The AA Report: May 12th, 2020
I’m beginning to reconcile that sometimes these aren’t as easy to get up as quickly as I’d like to. I’ve got most everything ready to go though for the video versions, and the last two weeks of The AA Report should be up on YouTube soon. Tonight I have a pretty fun looking lineup for Try it Tuesday, and hope to have the written report up within a couple of days. If you’ve managed to miss any Try it Tuesday shows in the past, you can check out my recent broadcasts archive on Twitch and search for Try it Tuesday.
Last week I had a really good list to sift through. Here are the short-order reviews for Black Skylands: Origins, Kingdom Two Crowns: Dead Lands, and Cloudpunk.
Black Skylands: Origins
It’s probably obvious at this stage in the lifecycle of The AA report, but for me, graphic style plays a big part in a game when it comes to my opinion. Of course, it’s not everything – as they say, you can’t polish a turd, but graphics should play a big part in a game’s perception to some extent – it’s the front-facing representative of any game, it’s the first thing people will often see and judge your game based on, and it can seriously make or break an experience in some cases. Pixel art can be hit or miss for me lately, as I feel it’s often overdone. But, a LOT of games have really REALLY good pixel artists behind them, often extending into gorgeous detail and transforming the style completely. I’ll be getting into this a bit more later when it comes to Cloudpunk, but… let’s stick to the current game I’m talking about, Black Skylands. For the purposes of this review, I played a free demo called Black Skylands: Origins, which provided a small chunk of the game for proof of concept. In Black Skylands, you’re playing as a member of a colony named Walter that lives in one of the many floating islands that the earth turned into. After a group of bandits attack your colony’s home, you set off in an airship to rebuild, explore, and exact revenge on the group of bandits that destroyed everything. The game focuses on a top-down perspective, and with the lovely pixel art, felt like a slightly more methodical, paced version of Hotline Miami. A game that immediately came to mind while playing this was Garage: Bad Trip, another game with a pretty strong narrative that featured this same top-down perspective. The game appears to sport a pretty deep story with base building and weapon crafting, which is a pretty neat way to mix up what you would expect. Combat definitely had its moments of being brutal and unforgiving, as I died many times, either by bullet hell enemies, or simply falling off the island. The concept for Black Skylands seems like one with a lot of promise, and I’ll be following its development more closely to check it out on full release. Black Skylands: Origins is available to play for free on Steam currently, but with a caveat I’ll add: it’s a big buggy. As I neared one of the boss fights in this demo, the game’s audio disappeared entirely, save for music and some ambience. I was deaf to my gunfire and that of others, and when I approached the boss, lag became unbearable to the point of unplayable. I don’t know if it was something I did on my own system, but it’s worth mentioning for the sake of the review. Outside of that, Black Skylands: Origins is worth checking out to get a taste of what the full game will offer, which to me seems like a fun pixel art game about sky pirates and an epic quest for redemption. Black Skylands will be available in Q4 of 2020.
Wishlist Black Skylands today
Play Black Skylands: Origins for free on Steam
Kingdom Two Crowns: Dead Lands
Kingdom Two Crowns has been out for a while, so this one probably seems a bit absurd for a Try it Tuesday. However, the show is more about games that are new to me, and although many of them are just new PERIOD, some of them aren’t. Kingdom Two Crowns does have some new free DLC attached to it though, which is why I decided to play it. Plus, I’d heard so many good things about it over the last couple of years, so it seemed worth it. And it was – Dead Lands is a new chunk of content added to the base game that features four playable characters from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a widely successful spiritual successor to the Castlevania series that was created by the producer of said series. Dead Lands brings not only characters, but a deliciously gothic flavor to the Kingdom Two Crowns formula, which is at its core a base building game where you, the monarch to this kingdom, must ride the lands left and right to recruit loyal subjects to build up your kingdom and protect its riches from greedy monsters who want to steal both your coin, and your crown. Kingdom Two Crowns does not hold your hand, and I appreciate that – sometimes, you just have to be thrown into the deep end to learn how to swim. And learn I did – I spent a few days riding back and forth, confused at my purpose, adding coin to places without understanding, dropping them in front of people without rhyme or reason, until finally it all clicked inside of my skull – if 7 Days To Die were a side-scroller, it might liken itself to Kingdom Two Crowns. 7 Days To Die has no chill though, and while Kingdom Two Crowns can go sideways at the drop of the hat for any playthrough, the beautiful soundtrack by Amos Roddy mixed with the art style and the minimalist approach towards everything this game does still left me feeling a lot more chill then I often feel playing most games. The concept of Kingdom Two Crowns may be simple, but the strategy of it takes a while to master, and even that won’t guarantee you success. The hook is obviously to see how long you can survive, and to quote Blues Traveler, the hook brings you back. Kingdom Two Crowns is available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Purchase Kingdom Two Crowns on The Humble Store
Cloudpunk
I started off this AA Report by discussing art style for games, and how it plays a big part for me. Not only for what is chosen, but how its presented to players for consumption. Voxel is a style that is, like pixel art, pretty hit or miss. Voxel is of course an art style popularized by Minecraft – I played a voxel-style game last week called Dunrog, and was a bit critical of their use of it. Voxel is a cousin to pixel style in that it’s a 3D representation of a pixel, called a volumetric pixel – hence “voxel”. Depending on how its used, it can often feel lazy and derivative, or unique and refreshing. Cloudpunk is a case where voxel art feels completely unique and refreshing in its implementation, because of how they chose to present it. In Cloudpunk, you are playing as a delivery driver in a Blade Runner-esque cyberpunk city. You work for a mysterious delivery service that asks of its drivers to simply deliver the goods, and ask no questions about them. But in doing so, you manage to encounter a lot of unique and interesting scenarios that will open up your eyes to society as a whole – androids and humans alike sharing their stories, and revealing their true colors. The use of voxel art style in Cloudpunk is unique to me becacuse it is zoomed out and, therefore, doesn’t make itself too obvious. You can tell it with the designs of cars and architecture and whatnot, but the perspective softens the edges a bit, and really stands out in my opinion because of it. This mixed with the soundtrack and a completely voiced dialogue tree makes Cloudpunk a big pleasure to relax to. The heart of Cloudpunk is exploration and narrative, as you travel across various parts of town to deliver packages, and people, to their end destination. Sometimes you are met with decisions to make, how to perform or which way to go with a tree of dialogue – for instance, should you deliver this package or dump it? These decisions do have lasting effects on storylines and characters in the city, which can open up new avenues for exploration further down the road. It’s the definition of a chill game, and kind of takes the idea of a visual novel or a walking sim and elevates it. The game won’t be for everyone, as there’s no real challenge involved outside of navigating the map and driving in the sky – there’s no combat, and there aren’t puzzles to solve. You’re simply a voyeur into a futuristic landscape, literally here for the ride. If you’re looking for something outside of that experience, Cloudpunk may not be for you. For those of you looking for a taste of a cyberpunk aesthetic to whet your palette before Cyberpunk 2077 drops, this might do just the trick. Expect to kick back in your chair with a controller and immerse yourself in the lives and stories of this city. Cloudpunk is available on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.