{"id":18073,"date":"2018-07-16T00:01:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T00:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=18073"},"modified":"2018-07-08T00:29:57","modified_gmt":"2018-07-08T00:29:57","slug":"yokus-island-express-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/16\/yokus-island-express-ps4-switch-xbox-one-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoku’s Island Express (PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PC)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In this game you play as a dung beetle named Yoku who has set out for an island to start his new job as Postmaster.\u00a0 But when he arrives he soon learns that an evil being has scratched and scarred the guardian of the island, leaving it for destruction.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s up to the little dung beetle to deliver summons to the leaders of the island so they can perform a ritual of healing and save the day. \u00a0But how can a little dung beetle who can\u2019t even jump do that? \u00a0Well, like all dung beetles, Yoku rolls around a ball of\u2026well, let\u2019s just say it\u2019s sand since it\u2019s all white in this game.\u00a0 This island has pinball-like flippers scattered all over the place, so you\u2019ll flip and toss Yoku and his clump around like a pinball!\u00a0 So yeah, it\u2019s a pinball-platformer hybrid and very similar to Sonic Spinball.\u00a0 So if you enjoyed that one, you\u2019ll definitely want to read this review.\u00a0 Yoku\u2019s Island Express is available on nearly all current consoles, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

Yoku really can\u2019t do much on his own.\u00a0 You can move him left and right, and soon after you start you get a party horn you can blow with the X button to break small objects and get people\u2019s attention.\u00a0 But when you press the L and R trigger buttons when there are flippers on screen, you\u2019ll activate them and send Yoku flying if he\u2019s on them.\u00a0 Many of the games challenges are set inside little pinball tables, and you must hit objects and go up ramps to open paths to achieve your goals.<\/p>\n

The game has many collectables, but the most common are fruits inside bubbles. \u00a0These act as both your currency and your \u201clives.\u201d\u00a0 You use the fruits you\u2019ve collected to open up new flippers and other things.\u00a0 But when you are on a pinball table, if you let the ball go down a hole, you\u2019ll run into some thorns and Yoku will lose some fruit as well.\u00a0 If you lose all your fruit you\u2019ll start at the last checkpoint.\u00a0 Luckily I never had that problem in this game, and the checkpoints are scattered so frequently it wouldn\u2019t be much of a setback anyway.<\/p>\n

As a Postmaster you\u2019ll deliver a lot of goods and messages to the residents of the island.\u00a0 The map is set up similar to a Metroid style game where you can revisit places with new skills to open up new paths and goodies.\u00a0 Later on you\u2019ll be able to dive underwater, suck up explosive slugs, and swing on certain plants.\u00a0 The game offers a few ways for you to get around quickly, but sometimes backtracking is still a bit of a chore because of the pinball setup, and the map doesn\u2019t always help make things clear either.<\/p>\n

The other main problem with the game is the controls.\u00a0 Just moving and flipping around works great, and it\u2019s easy to get the ball where you want it to go most of the time.\u00a0 But later skills like sucking up exploding slugs and swinging on plants, the controls aren\u2019t as precise and don\u2019t always work, which is a shame as it makes the game needlessly frustrating sometimes.\u00a0 Also, the game is a little on the short side, but there are TONS of secrets.\u00a0 Seriously, when I beat the game it still said I had less than 50 percent of it complete!\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 So yeah, despite these problems, I still enjoyed the game a lot and it can be quite addicting.\u00a0 Definitely a good example of an indie game done right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yoku\u2019s Island Express is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Animated Blood, Crude Humor, and Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 There\u2019s not really much in the way of blood, but lots of animated bug guts and scratches.\u00a0 You\u2019ll also do things like launch a rocket with an evil spider inside, so that\u2019s a little brutal.\u00a0 There\u2019s also a bit of potty humor involving bat poop that you can actually see coming from a bat, and the fact that you\u2019re rolling around a ball of what could possibly be dung the entire game!\u00a0 But other than that I think it\u2019s a great game the whole family can enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this game you play as a dung beetle named Yoku who has set out for an island to start his new job as Postmaster.\u00a0 But when he arrives he soon learns that an evil being has scratched and scarred the guardian of the island, leaving it for destruction.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s up to the little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18073"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18075,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18073\/revisions\/18075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}