Ahh, Scotland. A land of great beauty, rich history and strange yet delicious cuisine. Somehow this incredible place has been rarely used as a videogame location, with only a spectacular Uncharted 4 segment coming to mind in recent memory. Thankfully, A Highland Song has come at a peak seasonal time where going for a long, wet hike wearing a thick, woolly jumper is perfectly timed. Indeed, Highland Song is the most fun you can have getting absurdly high in Scotland without running into the Trainspotting lads. 

Oh high land

A gorgeously rendered side-scrolling mountain-climbing game with survival and rhythm game mechanics, it’s a unique beast. Playing as Moira, you go on a quest to reunite with your long-unseen uncle. This leads you across a wide range of mountains and you’ll need to use environmental clues to find the path that will lead you forwards. Moira is equipped with her journal which will become filled with environmental details, clues and Scottish lore as you progress. There’s some frustration in being stuck on these puzzles but this is a game to vibe in more than to knuckle-down to complete. There’s a calming joy in hiding from a torrential downpour until the weather becomes more agreeable for adventuring. 

New Heights

However, that only covers the “Highlands” half of the title. Where’s the song? Along with a generally gorgeous soundtrack, the rhythm segments of Moria’s ascent are where the most impactful moments are to be found. You’ll enter these sections along the way and will time Moira’s jumps as she steps on glowing markers. As local fauna join her, these parts feel like a classic Disney musical segment if Cinderella swapped her terrible fragile footwear for proper mountain boots. These sections lack the precision of a full-on rhythm game but play fast and loose with the mechanics for memorable moments rather than punishing gameplay.

The punishment comes elsewhere. With so many routes to take and dead-ends galore, your initial journey will be rough. However, the more time you put in, the more you will learn about this environment, and the things that annoyed you the first time around will become markers to find your way. It’s a deceptively complex game but the gorgeous presentation and immaculate mountaineering vibes will keep you engaged for a few playthroughs at least. If nothing else, a burning desire to holiday in Scotland will emerge from this adventure. Hoorah tourism, whether virtual or real!

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Dart headfirst into an action-packed arena fusing intense martial arts with the high-speed competition. Face rival squads, performing epic leaps, stunning steals, and powerful kicks to launch a kickball at the opposing team’s bell. Strategize offensive and defensive plays to outsmart challengers and bring them to their knees with each glorious ring.

KungFu hustle all your challengers

Tag in one of five fighters, all with individual kicking styles, and compete on six different stages. Weave through defenders with the agile Monk, strike from behind with the ever-dangerous Assassin, or put a hurt on the competition with the hard-hitting Monkey King. Master every angle and bounce with strikes, blocks, and headbutts against the ball and enemy teams.

Become one with the ball and hone unbeatable skills in a comprehensive training mode. Compete in 1v1 or 2v2 online or local multiplayer matches to climb the ladder and claim the title of Kickball Master. KungFu Kickball’s pick-up-and-play accessibility invites fans of all genres to jump in with an easy and intuitive three-button control scheme.

“KungFu Kickball seamlessly fuses the team’s love for sports and fighting games, something we have been wanting to play ourselves for years. We wanted to create a game that was both casually accessible but with a high skill ceiling for those who wish to play more competitively”

said Ben Lee, co-founder, Blowfish Studios.

KungFu Kickball will hit free agency for $19.99 / £12.99 / €15.99 with full crossplay support.

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Skatebored

When Nelly Furtado released her iconic song “I’m Like a Bird” she foolishly thought she was accurately using metaphor to describe freedom and individuality. Instead, she played into nature’s most boring cliché: why must a bird simply fly? As always video games have decided to present a more exciting alternative, hence Skatebird. This title asks the daring question: what if Tony Hawk lived up to his surname?

A daring question but sadly one with a disappointingly negative answer. Despite loft promises of high octane sk8tr-boi action, Skatebird is a mess. Plunged instantly into a bedroom themed skatepark it becomes instantly clear that you’ll be wrestling with the controls and camera more than any specifically designed in-game challenges. It’s unclear whether this game is meant to be a retro skating game throwback or a Goat Simulator style physics “comedy game”. Regardless, the supposed joke never seems to manifest itself.

Quacking Up

The intro tutorials even frustrate as seemingly simple button inputs don’t seem to do as they say. This leaves your bird constantly rolling on the floor in aviary agony rather than soaring with grace. Redirecting the camera is about as intuitive as battling an ostrich, only the latter is less painful.

This is all rather tragic as in most other regards Skatebird is cool. This is not a word to be used lightly, but the casual skate aesthetics combined with the “lo-fi hip hop beats to skate to” soundtrack forms a truly pleasing stylistic experience. The menus are more enjoyable than the actual game in letting you indulge in this pleasant feeling. Indeed it’s hard to think of many comparable sports games with such a clear style. However, this doesn’t extend to the actual rough graphics.

Simply put, Skatebird is an ugly duckling. Getting to customise your skater is a lovely touch, adding a personal touch to your frustrations. Seeing your carefully designed bird faceplant makes every failure feel that much more bitter. The open skate environments are creative and broadly fun to explore, you’ll just wish traversal was more intuitive.

Birdbrained

It’s the classic Monkey’s paw: a great concept for the return of a classic sub-genre ruined by technical troubles and design flaws. For those truly starving for skating games, they may be satisfied that at least the genre hasn’t gone the way of the dodo. The less forgiving should go cold turkey. Either way, Skatebird is truly guilty of fowl play.

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This expansion will focus heavily on the Thanedd Coup itself. A dreadful clash between the ages of Nilfgaard and mages of the North. Check out the teaser trailer for the expansion below. 

Thanedd Coup is the second of the three-part expansion set in Price of Power. Leading up to the release, players can use the Price of Power Expansion Pass offer to get some goodies. Featuring a set of vanities, including the exclusive Pyre coin, as well as instant access to all premium Price of Power cards. Further details on the expansion pass are available on the in-game store as well as the official website. 

GWENT: The Witcher Card Game is available for free on PC via GOG.COM and Steam, Apple M1 Macs running macOS, as well as on Android and iOS.

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GWENT: The Witcher Card Game – What kind of tale is Price of Power?

Price of Power is a set consisting of three story-related expansions for GWENT: The Witcher Card Game with the main theme of magic and how different factions seek out, fight for, or exploit its power. The first expansion of the Price of Power set — Once Upon A Pyre — will introduce 26 new cards: 4 cards of different rarities per faction and 2 neutrals.

New abilities and gameplay mechanics will also be making their way into the game, bringing fresh and powerful synergies to take advantage of in battle.

For those who can’t wait for the first expansion’s arrival, players can take advantage of a special, time-limited offer. The Price of Power Expansion Pass grants access to all Price of Power premium cards, with a selection of cards becoming available with the release of each of the set’s three expansions. Also included with the offer is the animated Pyre coin — available to use immediately after purchase of the Expansion Pass.

The trailer itself offers scant details, but CD PROJEKT RED has never let players down when it comes to GWENT related projects anyway.

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The History of Jetboard Joust

Jetboard Joust’s handheld debut comes three decades after the release of its predecessor, Skateboard Joust for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC microcomputers. Players can enjoy an action-packed mashup of old-school arcade action with a modern roguelike design.

Maintain altitude to avoid incoming fire while trading laser blasts with extraterrestrial invaders. Wield a wide variety of weapons and rescue the planet’s would-be abductees from a monstrous fate. Overcome throngs of foes by turning the jetboard into a screen-clearing ballistic missile capable of wiping out advancing armadas, mutated creatures, and massive bosses.

Players can rake in gold coins in each procedurally-generated stage. This will allow you to purchase powerful upgrades, such as new armour, an expanded armoury, and a range of jetboard tuneups that will allow you to dominate the skies. That’s not all. As you advance the campaign and move through each world you will face monumental bosses. These beings will test your dominance of the sky. Will you be ready?

“When I developed the original Skateboard Joust as a kid in 1989, I never would have imagined one of my games would be available on a Nintendo console, said James Closs, founder, Bitbull. So I am over the moon to be launching Jetboard Joust for Nintendo Switch on May 18th!”

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The Uncertain: Light at the End is the second instalment in New Games Order The Uncertain series. It is a self-described “story-driven adventure game”, but it’s more of a third-person point and click.

Picture this. You’re on a date. The person sitting opposite you is beautiful. The little you know about them sounds intriguing. The restaurant you’re in only just opened, but the reviews so far are promising. The table is set – the food looks delicious, you’re ready for the date of a lifetime.

Then they open their mouth.

Their voice sounds like a horrifying mash-up of Janice Hosenstein and Gilbert Gottfried. They speak incredibly slowly, and exclusively about the most boring topics imaginable. At some point, they go to take a drink of water and instead slam the glass against their own face and splatter the table behind them. A mutual friend set you up, so you grit your teeth and see the date through to the end.

Periodically they say something coherent and interesting, so you perk up – but that’s short-lived; they almost immediately return to talking about their tax returns or their cat’s asthma. You start taking way too many bathroom breaks just to get away from the monotony. They probably think you have a UTI. You don’t care. Eventually, after a painful amount of time, the date ends. The feeling of relief as you walk out of the restaurant is euphoric. There will not be a second date.

Now you have some idea of my unfortunate time with The Uncertain: Light at the End.

The Good

Let’s get some positives in here.

Visually, The Uncertain: Light at the End is gorgeous. The environmental design is fabulous. Considering most of the game is spent wandering around looking at things, that’s a massive plus. The world feels real. From futuristic pharmacies to dank semi-basements to flying car parking garages, the environmental artists did a phenomenal job. Everything has this futuristic feel to it while still being grounded. Prop design throughout is faultless. The attention to detail is sublime. The designers have obviously taken cues from Half Life’s City 17, but their own spin is enough to make it feel fresh and interesting to explore.

The premise is intriguing. Robot uprising? Check. Human survivors, just trying to make their way in this crazy world? Check. All in all, the worldbuilding gives the sense we’re playing after the end of “I, Robot”. It might be a little bit staid, but at least it’s not the zombie apocalypse again. The mystery the game presents – why did the robots suddenly rise up? – carries the story for most of the experience.

The Bad

The biggest offender, however, has to be the game’s incredibly stilted, awkward dialogue. As far as I know, the game’s original dialogue is in Russian (?) but, being an English speaker, I played in that language. I can’t be certain if it’s a localisation issue or if the original script is to blame – I’m leaning towards the latter because the actual topics being discussed in-game simply aren’t interesting. Nobody talks like that. Moreover, the characters are just impossible to like. Take your pick – Alex the surly engineer, Claire the lobotomized housewife, Brian the condescending octogenarian, Matthew the absolute dickhead, Vera the ceaseless whiner, or Park the irrelevant dullard.

Following on from the script – the voice acting is horrendous. Every performance is incredibly flat. Particular stinkers are the self-proclaimed housewife Claire and, unfortunately, the protagonist Emily.  For a game that relies on its story and characters so much, this makes for a truly dull experience. Oh, and did I mention? All of the dialogue and cutscenes are unskippable.

This next part wouldn’t be so terrible if the environmental design wasn’t so outstanding. Unfortunately, the character models are woeful. It took me a while to realise what they reminded me of – they looks like Sims. That’s a great thing if you’re playing The Sims. In a gritty character-driven adventure story? Not so much. This, combined with the weird and amateurish animations, makes the characters painful to watch. Or maybe it’s just part of the worldbuilding that everyone gets a fresh shot of Botox once a week. Who knows?

Lastly, the story – the driving force behind the whole game – is entirely forgettable. The pacing is all over the place, nothing interesting ever really happens, and the stakes are low throughout.

The Ugly

I don’t want to go too hard on the developers as they’ve acknowledged the technical shortcomings of The Uncertain: Light at the End. However, it has now been half a year since the game launched and it’s still full of bugs. It’s an absolute requirement to keep subtitles on because sometimes voice lines simply don’t play. More than once, characters glitched and duplicated themselves. What little immersion the weak script and voice acting managed to create was killed by the bugs.

The puzzles. Oh, the puzzles. Periodically, in order to progress, you must complete a minigame. These minigames, however, are so out of place, so pace-breaking, and so blatantly meta that I had to laugh when they came up. If you enjoy newspaper puzzles, like Sudoku or shape matching, you’ll enjoy these. It seems New Games Order acknowledges that the puzzles are terrible, however – they all come with a handy skip button.

Audio design is below basic. I had my volume all the way up but could barely hear the game’s soundtrack throughout. Sound effects, where present, were low quality. This, in combination with the voice acting, almost makes me think playing The Uncertain: Light at the End muted might be a better choice.

The Uncertain

I wish The Uncertain: Light at the End was better. I really do. It showed promise leading up to launch, and we here at GamEir were watching with interest. New Games Order has the makings of something special here, but it needs an awful lot of work and polish to be up to snuff. As it stands, The Uncertain is one thing a video game should never be: boring, boring, boring.

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Worry no more! Orwell’s Animal Farm has arrived to seize the means of entertainment. Developer Nerial has taken on the task, creating an interesting if shallow new look at the classic story. Transposing the original narrative into a point and click adventure. The closest point of comparison may be the clever Jules Verne phone adaptation 80 Days or the ingenious Elsinore, the choose-your-own-adventure retelling of Hamlet.

Hogwash!

Animal Farm never meets these creative heights. A disappointingly straightforward affair with minimal interactivity. More choices become available as you progress but it still feels closer to a book report than a gaming experience. Beautifully illustrated scenes tell the story with a charming cartoon style, yet it feels at odds with the severity of the unfolding events. More Walt Disney than Watership Down. A recommended early decision is to turn off the overblown narration. Juxtaposed with the cheery visuals it’s truly pompous and overblown.

Dramatic moments are lost entirely due to limited animation. For example, an early scene in which the tragic foolish horse Boxer accidentally kicks a young man to death is shown from a bird’s eye view. The weight of this moment is delivered solely via dialogue box, accidentally making this weirdly impersonal, especially compared to the original story. If the aim was to bring a classic to life in this form then it has sorely missed the mark.

Orwell’s that ends well?

As a way to engage younger audiences with the book, Orwell’s Animal Farm could be an excellent teaching tool. Older players however will be less enthused. For a brief bit of horsing around the game is entertaining enough but if you want to truly pig out then it’s time to hit the books.

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In a time of quarantines and lockdowns, we’ve all had to stop at some point and try to find another hobby that can take up just a little more time. Like many of you probably have, I tried an array of things that barely caught my attention, one of them being gardening. Plants are great, of course, and we should have more of them around us at any given time but you’ll still end up waiting weeks for the payoff. This law of nature is not fun for the impatient person….unless you do it in Quarant Inc.’s Grow Big (or Go Home) that is.

So what’s it all about?

Grow Big (or Go Home) is a tricky 2D pixel art garden simulator that takes plant care and puzzles seriously. You play as Bruce, an indoor gardener with a slick pair of overalls and a talent for growing houseplants in impossible locations. As you progress through the game’s 15 levels, you get transported from Bruce’s home to Greek and Mayan civilizations, and eventually into space. Each level has it’s own obstacles to overcome in the pursuit of plant perfection and even features the houseplant’s natural enemy, the house cat.

Levels evolve slowly which makes for an easy learning curve when coupled with the game’s simple controls. While the game’s aesthetic and gameplay are quite simple, getting five stars in each area should provide a decent challenge. Once you’ve mastered every area, you unlock hidden levels in Hell which ups the intensity considerably. Playing with headphones on is a must, by the way, because the soundtrack really deserves your attention. Every level has a unique soundtrack to compliment the setting.

It’s gardening, just without the relaxation.

You’re given a short amount of time to use the various objects around you to grow your plants. You begin with just a mirror and a watering can but new objects appear every few levels that also bring new twists to the puzzle. As the sun moves from one side of the room to the other, you must angle the light and manage plant hydration.

You also need to be mindful of any other threats to your plants like fires and animals. The light moves quickly and some levels can feel chaotic, especially if you’re looking to ace each one for the hidden stages. Still, the soundtrack and pretty graphics make it worth each attempt.

Solving puzzles shouldn’t pose much of a problem to most players because it essentially repeats, just with another layer added. Perfecting each level, on the other hand, will provide a worthwhile challenge. Once you’ve mastered an area, you can unlock different outfits to garden in greater style. There’s not much in the way of collectables but it helps keep the experience purely focused on mastering each area. The game is currently available on Steam for €7.39.

For a game with an excellent soundtrack, colourful and playful pixel art graphics, a challenging set of puzzles and a replayable and procedurally generated hidden level, it’s well worth your time.

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In this new featurette, Piovesan takes players behind the scenes and dives into the little details that truly bring the world of Neo-Berlin to life. A point-and-click adventure game succeeds when it offers a believable fantasy world for players to explore and discover, and as Piovesan explains in the video, ensuring each element of the game lends itself to the experience is key to doing so.

From the creation of completely original billboards and advertising jingles to simple things like the dialogue between NPCs on the street, Piovesan takes viewers through the creation process, providing developer insight into how creating an authentic world is possible with a strong narrative and plenty of subtle background detail.

Key Features of ENCODYA:

• Entirely Original Soundtrack and Audio: Not only will players enjoy a unique, custom soundtrack, but everything from the character dialogue to the advertising jingles are self-produced audio tracks, not simply sound bites from an audio-library

• A Robust Script: To really bring the world of ENCODYA to life, more than 4,000 lines of dialogue provide an engaging and immersive cinematic experience

• This Puzzle Was Different Last Time…: Puzzle randomization adds replay value and a fresh challenge for players looking to enjoy multiple trips to Neo-Berlin

• A Full Cast of Characters: With 34 distinct NPCs, the dystopian world of Neo-Berlin is brought to life with a whole host of fully-realized individuals

ENCODYA will be available on Windows PC, Mac, and Linux platforms via Steam, GOG and ENCODYA.com on the 26th of January. Keep up to date with ENCODYA by following the game on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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