Octodad Dadliest Catch

Octodad DC is an octopus simulator (kind of) by darkhorse studios. In Octodad you play as an octopus who has successfully disguised himself as a human (by wearing a suit and tie) who goes through tasks that would be easy for any human to complete but very difficult for an octopus (or most invertebrates) to complete all while trying to make it look convincing  for his family and the general public.

Octodad first made its way into the world as a free downloadable game that a group of students made for a project, in the game you controlled octodad as he went from room to room completing tasks for his daughter, son and wife and at the end a chef with a weird accent (it sounds French and German at the same time) who can see through your disguise forces you to climb a ladder (a very difficult task for the octopus father) as the climactic finish of the student project.

Finally out of school the same group of students formed darkhorse studio and developed Octodad Dadliest Catch as the sequel to the original the game had the same controls where the mouse controls the legs and with a simple press of the space key changes the controls to one of octodads tentacled arms. the game was very much the same but improves on every aspect that the original had, with more levels, better graphics and user created content allowed. The game has multiple stages that take you from your house to an aquarium and even one level that shows the back story of how octodad acquired his suit (In every level there are 3 ties hidden throughout that you can use to accessorize octodad)

Octodad Dadliest Catch is a great but short indie game by a great group of developers that i dont think is worth the 15 dollar asking price but if you are patient enough can grab it for only 5 dollars on some game website sales.

Hotline Miami Review

Hotline Miami is a game by Devolver digital games is a top down shooter/brawler game that takes place in Miami during the 80's. The game was received very well by gamers and critics alike calling it the best "fuck-em-up" game released in the past few years. However many non gamers voiced their concerns about the extremely violent and bloody manner that the game purveyed.

I personally love the gameplay of hotline miami its extremely easy to pickup and play while still being hard to master and very unforgiving, one hit from an enemy and you are down and need to restart the stage from the beginning forcing the player to through trial and error choreograph the perfect murder rampage. The game is played using the wasd keys to move around shift to move your view around space to finish off a downed enemy and the mouse to attack, interact and lock on to enemies. As you progress you unlock more and more masks each giving the player a certain perk like faster walking or more powerful weapons. The weapons vary in the game from beer bottles to assault rifles, each weapon being useful for different situations (a hammer is better suited to be swung than a knife which can be thrown) Guns are always the most effective option but pose the threat of giving away your position (this can also be useful for luring certain enemies out of their regular positions)

You play as an unnamed protagonist (called jacket by fans because of the Letterman jacket he wears) who after meeting with three strangers wearing animal masks each discussing what he will do in the following days wakes up to find a message saying that a box of cookies was delivered to him, upon opening the package jacket finds a rooster mask and instructions to go to a specified address and retrieve a briefcase. Upon arriving at the address jacket murders everyone and takes the briefcase to the specified drop zone. The game plays out similarly throughout the rest of the story you receive jobs from an unknown caller and proceed to the address to carry out the murder occasionally getting visits from the three strangers in the mask.

There is not much more I can say without ruining the plot but the game is definitely one of my favorites, It has an interesting art style and game play mechanics amazing plot and surreal 80's synth style music that all melds together to form an extremely addicting game that's simple enough to just pickup and play for a few minutes or hunker down and play for hours trying to get the perfect score on a level.

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat

Stalker Call of Pripyat is the most recent of the Stalker series which is about a future where the Chernobyl meltdown turned the area into a highly dangerous zone filled with viscous mutated creatures and supernatural anomalies. Many people referred to as stalkers flock there to hunt for precious materials and pre-meltdown artifacts. In Call of Pripyat you play as Major Alexander Degtyarev  a former stalker who goes to Chernobyl under the disguise of being a stalker again to investigate why five helicopters crashed for unknown reasons near Pripyat.

The game is an open world first person shooter which really emphasizes the open world potential you can go wherever whenever but if you aren't well equipped or experienced enough you can easily find yourself staring at more than a few game over screens while an anomaly floats along (concentrations of energy that doesn't follow the laws of physics space and time) or bandits run to your corpse to loot it. But better gear can be acquired in a multitude of ways, by either doing jobs for locals and being rewarded for good work OR killing said locals so you can just take their gear. (this method is not recommended if you ever wanted backup on a job) After a bit of this you can finally venture out and investigate the first crash site safely and begin your adventure.

The Stalker series is not for those looking for a casual experience this game will make you its b***h, you will die time after time after time again until you've practically become a Russian devgru operative. I'd highly recommend this game for a great game with hours of playability and even more of replayability as you can go through again and again with different tactics loadouts and missions all of which actually have effects on the world and the story.