GNOMES – Video Game Review

TL;DR – A perfect encapsulation of a premise, where every puzzle captivates you as you try to find its key to success, also you get to shoot Goblins with a blunderbuss.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Choosing the Gnomes.

GNOMES Review –

There are a lot of puzzle games out there that, once you work out their particular gimmick, they lose their power to intrigue. Today, we look at a game that changes things up every time you play, using the same building blocks to create vastly different scenarios. Then they took that core gameplay and framed it in a fantasy world that gives you the drive to explore more.

So, to set the scene, a war rages across a fantasy world, across every biome and society, one that has raged for so long that no one knows who started it or why. But they do see that wherever you are, the Goblins are at war against the Gnomes. Goblin war camps traverse the globe looking for Gnome towns to destroy. You have some gold and finite resources to raise a Gnome army to help defend your Garden Shed from destruction.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 – Video Game Review

TL;DR – A stunningly beautiful game full of wonder and bugs

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Review –

Well, 2023 is the year that Dungeons and Dragons [or D&D] continues to build on its growing success brought on by the Critical Role/Stranger Things pandemic boost. After seeing the genuinely remarkable Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that gets better on each re-watch, I was musing that there is one pop-culture realm it seems to be absent in: video games. Back in my day, before my beard went grey, there were classics like Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate, but it has been 23 years since the last game. Has it been worth the wait?

So to set the scene, [insert your character here] was going about their day in the grand city of Baldur’s Gate along the Sword Coast of Faerun when an enormous nautiloid ship appears overhead. It dives across the city, snapping up citizens as they run, teleporting them and you inside into the lair of the Illithids. These tentacle-bearded creatures reproduce by putting one of their parasites behind a victim’s eye and waiting a week or so for them to transform the victim into another Illithid. This is your fate, or at least this is what should have happened. But destiny had different plans as your ship gets attacked by Githyanki flying on the back of dragons. Your ship crashes, and you survive, escaping a painful death. However, your fate may now be linked to the survival of the entire Sword Coast.

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The Wandering Village – Video Game Review

TL;DR – We have a remarkable base with an adorable presentation. It is just missing a hook to make it excel. 

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game; the game was in Early Access when reviewed  

The Onbu

The Wandering Village Review –

There is a growing joke in my friend circle that if you want to get me involved in a game, then it better have some kind of farming mode. This stems from my early years growing up on city builders, and to this day, I am always ready to dive into a video game that presents a new twist on the city-building formula. The last one to do so was Surviving Mars, where you built a colony in space, and today we look at a game where you build a city on, checks notes, the back of a giant tortoise.

So to set the scene, you were part of a people that had lived their lives in peace in a small fertile valley full of wonder, but eventually, the same toxic spore that had collapsed the rest of the society found you and you were forced to flee. It was a perilous journey, and just when all seemed lost, you stumbled across a miracle, the last of its kind, a giant Onbu, woken by those same spores. Now you have to build a village on its back, and hopefully, together, you can survive the calamity.

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Video Game Review – Divinity: Original Sin II

TL;DR – Both brutal and fantastic, it is a return to form for a genre that has not seen a lot of great games recently.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Divinity: Original Sin 2. Image Credit: Larian Studios.

Review –

Back in the day, I use to love Role Playing Games, escaping Taris, becoming the Dovahkiin, finding my favourite shop in the Citadel. However, over the last couple of years, I have found it harder to get into RPGs, into the wonderful worlds that would have ensnared me in the past. I never finished Fallout 4, Witcher 3, or Diablo 3, and I have to admit my love for Mass Effect Andromeda (see review) may have just been a desperate want to be back in that universe. So when I heard Divinity: Original Sin II was out I was hesitant to pick it up given my previous track record, however, I happened to watch Stephanie Bendixsen stream a little bit of it and it looked like a ton of fun. So twenty hours later, I have just left the introduction island of Fort Joy and I thought it would be a good time to put down my first thoughts. Now there may be some [SPOILERS] for the first section of the game, but we only talk about the events up to Driftwood.

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