UHS-Hints – How game guides were meant to be

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021 Kinglink1 Comment

I’m Kinglink and today I’d like to review a website called UHS-Hints and I will, but I don’t think we’re ready for the actual site just yet.

To fully appreciate what UHS-Hints is, I feel like we have to start with what makes a great puzzle in a game, especially an adventure game or a puzzle game, and then what came before.

You see today we have a lot of games that have “puzzles” with quotation marks which amount to either figure out where to go next or click the right button the right number of times. Those are puzzles but not what we’ll be talking about today.

Humble Choice March 2021 Review – Big headliners, but not much else.

March 6, 2021March 6, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

I’m Kinglink and I’m here to review the Humble Choice for March 2021.

So there are a couple of changes for this month. First, the bundle now releases on the first Tuesday of the month, instead of the first Friday. Not a major change to anyone except for people trying to review the games, but something to keep an eye on.

Second, we have one game that’s available on your choice of platform, either Epic or Steam. That’s at least a choice, and something I can get behind if that becomes the standard because it’s a net positive

But with that said, we’re using the same rules as always. One hour with each game, I’ll give you my opinions and recommendation if you should pick up the game based on who will enjoy it.

Katana Zero Review – Quite far from zero

February 26, 2021February 25, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

Katana Zero is a game from Askiisoft, giving a fast-paced action platformer with a large amount of style. It has what appears to be a novel new take on the genre, and is both punishing and superb once the player starts to master the technique.

It also is a game that feels like it has two distinct ideas about the experience, though the second half is clearly where the game excels.

FUSER and the the big problems with the modern rhythm games

February 24, 2021February 24, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

I’m Kinglink and this week I wanted to talk about music games and my love of Harmonix.

If you don’t already know the name of Harmonix, this is the team who made Frequency and Amplitude, two of the best games on the PS2. They made the fantastic Dance Central, as well as Fantasia: Music Evolved and….

Ok yeah, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Those are the games everyone will know them for, and sure they started both of those franchises and dominated the gaming with them, but they also have so much talent and made so many different games, it’s a shame they aren’t known outside of those titles.

So as I said, I picked up FUSER, Harmonix’s newest game because I wanted to talk about my love of the music games and rhythm genre. Unfortunately FUSER instead is better to highlight a lot of problems these games have.

Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues Reviews – I’ll just watch the show.

February 16, 2021February 16, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

Cobra Kai the television show has made huge waves as it’s now reached its third season. The first season started by recontextualizing the original Karate Kid movie by giving the villain of the first movie, Johnny Lawrence, a more in-depth backstory and a redemption arc.

From there, the second and third seasons have grown the world and gave us interesting stories and a fresh take on the original franchise, though at its core is Johnny Lawrence’s Cobra Kai versus Daniel Larusso’s Miyagi-do.

It’s not surprising that someone has finally decided to capitalize on the growing franchise by creating a video game out of it. It’s just a shame that this is the result because everything feels wrong with Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues.

Train Station Renovation Review – The Zen of Renovation

February 12, 2021February 12, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

Train Station Renovation is what you expect, you arrive at run-down train stations, renovate them, and then move on quickly.

The simulation genre of video games has been a popular one recently. It seems almost any job ever has a simulator attached to it, and while train station renovation might not be a direct job, someone’s gotta do it. So we might as well simulate it too.

What I find interesting in Train Station Renovation is that there’s nothing inherent to the Train Station as part of the game. This easily could be a game where players flip houses or pick up public parks. Players can drop large bins for garbage and just collect trash.

Yakuza 3 Review – A major misstep and a dated experience

February 11, 2021February 10, 2021 Kinglink6 Comments

Yakuza 3 is finally on PC, and it’s the fourth game in the Yakuza franchise chronologically. However, it is now the most dated for the franchise. Where Yakuza 0 was released in 2015 for the Playstation 4, and Yakuza Kiwami and Kiwami 2 were remade in 2016, and 2017 and also released for the Playstation 4, Yakuza 3 was originally released in 2009 and for the Playstation 3.

The version on PC, Ps4, and Xbox One is the remastered version, which has all sorts of bells and whistles fans would expect. There is a higher graphic fidelity and more standardized 1080p resolution. There is also content that was cut from the original English version that has been restored, and a retranslation that removes important mistranslations.

I bring this up not to just enumerate the changes, but to dive into the big issue with Yakuza 3. Yakuza 3 is a remaster. While it has a large amount of additional content and gameplay, this is ultimately a PS3 game with a slight graphical upgrade. Where the previous Yakuza games are beautiful, Yakuza 3 is dated by the simple fact that this game originally was made for the PS3.

Humble Choice February 2021 Review – A very strong and diverse month

February 8, 2021February 8, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

I’m Kinglink, and it’s time for the Humble Choice February 2020 Review.

As always, I’ve played each of these games for an hour and now it’s my chance to tell you what I think about them, as well as who should like them or not. I’ve had a pretty good weekend as this is a very interesting bundle. So let’s go down the list, starting with…

Why are Open World games like Horizon Zero Dawn boring?

February 2, 2021February 2, 2021 KinglinkLeave a comment

I’m Kinglink and let’s talk about open-world games for a bit and why they have been bothering me recently. This is more of a rant than normal, but I think there’s a big problem that doesn’t get discussed.

When Horizon: Zero Dawn was released in August of last year I rushed to play it right after Death Stranding, and in that review, I talked about some thoughts about the open-world format of the game and how it didn’t really feel necessary.

Life is Strange Review – A near perfect execution of the Adventure Game formula

January 30, 2021January 30, 2021 Kinglink1 Comment

Telltale really made the modern “Adventure game” iconic in a number of ways, mostly in how formulaic they are. The Telltale formula is to take a well known IP, and then add a new story to the world with minimal changes and choices that the player will have control over. Players are just along for the ride, and ultimately it’s similar to a storybook.

But whether you pick up the Batman, Walking Dead, or Guardians of the Galaxy, as long as you like the IP, you’ll probably enjoy the journey. If you don’t, well, it might be the wrong game for you.

Dontnod’s entry into the genre is therefore quite odd. Instead of attaching the storybook idea to an IP they instead decided to make their own world and tell a story there. It definitely was a risky venture as having no established IP meant everyone would-be newcomers to the series and trying to make the “storybook” approach interesting to new fans could be challenging.

But it’s only with great risk can great reward be obtained, and I think Dontnod is deserving of a massive reward.

Kinglink Reviews

Honest Game Reviews

Author: Kinglink