Title: Interwebs troll simulator 
Developer: Michael Patrick Rogers
Format: PC
Genre: Simulator  
Resolution: Highest possible
Release date: 2014-08-25
Difficulty: Normal 
Spent time: Way to many hours
Average grade internationally: ????
PEGI age rating: 16+
Price: $1 via the homepage

I can honestly say that people who troll others are wrong, but if you must troll someone you should at least be good at it right? Of course you should-- which is why interwebz Troll simulator is the perfect medium to practice on. It's not necessarily a conventional game, as opposed to a simple flash based im aesthetically based mini game.

As you "play" the Troll simulator, you can type anything you wish into the messaging bar, to respond to the various trolls that come your way from 50 different users. The game trolls itself, but what makes it fun is that you can interact with over 10 Twitter links, and other social media links.


The hate is strong with this one.

Michael Patrick Rogers, the creative mind behind Interwebz Troll simulator spoke on the game itself.

“I decided to make the game a troll itself, but about important issues and more of a political satire, like the political cartoons that they used to have in the newspaper when I was growing up.”

- Michael Patrick Rogers

One of the most interesting aspects of the game is choosing your troll class, in which you have 4 choices:
- Ignorant
- Fatass
- Know it all
- Annoying

Once you choose your class, the simulator starts and you’re basically able to start troll indefinitely, unless you run the amount, and the responses wrap themselves. It’s nostalgic of playing an old flash based game on your computer from Newgrounds.com, or Kongregate.com, but none the less it’s interesting and very satisfying.

Overall I give Interwebz Troll Simulator a high appraisal, however I won’t say to spend all day on it or you’ll begin to grow hair through your ears and fingers and have an affinity for annoying people.

Pros:
+ Interwebz Troll Simulator Is simplistic and very fun with its grungy and dirty thoughts. You’re able to practice your trolling just in case you end up having to fight one online or in person.

Cons:
-  It’s a Trolling simulator, so you don’t have a chance to really practice against someone who’s live. There’s no real way to master being a troll either so the best you get is 50 random responses to contend with.

Gameplay:  5/5
Graphics:  3/5
Sound and music:  5/5
Controls:  5/5
Replay value: 5/5

Verdict: 5/5‏

/Kenay Peterson
The Gaming Ground

Title: The Golf Club
Developer: HB Studios
Format: PS4,PC,XOne
Genre: Sport
Release Date: 2014-19-08
Difficulty: Normal
Spent Time: 4+ Hours
Average grade internationally: 80% via Gamerankings.com
Pegi Age rating: 12+
Price: £28 via Steam


Fore!

With Tiger Woods off EA’s roster for 2014, there is space in the market for a new golf game, enter the HB Studios developed Golf Club.

A stripped back, true-to-life title, Golf Club is about just one thing – and no surprises for guessing what – golf. There are no gimmicks, no power-ups or arcadey attributes to earn. There are no mini-games, no shot trajectory preview, nor the ability to change the spin of the ball mid-flight. There isn’t even a catalogue of professional golfers to choose from.

Sound dull? Well, it’s not. Or at least not totally. Golf Club might lack a number of features we have come to expect from EA’s leading golf series, but it makes up for it with something else impressive, a massively expansive course creator.

With a lack of officially licensed courses, Golf Club is what you – and the wider Golf Club community – make of it. Building our own course was simple and allowed us as much or as little freedom as we wanted. 

There are a number of themes to the course creator, from an alpine and desert settings to rural and links layouts, and once selected, this base could quickly be manipulated to be as hilly and foliage filled or bereft as desired.


Avoid shooting the ball into the forest. Or else you will end up with a really bad handicap.

These quick selections create the randomised base for your course and its 18 holes. Not like the layout, no worries, we were quickly able to alter the course as desired. Within a matter of minutes we were able to add bunkers, camber, water hazards and narrow the fairway down in points to add a bit more of a challenge to the course.

With the ability to jump in and out of the course creator to test the custom course at will, it is easy to sample what you’re making and adjust the layout and hazards accordingly.

In terms of gameplay, Golf Club's focus is solely on perfecting the mechanic of the game. There's no way of levelling up your player's abilities and there are no purchaseable clubs with which to improve your range or accuracy either.

Therefore, Golf Club is not the most forgiving of games. Early use saw us pull and shank the ball in all directions. Half an hour with controller in hand and there is a satisfying learning curve to the game. We by no means perfected the swing but were having far more success than we were at the start.

This difficulty and ever growing range of playable courses should keep what is relatively basic and repetitive gameplay enjoyable for a longer period. Although offering a sense of achievement in striking a good ball, this semi-serious nature will likely deter some of the more casual gamers drawn into the better known Tiger Woods series. 

Ultimately this is a game for true golfing enthusiasts.

Gameplay: 3/5
Graphics: 5/5
Sound and music: 3/5
Controls: 2/5
Replay value: 3/5

Verdict: 3.5/5

/Christian Coggin
The Gaming Ground

 
Title: Pure Pool
Developer: VooFoo Studios
Format: PS4,PC,XOne
Genre: Billiard
Release Date: 2014-31-07
Difficulty: Normal
Spent Time: 4+ Hours
Average grade internationally: 65% via Gamerankings.com
Pegi Age rating: 12+
Price: £8 via Steam


Balls of steel? Nope, Pure Pool balls.

Pure Pool is a plain and simple pool sim offering up US 8-Ball and 9-Ball game modes in their purest form. You either pick a side (spots or stripes) and clear the table before potting the black 8 ball, or you work sequentially through numbered balls until the 9 ball is the last to go (or pot it legally earlier in the game) to win.

I’m hoping that most of you know how pool works well enough that I don’t have to go in to the rules, but if you don’t then the game is very good an pointing out when you’ve made a mistake and telling you what to do next.

There are a number of options to plump for from the practice table – I like that touch that you’re always able to have a knock about as the default menu setting – which include single games, career mode, challenges, as well as online play.

Career is where I’ve spent most of my time, gradually working through tournaments against steadily harder opponents whilst perfecting my skills. Be in no doubt, there is a fair amount of skill needed here despite there being an aiming line that’s good for about half the table length. Anyone can sink a pot, but getting the cue ball into position afterwards is a prized artform.

Throughout the career there are various different challenges to distract you from the stock games, like Checkpoint – start with a timer to clear the set number of balls and each pot adds time; Perfect Potter – clear the requisite number of balls without missing a pot; or Royal Rumble – clear the table in the time limit, but new balls are added randomly at intervals.


Keep an close eye on the balls. And don´t mess up. Pro-tip nr 1 and 2.

Each is designed to enhance and build your techniques whilst gently moving you on. There’s never a point where you play and think the challenge can’t be done, if anything the challenge difficulty doesn’t ramp up quickly enough at times, and that’s not a bad thing. Everything seems designed so that you play at your own pace and to your own skill level: if a challenge is proving too tricky to master then skip it and play something else instead, or practice and keep plugging away.

Loading is at an absolute minimum so there’s encouragement to replay with no penalties. The video below showcases a couple of the modes and the transition from oneto another (nothing is edited down).

There’s the option to setup a league and pit your friends against each other, though in this option it appears you can only do it with live opponents. Not a drawback, but it would have been nice to see a DNA version to compliment it, particularly as you can enter the league screens and start a game with no one else online, meaning sitting and waiting with no action happening until you quit.

Not that there isn’t anything to look at… You can tell by the screenshots that this is a gorgeous looking game that runs silky smooth at nearly all times, there’s only a touch of slowdown in a slow motion shot of the cue striking the ball when you’re taking your final shot of the game – otherwise it’s all gravy.

Tables can be customised with different colours and logos, so you can personlise the game to a degree. The background ambience is good and clean, and because your focus is always on the game at hand it’s great that there are no distractions.

If anything you’re drawn more into the zone because there’s nothing else demanding your attention. This philosophy of keeping it simple flows through into the controls which are left stick aim, right stick cue and strike, with a couple of buttons used for spin control and fine aiming.

Gameplay: 4/5
Graphics: 5/5
Sound and music: 3.5/5
Controls: 4/5
Replay value: 4/5

Verdict: 4/5

/Christian Coggin
The Gaming Ground

Title: Warfare Nation
Developer: VOLV LLC
Format: iOS
Genre: Strategy 
Release Date: 2014-05-29
Difficulty: Depending on area, relatively easy.
Spent Time: 3+ Hours
Average grade internationally: 50% via Gamerankings.com
Pegi Age rating: 3+
Price: Free


General Chaos vibes anyone?

Trench warfare, especially the iconic conflict along the Western Front, was one of the defining characteristics of World War I. Both sides, deeply entrenched in muddy gutters, dying in droves to artillery shelling and poison gas in a grim and bloody war of attrition for the sake of gaining a few more precious inches of dirt than their opponents.

While Warfare Nations‘ setting may be obviously inspired by World War II’s battlefronts and technology, the futility of progress seems much more reminiscent of The Great War. One step forward, two steps back. Two steps forward, one step back. It’s a war of inches and constant, grinding attrition.

Visually, Warfare Nations takes design cues from series like Metal Slug or Advance Wars, with squat, almost cutely stylized units. The gameplay, on the other hand, is neither as ‘run-and-gun’ as the former nor as tactical as the latter.

Here the player’s assembled armies move from left to right, encountering barbed wire, gun emplacements, and enemy units on their march to destroy the opposing base. Doing so captures the location on the world map, granting a periodic payout of either gold or iron.

Where the frustrating futility comes is that these captured enemy locations get reclaimed in relatively short order. For example, one night before bed I had just finished capturing every location on the map, save for the final enemy base.


For mother Russia!

I put the iPad away and slipped off into dreams of reaping the abundant rewards of gold and iron and the great siege to follow that awaited me the next morning. So many upgrades were in my future! But upon awakening, all but one or two of my captured bases had been reclaimed, leaving me with only the paltry sum generated by the scraps that remained.

And while the mission rewards are decent enough, every victory comes at the heavy cost of a lot of manpower and there is barely enough surplus to begin funding the expensive unit and building upgrades needed to keep pace with the enemy once reinforcements are purchased.

Also, sampling the game’s PVP regularly matched me against opponents who grossly out-leveled and stomped me into the ground. I’d much rather be told no match in my range can be found rather than be somebody’s punching bag.

Gameplay: 3/5
Graphics: 3/5
Sound and music: 4/5
Controls: 5/5
Replay value: 2/5

Verdict: 4/5

/Christian Coggin
The Gaming Ground