Banter: Subnautica, survive in an underwater world

Subnautica, developed by Unknown Worlds Entertainment, is an adventure survival game on a completely aquatic planet. I’ve played a ton of survival games, but never one quite like this. While playing this game, I found myself completely immersed in the exhilarating gameplay and futuristic visuals.

PREMISE

The main goal in Subnautica is to survive on the planet you crash landed on and eventually find a way off of it. While on this planet you are able to explore the unknown depths, build huge bases, discover old abandoned bases and even tame a few aquatic creatures.

GAMEPLAY

Subnautica uses pretty simple and easy-to-learn survival mechanics. Basically, if you have food and water you’ll be completely fine. One of the the most enjoyable aspects of the game is building your own base. The bases have a futuristic yet surprisingly homey feel that I really enjoy. Another aspect of the game I love is exploring the large underwater map. There are tons of new systems and exotic biomes to be found, and you really feel like an explorer every time you stumble upon one.

VISUALS

Subnautica plunges you into a whole new world right off the bat with a well designed intro cinematic and it really showcases how awesome the visuals will be for the rest of the game. The underwater plant life is vibrant and Avatar-esque, and the creatures are extremely unique and otherworldly.

Overall, I’d give Subnautica five hammers out of five. This underwater masterpiece might be the most unique survival game I’ve seen in awhile.

Banter: The Long Dark – Wintermute, an intense and immersive survival journey

Developed and published by Hinterland Studio, The Long Dark is a super immersive and difficult survival game. I personally enjoy any type of survival game, so I found The Long Dark to be quite a treat. What stood out most about it, in particular, were its unique story woven into the survival aspect, the deeply immersive gameplay, and the stunning visuals which contributed greatly to the survival mood of the game.

 The story for The Long Dark is episodic, which means they will be releasing more parts, or episodes, in the future. This review is covering the first episode.

STORY

The Long Dark has perhaps the best story I’ve seen in a survival game. In a nutshell, you are a bush pilot who just crashed in a bizarre blizzard and now you must survive and find your missing passenger. The game combines a complex narrative with survival mechanics seamlessly, where normally survival games will focus too heavily on one or the other.

GAMEPLAY

This game is extremely difficult, and that’s a good thing. You have to keep a close eye on your hunger, thirst, temperature, and exhaustion. If any of those gauges drop all the way, you will be punished with a corresponding affliction. For example, if your temperature drops all the way, you will eventually get hypothermia and slowly die. Also, you have to be on a lookout for wolves at all times because they can mess you up. I really enjoyed how intricate the gameplay is. Any mistake you make could be your last, and if you’re playing a survival game would you want it any other way?

VISUALS

I always love to see unique visuals. The Long Dark has all the charm of Firewatch, but on a completely different side of the spectrum. Instead of warm and comforting colors, this game utilizes cold and gloomy colors with occasional splashes of vibrant color. One moment you’re suffocating in a blizzard surrounded by nothing but white; the next, you are staring up at the northern lights with a warm torch in your hand. Good visuals are pretty to look at, great visuals take you to a different world. The Long Dark definitely achieves the latter.

Overall, I’d give the first episode of The Long Dark  5 hammers out of 5. You should definitely check this game out if you want to try a whole new survival experience.

Banter: Firewatch, the best story I’ve ever seen

I’m late to the party, I know. Firewatch was released in 2016 and was developed by Campo Santo. I wish I picked this game up earlier. This first-person mystery adventure game is a wonderful experience. The compelling story is complimented by the interesting gameplay and amazing visuals.

STORY

As you know, I don’t like to spoil the game’s story so I’ll try to contain myself. The story for Firewatch was one of the best written game stories I have ever seen. The first ten minutes of the game puts you straight into the shoes of Henry, the character you play as. Basically, Henry’s wife is suffering from early onset alzheimer’s and he wants to escape his problems by becoming a fire lookout in Wyoming for a summer, where he is stuck in the middle of a few mysterious events.

GAMEPLAY

A lot of walking and talking, in a good way. As a lookout, you aren’t alone. So, you go through this game chatting with the other lookout with a walkie talkie. The dialogue is set up with choices, so each conversation is sort of controlled by you. The more you talk, the more you learn about the story.

VISUALS

This game shows that graphics don’t have to be realistic to be beautiful. The visuals were so unique and that’s what made me love them so much. Once you finish the game you unlock a free roam of the map and I could probably spend hours in it just looking at the visuals.

Firewatch blew me away with the captivating story, immersive gameplay, and uniquely beautiful visuals.It definitely deserves the first 5 out of 5 Hammers.

Banter: Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, an artistic adventure.

Developed by, The Chinese Room and SCE Santa Monica Studio, this game is an artistic journey from the beginning to the end. Standing firm on it’s beautiful soundtrack, breath-taking visuals and heart-capturing story, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is much more than a boring walking simulator.

STORY

Without going too deep into it, the storyline blew me away and had me creating my own ideas of what the answers to the open-ended clues throughout the game were. Everyone has vanished mysteriously and you are the only one left in a small community. The story follows a few different people up until they are taken out of the world by an unknown source. The entire story is told through glowing balls of light, radios, and phones. It truly makes you feel like you are alone.

SOUNDTRACK

Holy moley…. Jessica Curry, the composer of the soundtrack, is an absolute genius. I could have played this game blindfolded and still would have been immersed into a whole new world. Each song was perfect for every moment and would often give me goosebumps.

VISUALS

I could not pull my eyes away from these gorgeous visuals. Every part of the game is beautiful, from the cloud-filled sky to the starlit paths. They did an amazing job with immersing you into a small little village in the middle of nowhere.

Overall, I’d give Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture a solid 4 hammers out of 5. Check this game out if you enjoy interactive stories and artistic adventures.

Banter: Observer, A Cyberpunk Masterpiece

Bloober, the creators behind Layers of Fear, is back with an extremely unique cyberpunk horror game. The game is set in 2084 Poland and you play as Daniel Lazarski, a cyborg detective. In the game, you interrogate people by hacking into their memories and looking for clues throughout their brain. Observer soars visually, and is a lot of fun to play, despite some drawbacks.

GAMEPLAY

Naturally, as a cyborg detective, you have some pretty cool abilities. The ability that basically keeps the game going is the Dream Eater, which lets you hack people’s memories. You also have two super helpful visions. Electromagnetic Vision scans for electronic devices and Bio Vision scans for biological evidence. These abilities really set the feeling of being a detective.

STORY

The storyline of Observer is perhaps its weakest point. It was very cryptic throughout the game until the very end, when everything came together—which isn’t a bad thing. Where I found fault was in the game’s two different endings. It’s difficult to critique such things without completely spoiling the game, so I will simply say I think the storyline could’ve benefitted from a better ending.

VISUALS

Simply put, they are amazing. They got the cyberpunk look and feel spot on. I found myself stopping and admiring the visuals while playing. The design of every sequence and environment was very well thought out. The game is worth the buy for the visuals alone.

Overall, I’d give Observer a solid 4 hammers out of 5. If you love horror games, I highly recommend that you pick this up for yourself.

The Origin Of Ironside

It all started in the stifling summer heat of a Las Vegas garage.

An avid gamer named Robert built his first computer, and was immediately hooked. Soon, requests from friends and family for handmade gaming systems started rolling in, and following shortly after, requests from strangers in places like California, New York, and Australia. The only missing piece was a name, and in Robert’s living room one afternoon, Ironside was born. If you ask him why, he’ll tell you it’s because he thought it had a nice ring.

You might say things are notably different now from our origins in that Las Vegas garage. Though Ironside has since moved to a much larger facility, added many new faces to the team, and traded the lights of Vegas for the dynamic tech scene of Austin, Texas, our spirit remains the same: we build gaming systems because we love gaming. It’s at the core of every computer we build, every decision we come to, and every tweet we make.

Moving forward, we are committed to maintaining the passion we have for the gaming systems we create. Our philosophy is that anyone can do something well, but passion is what truly inspires excellence. We take pride in the meticulousness our team demonstrates on a daily basis, and that pride makes it easy for us to firmly stand behind our products. That’s why we offer one of the best warranties, and have one of the best in-house customer support teams in the industry.

Today, we’re incredibly proud of the gaming computers we’ve created, sitting in the living rooms, offices, and bedrooms of gamers and creators all over the world. We’ve been privileged to sponsor hundreds of talented and hilarious gamers, and to host hundreds of giveaways for the gaming community, who have given us the ability to do what we love every single day. We’re pretty tightly knit around here, and we consider all of our customers, sponsorees, and supporters part of our team. We’d love to have you on Team Ironside too!