Review: Reach for the Sun

The last few years have seen a surge in ‘simulation’ games lately, ranging from dating to driving. Reach for the Sun is no different, but instead focuses on the delicate process of growing a plant. Remember Farmville? It’s basically Farmville without the micro-transactions and mass timed crow growing.

Each plant varies in size, hardiness and cost of growing new parts.

To be fair, it’s not like Farmville at all; in any way whatsoever. Reach for the Sun starts you off with the humble Sunflower, a little sprout in the ground. When part of the plant glows, you can click on it to collect resources. Roots collect water and a small amount of nutrients while leaves do the elaborate process of photosynthesis and convert CO2 into starch by using a little bit of water in the process. You’ll use these three resources to grow your plant, adding more roots or growing your plant taller with stalks and leaves. Eventually, you’ll grow the resource-heavy flowers and you’ll need to get them pollinated. Once pollinated, you can transform the flower into precious seeds which act as an in-game currency, and you’ll do all this before the cold embrace of winter freezes your plant into an icicle.

Sometimes you’ll have insects which you need to scare off or kill by repeatedly clicking them, blight-stricken leaves need to be pulled off by clicking and dragging and leaves frozen by a sudden cold-snap need to be rubbed warm by clicking and rubbing with the mouse. That’s pretty much all you’ll do; clicking, lots of clicking. Growing your plant is a coordinated clicking affair, and you only have about ten minutes to get your plant fruiting before winter.

Other than the initial synopsis, there’s not much more to this Plant Simulator. There are four plants to grow, each with increasing difficulty. There is a small shop where you can spend your excess seeds on the four ‘upgrades’ which are simple things like more regular watering or fertilizer for additional nutrients. I completed the entire game, achievements and all in a mere 72 minutes and for the $10 price tag, despite the good quality I felt significantly disappointed by the quantity.

The design is pretty and it plays ok. I had repeated issues with my clicks not registering on several occasions, especially when the game got busy late-stage. This was a real pain since the earlier you click on a glowing root of leaf the more resources you get from it.

Overall, it’s a new idea and it plays well enough, but the price tag is too high for such a small amount of content. Otherwise I would recommend Reach for the Sun as a fun casual filler, and who knows, maybe you’ll learn something.

When Surviving is Everything

Just like the undead, the zombie genre doesn’t seem to go away. I’m not complaining, but I would like to see more sandbox zombie apocalypse survival games. We’ve had a few come out in the last few months like State of Decay and Seven Days to Die, but this little corker has popped up on Steam Early Access and I've very much taken a liking too it.

Project Zomboid is an isometric zombie survival sandbox, and an unforgiving one at that. You’ll have to scavenge for food, supplies and stock up on water before the water and electricity go out…for good. Zombies aren’t a pushover either. It could take only one scratch before you join the zombie hoards, and a bite is a sure (un)death sentence. The other enemy is you; keeping yourself fed, hydrated, well slept and trying not to get sick is all on the table. Even preventing yourself from boredom, depression and insanity requires a delicate management of time and resources.

Sneak, Loot and Fight to survive.

Despite all this, the game gives you fantastic sandbox to play in. Although I will admit the towns are a bit bare, the game has invested a lot of time in making everything require strategy. You’ll need to plan how you’ll break into buildings beforehand in case a horde is waiting for you inside. Your food won’t last forever and you’ll need fruit and vegetable crops which require you to plant a garden and keep it watered. You can even go as far as to build your own stronghold with material you loot around the town.

Although it’s still in early development, there is a great deal of customisation for your sandbox ranging from in-game day time from one day per hour to real-time to what kind of zombies you want, shamblers or do you prefer the sprinting undead? There is still much content to be added, including NPCs and story modes, but right now you have a very playable survival sandbox.

You’re walking a very fine line of survival; one slip will usually mean certain death, which makes this game that much more desperate and enjoyable. You can find it on Steam or check out their page.

How Deep does the Basement Go?

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Issac who lived happily with his mother who spent all her time watching religious television programs. One day, while watching her programs, she heard the voice of God (or, most likely having an episode of Schizophrenia, that's what she thought she heard) that told her that her son was evil and had to be punished, so she locked him away in his room, never to come out. The next day she heard the voice again, Issac was still evil, so she took all his toys and left him with an empty room. Issac didn't understand why, but he knew there was something very wrong with his mother. On the third day, his mother heard the voice again, telling her that the only way to cleanse him was to sacrifice him, so she went to the kitchen and took a carving knife. Issac, peeking through the keyhole in his room, saw her coming and panicked, desperately searching for a way out. he discovered a trap door leading to the basement under a rug. Not knowing what was down there in the dark, but more afraid of his mother turning the key in the lock of his door, he jumped down into the darkness.

The Binding of Issac is definitely one of the more disturbing games, but that's what makes it fun to play. Everything is warped and wrong in so many kinds of ways that you can't help but feel an ominous presence hang over you while you guide Issac through the dark depths. Enemies are horrible, disfigured creatures and the dozen or so bosses are some of the most gruesome and horrid creature you'll ever see.

Issac himself is not defenceless; he shoots his tears as projectile weapons while dodging the ranged and melee attacks from enemies. Issac can't defend himself, so you have to avoid getting hit by the blood globs and touching any enemies. There are, however, literally dozens of items that Issac can find throughout the basement; each one gives him a stat boost or a new power entirely. Unfortunately, each one usually represents itself on Issac in some bizarre or gruesome way, and when they start to stack it will transform Issac into an equally disfigured character compared to the rest of the denizens of the basement.

There are also other items that require activation that you'll be able to collect and hang on to until you need them. Issac can carry one type of pill which gives a randomised effect, but they’re not always good. Tarot cards can be found and give a specific effect, but you’ll have to learn for yourself what each one does by using it. Finally, you can carry one useable item that can be used repeatedly but must recharge between rooms. These items are usually the most powerful in the game, but the more powerful it is, the longer it takes to recharge.

The best thing about The Binding of Issac is that each playthrough is completely randomised and you can (usually) complete a playthrough in half an hour, unless you did well enough and manage to get access to Sheol and attempt to defeat Satan himself; good luck with that. I only managed to get that far once and the game completely crushed me like a snail. This game is brutal and unforgiving; only quick fingers, quick thinking and a little bit of luck will get you anywhere near the big final bosses. And there is so much more to do within the game by unlocking special characters, even more items and then there are the special challenges to complete.

The Binding of Issac is completely wrong and disturbing on many, many levels. I won't deny that some may be dubious about its content. I was a bit uncomfortable with some elements myself, but they are never the focus of the game, usually simple items that you are free to ignore. With that said, most of the game makes you feel uncomfortable regardless, even with "Questionable religious content" (Nintendo's response on a possible 3DS version) aside.

With the sheer randomness, the massive content of items, enemies and rooms you’ll find, make playing each time like playing a whole different game

The Binding of Issac: Rebirth is an upcoming re-production of the original game to switch the platform from Flash to a more stable engine that will fix several bug that could not be fixed on the Flash platform. It will also feature co-op support, and add even more items and enemies to the colossal stack. It will be coming to PS4, Vita and Steam sometime in 2014.

Art by Blckwht (http://blckwht.deviantart.com/)

My Cards got more Digital

With the Steam Trading Card Beta still underway and having spent a good few weeks trialling the update, I'm going to give you the Low-down: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

The Low-down

It's always nice to see Steam trying new things, but it's been a little hit and miss. The attempt at social media with the introduction of the activity feed was bit of a flop, but the Community features were well received. Greenlight and Big Picture, in my opinion, were huge steps forward in regards to reaching a different kind of player and developer base. Now Steam has dialled back the progress train with collectable trading cards.

These cards are accrued through playing your favourite games that support the feature. Most games don't even need to update, as the whole process seems to be handled through Steam. As you clock up time playing the game, you have a random chance of receiving a Trading Card (or a rare Foil Card). For Free-to-Play games, you can receive additional card drops each time you spend $9 on in-game purchases (currently only for TF2 and Dota2). The game will drop up to half the set, the rest can be accrued though trade or bought on the Community Market. When you have a full set, you craft them together to receive various items in your inventory and XP, which I'll talk about later.

 
The Good

The whole thing is a novelty, and if you don't care about this sort of thing, you can easily ignore it, or better yet, make some money by selling the cards you earn to those who do care. If you do care, then it's a little something extra for you to do, to pass the time, if you really need to.

In conjunction with the Beta, Steam Profiles have been revamped. Now with unlockable backgrounds, profile features, badges and emoticons, you can earn these bad boys by crafting sets of cards. Each time you do, you earn a profile background, badge and custom emoticon that relates to the game you crafted the cards for. You'll also receive a random Steam coupon, and a Steam discount is always nice. The new Steam profile page is much snazzier, but if you don't like it then too bad, you're stuck with it.

The Bad

Steam now has a Level system, like a RPG. Unlike an RPG, it's mostly useless, and the only benefit you get from gaining Steam levels is the extension of your Steam Friend's List cap. For every level, you may have an additional five friends on your list. For some, this may be a big thing, but I personally don't agree (says the guy with only 51 friends).

Once Trading Cards are out of Beta, I expect the value of cards significantly drop to the point of worthlessness. Foil cards will retain some value, but like Mann Co Storage Crates which now sell for .03c, they will most likely end up as junk in your inventory, and you can't get rid of them so easily.

The Ugly

Steam doesn't do this without a pinching a little money off the side. As with all things on the community market, Steam takes 15% of the sale, 5% for itself and 10% to the game developer. Since selling cards is the best way to get rid of them, Steam is making a nice profit for this. Not particularly a bad thing, but unless you get an awesome coupon, the whole process will cost you money.

The sad thing is you don't actually need to 'play' the game, rather, you can just open it and have it idle in the background. Similar to the whole TF2 debacle (I proudly wear my Cheater's Lament, thankyou), it doesn't promote playing the game, which I believe misses one of the most beneficial points of the whole system. Encouraging players to buy Independent games is one thing, actually playing them however, is just as important.

In conclusion, it's mostly a money making gimmick, but it does provide some degree of novelty. It's a different take on Xbox's Gamer Score system, but I just wish the cards were more than a disposable inventory item. As a lover of various trading card games, I love owning cards as much as I love playing them. Overall, the update has been reasonably well received, but it is still in Beta, so we should see some changes as time goes on.

Watch the Steam Trading Card Group page for more updates.