World Boss (PC) Review

World Boss was a F2P First-Person Shooter Game by Playside (the developers of the isometric action game ‘Kill Knight’, the Warcraft 3 and Battle for Middle Earth inspired RTS game ‘Age of Darkness’ and the upcoming FPS ‘Mouse PI for Hire’). The game first released in October 2022 in Early Access, before officially launching in June 2023 and has now shutdown in late March 2026.

World Boss had a unique concept. Every match was a 14 player free-for-all experience, in which the most dominant player became the World Boss. That player had more health and shield than the rest and had to defend himself against all the other players. Those players had one goal, to hunt down the World Boss and hopefully become him.

At launch there were no additional goals or alternative gamemodes. This was a bit of a problem. Once players become World Boss, they quickly lost the motivation to play, since there wasn’t anything to do besides defending the title. Matches in World Boss had no real ending and were just constantly going on till the players quit from boredom. This also meant that matches could be pretty unbalanced. Players could level up constantly during the matches and unlock up to 25 different perks. Somebody entering a new match was therefore always at a disadvantage in the beginning against those players who had already unlocked a bunch of Perks for more health, stronger weapons or better movement abilities.

I also have to point out, that perks might have been a cool idea and allowed you a great variety of different setups, since you could choose between 4 random perks at every level up in a match. Matches however were way too hectic to properly choose perks during them. I never had time to even attempt to actually read the descriptions for them while I was already shot again from other players. I often found myself with 3-5 different level ups and only a handful of seconds to chose them. A cool concept, but not a great execution.

It took the developers nearly a year after launch till they actually gave players a real endgoal besides just being the World Boss. If you killed enough players as a World Boss, you got the chance to contaminate parts of the map via nuclear containers, while all other players had to stop the World Boss from doing so. If the World Boss succeeded, the matches would now actually end instead of just going on forever. While previously a lot of players just ignored the World Boss due to his superior stats, they now had an incentive to actually team up against him, which mad it far from easy for the World Boss to win.

This was actually an improvement, but I am afraid it came too late. At this point the playerbase had already shrunk to a daily player peak of around 100 and didn’t manage to ever recover. A big reason for this was also the bad launch state of World Boss. Most players experienced performance issues and frequent game crashes. Those crashes were even more annoying since they only patched in reconnect options with the endgoal update. Not many players had the patience to try to become World Boss, if frequent crashes could immediately wipe all progress.

Let’s also take a short moment to talk about the actual Gameplay of World Boss. I think it can be best described as decent. I heard some people even comparing it to Mobile Games (probably also because of the cartoonish visuals). I certainly wouldn’t go that far, but it’s safe to say, that World Boss was no AAA Game. I liked the fast pace, but I don’t think movement or gunplay felt as snap on and fluent as they do in the best games. It wasn’t bad, but it was also certainly no Apex Legends or Call of Duty. Apart from the whole free-for-all gamemode, the gameplay probably contributed to this game being very chaotic. It was enjoyable, but I could never have seen World Boss as go-to game for me. A single gamemode and only 1-2 maps also showed an enormous lack of content in the game.

Playside tried to compensate the lack of gameplay content with the amount of cosmetic content added to the game. This combination obviously also rubbed people the wrong way. There were plenty of skins available in the shop and even a Battle Pass at some point. I have even heard people accusing the game of stealing skins from Fortnite. While there were some similarities between a couple of those, I think the accusation is a bit far-fetched.

Another point of controversy was the involvement of the two Streamers ‘Lazerbeam’ and ‘Fresh’ with the development of World Boss. Both were apparently very involved in consulting for the game during the development process, similar to Shroud of ‘Spectre Divide’ and Asmongold for ‘Rumble Club’. Same as Shroud with Spectre Divide however, they both played and promoted their game for one week and then never mentioned it ever again. It does make people wonder, if this is Lazerbeam’s and Fresh’s Game, why do they never even play their own game? While their big names might initially help to promote those products, there lack of enthusiasm or effort could also have a very negative signalling effect for players.

That being said, it was at least one of the better games actively promoted by steamers as their own game. Spectre Divide from Shroud was actually great and World Boss was at least somewhat good. Rumble Club from Asmongold was rather poor (I also reviewed it on this Blog: https://gamereviewnation.blogspot.com/2024/05/rumble-club-pc-review.html); Deaddrop, the game from Dr. Disrespect, was so bad, it already got cancelled and Transience from Bigfry also looks absolutely awful. It’s especially funny how content creators like Asmongold and Bigfry are extremely critical of mediocre or sometimes even good games and yet they want to lure their fans into way worse games to exploit their personal popularity for monetary gain.

 

Result:

World Boss had a fresh and unique concept, which varied from the usual FPS gamemodes. A good concept however is not enough and the launch in Early Access left much to be desired. The developers did eventually fix the rough technical status and also gave the game a real purpose with the endgoal update, but by this point the playerbase had already abandoned the ship. It once again shows that too many developers sacrifice a good first impression in order to chase a quick buck in Early Access. I did enjoy World Boss for what it was, but without the interesting concept it would have probably only been a mediocre game.

 

6.5/10

Supermoves (PC) Review

 

‘Supermoves: World of Parkour’ was a Platformer Racing Game, which could be played in both first and third person perspective. The game released in August 2024 and was delisted not even a year later in June 2025. The online servers have shutdown, but all owners of the game can continue to play the game in a singleplayer offline mode.

I personally played the game via the Freerun version, which allowed players to access the Starter Content of the Singleplayer Career mode of the game and all Multiplayer content. Unfortunately with the delisting of Supermoves, the Freerun version has been deactivated and became unplayable.

The Multiplayer section allowed for up to 40 players in a race and featured 8 different gamemodes. There were for example classic Sprint races; bomb tag stages, where the last player exploded; Rising Tide levels, which slowly flooded the entire map and obstacle parkour races. Alternatively players could also compete in Battle Royale or Tournament formats.

While this in theory sounded pretty fun, barely anybody got to experience it. Supermoves suffered from a lack of players since the get-go. I queued a couple of times, but never met another player and always had to compete in Bot only races. I think a big reason for that was that Supermoves released with a 15 Euro price tag and not many players were willing to give it a chance. By the time the F2P Freerun version released a month after launch,  the game had already lost interest from most players. The daily player peak usually stayed below 10 and most of those were just playing the singleplayer content.

Online Multiplayer was shutdown together with the Battle Pass and the Makea Level Editor in June 2025. A bit of a shame, especially since the Level Editor was not only quite good, but also allowed you to design your own custom maps together with friends online. This is a pretty cool feature, that for example the already shutdown game-creation game ‘Crayta’ had as well (a game, which I also reviewed on this blog: https://gamereviewnation.blogspot.com/2023/03/crayta-pc-review.html).

The Singleplayer Campaign featured Levels from 10 different biomes and varied between classic races, obstacle courses and more classic platformer collectathon stages. There was a good variety and in some of them, the Bots could actually pose a serious challenge.

Before we end the retrospective review, let’s talk a little bit more about the actual Gameplay. Supermoves was very fast paced, which is obviously great for speedrunning of stages and highly competitive races. The movement felt very fluent and generally had a good flow. Aside from just running, you could also grind rails like Tony Hawk, slide and walljump like in Mirror’s Edge, or use one of your supermove abilities. These abilities for example included a variety of different flips, which could allow you to simply bypass obstacles and could therefore be used strategically in speedruns.

I also really liked how the game allowed you to switch between first and third person perspective. While I thought that the first person perspective was more immersive and felt even more like Mirror’s Edge (admittedly not in same quality, but with undeniable similarities). The third person perspective actually gave a better overview of the stage and therefore made it easier to identify the quickest route throughout each map. I also didn’t like how, when using a flip, the camera always switched briefly from first to third person perspective and back. The transition never felt smooth.

One of the biggest problems of Supermoves should also not be left unmentioned. The game suffered since the beginning from petty severe performance issues. It honestly feels nowadays more noteworthy if a new game has a stellar performance, than if it’s flawed. These issues were even worse for me, since I was still using my old PC last year, which probably contributed to this. Nonetheless, nearly every Steam review at launch was mentioning the performance problems as well and the developers had to release hotfixes in the following weeks and months. Unfortunately this is a very common occurrence for Unreal Engine 5 Games.

 

Result:

Supermoves was a good game, but in 2024 or 2026, that in itself is not enough to be able to survive. Since around a decade we live in an era of F2P Games. The best Buy-to-play Games can still be incredibly successful, but especially in terms of Multiplayer Games it is very difficult for games with a price point to compete, if they are only “good” and not “great”. Supermoves in addition to the Price Point also suffered from the fact, that Parkour Platformers remain a rather niche genre. The severe performance problems at launch and overall lower quality in comparison to games like Mirrors Edge easily explain Supermoves downfall.

 

6.5/10

Beer Machine (PC) Review

 

Beer Machine is a free Horror Game on Steam, in which you play as a child, who has to continuously get more beer for his father, whatever it takes. The game combines Horror and Alcoholism and there are even Mascot Horror elements present. This in my opinion is a very interesting premise for a Horror Game.

The game consists mostly of beer getting missions for the alcoholic father and flashback dreams. Those flashback scenes often mix what could be real memories of the protagonist with Mascot Horror sequences, where you get chased by a dog person. It’s not entirely clear if those scenes are real or just part of the imagination of the player. It is possible that he just developed those dream like sequences as a copying mechanism to deal with the abuse he faces from his family. I however like the idea of having those Mascot Horror sequences without committing to it fully and leaving it up to the player to decide what kind of Horror Game he sees this as.

Beer Machine consists mostly of atmospheric Horror and rarely uses jumpscares to create a threatening atmosphere. I do think that direction fit the game and its theme well. It’s mostly a very linear game. There was only 1 mission that allowed you to choose one of two alternative paths, which however lead to the same result. Beer Machine also doesn’t feature multiple endings, but it offers 3 relatively easy Steam Achievements.

I did like the atmosphere and theme of the game, but let’s also talk about the weakspots of this game. Item interactions in Beer Machine are too clunky. You often have to stand at exactly the right point to interact with objects in this game. It feels very unprecise and frustrating.

Additionally the pace of the game is also too slow. The game might only be around 30 minutes long, but unfortunately there are a couple of glitches present. The game has no checkpoints. I once got stuck permanently in an object and another time my game just crashed. This meant I had to replay the same sections of the game multiple times and it painfully showed me, that the walking speed of the protagonist is simply too slow. It makes sense to not want to break the immersion by being able to run too fast, but the protagonist unfortunately moves at a snails pace across the world. The same goes for the TV sequences. I don’t dislike their inclusion, but you can’t skip them and sometimes you have to watch for 10-15 seconds without anything actually happening on screen. That’s just bad pacing.

The Visuals are also nothing special, but comparable to a lot of other Indie Horror Games. I did like the voice acting, however. The father in particular was voiced quite well.

 

Result:

Beer Machine has a very interesting premise. You don’t often see a Horror Game mixing themes like Alcoholism and Family Abuse with Mascot Horror sequences. It’s the kind of thing you probably only get to experience in an Indie Game. That being said, the gameplay unfortunately holds Beer Machine back. The Walking Speed is simply too slow, interactions are too clunky. The pacing overall isn’t good and there are too many glitches present. It might still be worth a look, if you also find the concept of the game interesting. Beer Machine is only an okay game, but it had the potential to actually be good.

 

5.5/10

HIQ Ace (PS4) vs HIQ Ace Unlimited (PS4/PS5) Review

 

There are nearly a dozen different F2P Puzzle Games on the Playstation Store. Today we are taking a look at two of them: 'HIQ Ace' and 'HIQ Ace Unlimited'!

Both games are extremely similar. They share the same design and gameplay. In both games you have to solve classic art puzzles by placing puzzle pieces in the correct position and revealing a target picture. Both games have 3 different game modes: Relax, Arcade and Expert.

In Arcade you have the choice between 6 different puzzle pieces and one missing part of the puzzle is highlighted, in which one of the 6 selected puzzle pieces fits. You can however also place one of the other 5 pieces in the right spot, if you can guess it without assists. You have a short time limit of around 10-15 seconds to place a puzzle piece correctly before the selection of 6 pieces and the highlighted spot are being replaced with new ones. If you place enough pieces correctly in a short enough time, than a boost bar will fill, which will allow you to auto-place 1, 3 or 5 pieces for you.

The Expert Gamemode is very similar to Arcade, just that you can now rotate puzzle pieces, which makes it significantly more difficult to place them. Because of the strict time limits I actually found this gamemode to be a bit stressful. As the name suggests, this Gamemode is mostly aimed at big Puzzle fans looking for more of a challenge.

In the Relax Gamemode all time limits and the boost bar are removed. This is the right mode for Puzzle Purists and is probably the closest to the experience of Puzzles in real life.

All 3 Gamemodes feature 3 difficulties, which only change the size of the puzzles. You can also take a peak at the full puzzle image at any time for a quick orientation in all 3 modes, but it is not a see-through hint like in 'AAA Dynamic Scenes' for example.

HIQ Ace and HIQ Ace Unlimited both only feature 6 different Puzzles for free. The rest have to be purchased for money. A big difference between the games is, that HIQ Ace locks both the Relax and the Expert Gamemode behind a Paywall, while HIQ Ace Unlimited gives you access to all 3 off them for free. Other than that however, the gameplay in both games is identical.

HIQ Ace features 31 additional DLC Level packs, which sum up to 192 Puzzles in total. Except for Levelpack 22 they have however all been removed from the Playstation Store. Instead, you can now buy HIQ Ace Deluxe for 3 Euro/Dollar, which consists of all 192 Puzzles of HIQ Ace. Technically this would be the third HIQ Ace game, but since it is just HIQ Ace with a different name and all Puzzles unlocked, I won't be treating it like a separate game ( I also just don't want to purchase it). Interestingly enough the HIQ Ace base game has been removed from the North American PSN Store, while it is still available in the EU Store. American users would therefore have to either purchase HIQ Ace Deluxe or download HIQ Ace from a different server region.

HIQ Ace Unlimited on the other hand features 6 additional Level Packs, which can be purchased for 5 Euro in total on the Playstation Store. Unlimited therefore only consists of 42 different Puzzles.

While HIQ Ace only has a PS4 version. HIQ Ace Unlimited also released a PS5 version in 2020, only a few weeks after the global PS5 release. The PS4 and PS5 version however are practically identical. With a magnifying glass you might be able to spot tiny differences in the resolution, but they certainly didn't put any effort in trying to get a true 4K resolution or add anything else to the game. To be fair, it's not entirely true. In the PS5 version you can't purchase Playstation background themes, since they don't exist on PS5.

Let's now also take a short moment to check out whether the HIQ Ace Games are worth playing for achievement hunters. HIQ Ace has 5 easy trophies, which can be completed in around 1 hour. The game has no Platinum trophy and only 1 Gold one. The buy-to-play version HIQ Ace Deluxe features 9 trophies, but also no Platinum and should take a little longer to complete, since you have to finish at least 96 Puzzles.

HIQ Ace Unlimited has two PS4 trophy sets and one PS5 list. The European and North American PS4 trophy lists are identical to that of HIQ Ace. The PS5 list has 7 trophies, including 2 gold trophies, but no platinum and should also be completed in around one hour.

The trophy lists don't feature a platinum, but should still be worth a look for people, who are looking for easy and relaxing 1 hour 100 Percent lists.

 

Result:

While the core gameplay is very basic in both HIQ Ace Games, it works well and the combo feature brings in a bit of a unique element. These games are particularly well suited for Puzzle Speedrunners, but also offer the relax mode as a calmer alternative. In comparison to some other puzzle games however, both games suffer from a relatively small amount of free Puzzles. Puzzle Galaxy, Piece out Avatarland and Puzzle Drop Carnival all offer significantly more puzzles for free. While the HIQ games might still be worth a look for trophy hunters, they lack the ominous Platinum trophy that a lot of F2P Puzzle games offer. HIQ Ace Unlimited is clearly the better of the two games, if we only consider the free base games. Without the the additional Relax and Expert modes, HIQ Ace lacks in variety in comparison and is therefore one of the weaker F2P Puzzle Games. HIQ Ace Unlimited on the other hand is in my opinion clearly part of the better half of F2P Puzzle Games on Playstation. 

 

HIQ Ace: 5.5/10

HIQ Ace Unlimited: 6.5/10