Above The Snow Steam Review

Above the Snow was sent my way by the fine people at Wandering Wizard, which is always appreciated. The game has a cool premise: you play as a man being sent to join a shelter crew to run a run-down ski resort and make it the best resort possible. You hate it, but your options were that or prison.

The people up here all seem to be pretty damn shady, honestly. The story is truly pretty unique for this type of game. How the rest of the game translates is really going to come down to the individual player. The game is, in many ways, Baby’s First Management Game when you play it on the lowest difficulty setting. The story will walk you through everything you should be doing.

I don’t mean this as an insult; you are free to ignore it and do other stuff when you want. This is a cozy game after all. Even with all the usual elements of a management game, they managed to make it stress-free if you want it to be. Well, sort of, the user interface needs a ton of work. I love the look of it, but it can be buggy at times. There are also some quality-of-life updates needed. Why can’t I set up a task in advance?

I do love the characters; however, they are just fun and interesting. While the game won’t be for everyone, there is a reason with 250 reviews, it sits at mostly positive reviews. This is a 7/10 title that I can see a few updates pushing higher up there. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Doom: The Dark Ages

In the years before Doom and Doom: Eternal , the Doom Slayer was a slave to the Kreed Makyr. Dispatched to a world overrun by the demon scourge, the Doom Slayer must band together with a kingdom to make a stand against the endless armies of hell.

Ok guys, real talk time: there’s A Lot of story in this particular entry. No longer is the story stuffed into notes or audio logs most of us didn’t pay a lick of attention to. It’s Doom. Most of us come for the brutal demon slaughter with badass weapons to loud, unrelenting metal music. Thankfully we get plenty of that. I love the aesthetic of this game. The weapons are a mix of medieval and sci fi, with giant robots, biomechanical dragons, and a certain special horror figure tossed in. The shield is the biggest gameplay change. You can whip it around like Captain America, sawing through fodder hoards and stunning bigger enemies, as well as parrying critical attacks. The parrying mechanic is fine but I felt like it was overused to living hell. Instead frantic combat that made you think on a microsecond’s notice like Eternal, most of this game comes down to the shield. It made the game stale in a way the previous entries weren’t for me.

The game takes a grander, more open approach than any other Doom has. I found it mostly fun to explore and gather loot to upgrade my abilities. The enemies are your pretty standard Doom fare, with a couple new enemies that can murder you real quick if you don’t learn to parry. The weapons themselves range from great to meh- the Super Shotgun, the Ravager, the Accelerator, Rocket Launcher, and Chainshot were my personal go-tos. Some weapons I felt were cool in theory but I nevr found much use for a lot of the options I was given all around. The epic set pieces were a huge win for me, fighting giant kaiju demons in a robot mech and flying around on my badass dragon were a long time metal nerd’s dream come true.

The game leans heavy on it’s story but sadly I wasn’t really invested. There’s long cutscenes that while beautiful feel like they belong in another game. A lot of the game is basically generic fantasy game dialogue and hyping the Slayer up as if he wasn’t already a absolute legend. As I said, while I appreciate the effort, the story didn’t really do anything for me.

In the end, I found Dark Ages to be the weak point of the trilogy but far from terrible. It’s a damn fun, truly epic experience at times that just leans too heavy on the shield parry and a meh story for me but still well worth grabbing. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Resident Evil 2026 teaser trailer

So Savior and I are a bit befuddled with Zach Cregger’s work. I admire the man’s style and creativity- you’re never getting a straight slasher, possession, or monster romp with him. I appreciate that. He’s also, for better or worse, a director that likes making WTF movies. That’s all well and good but I was skeptical finding out out he was doing a Resident Evil movie.

On it’s own, the movie looks solid. It has a nice atmosphere and intrigue I’d come to expect from Cregger’s work. However, looks nothing like Resident Evil. At all. It’s been widely known this movie is outside the game’s canon, and vaguely happens around the Raccoon City outbreak. I know a lot of the fanbase is pretty pissed how distant it is from the games- even I’m not too happy about it myself- but considering what Netflix gave us, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City , and the Milla Jojovich movies, least this looks competent. I’ curious to know more and I do want to see it, regardless. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Voice of Belldona Release Trailer

Voice Of Belldona Launches on PC May 20th, A Sci-fi Deckbuilder Inspired by Warhammer 40K’s Dark Cosmic Aesthetic

Developer Storycrop and publisher Okasan’s Recipe have announced the official release of Voice of Belldona, a sci-fantasy roguelike deckbuilder, launching on PC via Steam on May 20th.

Blending strategic deckbuilding with a dark, cosmic atmosphere, Voice of Belldona challenges players to shape their builds through high-risk decisions and tactical combat. The full release features expanded content, refined gameplay systems, and deeper progression, further enhancing the game’s depth and replayability.

Players will be able to experience the complete version of the game starting May 20th.

When chaos knows no end, what kind of fate will you choose? In a world where the only constant is war, Voice of Belldona draws you into an endless cycle of conflict and survival.

In an effort to overcome the turmoil, the people decide to create a little warrior. But this white-haired, god-like entity has a major case of social anxiety?! She turns the once apocalyptic, barren world into a new one filled with races and civilizations previously known only from mythology and fairy tales, and grants the mysterious power of The Source to its inhabitants, including humans.

Voice of Belldona takes place in this fantastic world created by Cheryl and tells the story of her adventures after being unexpectedly awakened again.

Key Features

  • Deep Deckbuilding System: Build powerful and diverse strategies with a vast pool of 120+ cards, enabling endless combinations and playstyles.
  • Training & Legendary Blessings: Customize your runs with permanent upgrades and powerful one-time blessings that shape your stats and combat approach.
  • High Build Variety: Discover over 50 unique blessings that unlock deep synergy, allowing each run to feel fresh and highly customizable.
  • Expansive World & Enemies: Explore multiple areas filled with challenging enemies, hidden stories, and evolving threats.
  • Rich Narrative Events: Encounter 40+ story-driven events that add unpredictability and emotional depth to every run.
  • Summon Unique Allies: Recruit distinct units with specialized combat roles, enabling strategic positioning and team-based gameplay.
  • “Wish” System: Unlock high-risk, high-reward mechanics that can dramatically alter the outcome of your run.
  • Advanced Challenge Modes: Test your mastery with harder modes featuring modifiers such as fixed decks and ambush encounters.

Gameplay Overview

Voice of Belldona features roguelike deckbuilding where you build and evolve your deck each run through combat and choices, summon allies to shape your strategy, and control battlefield formations to maximize positioning and combos. With multiple playstyles between aggressive combat and summon-based control, dynamic synergies that grow over time, branching paths filled with events and risks, and procedurally varied encounters, every decision becomes a high-risk choice that can define or break your run as you adapt your strategy in real time.

Strictly Limited Partners with Atari – “I, Robot” Launches as First Collaborative Release (PS5)

Jeff Minter is back with another unique take on a 1980s Atari arcade game: I, Robot. Reimagined in Minter’s signature assault of colors, shapes, and sounds, this new take on the eclectic arcade title is built from the ground up with new challenges, new twists, and a whole lot of llamas.

The premise of I, Robot is simple: You take control of an ox-headed robot on a mission to outwit the all-seeing eye. In each level, you’ll navigate across tiles, flipping each tile to proceed to the next. Make sure you don’t jump while the eye is watching, or you’ll be zapped away in a flash. If you make it across the tiles, you’ll race down a tube blasting away any enemy shapes that move into your path and try to stop you. And you have to do all this inside the 3D space of Minter’s kaleidoscopic visualizer.

At its core, it is a game that only Lamasoft could have made. A cacophony of colors dazzles your eyes as the music gradually builds up based on your progress. If you want to take a break from the arcade action, jump into the game, where you can channel your inner Jeff Minter and play around with all the sights and sounds from the game.

Features

55 levels, encompassing the platforming/tile-changing and arena ones

● ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Unique tube-shooter bonus stages between each level

● ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Llamasoft’s unique brand of mind melting visuals

● ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Procedural music that builds as you do better in the game

● ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Online leaderboards

About Strictly Limited– Store Link

With more than 100 physical releases to date, Strictly Limited has established itself as one of the world’s leading specialists in physical publishing. Originally focused on premium collector’s editions of Japanese and niche titles, the label has since broadened its scope, now handling concept, production, and distribution across all genres with a global fan base. Each project is approached with remarkable depth and tailored treatment.

About Atari

Atari is an interactive entertainment company and an iconic gaming industry brand that transcends generations and audiences. The company is globally recognized for its multi-platform, interactive entertainment, and licensed products. Atari owns and/or manages a portfolio of more than 400 unique games and franchises, including world-renowned brands like Asteroids®, Centipede®, PONG®, and RollerCoaster Tycoon®. The Atari family of brands includes game developers Coatsink, Digital Eclipse, Early Morning Studios, Implicit Conversions, Infogrames, Nightdive Studios, Stormteller Games, and the community-based sites AtariAge and MobyGames. Visit us online at www.Atari.com.

Reptilian Rising Steam Review

Reptilian Rising was recently released on Steam, and Numskull Games was nice enough to send me a copy. The thing to know about Reptilian Rising is that you shouldn’t take a deep dive into the story. It isn’t supposed to make sense, kind of like when you play Dungeons and Dragons with your friends and the bard wants to seduce the dragon, and your other friend wants to donate weapons and drugs to the orphanage.

The story is simple: a bunch of reptiles from another time invade, and the only way to stop them is for the greatest heroes from all of Earth’s history to gather and kill them. You can see how it falls apart quickly when you start asking how Winston Churchill is going to kill a T. rex, right? Right, glad you are going with me on this one. It is, however, a lot of fun to watch Albert Einstein kill a triceratops.

Ok, now admittedly, the game has some issues. For example, the combat can be slow at times, and it can be quite janky. It definitely needed some more polish for the price they are asking. This is honestly where my issue with recommending it comes in. The game isn’t bad, and it is quite unique; it many times feels like something you would play with your friends in the basement at a table, which I am sure is what they were aiming for.

The real issue is a $30 game being maybe 10-15 hours long, while having so many issues, from camera angles and things being blocked by the UI, while minor issues just seem hard to justify for me. This is a 6/10 title that, while a good pick up on sale, I can’t recommend with a clean conscience. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Monster Crown: Sin Eater PlayStation 5 Review

Monster Crown: Sin Eater is the newest game in the Monster Crown series, and Red Art Games was nice enough to send me a copy of this one early. I always appreciate this, and they are quickly becoming a joy to work with.

Now I don’t want to give anything away or spoil anything, that has never been my thing, but right out the gate, I do want to warn you that if you go into this thinking this is a Pokémon clone like Nexomon, you will be in for a shock. The game deals with far more complex and adult issues. It isn’t anything you haven’t seen in games before, but things will die in front of you on screen, and there is a sort of religious tone to things. Not in a mocking tone or preaching tone. It is just something that exists in the world.

So while your main character is out on his quest, which I won’t discuss for spoiler reasons, he will be creating pacts with monsters and even demons. There is, of course, the usual rock, paper, scissors type battle system where one type of attack is good against one type of monster, and so on and so forth. What makes Sin Eater so complex is that while your levels matter, you won’t be “evolving” your monsters. See, monsters aren’t so much viewed as companions in this world, tho some certainly are, they are quite literally viewed as monsters to be used as tools. People breed them to create new monsters, and you can fuse two together to create a new monster that will average out the levels of the monsters you used. The game even keeps track of which generation the monster is for you.

This brings me to my one and only issue with this game. I thought we, as gamers moved past the concept that grinding is what made games hard? Every time I breed monsters yea they get stronger, but I have to level them up from level one all over again. Yes, there are items you can buy to make this go faster, but they are kind of expensive, and they aren’t exactly unlimited. This definitely killed much of the fun in what should have been the best part of the game for me. It is still a 7/10 game for me, and one I plan to spend even more time with. It is definitely a viable alternative to Pokémon for those who want a more adult story and more of a challenge. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Under Par Golf Architect PlayStation 5 Review

Under Par Golf Architect hit PlayStation 5 recently, and Broken Arms Games was nice enough to send me a copy to check out. Don’t worry if you have no clue how to play golf, this is a game about builing an running a golf course. The game assumes you can’t really do that and will teach you how, and more importantly, it grades each aspect of the holes as you build them independently. You will discover fast what you are good at and what you aren’t good at, and hopefully, how to fix it.

The game is also really good about not tossing it at you too fast. It won’t be asking you to build 18 holes right out of the gate. The first area starts with placing down your clubhouse, building a hole or two, and opening your course. From there, it will teach you how you can use your avatar to play on your holes and how to place things like benches and water fountains. There is also very little guesswork involved in this, since the game will show you the effective range of these as you place them. This is something I wish more of these games would do.

This is the entire flow of the game: make customers happy so they return, take their money, and they become better customers. This is represented by them having ratings from bronze to silver or higher. There is a story involved, but truth be told, I wasn’t too interested in the guy who kept showing up. I think he was the mayor, but he seemed like kind of a dick.

The important part is that the game functions extremely well on consoles, and the graphics are cute. I really enjoyed watching people yell about all my sand traps. The game is an 8/10 experience for people who enjoy business simulators and designing things. It truly felt like an old Theme Park type title. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

theHunter Call of the Wild Multiclass Weapon Pack Review PlayStation 5

The Hunter Call of the Wild is back with its new Multiclass weapons pack. Avalanche Studios was once again nice enough to hook me up with this DLC to try out, and I have to say, if you only buy one gun pack for this game, this is the one you buy.

I won’t bore you with any of the insane details, like how the Joneros .17HMR is perfect for game levels 1 and 2, and we finally have a fun that is just as good at shooting birds as it is at shooting all the little animals floating around the various maps.

And I certainly won’t sit here and tell you that the Richardson .500 can easily take down level 8 and 9 game at long range, regardless of whether you prefer soft or solid rounds. No, what I am going to say is simply that the four guns in this pack are technically all you will need to hunt basically everything in the game with a firearm. Truthfully, with the $6 price tag attached to this, it is a must-buy for fans of this game. I can no longer imagine myself going on a hunt without at least one of these on my loadout going forward. It is a 9/10 DLC, with the only flaw being that while rifle and shotgun hunters get something, handguns were left high and dry. Best wishes, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.

Clayface reveal trailer

Holy crap, talk about surprised. I didn’t have much hope for the Clayface solo movie. This teaser admittedly looks incredible. I love that it’s heavily inspired by Feats of Clay, an incredible 2 part episode from Batman: the animated series . The body horror looks fantastic. My hype went through the roof instantly just from this tiny peak. May the gaming gods bring you glory.