#53 - LocoCycle

LocoCycle, despite its appearance, is not actually a racing game, but an action/adventure fighting game that happens to take place on the open road.

LocoCycle opens with a live action B-movie cinematic.  We get a few of these cinematic cutscenes throughout the game.  We see important military leaders from China, Russia, Africa, and America, along with a ton of other guests in elegant formal wear, gathering at a secret formal event in Nicaragua.  It's a gallery held by the arms dealer Big Arms, to show off two new motorcycles: the sentient combat bikes S.P.I.K.E. and I.R.I.S., with advanced AI and powerful weaponry.  The bikes will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Yes, that is James Gunn in the background.  He plays the host of this event, showing off the two bikes.  The girl in blue (Lisa Foiles) actually performed the AI voice for I.R.I.S., and S.P.I.K.E. was voiced by Robert Patrick, the guy who played the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

A thunderstorm starts brewing and the party is moved indoors.  Some armed guards are asked to move the bikes to the garage, but while one steps away to take a call, I.R.I.S. is hit by lightning!

We're then introduced to I.R.I.S.' mechanic, Pablo, who is asked to repair her.  Her circuitry is fried and she needs to be fixed up before the auction begins.  Pablo only speaks Spanish throughout the entire game, which makes it impossible for him to communicate with I.R.I.S., whose database of 5,000 languages is now corrupted.  If you don't know Spanish, make sure you turn on subtitles!

While Pablo is fixing her up, I.R.I.S. scans the magazine he was reading, then watches a commercial on the nearby TV about a Freedom Rally being held at the fairgrounds in Scottsburg, Indiana.  She's inspired by the ad's tagline: "Live Free. Ride Alive."

She decides she needs to find this rally in Scottsburg, IN and she invites Pablo to tag along.  Problem is, Pablo's pant leg is caught on I.R.I.S.' rear wheel frame.  When she takes off, he finds himself dragged along!

The rest of the game is I.R.I.S. racing to find Scottsburg, IN while dragging Pablo on the pavement behind her.  That trip is over 3,000 miles long!  I hope Pablo is wearing some durable britches.

I.R.I.S. breaks out of the Big Arms facility and is quickly pursued by men in black suits and heavy firearms.

You'll quickly notice that I.R.I.S. drives on her own, and you only control her other functions. You can steer her back and forth, attack with front or rear wheels (Pablo himself usually being the rear-wheel attack), shoot unlimited rounds from her forward guns, and boost forward for a limited time.

Despite occasionally aiding I.R.I.S. in combat, Pablo insists that he's being dragged along against his will.  He begs for help from anyone who comes after them, but is mostly ignored as they do everything they can to take down I.R.I.S.

There are several types of enemies you'll encounter.  The armed men in black being the most prevalent, but there are also guys with jet packs, helicopters, and even rocket launchers.  I.R.I.S. can counter all their attacks with quick-time events, including throwing rockets back at their launcher.

S.P.I.K.E. himself will come for I.R.I.S., but she refuses to go home with him.  So he resolves to take her out and you get a boss fight with him.

When S.P.I.K.E. realizes that Pablo is a "powerful human ally" in I.R.I.S.' escape, he decides to get his own human companion.  He grabs the first lady he finds at a campground, who willingly goes along with him despite being dragged on her back for miles of gravel and pavement.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I.R.I.S. is just holding onto Pablo; he's not actually stuck.  Because she can throw him like a ninja star to attack ranged enemies!  He always boomerangs back to her and ends up with his pant leg "stuck" on her again.

Because I.R.I.S. is technically malfunctioning, there are times when she might shut down completely and stop in the middle of the road.  Then Pablo has a limited amount of time to fix her up before a pursuing semi truck catches up and runs them both over.

It's a little tricky moving Pablo around until he finds problems to fix, but the various fixes themselves are relatively easy to complete.

This is an extremely campy and silly game, but very fun to play!  Combat is mostly button-mashing and swerving around obstacles on the road, with some quick-time events to either counter an attack or dodge an obstacle.  There are three skill trees to improve I.R.I.S. and Pablo's abilities, and the more stuff you unlock, the easier the game becomes.  The whole game is 5 levels with 3 missions per level, plus a final boss fight level.  You could probably beat the whole thing in a few hours of gameplay.

Here's a shot of S.P.I.K.E. eating a sweet corn and black raspberry buttermilk ice cream cone:

#47 - Cult of the Lamb

Cult of the Lamb is a cute game about building, maintaining, and running a cult in order to overthrow the four Bishops controlling the Old Faith.  But is there such a thing as a good cult...?

You play as The Lamb, about to be put to death by the four Bishops.  They've eliminated all of your kind to prevent a prophecy of "The One Who Waits" returning.  With your sacrifice, the prophecy will be impossible to fulfill.

As soon as the blade lands, you wake up in a strange land, in front of The One Who Waits.  He's imprisoned by four chains.  He says that the Bishops, in trying to keep you from him, ended up sending you directly to him.  He claims that he will grant you life again if you would start a cult in his name.  Your choice is either "yes" or "absolutely."  No middle ground option, I see.

He gives you his Red Crown, which revives you and grants you the power to command the loyalty of your followers and strike fear into the hearts of your enemies.  You awaken at the sacrificial grounds, renewed with life, and fight your way out, taking out some of the Bishop's cultists along the way.

On your way out, you run into Ratau, a former vessel of The One Who Waits.  He was instructed to help you with starting your cult.  He will pop in and give you advice and guidance from time to time.

He also instructs you to save a poor soul about to be sacrificed.  The grateful sacrifice will be your very first convert.

From here, you learn how to build your own cult grounds.  It takes some work!  You can't just leave your cult members to their own devices; you need to check in on them, provide food and shelter, task them with jobs, and overall just ensure they're happy and loyal so they continue to praise and worship you.

The more loyalty they have, the more power you build and the larger you can build your cult.  Placing a shrine in the middle of your cult grounds will give your followers a place to pray and grant devotion, a sort of currency that you can use to upgrade various aspects of your cult.

You will also need to build a temple in order to give sermons, enriching your followers and also collecting more devotion from them.

Cultists can be tasked with collecting resources, which are needed to build up your cult grounds.  But you also need money and more followers, both of which can be obtained by fighting your way through the lands of the Old Faith.

You ultimately need to end the lives of the four Bishops in order to release your imprisoned leader, so working your way through each of their lands is your overall goal.  But it takes time to build up a cult and gain power, so you will slowly work your way up to each Bishop.  As you gain more followers, each of the four lands will open up so you can travel through them for resources, money, followers, and power.

Good luck in building a faithful following!  And remember:

#25 - Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors is a top-down survival game where you essentially just try to stay alive as long as possible while endless waves of monsters come at you from all sides.

Your weapons and abilities are all automatic; you just need to worry about moving around the map and staying alive.  Some of your abilities only fire in the direction you're facing, while others target the nearest enemy, and still others just randomly fire off and hit anything in their path.

Extra strong enemies will drop treasure chests when they die, which will give you gold and a random ability to enhance your character.

As you gain XP and level up from killing monsters, you'll get an option to pick your next ability. Choose wisely; you're given three random abilities and you can only choose one. Make sure you pick something that will help you survive long enough to level up again.

You fight until you're eventually overwhelmed. Then you pick a new character (or the same character if you like) and start over again. The more gold you earn, the more core stats you can boost from the main menu, which will give you a starting advantage in your next playthrough.

There's a timer on the top of the screen that shows how long you're surviving. If you start to do really well, you'll unlock more levels to play. And honestly... that's pretty much it. It's just a fun game to see how long you can overcome insane odds against hordes of monsters. Pretty simple, yet rather addicting. A great way to pass the time.

#17 - Costume Quest

Kids can be mean, huh? But adults can be just as awful sometimes. Here’s the conversation at the first house you go trick-or-treating at:

I decided to change things up a bit for my Halloween screenshot postings. I’ve been posting too much horror and gore lately; it’s time for some childish Halloween fun! And what better way than a video game that’s all about trick-or-treating?

Costume Quest is about two new kids on the block - twin siblings - who are going out trick-or-treating for the first time in their new neighborhood.

At the beginning, you get to choose which of the two siblings to play as: the boy Reynold or the girl Wren. Of course, with my affinity for playing strong feminine characters, I went with Wren.

Your first trick-or-treat door went poorly, as seen above. Afraid to be seen with your embarrassment of a sibling, you let your twin go alone to the next door, where they encounter a monster hunting for candy! And it just so happens, your sibling is wearing a candy corn costume!

Your sibling is abducted and thrown over a gate into an ominous land and you find yourself forced to collect Halloween candy in order to open the gates and pursue your sibling.

Along the way, you find an ally in another new kid who’s being bullied. With your combined costumes, you collect candy and fight more monsters you encounter in houses. You can exchange costumes for various abilities, and you can find resources in the neighborhood that let you build new and unique costumes, for more unique abilities that will help you on your quest.

The fights against monsters transform into giant kaiju-like battles, where your costumes provide you with special attacks. The fights are turn-based with quick time events to successfully land a blow.

This was a fun game about trying to rescue your sibling so they don’t ruin Halloween for you. This game is a Halloween tradition for me; I always like to re-play this game every October. I personally enjoy it because it feels nostalgic to me. It takes me back to my childhood days of trick-or-treating in suburban neighborhoods. I lived out in the forested countryside, so I had to be driven into town by my parents to go trick-or-treating.

I always looked way older than I actually was, so the last 3 years I went out, people always asked if I was too old to be trick-or-treating. Halloween was my favorite holiday, so it was sad that I had to give up trick-or-treating a little early, just because I looked much older. We need to normalize trick-or-treating for adults!

Ahem.

There is also a sequel to this game called Costume Quest 2, where trick-or-treating is outlawed in the near future by dentists. You and your sibling go on time-traveling adventures to stop this horrible dark future from happening.