Bullet Heaven #225 - Velocity 2X (Switch)

Shooting games with another genre blended in? Pretty neat, but what about a game with two totally different play styles that make up ots whole gameplay apporach? Futurlabs' Velocity 2X might hold the answer. How does it stack up?

Missed an episode?
Bullet Heaven 222: Debris Infinity
Bullet Heaven 223: Shikhondo Soul Eater
Bullet Heaven 224: Battle City

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PPR Presents Late to the Party: Kirby Star Allies

ver the years, Nintendo has been privileged with a large stable of iconic franchises, and enduring characters that have gone on to appeal to audiences across the world, both old and young alike. Among those properties is their adorable pink puff-ball hero, Kirby, a character who had a title on nearly every platform from the company since the days of the NES and GameBoy.

After a year on the market, the gluttonous do-gooder is finally making his debut on the Nintendo Switch with Kirby Star Allies, which, in a surprising twist, is an adventure that’s far more traditional with his earlier outings than some of his more recent affairs. Opting more for refinement than innovation, Star Allies may arguably play it a bit too safe to make a splash among the other stellar platformers currently offered on the new console, but the game is still amazing entry in its own right.

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QCF: Snake Pass

n the day and age we live in where gamma lighting adjustments are a standard requirement for the games played today, it please my heart to no end that the waves of titles that we have been treated to in 2017 have been these vividly bright, vibrantly colorful adventures like Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, and Yooka-Laylee.

In keeping that trend of whimsical eye candy going, Sumo Digital has produced a unique experience that stretches the very definition of the platformer genre that it claims to identify under (which in all honestly works to its credit.)

Snake Pass is a mascot venture that empathizes the fundamentals of its invertebrate hero in ways that will challenge the conventional aspects of three-dimensional movement, commanding an entirely different perception of skill needed to progress the various obstacles that it throws at you.

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PPR Presents Play Play: Yooka-Laylee

t was almost twenty years ago that a bear and bird captured the heart of nearly every cartridge-based gamer around—and that reverence for Banjo-Kazooie lives on to this day.

So much so that there’s been a noticeable void in the collectable platformer genre for the current generation that seems to be reserved for anything that’s 8-bit or 16-bit when it comes to retro tributes. Luckily, a group of ex Rare developers saw that gap, and decided to form their studio named Playtonic Games, crowd sourcing interest for a next-generation collectathon titled Yooka-Laylee, and man did that thing make a whole lot of money the moment it hit the internet—people were famished of this kind of adventure.

Well, the wait’s over, the game’s here, and while it might be George’s favorite game of 2017 so far, there are some problems that Ser and him just can’t help but address; here’s our Play Play for Yooka-Laylee.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

PPR Presents Play Play: Ultonius: A Tale of Petty Revenge

here’s a fine line between appreciating nostalgia and what it is to you, and celebrating it with a devotion that holds it to the elevated expectations of modern day standards.

Ultonius: A Tale of Petty Revenge, is that weird game example what happens when you blur that line; making it that hot mess that tries to have its old cake, and eat it too.

Which is what makes it kind of cool and obnoxious all the same time—it’s really weird.

Ser and George mull the game over and the subject of old arcade games as we boot up this action title from Last Dimension on the latest installment of Play Play; enjoy!

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

QCF: Ori & The Blind Forest

he topic of Metroidvania has just about permeated every forum of discussion that Press Pause Radio has to offer, whether it’s the podcast, our videos, or in this case, a review, it’s a subject that we’re not shy about admitting our intimacy with.

In the case of Ori and the Blind Forest however, it’s one of the rare cases in which the emphasis on the convention and design of Metroidvania has been so downplayed to the world that’s being built.

The irony is that the Metroidvania wheelhouse of design is as sparse it can be in Ori and the Blind Forest, almost as if only to serve as a means to an end when it comes to truly conveying the grand sense of scale that enchanted setting is intended to impose.

And truth be told, that’s easily the most charming quality about the game; which is why it’s a shame that everything else about the game is too damn rough to really enjoy.

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QCF: Shantae and The Pirate's Curse

or all of the self-indulgently romanticized tributes to the nostalgic age of platform gaming, the arguably saturation of this new trend sure forgot to bring with it one of the most important components that made this particular era so riveting—the personality.

Sure, the comfortingly familiar sights of the various mascot tropes in motion like vivid colors, or obnoxiously radical attitudes slowly came together like an awesome homecoming , but this wave of passionate tributes are starting to run out on the goodwill of the source material they homage.

Leave it to Way Forward to not only keep that charming blaze of platformer fire alive, but studio’s has labored a great deal of adding a new flare of innovation to the genre with the third entry to their flagship series, Shantae. Pirate’s Curse not only capitalizes on all of the trademark charisma and features that made the franchise what it is today, but it strives on to go a step further to burnish a new layer of polish the likes that would make exceptional present-day contemporaries like Shovel Knight blush.

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PAX PRIME 2014: Play Play Special-Airscape: Fall of Gravity

onestly, there were a ton of games from the Indie Mega Booth that we really enjoyed playing, even if they didn’t make into our covered feature of the exhibit, and one in particular was Airscape: Fall of Gravity.

C’mon you guys, an adorable space squid who defies the laws of physics in order to save all of his equally adorable space fishy friends? Of course we’re going to play it and check it out. Join us, as we stumble in awe of the ingenious take on momentum and inertia, and try to make the best of the journey in our sleep deprived states; it was still a ton of fun though, check it out!

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!