Hi, I'm Dranzerstorm
Welcome to the Video Game & Music Lounge
This world is dedicated to Video Games and Music as I'll be showcasing the following.
Video Game Reviews set to the same tones as Retro Retrospective's Anime Reviews
Music reviews of Anime Openings & Closings
Western Cartoon music
Vocaloid Classics.
We may even have some Top Tens
I hope this World entertains you.
The top down race genre found it's way back into modern gaming through the medium of indie titles and today's three titles remind you of those days where physics can often kick your ass.
Absolute Drift
Funselektor Labs made the master piece that is Art of Rally but their first attempt at the racing genre in Absolute Drift is an example of major baby steps, drifting is the most difficult mechanic to get right that even triple racers struggle with and Absolute Drift is pretty dreadful with this mechanic, thankfully the game is merciful and let's you practice open world as many times as you like, you'll find out very quickly how out of practice you really are, especially if you used to play Micro Machines in your childhood.
C-Tier Game
Super Woden GP
They clearly wanted to make a Rally game as the mechanics seem better suited for offroad than traditional circuit racing, for a game that is part of the all achievements offered for cheap class of games, the difficulty curve is pretty high as the difference between winning and losing is judging one corner wrong, it's a nice balance that almost justifies the 3000G score on offer.
B-Tier Game
Circuit Superstars
I've never known a game that has pissed me off more than Circuit Superstars, the sad thing is, it's actually pretty good as a game but the developers really messed up big time over the time it's been out, everything from the game not starting to not loading saves properly to completely locking me out of content I had already completed; but what bothers me most of all is the ego, early on they brought in Top Gear as a selling point as well as an exclusive list of real racing pros setting times on the Top Gear Test Track.
They are as follows.
Romain Grosjean - Former F1 now Indy Car
Sam Bird - Formula E
Jimmy Broadbent - Racing game genres most well known personality.
Lando Norris - Formula 1
Conor Daly - Indy Car and Nascar
Charlie Martin - Endurance Racing GT
Catie Munnings - Rallying
Jamie Chadwick - Indy NXT
Those are the ones I know of and I'm faster than Conor, Charlie, Catie and Jamie.
Another thing I hate is how long it thinks I want to race, an online race can go on longer than a Project Cars race with anywhere between 10 and 20 laps per race with qualifying, I can complete a Mario Kart four race session with load screens and lobbies included faster than one online race in this.
Least the music is good.
C-Tier for the game, massive F-You Tier for the developers.
All of today's game have one thing in common, I barely passed the first stage in any of them through three different reasons, trust me that for two of them, you couldn't make it up.
Radioactive Dwarfs: Evil From The Sewers
You play a red dressed heroine in finding your brother while fighting Radioactive Dwarfs in the sewer, the game looks like it came from the Amiga era with the gameplay to match and looks fairly competent, only one problem though; this currently holds the world record for fastest 1000G at an astonishing 20 seconds because triggering the secret ending unlocks all the achievements, how do you do this? At the start of the game, try and leave the sewers, the heroine says feck this and leaves triggering all the achievements.
D-Tier Game
The King's Bird
There's a type of theatre told entirely through silhouettes with no voices but just the music conveying the scenes being witnessed, The King's Bird plays exactly like this with gameplay reminiscent of Celeste but with a 2D gliding mechanic, unfortunately it's just as hard as Celeste but while Celeste had a clear objective with a story that is understood and universally relatable to anyone with mental health problems, King's Bird has you guessing all the time of it's themes and where you are supposed to be in game, it's not infinitely clear if you've even completed the first area, so I ended up dropping it.
D-Tier Game
Project Winter
Hoping to bring in the expanding Among Us crowd, Project Winter was meant to be the grown up version that sees a group of mountaineers survive the harsh environment while one of the group tries to sabotage and kill the others, unfortunately my one attempt at playing it, I suffered from hallucinations moments before joining my friends, barely remembering if I even did anything in the game, it was honestly quite surreal and quite terrifying, I would never touch it again. From what my friends told me, they felt that the game needed too much just to start a session and wasn't worth it, by extension it also killed the hype we initially all had for Among Us.
D-Tier Game
I'm going basic bitch today with this episode, all games today are pretty basic in design and play.
Castle Walker
You have to start somewhere and the best way to grab free clicks is to add 4000G to your game's achievements, otherwise why would you play something like Castle Walker? You ironically play a Cerulean Wizard who literally walks the castles shooting every enemy in sight with a wand with bare bones starter pack enemies and power ups along with the easiest bosses in history, the first Castlevania probably has a higher budget than this.
F-Tier Game
Ballotron Oceans
If you like billiard trick shots but also like explosions, then look no further than Ballotron and Ballotron Oceans, using a setup of obstacles in each stage you are tasked with blowing up the green ball, while Ballotron relies on the limited solutions method to puzzle solving, Oceans let's you be more creative with your shots. Ballotron sadly plays like ass, so stick with Oceans.
C-Tier Game for Ballotron Oceans
D-Tier Game for Ballotron
Aerial_Knight's Never Yield
Perhaps the easiest game to make when starting out is the on rails runners, you play Wally, a parkour specialist who is on the run from the urban cyberpunk Detroit police as he takes back what was stolen from him, sliding, jumping and running through each obstacle to escape the persistent pursuit of the security forces, Aerial_Knight is an indie developer with a background in music which really shows as he brings just the right amount of urban style to make for an engaging game with the simplest of gameplay.
B-Tier Game
All of today's titles take a page from the country of India.
Raji An Ancient Epic
We start with a title right at home among games like Assassins Creed, Prince of Persia and Shadow of the Colossus, Raji incorporates Hindu mythology and takes inspiration from epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, with an art style of Pahari paintings, taking it's landscapes from medieval Rajasthan, a large region of India, a lot of effort went into this game and it shows taking you on an epic quest through some of the best stories in Hinduism. The gameplay plays equally as smooth.
A-Tier Game
Venba
Taking it's main inspiration from Tamil culture and South Indian cuisine, Venba presents a cooking sim played through 30 years of the life of an immigrant Indian family who move to Toronto Canada from Tamil Nadu, starting in 1988 with the birth of Venba's son Kavin, through an old set of recipes you are taken through a journey of family connections through cooking, despite going through 30 years with the family you only really get 30 minutes of game, we don't get enough time to really connect to this family clearly going through the trials and tribulations of being an immigrant in a foreign country, were forced to fill in the gaps of why certain events happen to Venba, this just leaves the game a bit empty.
D-Tier Game
Thristy Suitors
A title like this is just asking for a piss take.
We have a popular South Asian film in the UK called Bend It Like Beckham where the main character breaks free of the chains laid down by her family's heritage and becomes a soccer star, this is not that film, in fact it's closest comparison is Scott Pilgrim as Jala is forced to confront her ex-lovers one by one in turn based RPG battles, among cooking mini games and bare bones basic skateboarding. The game wears it's bisexual themes like a medal but Jala and the cast are some of the most toxic ass holes ever written in gaming as everything Jala says and does, comes across as really manipulative in both her dialogue and actions, I barely got through the tutorial of this game without vomiting, Boyfriend Dungeon is better than this and that is so low of a bar to crosd it's practically buried in the ground.
Trash Tier Game
Now to tackle two games that cover some uncomfortable subjects and one about a thorny issue that needs addressing.
Boyfriend Dungeon
In most dating sims in the role of the female protagonist, you simply date a guy, in Boyfriend Dungeon he becomes your weapon to breakout of eldritch horror dungeons, the game is the first instance I've seen of a disclaimer for uncomfortable topics, as it covers instances of controlling behaviour and topics of abuse, this lowers the tone of a game far too silly to even contain such subjects, also if you have to warn your target audience of a subject that they ultimately expect in a game where you date multiple guys on different levels of behaviour, you've already failed. I downloaded it for a joke but it just makes me depressed.
F-Tier Game
Coffee Talk
A visual novel like VA-11 Hall-A Cyberpunk Bartender, but this time instead of making cocktails listening to Synthwave in a neon stylish world where every character is interesting, you run a midnight coffee shop where the local fantasy cast talk about political and social problems listening to Lo-Fi. Cover such thrilling topics like, generational divides formed by racist bigoted parents, racial profiling, overprotective parenting, the toxic gaming industry, a spaceman who wants to smash and a novelist who never leaves the coffee shop. The only interesting characters are Jorji the Police officer and the Orc Indie game designer who really gives no shits. The sequel is more of the same, it's an interesting concept especially the logistics of a midnight coffee shop but I really don't want to talk about these subjects, my Bing news feed already does enough of that. I'd give it a lower rating but I also found out the creator of the game died during the production of the sequel while researching, considering where the creator came from, it's any wonder they decided to cover these topics.
C-Tier Game
Calico
Imagine a world where nothing bad happens, no wars, no racism, no sexism, no bigotry, and every animal is tame, friendly and cuddly, that's Calico, a world created as the ultimate safespace for every colour of the rainbow spectrum of the LGBT+....however long this abbreviation is, they seem to add more every time I pass my local pride hub. Any who, you run a cafe and get to play with all the animals around the island while learning some useful magic to make the experience more special also doing fetch quests for the townsfolk, the game is very poorly made as phasing through floors and getting yeeted into space are common occurrences but my overall feeling is "Don't you think you deserve better than this?" I'm reminded of the 90s gaming scene where girls had to fight for even a scrap of a half decent game instead of Barbie Horse Trials 5 the Pinkening. Now I'm looking at the same scenario 25 years later for the Pride audience.
Animal Crossing and Disney Dreamlight Valley succeed at the cozy life sim better as you can at least create the game to fit your image, Calico can't even give you a decent wardrobe to wear let alone a decent environment to live in because it's stuck in a permanent safespace, probably do a lot better with some design tips from Ru Paul's Drag Race.
Trash-Tier Game
