 2 players will use a variety of skills coupled with the ability to build parties of four and targeting specific body parts on their enemies to deal the most visceral damage in combat situations. Each action performed also has a stamina cost, so strategy will be at the forefront of every altercation, each move critical in the balance of life and death
Characters: Survivors have their own personalities, traits, desires, and skills to acquire, and the ability to customise each individually means every faction member is unique.

The game is released later today with a launch price of £13.49/€17.99/$17.99 that is 10% off. The game will be available via GeForce NOW later today.

GeForce NOW Members Have Massive Free to Play Library at Their Fingertips

It’s that time of the week that we thoroughly enjoy, it’s #GFNThursday! This week we take a look and celebrate the 90+ titles that are available on GeForce NOW. That’s not all though, it’s not a GFN Thursday if we don’t have more games to talk about and luckily for you we do! A whole 10 of them in fact making their way into the library this week.

It’s All Fair in Free to Play

Closing in on that 100th Free to Play title available in the library, what better time to talk about how easy it is to get access to some of the most popular games in just a matter of a few clicks. So many of these games completely tie gamers time up and they simply cannot put them down.

It’s super easy to kick off your journey with GeForce NOW. As a member you can simply connect those favoured game storefronts (Steam, Epic) to your GeForce NOW account and you are on your way to being able to see just how good game streaming is in some of the worlds favourite games. By virtue of playing in the cloud, this means that a multitude of the devices you already own can be transformed into your fully-fledged PC gaming experience. So whether it’s android, Iphone, Ipad, Chromebook or that shiny Shield TV, you can hop straight in and start enjoying.

Something we talk about pretty much every week is remembering to claim those free Epic games each week, as many are added to the GeForce NOW library and the other beauty is that even if it isn’t on at the time of claiming, you just can’t rule out that it won’t be added at a later date. So build that library, get collecting those games and see just how many you get to enjoy on GeForce NOW.

So what are you waiting for? Fire up that GeForce NOW app and search the free-to-play section to find out what you want to try out and delve back into via the power of cloud gaming.

Talking of Epic, are you looking for the perfect way to spend the weekend? The battle between the Aliens and the Imagined Order has come to an explosive end. In its wake a new conflict has taken shape… a cubed shape, specifically. The destruction of the Alien Mothership has released the Cubes, and these Cubes pose an even greater threat to the Island than the Aliens ever could as the Cubes wreak havoc and spread a dark, malevolent reality called “The Sideways.” Jump into Fortnite Season 8, fight monsters in the Sideways, get powerful loot and participate in the war effort.

It’s All About The Games

We said there was more games coming to the library this week and we were not joking! There’s another 10 titles added this week with 4 Day and Date releases and 1 which is Day and Date for Steam.

Honey, I joined a Cult

First up is a game that we’ve had the chance to review, so check out our review on our site to see what we thought of this newly available title and we’ll have footage coming up on our YouTube Channel too!

It’s time to start working towards that ultimate goal of enlightenment, faith and money…lots and lots of money. Create, customise, expand and manage your own cult whilst listening to funky music in Honey, I Joined a Cult!

Eastward

Eastward is a beautifully detailed and charming adventure game, from Shanghai-based indie developers, Pixpil.

In the near-future, society is starting to collapse, and the human population is at an all-time low. A deadly toxic presence has spread across the land, destroying and devouring everything in its path.

Those who could escape the miasma flocked to underground villages to start a new life. But for a hardworking miner and a mysterious young girl, the hope of a thriving outside world beckons…

Escape the tyrannical clutches of Potcrock Isle’s subterranean society and join Eastward’s unlikely duo on an exciting adventure to the land above! Discover beautiful yet bizarre settlements and make new friends as you travel across the world by rail.

Aragami 2 (September 17th)

You are one of the last elite warriors of your kin, the Aragami. Victims of a supernatural affliction which corrodes the body and devours the mind, the Aragami control Shadow Essence – a mystical power that grants the ability to control the shadows. With this power the Aragami carry out their tasks and quests – assignments made all along the valley to ensure the subsistence of the village and to free the Aragami enslaved by the invader armies.

Those are just a few of our highlighted releases arriving into the library this week, but check out the full list below!

Honey, I Joined a Cult (day-and-date release on Steam, September 14)
Eastward (day-and-date release on Steam, September 16)
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship (day-and-date release on Steam, September 16)
Gamedec (day-and-date release on Steam and on Epic Games Store, September 16)
Speed Brawl (free on Epic Games Store, September 16)
Aragami 2 (day-and-date release on Steam, September 17)
Aragami (Steam)
Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft Connect)
PULSAR: Lost Colony (Steam)
Verdun (Steam and Epic Games Store)

That is all for this week, but be sure to check our live #GFNThursday show out over on our YouTube Channel as we talk all the news of the week and break down the games arriving too. We hope to see you there!

geforce now GFN Thursday

GeForce NOW enters beta September 22 for Australia

Good news for Aussie gamers as GeForce NOW enters beta on September 22. The beta will include access to the full GeForce NOW library that stands at over 1000 games and 94 free to play games. This will also include the same features as GeForce NOW including RTX, access to the different store fronts and playing games on different. It has been stated that they are looking to stress test over the beta program. What this means is that they want people playing games but also pushing the service to the limits! So go play the RTX enabled games to your hearts content.

The platform is run by Pentanet and they will be offering rewards for your account via cloud.gg.

Inside CloudGG, you’ll be able to complete Quests, gain Achievements and earn Multipliers on your account!

This is welcome expansion for cloud gaming as a whole. Australia has been one of the most vocal areas of wanting cloud gaming and this is great to see!

Honey, I joined a Cult Review

Looks like our first cult is a bust, so it’s time to move on to the next one! Start a new cult in a new city, but this time let’s try to keep the heat off us. Have a blast in this top-down cult simulation game. Create a cult, customize your look, and make a name for yourself. Gain followers and cult members to earn money and reputation. Work your way up to be the biggest and best-rated cult in town in this Sim game called Honey, I Joined a Cult!

Visuals and Music:

The game goes for a comedic art style with short stubby characters that look kind of like emoji characters. This tends to do well to show that it’s intended to not be a serious style game and lends well to the wacky buildings and creations you will make. You can create how the leader of the cult looks and the style all your cult members will look at the beginning of the game, so as your members grow, their fashion style will also follow.

There is only one real repeating song that tends to play during the game, and this song has a decent catchy tune that reminds me of elevator music. It’s quite calming and especially since you can spend countless hours on this game. The other audio cues are mostly used to notify you when a job is done or when the sermon is planned. The audio lends well to the game and helps keep track of things, especially if you like to multitask with certain games.

Select which rooms you want your members to work

Story:

The game opens up with the police busting your cult, so what do you do? You escape with your things, and you create a new cult with a new theme. I decided that for fun I would create a cult called TheBros, which is why all my members have aviator glasses. The game gives you decent freedom in naming and creating fun little designs for your characters, which I think is ideal in sim-type games. Send your members on missions to increase your PR, decrease the heat on your cult from police/protestors, and acquire items. Spend your influence on researching new perks, new buildings, and items. You gain money and influence from followers and members in each of the buildings in your house. Your ultimate goal is to upgrade your cult to become the best cult in the town and create your journey.

Gameplay:

The game gives you decent freedom in naming and creating fun little designs for your characters, which I think is ideal in sim-type games. The tools they give you to build, design, and decorate your rooms are well done, and they have a ton of options to keep you busy for countless hours. I do wish they had a simple upgrade button for upgrading new items instead of having to delete then re-add new items. The game is in early access, so hopefully, we see it added in the future.

The research tree is very extensive with plenty of upgrades and new items, and the UI is similar to that of a Civilization research tree, which I really like. You can unlock some fun buildings such as an Energy Spa, Discombobulation Therapy, Infernal Heat Room, and more! Some rooms, items, and abilities can be unlocked from the Divine Inspirations, which are the dark and sinister ones. One such room is the contract room where you get more money and influence out of a particular follower in exchange for them….disappearing. I do hope that I will be able to spend my PR or Faith on more things in the future, as I tend to sit at max PR and Faith for most of the game.

You can choose which followers you want to become members which both are capped to a certain number. Once they are a member, you can upgrade and modify their abilities to suit your needs. Each stat seems to be equally important and useful for specific rooms. You will also need multiples due to certain missions requiring specific stats to succeed. I do wish they had a better UI for the rooms. Hopefully, in a later update, you will be able to click a room and easily assign a member to the room, but for the time being, you can click a member and click the room to assign them to do the role.

Overview:

Honey, I Joined a Cult is a fun exciting sim game with plenty of customizable features to make my time with the game a blast. The visuals and audio do a decent job of setting the tone, while the story is a straightforward simplistic goal to achieve. Managing your cult, rooms, and members are well made and is a great game to play while listening to a podcast or watching Youtube. While the game still needs some work, it is in early access, so I hope to see these ironed out in the long term. I can easily recommend this game to Simulation game fans out there as one to look forward to. I spent over 20 hours playing and had a blast!

Rating: 3.5/5

The game is due to come to Geforce NOW this week.

GeforceNow Honey I joined a cult review

Darksiders 3 added to Stadia with a Pro discount

After been rumored for a long time it has now happened Darksiders 3 has arrived on Stadia and with a Pro discount. This is the third entry into the Darksiders franchise of games and follows Fury this time. Many long-time players of Darksiders did not think this game would be made as had been a long time coming out when it was released in 2018. Despite this many fans of the franchise were not too keen on the latest installment, myself included. The combat was changed from the last two games (this can be changed in the menu) and overall for me felt slightly under the other two games.

Return to an apocalyptic Earth in Darksiders III, a hack-n-slash Action Adventure where players assume the role of FURY in her quest to hunt down and dispose of the Seven Deadly Sins. The most enigmatic of the Four Horsemen, FURY must bring balance to the forces that now ravage Earth.

Hopefully, this opens the door for the original Darksiders to hit Stadia as it for me arguably is the best of the series.

Darksiders 3 stadia

Questions arise about the funding aspect of the Stadia Makers Program

The Stadia Makers Program in broad terms is a scheme to bring indie games to Stadia. This program was announced on March 23 2020 in partnership with Unity and was lauded at the time as a good thing for Stadia. As part of the Stadia Makers Program, they provided technical assistance, free hardware, and crucially funding. We have seen some fruit from the labors of this over the last year including Kaze and the Wild Masks, Tohu, Figment Creed Valley, and others.

It is our understanding after speaking to a number of indie game developers, who wish to remain anonymous, that the funding aspect of the Stadia Makers Program is scaled back or is no longer available. A number of developers have reported to us that when asked about the funding aspect of the Stadia Makers Program has been changed and they cannot receive funding. This has resulted in some developers lower the priority of the Stadia port of the game. For others, this has made them question bringing their game to the platform. While some games are still on track to come to Stadia.

We reached out to Stadia for comment and the Stadia spokesman said

The Stadia Makers program is still accepting applications through Stadia.dev/apply, which we’re actively working through. In addition, we’re currently busy supporting Makers partners in launching their games on Stadia, including Merek’s Market arriving on the Stadia store next week.”
Thursday September 9th

During our conversations with developers, we also discovered a number of 3rd party game projects and partnerships have been canceled from Stadia. These cancellations happened a number of months ago. Over the last week, we have learned that Tchia is no longer coming to Stadia and is heading to PlayStation. Following a tweet by Stadiasource’s Lee Reid, this may have been the case with Tchia.

Tchia. It was Stadia's decision to end the partnership and that decision was very much unilateral. The devs did not take money from elsewhere for exclusivity or to ensure the game didn't come to Stadia. That was a decision that Stadia/Google made. #Stadia
— Lee Reid – ReidoBaggins ✨ (@ReidoBaggins) September 10, 2021

We approached Stadia for comments about partnerships and the funding and were told that they cannot comment on individual business deals. This was an expected response.

The Stadia Makers Program is still available via Stadia.Dev.

stadia stadia makers

Luna launches Luna Couch, Free games to play for Prime members, New Family Channel + Retro channel coming soon!

Luna has been quietly going about their business and today they have come out with a number of announcements. From a gaming perspective, the news channels and the games have a lot of potential. Luna has announced 36 new titles to the platform with the launch of their new Family channel and the new feature Luna Couch. Luna Couch allows you to play with a second player via the Luna website or app, even if they aren’t subscribed to the Luna+ channel. They have also announced a new channel coming soon called the Retro Channel, which is said to have titles from Atari, SNK, and other classic publishers. Please note Luna is still only mainland US Only.

Luna Couch allows people to play games together as long as one of the people playing has a Luna account (on selected games). These games can be co-op or full multiplayer titles. This will be a great way to get people to play together and could introduce a number of people to gaming. To set up the Luna Couch it appears to be relatively straightforward as you will be given a code to enter.

To enter a Luna Couch code, open Luna on a supported device, enter the code, and join. You can also visit http://www.amazon.com/luna/couch to enter the code on PC or Mac on a Chrome browser.

If you are a Prime Member you can check out Luna for free and have access to Resident Evil 7 biohazard Gold Edition, Metro Exodus, Katamari Damacy REROLL, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. Also if you prime member you do not need to request access and can start a free 7-day trial to Luna + .

Luna currently has 3 channels and the prices of these are as follows:

Luna+: $5.99 USD/month Ubisoft+ : $14.99 USD/Month ($17.99/month starting Sept. 30th) Family Channel: $2.99 USD/Month

Titles getting added to the Family channel are (*Luna Couch compatible listed with an asterisk):

Beach Buggy Racing 2: Hot Wheels Edition*
Bee Simulator*
Bridge Constructor Portal
Buildings Have Feelings Too!
Death Squared*
DreamWorks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders
El Hijo — A Wild West Tale
Garfield Kart — Furious Racing*
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams*
Melbits World*
Momonga Pinball Adventures
Monster Truck Championship: Rebel Hunter Edition
Overcooked!*
PictoQuest
Pile Up! Box by Box*
Race The Sun
Skelittle: A Giant Party!!*
Smoots Summer Games*
Smoots World Cup Tennis*
Snake Pass
Space Otter Charlie*
Sparklite*
Spirit of the North
Spitlings*
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom — Rehydrated
Summer Paws
Super Kickers League Ultimate*
Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings*
The Adventure Pals*
Tracks — Toybox Edition
TRANSFORMERS: BATTLEGROUNDS*
Trollhunters: Defenders of Arcadia*
Tumblestone*
Urban Trial Playground*
Wandersong
Yono and the Celestial Elephants

What other games and new channels do you think they might add next? Comment below.

Luna