Tag Archives: Swedish Video Games

RV There Yet? – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – While the vibes might not be for everyone, I had a blast playing this with friends as we worked out the perilous path our RV had to negotiate.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the PC version of the game that was used for the review.

The RV.

RV There Yet? Review Introduction –

Every year, there seems to be a video game genre that bursts out of nowhere and dominates the discourse. In 2025, I would say that one of the best candidates for that would be the Co-op Survival Challenge, where you and your friends have to work together to surmount a challenge while the world is trying to kill you. Working together to climb a mountain, or today’s game, going on a pleasant drive in the back country with a group of friends.

So, to set the scene, after a week of you and your friends boondocking around in Mabutts Valley, it is time for you and your friends to get into your RV and drive home. But, oh no, the road to the 65 interstate has been closed after a tunnel cave-in. This means, to get home, you and your friends will have to take the long way around, which goes deeper into the forest, and where the road becomes more and more perilous with each turn. The only way you can get home is if you work together as a team, oh, and not get mauled by a bear in the process.

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PEAK – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – An enjoyable single-player experience that comes alive with a group.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

Looking down to the shore from the PEAK.

Peak Review –

One of the events I find fascinating is Game Jams. These are where developers set themselves a short period, usually a day or two, to see what they can build in that time. Here, time forces you to be creative and many weird and wonderful games, from Goat Simulator to Thomas Was Alone and everything in between, have been spawned. Usually, game jams spawn ideas that later become something grand. Still, I have never seen a game conceptualised in February and then released in June before, which is what we will examine today.

So, to set the scene, you are just a happy little guy going on a flight to a new tropical destination on Bingbong Airlines. But disaster strikes, and your plane crashes into an unknown tropical island. What do you do? Well, Scoutmaster Myers’ Wilderness Handbook Vol. 1 advises in How Not to Die, to run, not walk, and “You’ve gotta get to High Ground”. Looking around, you see a high peak in the distance, so it is time to collect supplies, gird your lions, and start climbing.

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Payday 3 – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – A sequel that looks stunning and full of quality-of-life improvements that unfortunately ends up feeling like a hollow shell of what came before.  

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

The gang.

Payday 3 Review –

If you check my most played games on Steam, you will discover that Payday 2 is in my top 5. Me and my friends played every aspect of the game, being able to stealth that first bank on the hardest difficulty as a warmup for the session. There were these moments of joy when we summited Everest in that damned politician’s office overlooking Capitol Hill. There were attempts to make Payday 3 multiple times over the years, but when it finally dropped, I got the gang back together for a heist or two.         

So to set the scene, your long, enjoyable retirement has been ripped out from underneath you as a mysterious force simultaneously targets you and all your old heisters in a targeted hit. Thankfully, Slade (Kosha Engler) saw it coming and was able to reach out and save Dallas (Simon Kerr), Chains (Damion Poitier), Hoxton (Pete Gold), Joy (Siu-see Hung), Pearl (Rebecca LaChance), and Wolf (Nicklas Berglund). All of their supplies have been lost, and their bank accounts have been frozen. But to survive, they need to start getting money and supplies, so it is time to start looting a new city and saying hello to New York.

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Planet of Lana – Video Game Review

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TL;DR – A stunningly beautiful game that pulls at the heartstrings as it reveals the world one puzzle at a time.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Game Pass service that viewed this game.

Alien mothership in the distance

Planet of Lana Review –

One of the things that you are always looking for when you boot up a new game is to experience something that pulls on your emotions. Does it build upon strong mechanics and art design to bring a world alive? Today we are looking at a game that does just that as it charms and uplifts you.

So to set the scene, on a planet off somewhere in the galaxy, we meet Lana (Bianca Zoe Mantelli), who lives in a small but friendly fishing village on the coast of a giant sea. Running through the town with her big sister Elo (Rossmary Petruzzelli), they climb up the nearby hillside to visit a place of sadness and to reflect on their bond. But when they get there, they see objects falling from the sky, and soon grand machines capture Elo and take her up into the sky. The village is in ruins by the time Lana can get back, everyone has been taken, but nothing will stop Lana from trying to save her family, where she meets a little animal friend who may be the hope of her salvation.

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Video Game Review – Minecraft Nether Update

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TL;DR – It brings life to a forgotten world, giving it a personality, a new direction. It also changes one of the games longest static features for the better.                  

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Minecraft Nether Update. Image Credit: Mojang.

Article –

Last year I took a look back at my time with Minecraft over the previous ten years. In many ways, whether I intended it or not, it was epitaph to my time with the game. Well, that may have been the intent, but reality had a way of changing that because COVID happened and I needed a way to connect with people in isolation and well what’s Realm between close friends. Since diving back into the game, we have our first significant update since the BEEESSSsss, so I wanted to explore as see how it changes the game for better or worse … it is the first one.    

For those who have not played it, Minecraft is a Survival-Sandbox game; there is no traditional narrative to pull you through the game, bar the one you make for yourself. You mine for resources, and then you craft new items that give you access to new resources to mine and thus the circle continues from wood to stone to diamond and now even further. In a regular unmodded game of survival, there are three levels to the game, the Overworld the main world you spawn in, The End with its dragons and its pastel aesthetic, pastels everywhere, and finally The Nether, which is what we are focusing on today.

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Video Game Review – Stellaris: Ancient Relics

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TL;DR – A fantastic addition to the base game that really improves the exploration phase.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Stellaris: Ancient Relics. Image Credit: Paradox Interactive.

Review –
 Last year I got back into Stellaris a 4X space strategy game, a combination that feels like a video game designed just for me. Over the years it has had a lot of improvements building upon the strengths of the base game. Since then there have been a couple of expansion packs and DLCs and today we are looking the latest addition for the game Ancient Relics.

The core component of this new story pack is the addition of archaeological digs and from this the addition of minor and major artifacts. As you explore out at the start of the game you may stumble across archaeological digs on random planets. These require a science ship to work them much like anomalies but with a little twist. There is a random element in the process where you have a chance to improve until you crack the next level. Most of the digs have multiple levels that you have to progress to before you can complete it and earn research points, resources, or more.

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Video Game Review – Stellaris

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TL;DR – Stepping into the storied world of 4x, Stellaris takes us into space and taps into that love of exploration among the stars … or just conquering everything you see, with deep systems that give you the kind of customisation that you need in a empire building game.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Stellaris. Image Credit: Paradox Interactive

 

 

Review –

Strategy games are my jam, I love building up an empire, mining all the minerals, spawning all the Overlords, launching all the nukes. As well as this, I am a huge sci-fi fan, so when you add a strategy game, to a space setting like Sins of a Solar Empire, Birth of the Federation, or Space Empires 3, well then you are on to a winner. However, while I had picked up Stellaris back when it first came out it didn’t quite gel with me but recently I took another shot at it with the Utopia and Distant Stars DLC and found that ‘one more turn’ grove. So now that I have played a couple of games of it, including some multiplayer, I have a better idea of the game and feel confident in my review.

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