Backlog Buck Club

Buck Club Review | Biolab Wars

By Patrick DiPersio / November 25, 2019

Pulling on your action-platformer heart strings is just what Biolab Wars is hoping to do! But is it worth its weight in dollar bills? The Nostalgia Buck Browsing the dollar deals and deep discounts on the Nintendo eShop and Steam store can sometimes be like trying to find a toy...

- Buck Club Review | Yet Another Zombie Defense HD
  November 14, 2019Buck Club Review / ReviewHow many bucks is too many? Find out with our first edition of the Buck Club Review where we take a look at the sub dollar zombie mayhem machine, Yet Another Zombie Defense HD! Bucked Up Backlog! Down at The Backlog Odyssey headquarters (a.k.a. our house) we’re always working tirelessly to bring nothing but mint content to the masses. It’s honestly a coin toss when reconciling what our two cents is worth to people. But we’re always in for a penny, in for a pound when it comes to playing games and giving our honest and unbiased opinion and we take pride in that. Our most recent idea involves finding games that are currently selling for a dollar or less, and seeing if there are any overlooked diamonds in the rough. We put up a poll, stream the winning budget title, and then crunch the numbers to see whether we think the game is a cash cow or dough disaster! The plan is to judge each game based on four categories and each category will be worth a score out of 25 points. So, top score possible is 100…get it? 25 points = 1 quarter. Four quarters add up to a dollar…clever right? You’re dang right it is! We are gonna milk this dollar theme for all its worth baby! You’ve been warned! This time on The Backlog Buck Club we took a look at Yet Another Zombie Defense HD for the Switch. And after putting our money where our mouth is, here’s what we thought. At a glance, the graphics didn’t seem overly impressive. You start out with a pretty typical title screen populated by awkwardly shambling zombies and that overused bloody font that every zombie game and their zombie dog seems to use. The devs certainly didn’t pull any punches when keeping with their “already been done” motif either. Though, the title of the game kinda says it all, I guess! To start, you have four generic characters to choose from. All aptly named after their role – The Guy, The Girl, The Swat, and The Doc. None of them have any advantage over the other if that wasn’t apparent from their generic names, meaning they’re basically just your avatar, so choose at will. The enemies on the other hand, are where this game graphically shines though. The sheer variety of enemies that will come at you is impressive, let alone the fact that each one has its own mannerisms and methods for busting up your barricades and taking you down. It was really fun getting to see what crazy new enemy would pop up next, the more nights you survived! Even if the enemy animations could be a little awkward at times. However, believe me… you’ll only really notice once you’re dead and have the time to watch your teammate getting pummeled. Then there’s the music, which is nothing to write home about. There are no catchy tunes that will get stuck in your head, but there was nothing inherently wrong with it either. It all suited the various gameplay moments just fine and honestly, you don’t hear much of it over the rapport of all the gunfire and zombie grunting anyway. YAZD plays much like any twin stick, top down shooter. So, nothing special there. The aiming and movement can seem a little stiff at times and no amount of character upgrades will deal with it unfortunately. There are lots of weapons to choose from, both basic and outlandish. Some are worth the zombie dollars and some are a bit disappointing. Let me say this though…buy the chainsaw immediately! It’s basically useless once you get into the harder levels, but in the beginning when you need to hoard all the cash you can…the chainsaw is where it’s at! No reloading means no bullets to buy… pro tip from me to you right there! The various things you can buy to defend your area each night are a little on the unimpressive side though. Which includes lots of different spike walls and mines and that’s pretty much it. Turrets can be useful, but you’ll have to drop 6000 hard earned zombie dollars to acquire it AND buy a gun to put on top! Come on!!! There are three game modes to choose from: Defense, Endless, and Deathmatch. Playing Defense was fun and is the core of the game, but honestly, we had more fun in the endless mode where weapon drops are randomized and hordes of zombies swarm you non-stop. A big downside worth mentioning is that if you are playing local co-op then only player 1 can build fortifications and buy guns and ammo, which was kind of a bummer. I don’t know if that changes for online co-op where teammates aren’t sharing a screen but it made the game feel a bit one sided. On that note, this game has solid replayability. Mostly because there isn’t any story and you start from the beginning every time anyway. And if you can get some friends together the fun is exponentially increased. There are built in achievements that will bring you back for more if you have any completionist blood running through your veins. We unlocked a bunch of them during our brief playthroughs and I can definitely see us coming back to clean the rest of them up sometime. At $0.99 we enjoyed YAZD immensely! The price point really lets you overlook any jank or shortcomings you encounter. And I think that will be the case for most of the games we review for the Buck Club. A dollar isn’t much of a risk or a loss should the game end up being terrible. This game was by no means terrible though, so high marks in this category! YAZD is definitely worth the dollar as I just mentioned. It is a fun little time sink that you can play by yourself or with friends. The mechanics, though a bit janky at times, don’t particularly hinder gameplay enough to make it frustrating or unplayable. I think the more you play the more impressed by everything you become. That being said, it’s not a game that was meant to be played for hours on end. It gets tedious pretty quickly. When it’s not on sale for a dollar though YAZD goes for around $4.99 in the Nintendo eShop. Which still isn’t a bad price. And after having played the game, I can say that I wouldn’t feel any buyer’s remorse about dropping the five bucks and the full price would have been more than worth it. The trailer shows you exactly what you have to look forward to and there was no real disappointment to be had once we finally got the chance to play it. Now, to be fair, these are just our opinions and experiences and as with anything there’s always the possibility that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The best part about The Backlog Buck Club is that a dollar is all you have to lose! Give the game a try and let us know what you think! Yet Another Zombie Defense HD (Nintendo Switch) List Price: $4.99 Sale Price: $0.99 Graphics/Music 13 / 25¢ Gameplay/Replayability 19 / 25¢ Sale Price Worth 22 / 25¢ List Price Worth 15 / 25¢ Overall Rating: 69 / 100¢ Cost to Enjoyment: 64 / 100¢ Find it on the Nintendo eShop! Support us through the power of coffee! Or by becoming a Patron! Become a Patron! The Backlog Odyssey is a proud member of the Humble Bundle Partner program! Support charity and The Backlog Odyssey all while building your backlog! Learn more about Humble Bundle Partners here. Humble Monthly Humble Store Humble Sonic Bundle 2019...
- Backlog Buck Club
  November 7, 2019Backlog Buck ClubRich or poor, any game collector will tell you that it is an expensive hobby! Go ahead…right now…go have a look at all the games you own and attach a price to each one as you go. It’s ok, I’ll wait. . . . . . All done? That number is kinda shocking isn’t it? Even for a small collection of games it can get pretty pricey, pretty fast! Especially if you want to keep abreast with all those new titles being pumped out every single day. Well here at The Backlog Odyssey, we feel your pain believe me. We are called the Backlog Odyssey for a reason after all! So, recently, we put our heads together in one of our epic brainstorming sessions over coffee and Halloween candy in an attempt to think of a fresh idea for a stream that wouldn’t break the bank. And from this tête-à-tête The Backlog Buck Club was born! We rifled through all the digital content and sales available to us and chose four games that cost one dollar or less. We’ll have you all help us choose one to play, then we’ll stream it and put out a short review. The goal is to find super cheap games that just about anyone can afford that are still really fun to play! See the beauty in this idea comes from the fact that a lot of games that are down in the dollar range are not very good…at all. But there are definitely some gems that get overlooked! And between the Switch and Steam at least, the frequency of 80-90% off sales means you’re really able to get some fantastic titles for super cheap. Games that otherwise you may not have wanted to pull the trigger on at $10 but will definitely give a go at $0.99 or less! So, this time around we chose our bargain games from the Switch, for no real reason other then we both have a Switch and could peruse the eshop at our own leisure. Or to put it another way, I get motion sick watching Patrick blow through the titles when he looks, and he gets bored and frustrated watching me. So, in the interest of marital bliss, and me not barfing everywhere, we each used our own device for searching. These are the games we reached a consensus on: Yet Another Zombie Defense Game HD Made by Awesome Games, with a regular price of $4.99, this game is not really a wallet buster to begin with, but we chose this one because it looks like the type of game we would play together anyway. I know, I know, it’s a real softball choice, but with such a low price point, how does this zombie infested, top-down shooter defense game stand up against the big hitters like Dead Nation or Riddled Corpses? Bulb Boy Made by Bulbware, with a regular price of $8.99, Bulb Boy might seem like another softball choice given it’s a point and click horror game. Who doesn’t love those? But I will say despite the eye-catching neon glow this game exudes, I was wary of the graphics and how they would interfere with gameplay. It’s one thing to be a 3D character walking around in a dark area where you can closely examine your surroundings, it’s a whole other can of worms to have to move around a pointer during an action sequence, trying to find the proper place to click. But let’s find out, shall we? **UPDATE (11-7-2019)** It looks like the sale for Bulb Boy will be ending today and in some situations the Nintendo eShop is already listing it at the regular price. Toby: The Secret Mine Headup games released this little diddy over a year ago at a whopping $11.99! This game, I’m not gonna lie here, looks like a straight up rip-off of Limbo, but with the additions of some colorful puzzle aspects, an adorable cat-like character and the fact that the game’s name corresponds with one of our personal favorite felines…We were willing to overlook the clear “inspiration” similarities. Sparkle 3 Genesis Developed by Forever Entertainment, with an original price of $4.99, this entry looks like it’s one of those games that could put you right to sleep. Now that could mean it’s boring as ole heck or that it’s just a feel good, relaxing experience. The unique microscopic aesthetics are what earned this game its place among this list, mostly because it reminded me of the very beginning part of Spore which was super fun but always seemed too short. Well, here’s a whole game based around it! Will it be too much of a good thing though? So those are the choices we have lined up for this newfangled idea we dubbed The Backlog Buck Club! Make sure to vote on our Twitter poll and let us know which game you’d be interested in seeing us stream! Support us through the power of coffee! Or by becoming a Patron! Become a Patron! The Backlog Odyssey is a proud member of the Humble Bundle Partner program! Support charity and The Backlog Odyssey all while building your backlog! Learn more about Humble Bundle Partners here. Humble Monthly Humble Store Humble Sonic Bundle 2019...

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