Real Cake Maker (PS4) Review

 

Real Cake Maker is the newest Shovelware Game in the Playstation 5/4 F2P section. It was developed by Qubic Games, which in the last couple of months released a bunch of free Playstation Games. Some of them, like Puzzle Galaxy or Cup Heroes, were actually quite good. Qubic Games, however, also has a bit of a reputation for publishing huge amounts of Shovelware Games on Nintendo Switch. Real Cake Maker is without a doubt part of the latter group. It’s one of the worst games I have played in a while.

After doing some research, I found out that Real Cake Maker apparently already released in 2016 as a mobile game. Why they released this 10 years later with no improvements on the Playstation Store will probably forever stay a mystery.

You play as a little girl, who is baking cakes for animals, babies and other children. The gameplay of this baking activity is simply abysmal. You occasionally move the analog stick in a circle, press the X-Button, wait for the cake to cook itself, before you put some sweets on top of it and feed it to your customers via analog stick movement. Yikes!

I know what some people will say: “This is a children’s game. You shouldn’t be so critical with the gameplay.” I am sorry, but I have to disagree. No child deserves to be tortured with shovelware crap like this. Moving your analog stick in a circle and occasionally pressing a button is not gameplay. Every interactive movie game has 10 times more actual gameplay. This is just nothing and having to watch the slow cooking animation is pure torture.

But wait, you can also have a cooking party, where you can feed 3 participants simultaneously. Oh god… And there is also a small coloring book activity that is completely disjointed from the rest of the game and was apparently ripped straight out of one of Qubic Games other games called ‘Coloring Book’.

The visuals of Real Cake Maker look like something from a 15-year-old crappy phone game, certainly not a PS5 or PS4 game. The developers put no effort into this.

But there are, of course, multiple purchasable DLC. Only 3 Cake recipes are available for free, but you can buy a dozen more in the Playstation Store, plus 100 additional skins… Jesus Christ…

The game features one of the easiest Platinum trophies you could imagine and 11 additional gold trophies. So it might be worth a look for trophy hunters, but the platinum takes around 30 minutes to unlock and I certainly regret spending any time on this trash game to review it, but maybe I can at least warn a couple of people before trying this out.

 

Result:

Real Cake Maker is abysmal shovelware trash and I don’t think it’s a game suited for children either. Any child, who is old enough to understand what is going on on the screen, will be underwhelmed by this and any kid younger than that should either not play videogames yet or watch their parents play something better. There are many good games also perfectly suited for a younger audience. There is no need to torture anybody with shovelware like this.

 

1/10

Warface Battle Royale (PS4/PC) 2026 Re-Review

 

Regular readers of my blog know that I enjoy Battle Royale Games. Many players, however, only know the biggest BR games, like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Warzone or PubG, but there are a lot of lesser-known games also worth playing. Don’t get me wrong, there are also plenty of terrible or mid BR games (my blog can prove that much), many of which have already shutdown, but I believe the BR mode in Warface is actually one of those hidden gems, not many people have talked about.

Warface is not a dedicated Battle Royale Game, which means that BR is only one of many PVP-Modes in Warface. Sadly, this also means it will shutdown together with all the other Warface Gamemodes in late August 2026. I have previously reviewed this game around 6 years ago, but I thought this was the right moment to give it one more updated closer look.

In Warface Battle Royale, players start in a match, together with a maximum of 32 other players, at the edge of the map circle. So there are no planes and no parachutes to start with and the map circle begins after just a few seconds to slowly and continuously close in. Players start with melee weapons only and have to search for firearms, which usually have very limited ammo. Players can also only carry one heavy weapon in addition to a pistol and the melee weapon at the same time.

The start of the match at the edge of the zone, when you can see a player 50 meters left of you and another player 50 meters right of you and you all only have melee weapons, is something really special, that only a few BR games can replicate. You start to run desperately looking for a gun somewhere, but you also know you can’t afford to miss, since the gun will barely have enough ammunition to take out more than one player. If you miss too much, it might not even be enough for that. This keeps you on edge during the whole match, which is just very immersive.

I really like this concept. It reminded me of the Hunger Games and perhaps games like The Culling. Nowadays BR games are usually set up differently, which certainly isn’t worse, but it’s always nice to also see a more classic Battle Royale concept implemented.

Warface BR is therefore less focused on collecting loot than most other games in the genre, since there are simply fewer weapons available and the ever-closing circle alone keeps you on edge most of the time. Getting one of the better weapons is naturally still important, if you want to compete for the win. Nonetheless, I like that you actually have to consider when you spot another player, if you attack him, which could waste your precious ammo or go in another direction instead. You are also, of course, forced to aim better since every bullet can count.

The pacing of the game is, despite the sneaking possibilities, relatively fast and the matches are over pretty quickly. Rarely does a round take longer than 5-10 minutes.

There are 2 different maps with Mojave Desert and Prypjat City in Map Rotation. I have to say I like them both. Prypjat creates the atmosphere of an abandoned Russian Ghost City and Mojave is a cool and bright desert map. Both maps offer you a lot of cover possibilities to sneak between buildings or environments.

One of the bigger disadvantages of Warface Battle Royale is that there are no Duo or Squad-Modes available. Every game is Solo only. Some people won't mind this, for others it might be a real dealbreaker. There are also no Battle Royale statistics in the game, that tell you how often you have won or how many Kills per game you achieved and so on. These are just some of the other signs of the simpler presentation. You are not going to get the same amount of polish as in other games, which exclusively focus on a Battle Royale mode.

The visual presentation of the game is also rather basic and could in the best case be described as average. Warface is not among the very worst-looking, but also certainly not among the best looking games either. You can clearly see that Warface is actually an older F2P (Free to play) game. The game originally released in 2013. There is only so much you can do without a change in graphics engine.

Even though theoretically 32 Players can engage in a match, I have rarely experienced that. Between 2018 and 2019 (the PS4 launch time) I have most of the time been playing with 20 to 24 players, occasionally dropping to even lower numbers than that. Since the gamemode for a long time required at least 16 players to start, it was a lot more difficult to get games going in the following years. It was still possible on occasion, however, on PS4, but next to impossible on the PC version. In 2026 the developers actually reduced the minimum number of players to 4, which thankfully revitalized the gamemode. While I never saw numbers like back in the day, I still participated in a couple of matches with more than 10 players in 2026.

Another aspect we simply have to address, when it comes to any Gamemode Warface related, are the Pay-to-Win Elements. Thankfully, the Battle Royale mode has been much less affected than any other Gamemode in Warface. There are no Loadouts available for BR, so premium armour or weapons from the shop do not affect the gamemode. Unfortunately for a long time you were able to take more powerful melee weapons as your starting weapons into a Battle Royale match. A Kantana, for example, did more damage and had a longer range than a starting knife. The effects were a lot smaller than in the other PVP-Modes, where paying players could straight out buy better weapons, but an unfair balance was still being created in Battle Royale. A couple of years ago they fixed this unbalance by giving all melee weapons identical damage, range and speed values. So in the last 2-3 years there was no longer any P2W to be found in Warface Battle Royale.

 

Pro:

- Serious survival atmosphere

- Lack of Ammunition encourages strategy

- Fast pace

 

Contra:

- Solo only

- (Small) P2W elements for a long time

- Visuals were quite dated-looking

 

Result:

Warface in general was a really mixed bag. A fun, but dated FPS with a big variety of gamemodes, that was severely limited by its heavy P2W issues. Thankfully, Warface Battle Royale was a lot less affected by this. The maps, the lack of ammunition and the smaller player count created a real survival atmosphere, which is Warface Battle Royale's biggest strength. You didn’t just had to hunt down other players, like in a lot of other BR games, but your main goal in Warface Battle Royale was to actually just survive. It’s a shame this gamemode never got much attention, because I think it would have deserved it.

 

7/10

Buffet Boss (PS4) Review

 

Buffet Boss is a Tycoon Game, similar to the many Tycoon maps in Fortnite Creative and I am sure you can also find plenty of Browser- and Shovelware games with the same concept.

You work in a restaurant as a waiter and you have to rise through the ranks till the management or owner position. You collect dirty dishes from the tables, bring them to the cleaners, hand the cleaned ones out to the customers and later on also participate in the creation of the meals. Buffet Boss is all about collecting money and investing it into upgrades of your character and workstations or the purchase of additional stations inside the restaurant. This cycle keeps repeating till there is nothing left to do.

Buffet Boss can’t hide its Mobile Origins. The Visuals are disturbingly ugly. For a PS4 game, it’s quite embarrassing. Every character is a coloured faceless mannequin in this game and the restaurant interior is either not present or as simple as it gets. This isn’t even a budget issue, but probably laziness on the side of the developers. Even a low-budget basic console game should look significantly better than this.

You can also see the mobile aspect in the gameplay. You practically only have to move your character around. He and the workers you can hire automatically pick up the objects and money in the game. Even upgrades don’t require a button press. You just have to walk over the upgrade symbol and you will automatically invest in it after a few seconds. They didn’t even try to do anything besides a lazy 1:1 copy of the mobile version.

The gameplay loop is therefore very simple, but does provide some enjoyment. It’s somewhat satisfying to see your restaurant progressively improving and you often just want to get 1-2 more upgrades before you stop playing. Unfortunately, that only lasts for around 90 minutes. After that  point, you will have unlocked everything there is in the free area of the default restaurant. The only reason to keep playing would be to earn more money for the sake of it without the possibility of additional upgrades or any kind of variety.

The PS4 version of Buffet Boss, same as the mobile version, is F2P. You can buy 3 additional DLC areas for 3 Euro each or a complete edition for 8 Euro. From the videos I have seen, the DLC areas actually don’t look all that great and only minimally different than the base restaurant in the free portion of the game. Interestingly enough, the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch versions of Buffet Boss are not free and cost 5 Euro instead. This is certainly a bizarre pricing strategy.

Buffet Boss features 22 Trophies, including 1 Platinum and 7 Gold Trophies. All the trophies are very easy to unlock and you will get them within 1-2 hours at most. For Trophy Hunters the game can be strongly recommended.

 

Result:

Buffet Boss is a game that’s not so easy to judge. On the one hand, it looks disturbingly ugly and it also can’t hide its mobile origins in the simplified gameplay either. On the other hand, the gameplay loop, despite its simplicity, is somewhat satisfying and motivates you to progress. That is till you will suddenly reach the end of the upgrade cycle after less than 2 hours. In its entirety, Buffet Boss is certainly not a good game, but it might be worth a look to players who are not afraid of mobile visuals and gameplay due to its F2P status.

 

4/10

Warface Breakout (PS4) Retrospective Review

 

‘Warface Breakout’ was a Tactical Shooter Spinoff Game for the ‘Warface’ franchise. Same as the main Warface game it is also a FPS. Breakout released in March 2020 exclusively for console on PS4 and Xbox One. While the main Warface Game also had, for example, a ‘Plant the Bomb’ Gamemode (aka a Counter Strike Gamemode), it additionally featured many other modes like Team Deathmatch, Free for All, Domination, Battle Royale or the PVE based Special Operations. Breakout instead was, according to the developers, specifically optimized for Controller play and tactical gameplay.

You have to keep in mind that at the time there was less competition for Tactical Shooter Games on Console and there wasn’t really anything like a Console version of Counter Strike. Admittedly, there were PS3/Xbox 360 ports of CSGO, but those hadn’t been supported for many years at that point.

Due to the Console focus, Breakout did not release on PC and it also didn’t get a port for Nintendo Switch, which the original Warface had. I assume this was due to the weaker Switch 1 hardware requiring more time to do a competent port of a multi-platform game.

Breakout received 4 Seasons of Live-Service Support between summer 2020 and summer 2021. After this Breakout was due to lacking player numbers put into maintenance mode for another 3 years before it finally shutdown in April 2024. At least they didn’t immediately shut it down and still gave it a couple more years. That being said, between 2022 and 2024 the servers were so dead that you could often queue for 30 minutes without finding enough players for a lobby. You could say that they finally put it out of its misery at that point.

While I have seen some people praise the focus on the Plant the Bomb Gamemode in Warface Breakout, it also came with a big downside: Lack of content. The game released with only one gamemode and two versions of it. The regular Plant the Bomb Gamemode explains itself (One team has to plant and detonate a bomb; the other team has to prevent it. Teams switch at the half point and you can alternatively also take out all enemy players before the bomb has been planted). The hardcore version increased the amount of rounds per match, the money being earned per round and enabled Team-Kills. So essentially there was only a single gamemode and 5 maps for the first 3 months in Warface Breakout. Asking people to pay 20 Euro (the regular price of Breakout) for this limited amount of content, if you could get 5 times the amount of content in the regular Warface completely for free, was a very tough sell.

Warface Breakout did add Team Deathmatch as a second regular gamemode and time limited modes like Gungame or Domination during their live-service. They also released Slum Districts and Outskirts as additional maps during Season 2 and 3, which brought the total map-pool to 7. You could give credit that all those 7 maps were actually Breakout Originals and not just ported over from the main Warface game, but it honestly would have made much more sense to just port some of those over to get the number of maps to at least double digits. The maps were all decently designed, but the live-service over those 4 seasons was ultimately too lacking to save Breakout from a rough start.  

Another big problem with the launch version of Warface Breakout were the massive framedrops in the first couple of months. Players got these performance issues at seemingly random times and regardless if the players were using base PS4 and Xbox One’s, the more powerful PS4 Pro and Xbox One X models or even the later released next-gen consoles. It took the developers way too long to fix those issues in Breakout. Once they did, large parts of the playerbase had already moved on.

The main reason why Breakout released as a buy to play game was that it, in contrast to the main Warface Game, was supposed to have no P2W elements. In regular Warface you could buy ridiculously overpowered weapons and armour for real money, which gave massive advantages and were the worst aspect of that game for sure. Breakout delivered in that regard. There were no P2W weapons or items at all in Breakout. While you can’t directly blame Breakout for it, but this constellation still rubbed me the wrong way. The plant the Bomb gamemode was also in Warface, so you were essentially paying the developers for not actively having P2W elements ingame. Paying money not to get ripped off is just not a good feeling for players. Had they released Breakout without the Warface brand recognition, then it might have been perceived differently. Despite the asking price, Breakout was also selling additional cosmetics in the shop. A practice that has become commen nowadays, but used to be frowned upon.

Let’s also take a minute to talk about the Gameplay in Warface Breakout. Breakout did some adjustments, but at the core this was still very much Warface. Movement got nerfed to create a more tactical approach. The movement speed overall was reduced, the slide function was completely removed and recoil was increased on all weapons to force players to take their time with aiming. Positioning therefore took a bigger emphasis in Breakout than it did in main Warface, where your movement and equipment played a bigger role. These adjustments were overall decent, but not really enough to give Breakout a strong own identity. It very much still felt like Warface, a game that in 2020 was already quite dated feeling, if you consider that it originally released in 2012 with only small adjustments over time. Breakout overall played well, but it’s also fair to say that it didn’t really set the world on fire.

The same could be said about the Visuals. Breakout might have looked minimally better than the original Warface, but it did look quite dated in comparison to other games released between 2020 and 2024. I can’t blame anybody for looking at the graphics and gameplay and having doubts about spending money on Breakout, if you consider the more modern looking free games it was competing with.

 

Result:

Warface Breakout ultimately ended up being a good, but not great, game. It unfortunately didn’t start that way. The idea for a more tactical Warface Spin-off game might have been commendable, but the execution at launch left too much to be desired. Lack of content, massive performance issues and an asking price in a competitive market derailed the start of Breakout. The game noticeably improved with additional content and performance fixes. Even with a good launch it would have probably been an uphill battle, but with the bad launch the game robbed itself of any chance of success. The improvements came too late and the live-service might have helped, but was overall nothing impressive. Despite the nasty P2W issues, there was simply not enough incentive for people to prioritize Breakout over the much more content rich, free main Warface game.

 

6.5/10