Book Reviews: The Devils Whispers by Lucas Hault

March 8, 2022March 7, 2022 ragglefragglereviewsLeave a comment

I was very kindly sent this book by the publisher TCK Publishing.

Here is a link to their website and a link to purchase the book on Amazon

https://www.tckpublishing.com/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-Whispers-Gothic-Horror-Novel-ebook/dp/B09Q6HFT83

A famous Lawyer Gerard Woodward is requested to visit Lord Mathers to discuss his final affairs as he lays upon his deathbed.

This professional visit quickly becomes a nightmare when Gerard notices odd behaviours around the castle, he is locked in his room every night and is forbidden to explore without supervision.

After climbing across the castle walls from his window Gerard finds access into the castle and soon realises that he has been trapped amongst some of the most despicable and evil creatures he has ever come across.

These creatures are called Xana and originated from Asturian Mythology and often disguise themselves as a woman to lure in lonely young men.

This book is very heavily inspired by Dracula and has a lot of similarities it begins in a castle with the protagonist, a professional man trying to sort out legal affairs and in both books this protagonist soon realises the sinister activities that are at play.

In Dracula the vampire cannot stand garlic and in this book the Xana cannot stand onions, both stories also use diary entries to tell the story from the perspective of various people.

In light of the author this diary style is a lot harder to write than you would expect, it takes a lot more planning than a standard book due to the fact of having to focus on various writers you need to change styles in order to fit said person and their perspective of events. Also making sure that everything that is written makes sense while always ensuring that you can consistently switch narratives without getting mixed up or lost in your own explanations and story telling.

Lucas Hault actually writes these diary entries really well, it was actually quite nice to read another book in this style as I think a lot of authors are intimidated by it, personally I haven’t read a book like this since Dracula so I appreciated to go back to this style and to see it written so well.

The book has not had the best reviews, I did a bit of research and found that a lot of people were complaining that it was so similar to Dracula and while I do agree that it definitely needs to be looked at for a re-write in this aspect, I also think a lot people are not giving credit where it is due.

The book comes across like a fan re-write of the Bram Stoker classic but it is creative in a lot of areas, first of all the choice to use a folklore creature is a very unique idea and not what I expected, also when the story gets interesting it does get you hooked. The problem I have is that the beginning and ending of the book completely held my attention but the middle segment really seemed to drag and quickly became uninteresting, I found myself enjoying Gerard’s character and even though I enjoyed the writing when other character were telling their diary pages I just wanted to go back to Gerard’s again and see what he was doing.

So this leaves me at a bit of an awkward moment because I cant really say that I fully enjoyed this book, I read it twice just to make sure and my opinion still stands that Lucas Hault is a good writer, his writing style is fine he is a new author and will get a lot better over time. This book could have been something really unique if it had a little bit more originality the Xana being the creature is great but it definitely feels like Lucas Hault read Dracula and then decided to have a crack at it himself, he had a somewhat original story but its structure is too close to a much more better written and historically beloved book which The Devils Whisper does not in anyway come close to even competing with.

I will end this with a message to the Author, Lucas you have talent and clearly you are creative but if possible I recommend a re-write of this so that it can have a much clearer identity and wont be compared to what its inspired by. If you decide to write another horror I would recommend trying to do something different than is expected, try and write something which does compare to other stories and one day you very well could find yourself a very successful author.

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Cuphead (2017) Review

January 3, 2018 ragglefragglereviews3 Comments

Two cups lose a bet against the Devil and in order to save their souls they must capture the souls of every other resident on their home island.

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I think we will kick start 2018 with a review of one of the mos popular video games of last year a small indie title known as Cuphead don’t deal with the Devil.

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Cuphead is a run and gun sidescroller inspired by the cartoons of the 1930’s, Cuphead and his pal Mugman both take inspiration from Mickey Mouse and Oscar the Lucky Rabbit.

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Cuphead offers three main level types, the first is a classic run and gun scenario similar to old arcade games, you will need to get from point A to point B without dying, this is extremely difficult due to the barrage of enemy types that constantly attack you, enemies do not often die without respawning and the army of creatures that target Cuphead and Mugman is relentless, some of these stages do have a mini boss which will need to be defeated however these bosses are nowhere near as difficult to beat as the games main challenges.

d41ac18a-aa8c-42d3-ab90-aaf9a10d0ad5_Cuphead_Baroness_Von_Bon_Bon Boss Battles are another game type available for players to tackle, these boss battles are extremely tough and only the most patient and level headed players will be able to triumph in these scenarios, these boss battles are the best part of the game in my opinion, the animations make it seem as if you are watching an old cartoon and its just as wonderful to watch the game as it is to play it.

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The final level variant in the game are on scroll shooters, these level types take obvious inspiration from the old space scooters of the day, Cuphead and Mugman enter aeroplanes and take on bosses who will constantly morph into different forms, many smaller enemies will spawn for our two heroes to take on while also taking aim at the levels boss, I had the most difficulty with these level types.

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Cuphead and Mugman pack some pretty wild finger guns, the standard gun is powerful enough to get you through most of the game however if you feel like you wanna spice things up a bit then why not spend some of your well earned coins on some new ammunition or perhaps some new abilities

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I don’t think I really need to emphasise just how outstanding the visuals are in Cuphead, as previously stated the game takes inspiration from 1930’s cartoons and the games artists have done an excellent job of making the game emulate this extremely well, not only does the entire game look like an old cartoon but its the smaller touches such as static on the screen which really help to make this game even more beautiful than its needs to be.

The soundtrack is just as wonderful as the visuals, a few tracks use vocals sang by a barbershop quartet but personally I prefer the frantic instrumental tracks during the run and gun sections, although its all very well done and well worth a listen.

Cuphead is one of the most creative games I have ever played and if you enjoy old cartoons and high reaction intense game play then this is the perfect game to add to your library, but if you don’t enjoy difficult games or if you are only just starting out as a gamer then this is one to skip as the game is very challenging, I really enjoyed Cuphead however it is a bit too short for the price the developers are asking for it costs 16 pounds for what is no more than a six hour experience so knock it down to a tenner and you’ve got yourself a bargain 9/10.

I hope you enjoyed my review of Cuphead for the Xbox One and Microsoft Windows.

Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Taz Mania (Genesis/Mega Drive) (1992) Review

March 14, 2015 ragglefragglereviews1 Comment

Cool a game based on Taz Mania, this is gonna be great………right?

Taz Mania was a popular cartoon series based on the Tazmanian Devil from the Looney Tunes shorts, the show was about Taz and his family and the crazy antics they would get up too, I watched this show as a kid but I wasn’t a huge fan of it and unlike some other shows such as Ducktales and Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers I dont have many fond memories of watching Taz Mania.

Taz Mania was fairly popular and just like many other cartoons of its era, video game developers started to create Taz Mania video games to make a quick buck but unlike Ducktales and Rescue Rangers whose games stayed on one system Taz Mania had a video game on a whole bunch of different systems including the Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, Super Nintendo and the Nintendo Game Boy, unfortunately I haven’t yet gotten around to playing most of these but as a kid I used to play the Genesis version a lot and I remember really enjoying it, but was it good as I remember?

The games plot is simple and straight to the point, Taz and his siblings are told a story about giant sea birds that used to rule over Taz Mania, the birds were so big that if someone was to steal one of their eggs it would feed that thief and his entire family for one whole year, talk of these giant eggs make Taz hungry and he soon leaves on an adventure across Taz Mania to find one, like I said the plot is very simple and straight to the point I don’t mind this because firstly I was not expecting some epic storyline for a video game based on the Tazmanian Devil and secondly this honestly seems like something that Taz would do because at the end of the day he’s a wild animal who loves to eat so the thought of a giant egg is immediately going to get his attention.

The game looks pretty good for a licensed Sega Genesis game, the graphics are not very realistic looking which isn’t a problem because they actually look a bit like the cartoon which is a nice touch from the game developers, it shows that they did research of the original cartoon and as a result both the genesis game and the show have a similar art style which is an aspect that many fans of the show will appreciate.

Graphically the game is very impressive but the level design is awful, the biggest problem is the plat-forming because a lot of the platforms you need to jump to are off screen meaning that you need to takes risky jumps and leaps of faith hoping that you don’t fall to your death, another problem is that sometimes its very difficult to figure out what objects you are able to jump on, this gets very confusing because sometimes you are able to jump on platforms that are either in the background or the foreground while at other times you cant so its not easy to identify what is an actual platform and what is just there for scenery, speaking of scenery there really isn’t a lot of it and because of this all of the levels are very bare with just a few things pasted into the backgrounds, its really not that interesting to look at and its a shame considering all of the effort that went into the games art style.

The game has very tight controls which are easy to remember, you control Taz with the D-Pad while the three other buttons are used to perform the games actions, such as Jumping, Spinning and breathing fire when its available.

The most important ability in the game is spinning, Taz can spin really fast allowing him to knock enemies off of the screen but you must be careful because you are also able to get rid of special items such as lives and health if you accidentally spin into them.

Taz will eat everything in his path and this can be very useful as he can eat enemies, lives and food but you must not eat any of the bombs, if Taz eats a bomb it will explode inside of him causing a considerable amount of damage, these bombs can be very annoying especially when they have been placed unfairly, for example a lot of the time the bombs are placed at the bottom of small ledges and you cant see them until you jump off the ledge and sometimes the bombs are placed behind foreground objects so they are impossible to see which makes it very unfair on the player.

This entire game relies on the player memorising which platforms are safe and where the bombs are located, if the game had unlimited continues this wouldn’t be as big of an issue but unfortunately the game does have very few continues (not including the ones you can find) making the entire experience of playing the game very stressful and annoying.

The levels are very difficult due to bad game design but ironically the boss fights are really easy, this is because when Taz is spinning any enemy that hits him is immediately damaged and this is the same for the boss fights, if you keep spinning into the bosses you are going to defeat them very quickly and very easily, there is one boss fight near the end of the game that is so easy too beat that you can defeat him while taking no damage by just spinning in one spot until he dies.

The music is not memorable at all most of the songs are just loops of very short tunes and the biggest problem is that you can hardly hear the music over the games terrible sound effects, the sound effects literally sound like they came from a cheap collection of Royalty Free sounds and nothing about them or the music is very creative at all, the most unusual sound choice the developers made was that every time Taz takes a step a music note plays as if the entire game is a piano, this sound choice makes very little sense and it gets annoying very fast.

Taz Mania was a very disappointing game, I used to love this game as a child and I remember having a great time playing it, the game has tight controls and sticks to its source material with its very simple plot and and its art style which represents the original show quite nicely but unfortunately bad game design, terrible sound and music choices and for the most part awful game play makes Taz Mania for Sega Genesis a very bad experience and honestly I am relieved that I never have to play it again.

3.4/10

Thank you for reading my review of Taz Mania for the Sega Genesis/ Mega Drive

By Padawan

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