Sinister Night

Developer: zstar
Initial Release Date: June 8, 2022
Genres: Multiplayer, Social Deduction
Platform: Steam, Microsoft Windows

Sinister Night is a game that makes you form bonds, distrust your friends, and develop a thirst for murder. This is Phasmo meets Among us, but with much better detailing. The plot is simple, five or eight streamers go to a haunted school for clout, and one to two of them, depending on the game mode, get possessed and decide to murder their friends. This is the first game release I can find from zstar who both developed and published this game.

Sinister Night is a social deduction game at its finest; you are given clues through ritual results, as well as tools that you can pick up or buy from the store. These items include night vision cameras, tracking orbs, and a bird that cheeps when near someone who is possessed. There is also lore hidden around the map in the form of diaries. These can be sold for in-game currency to purchase items.

When playing for the first time, the game gives you control hints that help you start the game straight away. That is a bonus for players like me that launch straight into a game head first.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of the game, and the occasional jump scares. Survivors have a sanity meter that, when depleted, shows you to the possessed for an easier kill. This means you need to not only perform the rituals but maintain your sanity. Running will also deplete your sanity, so choosing when to run is as important as keeping your sanity up.

The possessed are not only trying to sabotage rituals but to gain enough evil power through crystals and other items. There are different types of spirits with different powers. I personally got to play as a shapeshifter with absolutely zero success. You'll see... Once the possessed have enough evil energy, they can transform and kill another player. When this is triggered the game shifts entirely,  all the survivors can do is run and hide, hoping for it to time out without a death.

Once the timer is over, if someone is killed, the game directs you to find the body and hold a meeting. In these meetings, the dead get a public vote to accuse someone else and are allowed 30 seconds to give as much information as possible before being placed into spectator mode. This can really change the whole direction of the game and got me murdered a couple times.

I would be remiss to not discuss the issues that some of us have had with the game. There is a lack of servers within North America and Europe. Asia luckily, does not seem to have this problem. Being in Europe, I've played the game for over three days and have encountered this issue. I did not face the issue many complained about of getting kicked out of Asian servers, but this is a repeated complaint. Some have also complained about people creating locked servers. There is an option to create a passcode to join, and whilst I can understand player frustration, as a streamer, I know that this can actually be key for moderation when individuals play on their own branded platform.

This issue was much more prevalent before the devs responded to the complaints by adding a five-person mode. Originally it was eight players only to start a game, but the developer added a second mode to allow five players, with only one possessed. Developer zstar is not only very responsive to criticism but is always submitting new updates and changes based on player feedback. zstar has also created a discord server for those looking to find matches in their own country and language.

As I said earlier, I played this game on 3 occasions to not only get a real feel of Sinister Night, but also to investigate the server complaints. On day one, I played on an Asian server of eight players. I was tied up first due to my own fault, but I did not feel as though I was targeted or attempted to be unincluded even if I couldn't speak with them during the discussion. On the second day, I again played on Asian servers, not managing to survive but again of my own fault. I found a game with some chaps from the Netherlands and had a lot of fun in a five-person game, even adding them on steam to play more games in the future. On day three, I met a fellow content creator whose group not only welcomed me into their discord chat but treated me as everyone else in the group. We played quite a few games together even though there was clearly a skill discrepancy.

I think the community I've met during my time with Sinister Night has been great, and whilst I understand the frustration with servers, I think once you get into a game, you can easily get involved and make friends.

I know the reviews have been mixed, but honestly, I enjoy this game a lot, and it is likely something I will continue to play. At £7.14/$9.99 I think the price for the replayability is on the higher end, but due to the number of updates, it is worth it. I want desperately to give this an 8.8, but due to the lack of players, I need to give it an 8/10 because I can get a game, and I thoroughly enjoy my time when I do. There is occasionally a bit of waiting to get a game. The developers have been improving this constantly, making me wish more people were playing. If there was a cross over free to play mobile version this could top not only Phasmo but also Among Us.

Apex Legends Mobile

 

Apex Legends Mobile released May 17, 2022, for iOS and Android is a first/third person shooter in the battle royal genre. Developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. The game follows the same format as its big budget counterpart that has been released on multiple consoles and PC.  The difference? It's on a touch screen.

Even though the game feels familiar, especially if you sync a controller up to your phone to make it easier to play. There are still some major flaws with this version. Apex Legends Mobile  isn't optimized very well, when you get into later matches (ones without or less bots) you can tell a noticeable difference in the performance and lag. The popups for each event, battle pass, or deals gets tiresome. On the plus side the main menu is less cluttered than other games in the same genre, sadly that probably won't last as the game is still a fresh release.

I feel as though Respawn is late to the party with this game. All of the other big name battle royals have mobile versions and most have been out way longer. PubG Mobile dropped in 2018, Call of Duty in 2019, and even though it was pulled from both Google play and iOS store's Fortnite also came to mobile before Apex.

At the time of writing there are 11 playable characters (Loba not pictured) with one exclusive to mobile, Fade. Nine of the characters at launch are obtainable by playing the game, Fade is obtainable by reaching level 28 of the season one battle pass. Otherwise, they can be purchased with the in-game currency. Most other transactions are cosmetic or upgrading the battle pass just like it's console/PC counterpart.

As far as how I feel about the game, overall Apex Legends Mobile plays well, for the most part. It feels like Apex, but I felt like I had an advantage by using my controller. I ended up with a 17 KDA after playing for a solid two weeks. That is unheard of from me, ask anyone who has played a battle royale with me. The genre is played out and I think that the late release of this game may end up hurting it in the long run. I want to rate it low just because I'm sick of all the battle royals, but it's Apex. One of the best BR's that has been made. It's paved the way for mechanics in other BRs, even when some of them came before. So I'm going to give the game a 7. It's better than other BRs I've played and if they can get the lag optimization under control it'll be a solid game to play just like it's console counterpart.

Listen to our full episode on your favorite podcasting app or on our YouTube channel.

Rocket League Sideswipe

 

Rocket League Sideswipe developed and published by Psyonix on November 29, 2021 available on Andriod and iOS. Rocket League Sideswipe is a R/C car sports game that mimics concepts from multiple ball based sports games including soccer (EU football), basketball, volleyball and tennis, depending on the game mode. Based off the original Rocket League concept where you drive your R/C car to dribble and bump the ball into the opponent's goal, and use rocket boosters on the back of the car to propel yourself though the air while balancing the ball to accomplish scoring points. Unlike the original game which was 3D, Rocket League Sideswipe is a 2D side view of the field with only the ability to go side to side and up and down on the play field. 

Despite the differences in game play Rocket League Sideswipe stays true to the original concept. The game feels similar enough for anyone transitioning from PC or console will not have a hard time adapting; especially if they are already a master of the original's mechanics. This version is far easier to control and I felt that even my small brain was able to comprehend enough that I didn't feel dwarfed in skill to other players.

At the time of our review there was no paywall for the game. Cosmetics were all earned through playing and the store's in-game-currency could only be gained from actually playing. We struggled to understand why there were no in game transactions. We concluded that Rocket League Sideswipe is a gateway to Rocket League proper, perhaps targeting those who haven't played before. 

Overall the game is well polished, with various styles of game play. They do rotate game modes to include different variations to keep things fresh. When we started playing Rocket League Sideswipe included in the standard 1v1 and 2v2 modes, as well as a basketball variation. However, halfway through our playtime with the game the basketball mode switched to volleyball. It was fun to play though after we completed our review of the game. I wasn't really drawn back into the game like I was for the original Rocket League. Because of that I give Rocket League Sideswipe an 8.5.

Listen to our episode on our YouTube channel or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Among Us - Review

 

Developer: Innersloth

Other Titles: Dig 2 China, The Henry Stickmin Collection

Genre: online multiplayer social deduction

Release Date: June 15, 2018

Platforms: iOS, Android, PC

There are popular games and then there is Among Us.  Innersloth's massively-insanely-popular mobile game has taken the online world by storm and it doesn't show any signs of letting up any time soon.  

Gameplay

Among Us is relatively simple; you're an astronaut guy on some space-station thing charged with doing tasks to fulfill whatever mission that has been laid out, however while doing said tasks there is an IMPOSTER among you (get it?) who is going around killing crewmates one by one.  It's up to the collective group to figure out who 'dun it' and vote to "float" who they believe is the imposter into space.  Sounds morbid, but a space dude's gotta do what a space dude's gotta do.  That's the long and short of it.  The tasks are simple (think of little match mini-games or raising a lever or sucking up trash in a vacuum), they're not meant to stump you, merely preoccupy you until you either get killed or complete all of the tasks before the imposter kills everyone.  

The game is obviously designed to be played on either your phone or tablet from the comfort of wherever you have an internet connection (couch, car, toilet), however there is a disadvantage to playing on mobile and it's when you're playing with a group that is playing on a computer.  You see, in the game when you suspect another player of being the imposter or you come across a dead body, you report it or call a meeting and then you get allotted time to convene and talk it over with the rest of the crew (other players).  This is where deduction and partnerships come in, you can either try to persuade the group to vote in a misleading direction (say if you were the imposter) or you can use your uncanny questioning abilities to try to figure out who among you (get it?) is the imposter.  Those playing on mobile are at the disadvantage because it uses valuable time to type things out on a phone/tablet, whereas those playing on a computer have a full-fledged keyboard and it doesn't take much time at all to type out a short sentence or word.  It may not seem like much, but those precious seconds matter when you're trying to convince the group not to kill you.  Granted, players have become so good at this game that it's likely not a disadvantage at all to seasoned vets of the game, but to newbies it could get tricky.  

Playing the game is fun in its own right, however I believe it's best played as a party game.  You create your own lobby and then get an invite code and then you can invite nine other players to join you in game.  You have the freedom to pick the map, the speed of the game, how far each character can see at any given time, and most importantly, how many imposters there are.  I had the most fun with the game while playing with my 11 year old daughter (who is significantly better at the game than I) and together we invited her other friends and collectively played for over an hour just our group.  I could see this game becoming a party staple, even in person.  

The game is comparatively more simple and easier to digest than another Budget Arcade reviewed social deduction game, Town of Salem.  

Paywall

While the mobile version of Among Us is free, the PC version of the game is not.  You'll have to spend a cool $5 to play on your computer and as far as in-game purchases go, they are for cosmetic purposes only.  You can spend real dollars to customize your characters color, wear a cool looking hat or have a little mini-me running around with you.  It's another reason why this game has become so popular and likely won't be going anywhere anytime soon.  Gamers love free and they don't like developers charging money to gain a competitive advantage over  other gamers.  An even playing field at all times goes miles.  

Replayability

Sky high.  You can play by yourself with a bunch of randos or you can host your own party and play with a bunch of friends.  You can play for five minutes or five hours.  Simply up to you.  I will say that game can get repetitive and, dare I say...boring?  If you're playing with friends I doubt it's boring, but it can trend that way after a couple of games which is why it's no big deal to close the app and go about your day and then reboot it when you're ready to accuse someone of being "sus" once again.  

Seal of Approval? 

While the game does get repetitive and can grow stale after a while, there are more than enough people playing this game at any given time to keep the wait times in lobbies short and you the gamer entertained for however long you want it.  The fact that it doesn't cost anything to get good at the game just adds to its allure.  This is a game that will live on your device for a long time.  It gets the coveted Budget Arcade Seal of Approval.     

Asphalt 9 (Switch)

By Elliot

A few words before we actually talk about the game. I do not play racing games. I will play kart games, heck I’ll 100% a Mario Kart game, unlock every character, kart, glider. I’m all in. The racing genre in general just never appealed to me. I did enjoy Burnout back in the day, mostly for the crash into things mode, whatever that was actually called.

That being said, playing a racing game for a week and then reviewing it was already not high on my list. Going in I knew it would be an uphill battle to find enjoyment out of this game, and getting my seal would require Jedi like precision in controls to pass. Anyway, let’s get started.

You would think with a title like Asphalt 9 this could easily be thought of as the 9th entry into a series, and who would blame you for making such a foolish mistake? This is the 16th title in Asphalt, and it spans 21 platforms. Wanna guess the first platform it was on? I had almost forgotten that the N-Gage was a thing until I saw that Asphalt got its start on that platform. If you have no idea what the N-Gage is, do yourself a favor and give it a Google, you won’t be let down. The series started in 2004, I was a junior in high school, and the first time I heard about the series was when Scott let us know it would be the next game for us to review.

One of the ways I can tell that I’m getting old is when I turn on a game for the first time, and there is too much happening on the screen. That was easily the case with Asphalt 9, the moment you turn it on you are bombarded with all kinds of things, none of which make much sense; and then, without warning, you are just thrown into your first race.

I did find the tutorial to be simple and straightforward. Controls are easy to understand, however the game does feel like you are playing one of those old arcade racers, but for all the bad reasons. I felt like I was sliding on ice most of the time, except when I was trying to drift, then it felt like I was rubbing my arms with sandpaper, unpleasant at best. I don’t know if I feel this way because I don’t play a lot of racing games, or the controls for the vehicle just aren’t great. I will say the touch controls that you can use during the menus though are amazing, perhaps the best use of touch controls for menus on the Switch to date. I know that sounds like a joke, and I’m sure there is one to make here, but I am not joking, they are very well done, take note developers, they did something right!

There are five modes to play in Asphalt 9, you start with the basic “My Career” having this game out on mobile before it hit the Switch was actually beneficial to Switch users. There is a lot of content to go through in just the career mode. There are five different chapters, each one has its own cup with anywhere between 5-15 races in each cup. This would take more time than I could get through in a week alone, not to mention the other modes.




Modes unlock as you play through the career.multiplayer, daily events, split screen and quick race all unlock as you play. The funny thing here is split-screen and quick race are the only games you can play while offline, everything else requires an internet connection to work, a big downside in my eyes.

Some races are super short, some are a bit longer. I feel the further you get into each season, the longer races will get. This was something I did not care for. You never really know the length of the race, so when the objective is to win, you do not know how much further to go before you’re done with the race. With that comes another critique, if you mess up once, it's game over for you during that race. It is very hard to overcome one or two simple mistakes in a race and still win. Every Time you do race you expend one of your “gas slots” and you either have to pay with currency to fill back up, or wait until the timer let’s you know you’re good to race with that car again.

The graphic though are fantastic, even in handheld mode, I think the game does look very pretty. Does suck up the battery juice real fast, so if you are going handheld prepare for that.

Overall game play is pretty good, if not great.

Have I mentioned how much I love the touch screen controls? Seriously phenomenal.

The main problem is the exploitative nature of this game. The stamina style system, and “premium currency” crap that takes away from the fun game play. There is also a very fast mountain to climb in order to stay competitive in races, the longer you stick with Asphalt 9 the longer the grind becomes. All of that alone would cause me to not give this my seal, but you throw in the need to be always online to enjoy most of this game is just the icing on the cake. Because of all those reasons this is not getting my seal of approval. Maybe think about adding shells to the game play next time?

You can listen to our episode on Asphalt 9 on Anchor, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Elliot is a part of the weekly Budget Arcade podcast. Find him on Twitter at @Elliot_Argues You can also find his other podcasts; Tessa and Elliot Argue, and Wall Pull where you find podcasts.

Asphault 9 (Mobile)

-Overview

Asphalt 9: Legends is a racing video game developed by Gameloft Barcelona and published by Gameloft. Released on July 25, 2018, it is the ninth main installment in the Asphalt series. In comparison to previous entries, there are several new and improved features, such as a prestigious car lineup, new control schemes, including the autopilot mode called Touch Drive, and race modes, and the reimplemented "shockwave nitro" from Asphalt 6: Adrenaline. The graphics are also considered significantly improved compared to its 2013 predecessor, Asphalt 8: Airborne.

Unlike the switch version there is only four different play modes Special Events, Daily Events, Multi-player and Career. Also all modes require an internet connection unlike the two switch modes that did not. The main difference is also the controls. Touchdrive is the default on mobile, and to be honest is quite easy compared to using the switch controller. Your driving decisions are limited to do I swipe to the left to pick up this bottle of nitro or do I swipe right to hit this ramp? You can also activate your nito boost or hit the "drift button" during turns. With this simplistic approach you don't have to be good at driving games to come out on top of the race. Just have your car upgraded and get enough boosts and you win every time. I cleared parts of the career so much faster than on console. There is a way to turn off the Touchdrive and then you control the car via turning your phone like you would a steering wheel (I did not try that). After playing on mobile with the touchdrive I decided to go back to the switch and try it out. It's exactly the same and allowed me to pass levels that I was having trouble with. Unfortunately that wasn't covered in our episode.

-Paywall

The mobile version has the exact same paywall as the switch but with one minor change. There's the ability to watch ads to get "packs" as well. up to 3 per 24 hours. This makes leveling your cars even faster than the switch.

There isn't too much difference between the two versions and has about the same replayablity value. It is to be noted that the mobile version is about 8 months ahead of the switch version with updates. So items that are available on mobile are not yet on the switch.

-Scott

Call of Duty Mobile

By Elliot

It was during my sophomore year of college that the Xbox 360 really started to take off. The original Xbox was still around, but most of my circle of friends had moved on from the previous generation of consoles to the 360 era. I don’t know how it was for you, but for me and those around me we all had an Xbox 360. Playstation just didn’t grab our eyes. Games like Halo had come in and changed how I played games. Halo parties, where we would take 4 Xboxes and link them together to play 16 player matches of Halo quickly became a normal Friday night. It was magical, groundbreaking, and an excuse to spend all of Friday night at a friend’s house.

Then Halo 2 and with it Xbox Live. If you were around during that time, I don’t need to tell you how game changing that was. If you weren’t, just look around you now. Online gaming is what it is today because of Xbox Live and games like Halo 2. Gone were the Friday nights at a friends house. Here to stay were the long nights, next to the blue glow of a screen with a headset on, talking about how garbage the person on the other end of the microphone was; and what you wanted to do to their mom.

Online games got better too, and quickly. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was one of those games. Just about everyone had that 4th Call of Duty game. My roommate and I would find ourselves coming home from class in the evening, logging into our school’s internet. On campus we were able to play with anyone else that had a 360. Hours upon hours would be spent playing Modern Warfare with other people who lived on campus.

Then came games like World at War, Modern Warfare 2 (the best in the series), and Black Ops. Each one bigger, and arguably, better than the last. And like anything, when you release a new version of the same thing year after year, you get diminishing returns. Unless your Apple, people will still buy the same phone every year, whole sucker being born everyday with that one, I guess.

It’s to the point now where most people don’t even bat an eye at the new Fall release of Call of Duty. I haven’t really noticed them the past few years. There are quite a few shooter games out these days, the most popular ones seem to be battle royales. I’ve moved on from my college days, and with that my love of the shooter has dwindled, and Call of Duty is no longer on my gaming radar.

That was until this year, and a new free to play version, Call of Duty Mobile (COD Mobile) has been released. Releasing on October 1st of 2019, 24 days before the actual “big” release of this year’s main game, a remake/reboot/rehash of Modern Warfare; it’s here to tide you over till then. And to be honest, I’m kinda sold on it.

I don’t think shooters work well on mobile phones. I even have a hard time with shooters and controllers. Once you make that switch to PC it’s hard to argue that shooters can be better on anything else. Disagree? I don’t care, your opinion is invalid, because I am not capable of rational thought. Is anyone even reading this? Let me know.

Booting up the game was pretty simple, and much like other games of this nature you are immediately greeted with a login screen, please connect to social media before playing, so we can spam posts into your feed in an attempt to trick your friends into playing as well. Also, agree to our terms of service, it’s legit, and I’m sure they’re not collecting data to sell to other companies…

After all of that you go right into a training mode. I was playing on an Iphone 8, so not the biggest screen, I found the type to be a little small, maybe it’s my age, but I just kept pushing the button the game highlighted, trying to get through the tutorial. I know I’m poo pooing on it but the tutorial really was simple, and effective. One of the things I do like about this game is how they handle the controls. You can be basic, which is what I went with, after all I am basic. This mode does the shooting for you when you have someone in your cross-hairs, you use the left half of the screen to move your character forward/backward, the right half to move the cross-hair, almost like having two analog sticks. It doesn’t matter where you put your finger on the screen, as long as it’s on that half of the screen, it will work. And, it works well. I would play more mobile shooters if this was the method they used.

Like most of these types of games, it is filled to the brim with micro transactions, loot boxes, and battle passes. I COD Mobile has this in spades, no exception here. I don’t know what I can say that would be new to add to this discussion. Not a big fan, I get games need to make a profit to justify their existence. It’s here, it’s pretty standard, in your face, constant barrage as you are just trying to play. No one really likes it, I’ve said enough.

There is a battle royale (BR) mode here as well. I did not play the last Call of Duty, Black Ops 4, but I know there was a BR mode to that as well, and it was well received for the most part. The one on Mobile requires you to reach level 7 in order to partake, makes sense, learn a little about the game before you actually go in. Level 7 took almost no time at all to get to. I found the battle royal not as fun as the normal run and gun death match. The BR took too long, and it really seemed as though I was always playing against the computer.

At least on initial release I found that I was playing against the computer more often than against actual people. It was very noticeable when I was playing against people vs the computer, I usually lose when playing against other people, I’m a terrible old man. My team would clean house when we were playing against the computer, and it took away from my fun, I could care less about being able to beat some bad AI.

You can add you friends, and there are clans that you can enjoy. Playing with your friends isn’t hard to do, and does add to the enjoyment. The voice chat isn’t great, but for a mobile phone game it is better than some other options. Thankfully there were not a pile of nasty teenage boys screaming, the only time I heard people talk was when I was playing with friends.

Like most mobile games, ads are everywhere. Every time you log back into the game you are bombarded, and of course the buy button is three times the size of the close button. I found it bothersome, but not surprising. I could easily see how a child, or manchild could click the buy button by accident. User beware.

Overall for mobile first person shooters this is the best one I’ve tried. But let’s not forget that this is a FPS on a mobile phone. This just isn’t a genre that belongs on a phone. If you must, then have at it, but I would rather spend my time on other games.

You can listen to our episode on Call of Duty Mobile on Anchor, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Elliot is a part of the weekly Budget Arcade podcast. Find him on Twitter at @Elliot_Argues You can also find his other podcasts; Tessa and Elliot Argue, and Wall Pull where you find podcasts.