May 2023 report
Nothing much was going on during May. We slowed down a little in gaming and played mostly shorter casual games. We also came back to Dead Hungry Diner after many years and it was still fun, but playing it five more times was a little bit tedious so we were taking turns in it. ^^
Enough of small talks and now to the actual assassinations! Good luck in the new month and enjoy your games!
LEGO Batman is one of the oldest games, next to LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones, in the series of LEGO adaptations of famous movie franchises. Its age is obviously apparent, but in no way prevents you from fully enjoying it! :D
The story doesn't follow that of any specific movie and it's more like a compilation of short events. The whole game is divided into three parts each with its own main villains and your goal as Batman (and Robin) is to prevent them from carrying out their evil plans thus protecting the good citizens of Gotham City! There are no voices, but even without words, it's pretty clear what's going on.
Even if older, LEGO Batman still works the same way as the other LEGO games. After completing story mode you can replay every mission in free mode with any hero or villain you'd like, you are then given a limited pool of characters that have suitable skills for the said mission and from them you can pick. This pool is randomized, except for the first character you pick before starting the mission.
Also, once you complete each story arc, you can then switch to Arkham Asylum and play through the whole story as villains! The layout of hero and villain missions isn't the same, which is refreshing.
Yet again you collect studs, minikits, red bricks and save poor citizens from burglary. For studs you can buy suit upgrades for Batman and Robin, some new characters and open facts about the Batman universe. There are no additional items to wear, but that's okay as many of the characters are already equipped with silly things. XD Red bricks and suit upgrades (took us a while to realize!) have to be set each time you come back to the game, don't forget about that. There isn't a split-screen so you have to stay close to each other or you risk pushing your sidekick to a ravine or poisonous gas and killing him. Camera angles can cause some headaches as always, especially during jumps. ^^
LEGO games are best in co-op and Batman isn't an exception. We had so much fun and went for 100% even if there are no achievements! Can only recommend it. :D
My Brother Rabbit is a beautiful game about a brother trying to help his little sister who has suddenly fallen ill. In a surreal world, we follow their journey to the healing land and help them to overcome difficulties that correspond with the family's struggles in real life.
The graphics are very pretty and colorful. Each location is nicely varied and filled with surreal feelings. Music corresponds nicely with the game and the intro song is just beautiful. The environment is full of interactive things that can be played around with and it's fun!
As for the gameplay, there are puzzles to be solved - nicely varied and some even challenging, and items to be found - no extra hidden object scenes though, the items are hidden right on the main screen, and some of them rather well.
It's a little bit short but nonetheless very enjoyable game. :)
A simple puzzle game where you uncover photos from your vacation trips with your cute cat. :3
There are 10 different pictures that you can complete in two difficulty settings. It is not like a standard jigsaw puzzle where you build the picture, instead, the photo is divided into grids where you need to swap the little squares. As you place them in the right spot they become colored and unmovable. If you need help with positioning some of the pieces you can even check what the picture looks like.
Memories with my Kitten is a short easy game with cute graphics and music, great for casual and relaxing playing. Also, you can download the pics afterward. :3
Dead Hungry Diner is a very nice restaurant management game. It has cute graphics, a catchy tune (only one though), and most importantly fun and addictive gameplay!
The premise is simple, to save the city of Ravenwood from hungry dead you have to serve them a properly juicy dinner! They come every night in increased force and simple human powers might not be enough to manage the hungry horde, so you have a few magic tricks up your sleeve. To make it worse Vanda van Helsing, the hero and protector of the town, is trying to sabotage your hard work and even threatens you with Mr. Death himself!
Our main heroes are siblings, Gabriel and Gabriella. At the beginning you can choose your protagonist for serving the food and cleaning, the other one will be preparing buckets with food. The difficulty is constantly rising as new hungry monsters are presented - some dislike sitting next to each other (like vampires and werewolves etc.) so you must sit them carefully or risk them getting into a brawl and losing money because of it; as your restaurant gains popularity more monsters come and that means another queue for you to manage (yes, two)! Vanda will also visit and attack your customers, you have to stay vigilant and quickly protect them if you don't want to lose precious money. ;)
You can level up your skills with enough coins (different from regular money) and it's highly advisable to do so. Some levels are really challenging to master and those skills can make your life pretty easy. Also, a good thing is that you can pause the game and think about what to do as you can still see the gaming screen, that way you can prepare your tactic without the time pressure - convenient on higher difficulty (there are three in total).
My biggest complaint goes to the achievements - It's full of stars! for earning 1000 stars and Waiter III for serving 8000 customers. Their numbers are just ridiculous and unjustified. The 8000 customers could be doable in an All-You-Can-Eat mode where you just serve food until you are overwhelmed, so that wouldn't be such a problem. But the stars are only gained upon clearing the level for the first time! So that means you have to play the whole game again and again and again. Also, if you make the level with one or two stars and then replay it to get three, it doesn't count! You only get what you got for clearing the level the first time! Anyway, if you do superbly you end up with 150 stars for one playthrough and that means you have to play the game 7 times. Have fun. ^_^
If you look aside from those two stupid achievements it's a great, funny game, I can only recommend it. Would love to see a sequel as the story suggests some kind of continuation, but none exists as far as I know.
All endings opened and every collectible was found! It took some time, but it was really enjoyable. It's a great game, can only recommend it, more in my review.
Another playthrough done, my soulmate achieved the highest rank using the Lust Commandment. Next we will try playing on hard difficulty. :)
Oh yh batman!
Batman is best. ;)
Got 2 batmans myself to report on. I had to skip that 1st game though. Crashed half way through the 1st level and I was done!
Yeah, we also struggled with the crashes in one of the first levels. We had to speed-run through it, worse was when we needed to collect everything there.
Yeah luckily the other two games worked perfectly fine but that early game batman is not friendly. I didn’t bother completing the others myself