Review Round Up: Plebby Quest, Six Temples & More
Everybody’s fool
Time died when 2019 did, so I’m not sure it’s actually the end of April, but my PC tells me it is so, and who am I to deny such a thing. It’s been a good month for games and there have been some truly excellent new releases and exciting ports throughout the month. Hopefully, you’ve been keeping track of the ones that we’ve enjoyed as a site this month, but this little article is about five of the games we thought you should look into, whether good or bad. So, without any further ado, here we go.
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories
Disaster Report 4 places you in a city that’s been struck by a massive earthquake. Your role is to try and help those you find and generally try and survive the incredibly chaotic world you’re now living in. It’s a tense situation, but you get to play as one of the helpers, which is a refreshing part to play.
Disaster Report mixes the survival genre together with some role-playing to make for one of the more unique games available. It’s got some really excellent ideas woven into it, and the notes of personal drama throughout the world make for some genuinely moving moments.
It’s just a shame that the execution of everything here leaves a lot to be desired. The performance of the game is significantly less than ideal, with there being far too many loading screens that go on for far too long. There’s also the occasional visual glitch and broken frame rate to help you feel like your TV might be broken. It’s a collection of cool concepts, but it’s not anywhere near as polished as it could be.
[Reviewed on PC]
5/10
Hooplord
VR is wonderful because of all the strange little indie games that appear on it. Hooplord is one of the latest to join that niche, and it’s a lot of fun, albeit not for a very long time.
You play as a Hooplord, and your aim is to overcome the sacred challenge laid down upon you by the Basketball Gods. It’s a tough call to answer, but you’ve got to at least try. You start off learning how to through the ball and move, simple stuff, but quickly get thrown into your first battle. Hooplord is basically a basketball boss rush mode, and each of the elemental titans you face in 1v1 ball-throwing will assault you with their massive bodes alongside an array of different attacks.
It’s all a lot of fun, but it’s also rather short. That’s not an issue if you’re happy to keep trying and constantly become better at beating the foes you’ve already dunked on, but it might be an issue for some people. It’s not very expensive though, so it’s probably worth a look if you like the sound of scoring three-pointers against an embodiment of fire.
[Reviewed on PC]
6/10
Six Temples
Six Temples is probably one of the few games I’ve played in Early Access that give it a bad name. It’s meant to be a multiplayer hack and slash game where you can fight against other players for glory in massive battles.
In reality, it’s kind of a buggy mess that only launches 33% of the time and even then can easily crash out if you try and play offline sometimes. It’s a lot to deal with, and I simply can’t recommend it at all in its current state.
Hypothetically there could be a lot of fun to be had here, but that’s not the case at the moment and I’d recommend waiting a while to see if things improve as Early Access continues for it. Diving in now is likely to lead to more frustration than actual game playing and that’s no good at all.
[Reviewed on PC]
3/10
Plebby Quest: The Crusades
Plebby Quest: The Crusades kind of put me off with its title, to be honest. Thankfully I ascribe to the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” thing, so I played it anyway.
It’s a good job too, because it’s an awful lot of fun, and had me laughing out loud a lot more than I was expecting. Plebby Quest feels a bit like what would happen if you took Sid Meier and Monty Python and blended them together into some kind of horror smoothie, but it was funny for some reason.
It’s basically a historical strategy game, but the nuances and individual sequences within it allow it to ascend beyond that into one of the most entertaining takes on the strategy genre I’ve played in a long time. It’s both very fun to play and very funny, and that’s not an easy thing to manage.
[Reviewed on PC]
8/10
The Inner Friend
The Inner Friend is all about facing up to childhood horrors. It’s about facing the things that you’d normally look away from, and it’s all perfectly unsettling.
The gameplay isn’t particularly complex, and you won’t find your leet skillz challenged here, nor is it very long, but The Inner Friend does an extraordinary job of world-building in both its visual and audio design. Every single aspect of what you see and hear feels meaningful, and the way it delivers its horror unto you is unique and refreshing in a world all too happy to give you far too much power in a game.
It’s not for everyone, and the ending could be a bit smoother, but the experience is still a good one if you’re looking for something a little bit different to dive into and don’t mind not sleeping for a few weeks.
[Reviewed on Xbox One]