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Reviews
Undisputed
What started back in the 1980's with mike Tyson's Punch Out has created a number of boxing games that are determined to bring the same joy and excitement as originally felt. While blending it with modern day interface and graphics to enhance the realism of the game, very few have since delivered a quality product, in fact, it was back in the Fight Night series that we really saw any quality from a boxing game that tried to develop the same excitement but in a more modern day package. Today though, developer Steel City Interactive has laced up their boots and stepped into the ring with Undisputed in an attempt to take the belt and show why it's pound for pound, the best boxing game available by combining Boxing with some RPG elements. Time to put on our best Don King and see what Undisputed has to offer.The absolute focus of any boxing game has to be the gameplay. While classic games like Punch Out had a very simplistic gameplay mechanic, modern games with their controllers offer a greater in-depth control mechanic that, when working smoothly, can deliver a truly enjoyable experience. Your fight controls are defaulted as this:
X - Jab
Y - Straight
A - Left Hook
B - Right Hook
RB – Give your punches more power at the cost of more stamina.
LB – Aim your punches towards the body.
A+X - Left Uppercut
B+Y - Right Uppercut
LS - Move
RS - Punch activation.
LT - Hold Weave
RT - Block upper body (combine with RB to block the body)
This means that when you push these in various combinations of non-power / power, you can deliver quite a devastating punishment in a short period of time. The movement with the sticks however and when combined with LT, allows you to duck and weave punches rather than just stay there linear to your opponent and get pummeled. You have to be careful though. Should you weave in the wrong direction and your opponent counters it, then it's almost an instant knockout guaranteed. There were some issues though with the gameplay. During every round there was a moment in time where the action would freeze for about a quick second and then never again. It almost was like the game hadn't finished loading all the resources for the round and started prematurely. This took you out of the flow of the fight and that's where another issue with the gameplay resides.
Undisputed wants to be smooth and silky but it's very sluggish and lumpy, even with your boxer stats all at level 100. There will be times when I push the LS forward towards my opponent and I'll start strafing around the sides. I originally started playing this game on the new PDP Victrix Pro BFG controller with the Hall Effect upgraded sticks and my character couldn't move at all. Literally no movement with the LS which is odd because you could use it in the menu system. I tried both wireless and wired connections and none of them would produce any movement, so I switched back to the Elite Series 2 controller and I can move just fine. Other times when I would be in the middle of the fight, I would go to throw a hook, and my arm would go through some weird seizure type motion and not throw the punch. This got especially frustrating when trying to piece together combinations as there was a different rhythm to the fights.
Normal fighting games you have rapid button inputs that come down to the very frame of animation to pull off and split-second timing. Undisputed is the complete opposite and will require you to get accustomed to the feel of the movement. This was a big learning curve, as you would think your boxer would swing as fast as you could press the button itself, but once you get the 'flow' of the boxing down, then you should find yourself settling in for some brutal and devastating fights. This isn't so much "button mashing" as it is a chess game but with rhythm. There are other issues as well. For example, the animation for your opponent getting up is broken down into only 3 different types: Instant KO, Knockdown, and Take a Knee. All of these, however, somehow magically take place in the center of the ring. So, if you're in the corner of the ring and you land a vicious uppercut that sends your opponent down to the canvas, they somehow magically appear in the center of the ring and the refs count begins. If you're looking for realism, this is where that goes out the window.
Undisputed is broken down into several menus but ultimately there are only two of focus: Career and Online. This is done through the main hub which offers the following menu options: Quick Fight, Career, online, Prize Fights, News, and Store. This is your centralized focal point where your primary playtime will be focused. At the top you have several menu choices such as Local, Career, Online, Profile, Create. Your local menu offers you the ability to jump into a Quick Fight, a Prize Fight, or go through the Tutorial to learn the mechanics of Undisputed. Your career is exactly how it says. It allows you to continue an ongoing career, start a new one, or begin a licensed career with an established fighter. Your online menu is centralized on your online experience and it's here where you can jump into a quick fight, have a ranked match, check out the leaderboards or form a lobby. Your profile is where you can check out your player stats, customize your player card, adjust any settings you may want and check out the credits of Undisputed. Finally, the Create section is where you can either create a new boxer or browse what you've already made.
Some issues I have with Undisputed's stable of boxers come down to not what was included but what boxers were not included. Icons such as Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield and even Mike Tyson are nowhere to be found. While I'm presuming this is due to funds and lack of money to acquire the license to use the boxers’ images and likenesses, you can't help feeling that the roster of talent feels diluted, not just in the heavyweight division but in all boxing divisions as well. Hopefully, this will be updated with future DLC content, especially when you think of some of the legendary moments in boxing that some of the greatest talent in boxing has provided.
The meat of Undisputed is hands down the career mode. Over the course of several dozen fights you will work your way from the Amateur ranks to the Professional standings and hopefully on your way to a unified championship. The Career mode has you hunting 6 total belts, 2 are in the amateur rankings while 4 remain in the professional league. The Career mode is broken down similarly to what you find in the main menu. Your career hub is where you can advance the week towards the fight, negotiate the next upcoming fight (when it becomes unlocked), check out your boxer's stats, and browse the media feed or your notifications.
Selecting the “My Boxer” menu will allow you to see your stats, but you can also take a look at your career and your wardrobe, but the primary goal to focus on here is your traits. Traits are unlocked through your coach, and each coach has unique traits that can offer both passive and active abilities for your boxer. So, for example, if you have a trait that actively increases the chance the ref will stop the fight because of cuts and swelling, the passive ability is that it's easier for your character to become cut and swell. This is the type of 'give and take' balancing you find throughout Undisputed's trait system. Personally, I focused on uppercut power and hooks and would hold off on changing my coach as I ranked up until I found coaches that had traits that improved my gameplay. As you go throughout your fights you will get graded at the end by your coach, and the higher the grade equals the higher the points you get towards your coach's max level of 100. This is important because it's through this process that you unlock more of your coach's traits which you can then equip back onto your fighter.
Circling back now to the career, your next option is your Gym, and this is broken down into two simple choices, train or cut weight. You have a max ability that you can train to and that is 70% pre-fight training camp, so it's in your best interest to toggle your gym to train until you hit 70% (should be about 3 weeks of time) and then focus on cutting weight. This will ensure that as you train and gain weight in your fight camp before a fight that your boxer remains healthy and in prime condition when the bell rings for that first round. You can also choose your gym that you wish to train in, however you will have to unlock them through your reputation and money. Get enough reputation and you can buy your membership to the gym, and some offer bonuses as well. Bonuses such as no minor injuries during training and all the way up to providing you with a +3 boost to all your stats.
The ranking menu just will simply allow you to see where you stack up in the world rankings but also allow you to see you opponents and check out their strengths and their weaknesses. So if someone has a soft mid-section then you can plan your upcoming fight with them to target the ribs and belly and chop them down like a tree. The My Team option allows you to see your coach, cut man, and manager all in one location, and gives you the ability to either break a contract, hire a new team member, or renew their current contract. It's important to note that as you progress in your fights you will earn coach XP, which you can use to upgrade your coach's abilities, which then translates into you getting bigger bonuses in your training. One word of advice though is to stockpile your coach XP until you start signing an A or B class coach because you will advance quickly through the ranks and unlock more coaches, so don't waste your XP on a D class coach when you can save them for a B or A class.
The section of My Objectives will show you where you stand in your progress throughout your stats, pro career, and challenges. Your stats include defense, heart, speed, stamina, strength, and vitality (each one has unique challenges that provide certain rewards as you progress through the tiers. For example: level 4 - Block power punches to the head = +3 to chin resistance). This is a way to level up your stats, you cannot train in the gym so keep this in mind as you get through the fight. There are a total of 5 tiers per challenge with each tier providing a bigger bonus when you unlock it.
Your pro career objectives pertain to your career such as training activities, your staff, negotiation, and resources. These also help level up your stats that you can't train for in a gym, so finding bonuses here can be relatively easy given the activities needed to advance these challenges. Finally, you have your challenges themselves and these are fight specific. Objectives such as entering a fight with 100 energy and fight sharpness or win a fight by KO. Again, as the levels increase, so do the bonuses paid out by these challenges that are permanent unlocks which you can't advance through gym training. This is Undisputed's way of making sure you focus on these objectives so you can really maximize your fighter instead of just hitting the gym every single day and twice on Sunday.
The Injuries section will allow you to see your injuries that are both minor and major. Minor injuries you can continue to fight but with a stat deduction. If it gets worse, it can become a major injury where you have to rest until it's healed. You can attempt to heal the injury with your cut man but if you fail you lose money and still suffer the injury. This honestly makes your cut man's most valuable stats to focus on are surgery for major injuries and physio for minor injuries. To accelerate the process, you can also press the X button to bypass the weeks of waiting if you want and jump right into not having an injury. This will allow you to save money by not trying to heal quicker and risk having the injury get worse.
When the bell rings in Undisputed it's time to set up your fight, and that means it's time for your manager to negotiate the details of the fight. This starts out by picking your suggested fight from a choice of three options. Once you have selected your fighter, you will go into a deal where you can negotiate the terms of the fight. The items you can negotiate on are:
- Purse Cut - how much money you get (careful if you get too greedy, they can counter and/or outright refuse
- Venue - where to fight
- Fight Insurance - this is to protect you if you get hurt training and are unable to fight or for being overweight in your weight class (this doesn't apply to heavy weight although you'll still get the disadvantage if you're overweight).
- Training Weeks - how long do you have to train (I find the best numbers of weeks are 8 and 10 to allow ample time to recover in your training.
- Rematch Clause - right after the match the rematch is already booked so you can just advance your weeks to the next training session.
- Fight Promotion - how much money from the purse is going to be used to promote the fight.
- Media Activities - various activities that may have to be done to increase the fame from the fight (ex: go on a podcast, promote a product, etc.)
- Home Fight - boxers that fight away are going to get a 5% purse cut bonus as they will cover expenses for themselves and their team. Home fighters earn more fame for the fight.
Then you'll see staff costs, injury insurance costs, and weight limits. Once you set these options up you can negotiate, and based off your manager, will either be accepted, countered, or denied. As you can see there is a ton to negotiate over and as you advance up the rankings and your fame increases then you'll unlock better managers who can earn you bigger and better paydays and fights. There is an Objective though to setting up your own fights without a manager, so that may be something to consider doing early on in your career.
Once the fight is agreed upon you go into your fight camp where you can choose the gym that you will use to train. In this camp you have three primary options: Train, Media, and Recover. The media are just actions that you can do for the week to increase your fame and reputation in the ring. The training aspect however is where you will primarily develop your fighter. There are several training options, and each will cost a certain amount of energy and train your fighter a certain percentage. Each one of these activities will also specifically focus on various aspects of your fighter. The punching bag for example, will focus on your Power Punching, Uppercuts and Hooks. These stats can be raised to a maximum of 100 and then after that you will stop having a bonus on your fighter's stat. For example, if you have power punching at level 98 with a +2 boost, then your stat is boosted to 100. Once you naturally hit 100, you will no longer receive that +2 bonus. Also, if you get your stats to 100, they do not stay that way.
So, when you get your stats to 100, and you go back into training, your levels show that, after weeks off of training that you lose some of your stats. Now, I'm not saying that these are major drop offs (the least was +39 and the most points needed at a time was +984) this point drop means that every fight you have to train for and this is fairly realistic because if we don't keep pushing our talent and our bodies then we will naturally lose some of its abilities. I have found that usually even numbered weeks of training camp before a fight allowed for maximum training and recovery so that your body is at full stamina and your skills are dominating at 100.
It goes without saying that Undisputed tries to wrap all this content up in a nice graphical bow, and it does a wonderful job of that. The licensed fighters look almost identical in their likeness and even their ring attire is period and person specific, and this also applies to the physics of Undisputed as well. When you have a fighter that is weaving around and trying to avoid getting hit and a power punch rocks the side of their head, you'll see the individual beads of sweat fly off in dynamic fashion. Cuts, bruises, and swelling are done tastefully and realistically, and even the blood on the canvas and gloves apply perfectly to the environment and add a great sense of realism. There are a few gripes though about the graphics and that involves the scenery.
With legendary arenas you don't get the sensation that Undisputed brings these iconic settings to life because they're not there and you start to wonder why? My personal theory is that the company had so much money to spend on this title and they opted to use what money they did have to bring certain boxers into the game while utilizing already existing gameplay models that they don't refine, and they just ignored the venues all together. I wish all this negativity though could apply to the lack of characters, gameplay issues, and lack of venues, but unfortunately I have to talk about the audio of this game as well. Bottom line the music is so bad I turned it off as are the ring announcers who have what seems like 10 lines of script for a fight. When you hear "a shot from the gods" about 30 times you can almost do your own commentary verbatim on this game yourself. In fact, I found more enjoyment playing the game hearing the impact sounds of the punches mixed with the ambience of the game rather than hearing the same canned dialogue over and over and over again.
Undisputed steps into the ring and I've decided to look at this as the foundation for a great boxing series. Not even close to perfect though, though there are a lot of good redeeming qualities about this game that should serve Undisputed well moving forward. Is Undisputed good enough to take the crown from Fight Night Champions? No. Is it the worst boxing game of all time? No. Undisputed does a good job incorporating some RPG leveling elements into a boxing game, and does so with a surprising depth of quality. While it may seem simplistic on the outside, once you dive into the heart of Undisputed you will see the wealth of content that this game does provide. Now, the big question remains, is it worth the full retail price of $59.99 good? Sadly, no. With the issues and lack of content I couldn't justify spending $60 on what would easily be a $30 game.
**Undisputed was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Suggestions: Improve the gameplay. Bring in more licensed fighters from all weight classes. Include more realistic venues and iconic settings. Improve the sound and announcers.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Gori: Cuddly Carnage
There have been numerous tales of horror stories where children's toys have come to life and attacked humans, and now developer Angry Demon Studio has ventured into that twisted, dark realm with Gori Cuddly Carnage. This indie game would best be summarized if the South Park woodland critters decided to mate in an unholy ritual with the humor of Borderlands, the over-the-top gore of your favorite slasher film, and the psychosis of Alice in Wonderland. Priced at $21.99 it's on the higher end of the spectrum for indie games, but the big question that needs answered is: Is it worth it? Well, take a look when you have a developer team that decides to push the envelope of "fantasy violence" and dive into the realm of tremendously disturbing.As is with all toy makers, developers make toys that they think kids would want. Then these ideas are prototyped and sent to offices where people sitting around mahogany desks make choices on what to make and not to make for the kids. Ever thought about what happens when the toys that don't get chosen get pissed off? In Gori: Cuddly Carnage, that very question gets answered. The story basically involves this inventor making two toys: One Rabbit and One Cat, and these toys were supposed to interact with children, make their lives better and bring all kinds of sunshine and rainbows. Well, as you may have guessed from the title of the game, this didn't happen. Turns out the executives were doing experiments on these toys and rejected Gori in favor of the Rabbit. That turned out to be the best decision, as these toys mutated and fought humanity for their freedom and wiped out all human life on earth. Now Gori was separated from his creator during this fight and is on a quest to find and rescue her. Standing in your way of this, however, is an undead zombie army of twisted, demented demon toys that you must disembowel along the way to save your creator.
When I say demented demon toys, here's an example of what I'm talking about. Your standard enemy is a stuffed zombie unicorn toy with blades for the front two hooves, called "Slicey-corn" (you can start to see a naming convention forming here). Then you have the same enemy but with guns instead of blades, called "Shooty-corn". If that weren't twisted enough you have doll heads that float around the room and shoot a laser pointer beams out of their good eye until they're out of energy, and when they do, their brains literally drop out of their heads and you have to sever them from the head to kill them. To say that the enemy list provides some form of psychological profile on the developers would be a safe theory to have. Not to mention that the language in Gori is highly adult and at times humorous on a highly disturbing level. For example, you have the manager which is Gori's version of an Etch-A-Sketch, however, the voice of this is a young child under the age of 10 and when he starts dropping F-bombs and telling you how much he is going to dismember you and how much enjoyment he takes out of watching you suffer, then you quickly begin to grasp just how twisted this game is.
This type of language is found throughout all characters in the game. Your main hoverboard that you ride F.R.A.N.K. could be best compared to knifey from High on Life. In fact, one would almost say that they are related as F.R.A.N.K. will openly talk about how much joy and happiness that death and destruction of your enemies can bring to both him and Gori. Then you have your other supporting character CH1-P (Chip) who is basically an AI program that is shoved into a Super Nintendo cartridge and has the mentality of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, as it is eternally depressed and in serious need of cheering up. These are your two primary companions at the start of the game, but you will gain others as you progress through the story.
Gori’s home base focuses around your main spaceship that acts as your centralized hub for all things violent and informative. Around the outside of the main room of the ship you have eight different doors that can be unlocked through finding key fragments while navigating each level. Each one of these rooms provides various forms of entertainment, but the primary one to focus on is the first room as it allows you to unlock and purchase upgrades for Gori and F.R.A.N.K. that stem from cosmetic upgrades such as color of the fur, eye, and clothing, to increasing your slashing attack, your heavy attack, your gun upgrades, and more. The other doors offer insight to your enemies, some training rooms, and other various oddities that really serve no rhyme or reason to the game itself. The main room of your ship acts solely as the world map and is where you will go to navigate through the levels of the story as you take on the demented Adorable Army and rescue any stray Unicorns that haven't been infected or twisted yet. Yes, not only are you on a quest to reunite and save your creator but each mission has a side challenge where you can try to save unicorns that still maintain their innocence.
The gameplay behind Gori is fairly straightforward as well. Your 'X' button does your slash attack, and 'Y' activates heavy attack. 'A' is used for jumping which you can double jump to reach higher levels. Right Trigger and 'B' buttons impact your speed, as your B button acts as a quick dash move while the RT when held down activates the thrusters on F.R.A.N.K. and dramatically increases your speed at the cost of F.R.A.N.K.s energy. Your Left Bumper is your basic block maneuver while your Right Bumper will allow you to grind your board like a skateboard on these illuminated rails and billboards found throughout the game. The maneuvering acts a lot like the classic game Jet Set Radio, and when you grind on these rails and billboards you can use that to recharge F.R.A.N.K.s battery level which you need not only for your boost, but for your charged gun attacks as well which is done with Left Trigger. So, you can use the LT to bring up your gun which you have a limited amount of time in the aiming window but then you can hold down RB to do a charged attack at the expense of some of your energy.
There is a little bit of an issue though with Gori's mechanics, and that's the target lock on feature which is done by pressing in the Right Stick. Normally this should lock on to an enemy close to you, however sometimes that doesn't happen. When you're locked onto an enemy you can also use the RS to move the auto lock on cursor to another enemy, but you don't choose the enemy it locks into. There were times when I was trying to lock onto a big enemy close to me and an enemy further away got locked onto. Then, when I went to switch enemies, it took awhile for the cursor to scroll through them until it finally locked onto the enemy I originally wanted. Now keep in mind, while all this is ongoing, I'm trying to dodge attacks and circle around and keep my focus using the RS to move the camera and the LS to move Gori. This gets especially frustrating when enemies spawn outside of your field of view and you don't know what's coming until it's too late. For this reason, I found a good solid strategy for these encounters is to use the perimeter of the arena which maximizes your field of view and if/when you take towards the center of the arena to fight larger enemies, immediately try to get back to the perimeter to see where enemies may have spawned while you're focused on that larger target.
Gori: Cuddly Carnage offers all this combat and gore in a nice, Saturday morning cartoon kind of feel that is crossed with some of the most sick and twisted Halloween horror vibes. This dynamic contrast of the various levels makes each one highly unique and incredibly fun to experience. Seeing the Duck Hunt dog pop up as a cameo on the arcade level that also has Tetris rooms is quite different, to navigating the nerves and synapses of a demonic cat's brain that has a haunting voice that lingers throughout the game that whispers "pspspspsps" and "heeeeeer Goriiiiii" in such a haunting level that you don't think you hear it at first, but then you take note and is an excellent addition to the already unique audio found in each of the levels. This combination creates a disturbing experience beyond measure but also equally fun and entertaining to the point where you want more from the game given it's only eight levels long.
And that's a big downside when you gather that most levels can be completed in under 5 minutes. Yes, unfortunately Gori's structure formula is one that we've seen countless times. Arena battle which leads to a navigation path, which leads to another arena battle, rinse and repeat. I can understand that the development team behind Gori may not be as extensive as a major AAA game company, and yes there is a ton of detail and quality to each of the levels, but that's where the double edge sword is. You want more of the game because it's so good, and when you don't get that you're left disappointed. So then is it really a negative to do what you can well to the point where your customers are disappointed when they can only get so much content? I'll leave that debate for you.
There are some other bits of issue found in Gori as well. Sometimes the gameplay itself will glitch, lag, and completely break to the point of having to completely quit the game and restart. There were moments in a boss fight with a ladybug where I could ride the rails, turn and bring up my gun to aim, and it would lock the game and freeze entirely. When I reload the game, IF I pass that section of the rail and THEN bring up my gun the game will not freeze. These spontaneous moments of complete and total failure of the game really hurt the experience of Gori, especially when you're having a boss fight. There are also some glitched achievements as well which hopefully will be patched in future updates, but other than that, Gori is a solid little title from hell.
With all this going on, is this worth $21.99? In short, yes. While there are some game breaking bugs and issues and achievements, all of these can be fixed with future updates. While the quantity is limited, the quality is not. It goes without saying that Gori: Cuddly Carnage is one title that delivers a quality story that is full of mind ****s and rewards you for going further down the rabbit hole.
**Gori: Cuddly Carnage was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Gigantic: Rampage Edition
In the genre of team based first person shooter (fps) games, the recipe for success is deceptively simple on the surface, but incredibly challenging to execute properly given that the entire game rests upon the execution of a single word; balance. Should one or more characters become unbalanced, the scales will tip and the entire gaming experience will suffer dramatically. Think of this challenge as a house of cards that is constructed upon the tip of a razor's edge in the middle of a windstorm. Developer Abstraction has decided to test this balance with their release of Gigantic: Rampage Edition. Originally this game was released back in 2017 and only lived for about a year, but now is back on the consoles. So, is this latest release of Gigantic worth the pickup or are the fondest memories of this game buried back almost a decade ago? Let's take a look.When this version was released onto the consoles, Abstraction offered up two new heroes to bring the total hero count to 25 and as well, provided two new maps, along with a new game mode to go along with Clash , and that is Rush mode. Originally Clash mode was the main gameplay experience, but now that is hidden behind a level wall where you must play and rank up your profile through the Rush mode till you reach level 10, and at that point you will unlock the game mode Clash. This is when red flags started to arise for me, because why would you take the main gameplay mode from your initial release and deliberately hide it behind some form of progression wall? The only logical thought would be that this quite literally forces gamers to play this new mode whether they want to or not, and in my book is a pretty bad thing to do. From a gamer's perspective it almost makes Abstraction look unsure of their own talents, so rather than release a mode where no one wants to play, they can force gamers to use it in a tactic to say that this mode has been played by all Gigantic players... because it has to, not because they want to.
When you're in the main menu you'll have several options to choose from: Quick Play, Play, Heroes, Store, Fortunes, Profile, Friends, Settings, and Credits. The Play mode allows you to select Rush, and if you've leveled your profile up enough, the Clash game mode as well, but also provides the ability to select a custom game where you can create an experience using bots, and this is where the biggest issue of Gigantic resides, which is in the server connectivity. Let me explain. Originally Gigantic's servers were a mess and filled with tons of errors that prevented its player base from enjoying the game. Now in this release, we can see that some of those issues have been resolved, however there are still some incredibly game breaking issues that reside within this release.
When you start your search for a game, you're put into a queue and await for your match. Here is where you start to roll your dice of chance on whether or not you'll even get into a match. Once a match is found you get a 30 second countdown where it will say "Match Found" along with a button that says "OK", and when you click on it, the game 'should' send you into a lobby. However, this is not always the case. If someone doesn't hit OK, the game will kick you out back to the screen with an error msg saying that someone cancelled the match. Now the big kicker is that even if everyone clicks OK, there is still a 50/50 chance you'll get the match cancelled error and get thrown back into waiting for a match. In a game that is 100% dependent upon multiplayer connectivity, this breaks Gigantic in half in the blink of an eye. You cannot release a game that is dependent upon multiplayer connectivity, have that break, and expect your game to survive.
It gets worse as you get into the match as well because we all know that there are people who rage quit for whatever reason, and should that happen in this game, originally there were bots that would take the place of the person who quit, but the bots couldn't die and became almost an unfair advantage when you went up against something you couldn't kill, but could kill you. Also, these bots wouldn't be "team" specific. They would instead attack both teams so not only were you now down a person, but you would have a bot that killed everything it saw. I'll take "Things you shouldn't do to upset your community" for 500 Alex. Thankfully this has been patched but the damage has been done to the community. These connectivity issues and imbalances are single handedly the biggest issues that Gigantic faces and is the primary focus on why gamers will pass on this release, and it's a shame because the potential to be a fantastic shooter game is well within reach.
For starters, there are a total of 25 heroes to play as and they are broken down into your familiar classes of Frontliners (melee), Ranged DPS, Melee DPS, and Support. Each of the heroes in these categories also have various stats such as Offense, Defense, Mobility, Utility, Role, and Archetype. When you select a hero you can go into their menu where you have the options for Overview, Cosmetics, Skills, Builds, and Fortunes. The fortunes that you come across are the same menu system you see from the Fortunes option in the main screen. These are challenges within the game that you can complete to unlock new cosmetics for your character.
This is a nice feature because Gigantic has absolutely zero microtransactions. Let me say that again. Gigantic has ZERO microtransactions. In a gaming world where it seems like you get charged extra for a start button and that games deliberately come watered down only to push you to spend more money on content already there in the game, Gigantic doesn't do that. If you want to unlock certain items, all you have to do is play, not purchase. I also love that it's not a pay to win system where you can drop some cash and instantly level your character into an unstoppable powerhouse and have an advantage over the rest of the field.
Each of these characters have skill trees that you can map, customize and develop to the following buttons: Right Trigger, Left Trigger, Right Bumper, Left Bumper, and RB+LB. These skills can be upgraded and modified on your character, and this gives Gigantic a tremendous depth to the character play styles and allows you to really dive in and find a character and skillset that allows you to play how you wish. These customizations can be saved to custom loadout slots that you can access not only at the beginning of the matches, but also when you respawn you can change your character and loadouts as well. This type of on-the-fly customization allows you select the right hero and skill set depending on the situation you find yourself up against, and that adaptation can mean the difference between winning and losing.
There's more good news with Gigantic as well, and that is the art style of the game. This beautiful, almost cell-shaded type of art style, permeates every facet of Gigantic. The levels are dynamic and colorful and well laid out that provides multiple elevation options for gameplay. The characters all look distinctive and provide lots of vibrant and colorful and their skill uses display animations that can fill the screen with light and colors, and you can really see how this applies when you start looking into more skins for your character.
Gigantic is an incredibly complex, and deep MOBA style hero shooter that has been suffered from bad performance issues, poor support, and because of these has seen their community base absolutely disintegrate right before their eyes. While some of the issues have been patched, server issues still arise, and for a multiplayer only game, this is an issue that will quite literally wipe your community. With such issues, the final nail in this coffin was that the game that was originally free to play, now costs you $20. Yes, these game-shattering issues can be yours for a crisp $20 bill, but in today's world, if I'm honest, can be spent on better games.
When playing Gigantic: Rampage Edition, I genuinely wanted to enjoy it. I was rooting for this game and wanted this to be a quality option because I feel that as gamers, our community grows better with better options and I wanted Gigantic: Rampage Edition to be that very thing, but after playing this, the only thing that was gigantic wasn't my gaming experience, it was my disappointment.
**Gigantic: Rampage Edition was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
MotoGP 24
While motorsport has a lot of exciting moments and events, there are few that equal the excitement and danger of MotoGP racing. Halve the number of tires, make your body completely exposed to the elements, offer no steel cage of protection around you, give you tons of horsepower to hit speeds over 180mph, and your only hope of control are your handlebars, and you have MotoGP racing. A sport where success and failure are measured in milliseconds and death literally can be found on every turn on every track, MotoGP is a challenging sport unlike any else found on the planet. Knowing this challenge, Milestone is full throttle when it comes to their latest release, MotoGP 24. Grab your helmet because it's time to ride and just find out if MotoGP 24 takes the checkered flag or crashes out.Loading the game up you'll notice that MotoGP 24 is a very streamlined user interface with what seems like very limited content, but upon further examination you'll see that there's actually a ton of content, just organized very well. You'll see the top menu consists of Home, Single Player, Multiplayer, and Customization. The Home menu is going to be your quick launch section where you can instantly start a Career, Multiplayer game, Grand Prix or Championship. It's going to be your quickest way to jump into the action, but if you want to go deeper, the other menu options have you covered.
Single player offers you the same quick mode selection of Grand Prix and Championship, but now coming back are the Time Trial modes as well. For those who may be unfamiliar with these options, Time Trials are basically you versus the clock for the best times. Grand Prix is going to be your single race whereas your Championship will consist of several races, and in some cases, over 20. The Career option is where you will begin your journey and will find a majority of content at your fingertips. Within the career you'll be able to play the Moto 3 and 2 leagues before jumping into the main stage Moto GP, and I cannot stress enough how important that is.
While you may be thinking Moto 3 and 2 are less powerful and dynamic than the GP league, and you'd be right, however the fundamentals of bike handling are what will make you successful in GP, and that is perfected through the Moto 3 and 2 series. The primary fundamentals of bike handling are going to be using physics to carve every corner at max speed while shaving the apex with your knee and then 'popping' right back up. This is because the bike actually wants to ride upright naturally, and you have to pull the bike down in order to turn. This is where finding the perfect angle is critical. The higher the angle, the tighter the turn, thus slower the speed. Learning to find the proper balance is so important to winning, and before you jump right into a rocket ship with two wheels, using these earlier leagues to gain a feel should be top on your priority list.
Another way to develop and perfect these fundamentals is through the final mode in Single Player; Training. This mode consists of two options: Tutorials and MotoGP Academy. In training you get five training modes: Game Experience, Flag to Flag, Long Lap Penalty, Ride-Height Device (RHD), and Manual Start. These will help you learn these basic concepts and then take them into the MotoGP Academy. The MotoGP Academy breaks the tracks down into sections, and based off your performance, will award you with various medals where gold is sought after. I should take a moment to point out that there are 105 races total, so if you jumped into this before your career and mastered it, then you would be setting yourself up perfectly for a winning future.
The single player mode is very in-depth, so the multiplayer has a lot to live up to. Upon first glance you'll see that not a lot of options exist as you only have online and split screen, but the online portion does offer some more options with Live GP and Lobbies. Within the lobbies you can create your own public or private games, and the race director option is where you can set up the various options such as track, tire compound, class, and more.
The final game mode is Customization, and like the name implies, is all about customizing your rider through their entire outfit from helmet to boots. This customization begins with the graphic editor where you can customize your helmet, the numbers on the bike, any rider stickers (the sticker that goes across your butt), and stickers in general that can be applied. These stickers can be made from numerous layers, and it almost seems as though they took the sticker sheets straight from Forza. This means you can get incredibly creative if you put in the effort.
As with all racing simulator games, one of the most important aspects is the gameplay and in MotoGP 24, you have a few "presets" called under the Game Experience category. Starting things off with Simplified and MotoGP 24 will basically drive the bike for you, and you'll have little to no control over the bike itself. As you move throughout the presets: Intermediate, Advanced, and Pro, you gain more control over the bike, but you must now also balance other facets such as throttle, braking and steering. These settings are felt tremendously when you're in the garage in the pit and you're making changes to your bike.
MotoGP 24 also does all this in a beautiful graphic package. When you're catching the apex of the corner while in a pack of other riders or blasting down the straight at full throttle with the grandstand off to the side, MotoGP 24 does a great job at delivering impressive bike models that sound just as incredible as they scream down the tracks. MotoGP 24 offers a wealth of quality motor racing in a streamlined package that provides controller ripping tension and body leaning turns.
**MotoGP 24 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
TopSpin 2K25
When you're looking to serve up a sports game, most of the time you think of the big sports such as, Football, Basketball, Soccer, etc. However, there is a sport that doesn't normally get enough attention, and that is Tennis. Since its original launch, TopSpin has devoted itself to being the premier and industry leading tennis game. Thankfully that trend of excellence continues with this latest release of TopSpin 2K25 from 2K games. With a focus on bringing an enjoyable, innovative tennis experience, how does this latest entry shape up? Lace up your shoes because we're about to take a deep dive into TopSpin 2K25.Loading the game up you'll see that TopSpin isn't "feature" heavy. This actually plays to its advantage right from the beginning. Normally now we see sports games with what feels like 30 menus on the main screen, but not in TopSpin 2K25. Instead of tons of menus you have only 3: Home, Local Play, Online. Home consists of only 4 options: MyCareer, MyPlayer, Centre Court Pass (this is TopSpin 2K25's version of a Season Pass of content), and the Pro Shop. The Court Pass options allow you to unlock various cosmetic content for your player as well as in game currency and experience boosters.
The Pro Shop is where you will find all items available from cosmetic stylings, to currency, experience boosts, and even upgrade your court pass to 'Premium'. The cosmetic items are quite extensive providing more than just shirts, shoes and shorts, but tennis bags, player animations, rackets, accessories such as glasses, socks and more. Each item requires in-game currency to purchase, but thankfully that is easily obtained through playing your career, so you don't need to focus on spending real money; just play enough and you'll quickly earn enough to pick up the gear you want.
The Local play menu also contains the MyCareer title, but also offers Exhibition and Training options. The exhibition mode allows you to play local matches against human or AI opponents, also able to switch between singles and doubles play, as well as courtside selection. You can either use pre-made professional tennis players or you can even use your own created character. Each one of these characters has different attributes and stats which I'll delve into shortly. Once you have your players selected you can set the rules for the game. You can choose the court surface, time of day, games per set, scoring system and more. It should be noted that some of the courses will remain locked until you unlock them in the MyCareer option.
The last part of the Local Play menu is the TopSpin Academy. It's here you will get to train on the mechanics of the game itself. In TopSpin 2K25, your shot selection is based off the following buttons: A, B, X, Y and RT, and which button will determine a lot of what kind of shot you will hit. It should be noted you can hit normal shots by pressing the button or you can hold the button down to hit a power version of the shot type.
Button - Shot type:
A - This is your basic flat shot. You can get high control and pinpoint accuracy with this shot.
B - Top Spin shot. Think of this like a high rolling, low height shot that is designed to be quick and low.
X - Slice shot. When you want to put some curve on the shot, this is the type for you.
Y - Lob shot. Sending the ball high in the air and to the back line, this should only be played when your opponent is at the net.
RT - Drop shot. Looking to have the ball end right over the net? This is the shot type for you.
Your movement is setup where the Left Stick moves your character around the court. You can use the LB to quickly reposition your player and you can use the Left Trigger to hit what is called an "inside out" shot where you can shift your player to play the opposite style shot that you normally would. Meaning you can hold LT, approach the ball, and where you could normally hit a forehand you would now hit a backhand. Based off your character state that could be critically important to play to your strengths. If you want to rush the net you can do that with Right Bumper and your character will follow their shot up with an advance to the net. The Right Stick though is where you will aim your shot, and it's here you will either make or break your gameplay, because depending on your shot type, position of the stick, accuracy and power will determine if you make the shot in or not.
Another aspect of the gameplay is your timing. In TopSpin 2K25 this will become the most challenging concept to master. When a ball is hit your direction, as it approaches you, you will see a horizontal bar with a green square on the right-hand side as a slider bar that travels across it. The concept is simple: press the button of your shot type when the slider is in the green box. While simple in design, the speed at which it moves is challenging and becomes the quickest pain points of the game.
All of these aspects can be directly influenced by your player stats. This is another area where TopSpin 2K25 shines brightly. The stat list is as follows:
Forehand
Volley
Power
Backhand
Serve
Stamina
Speed
Reflexes
Each one of these stats starts at 30 and can be upgraded to 70, and each level up you gain 6 points. With 30 levels max for your character, you can earn 180 points total, so choose what you would like to upgrade. Personally, I upgraded my Stamina first so I can play more events in the career, and once I maxed that out to 70, I switched gears and focused on my forehand, backhand and power, with the remaining points going into reflexes.
Another aspect of your player creation is the coach you can hire. Here you can choose what coach you want to hire, and each comes with some unique bonuses. To unlock these bonuses you will have to complete certain requirements first, but then the boosts become permanent until you fire the coach. The last part of the player creation is the fittings. There are 3 sections of your gear (strings, grip, and frame) that you can upgrade to provide even more stat upgrades. Should you get a third tier fitting, however, you can even add additional skill and unlock other skill sets.
Your MyPlayer will primarily go through their career, and this is the main mode of the game where you will spend the majority of your time. Your career is broken down into months of the year and within each month there are 3 events: Training, Skill Game, and Tournament. The training modes will take you through mini games that will test your striking ability, accuracy, power and more. The Skill Games will give you chances to unlock new courts, houses and items, and the Tournaments will be where you can raise your character level through completion.
Each one of these aspects is also broken up into various tier challenge categories where they provide different challenge difficulties. The online games are broken down into a tournament style World Tour, an Online Exhibition and the 2K Tour. The World Tour uses your MyPlayer character to play these online tournaments but the 2K Tour is pro only.
It goes without saying that TopSpin 2K25 is an absolutely gorgeous tennis game. The tennis environments look very well crafted with the animation cut scenes before and after the matches with highly polished character models. One of the biggest surprises though has to be the audio. While yes recording hitting a tennis ball sound is one thing, but making sure that you use the tournament country's language is an audio touch that tips the scales when it comes to attention to detail. I also have to touch on the soundtrack that is one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard but that's because I’m 100% biased, and even in my DJ shows have played a lot of the tunes found in the game.
Overall TopSpin 2K25 is an absolute smashing success. It finds a simplistic and streamlined way to bring a lot of depth and fun to a tennis game. While some of the 'rinse and repeat' formula is found everywhere throughout this game, this is how a sports game should be presented. If you're a tennis fan, TopSpin 2K25 should be at the top of your list.
**TopSpin 2K25 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Lords of the Fallen
There are a few game genres that will assess your gaming aptitude while also testing the tensile strength of your controller. I'm talking about the "souls-like" genre, where death is inevitable as is your ability to have another controller prime shipped when you shatter your first one into pieces. Developer Hexworks decided to take up the mantle and not so much develop a sequel, but more of an "improved" version of the game Lords of the Fallen. Make no mistake though, while this new attempt was originally wrought with issues, Hexworks has worked tirelessly to improve this game since launch, and the big question that is on my mind is a 2 part question:1. Was all the work worth the effort by producing a quality title?
2. Is this game worth the money they are asking for?
Time to light our lantern and see what we can find.
As we begin our spiritual journey to redemption we find that this game should be regarded as more of a "reboot" of the original Lords of the Fallen game. Taking place over 1000 years after the original Lords of the Fallen, the Demon God Adyr has devised a way to return to the land of Axiom, and it is up to you to prevent it at all costs. Should you fail, all of existence as you know it will cease to be and Adyr will have full dominion. This was all thanks to Adyr's demon armies who lay siege to the five beacons that keep it imprisoned. As you can expect with other 'souls' type games, the boss fights that accompany this journey ahead are ferociously lethal and should you waver in your ability to fight off the demons, then your light shall also be extinguished.
This is not a war though that is fought on one plane, but rather two. Axiom is the world in which you reside in and full of unique beauty and savage aggression. The other world is known as Umbral and could be considered the "spirit" world that is beyond the sight of anyone who is not a lamp bearer. This is where the unique twist to Lords of the Fallen resides. Using the lamp you can switch between various realms and in doing so not only solves puzzles which will inevitably come your way, but also see how the realms differ. For example, you may come to a body of water that is full and you cannot cross it in Axiom, however, switching to the Umbral realm will showcase to you a dried up waterway that is now able to be crossed. This dynamic was a refreshing experience over the more common "go here, do this, go there to that" linear fashion. While I say it was refreshing, that also doesn't mean it was easy... by any means.
Each one of these realms also carries with it their own inhabitants. Umbral, as you may have already guessed, is full of demonic spirits and all sorts of terrors that have not come to rest peacefully. This realm should be tread carefully and cautiously, for your spirit can easily be added to the numbers contained within. Axiom however is where you will experience the "normal" side of Mournstead (the land within Axiom's realm), and here you will find cities and shopkeepers, soldiers and more. As you progress you'll learn more about how Axiom's residents are entrusting you to keep Adyr at bay. One side note, I personally loved how you can see the hand of Adyr coming up from the ground as a sort of monument that haunts your journey and reminds you of your fate and the fate of all mankind should you fail.
As stated, these cities and shops throughout the game will be where you will do most, if not all, of your bartering for your gear. Lords of the Fallen offers your typical one-handed, two-handed, two-one-handed setup, and based off your character class, should be chosen wisely. These classes are arranged from easiest to manage to hardest. Let me give you an example. Dark Crusader would be considered an easier class to manage because they focus on dealing tremendous damage and can support solid defenses as well. On the other extreme end of the spectrum we have the Condemned class, and instead of a massive sword and armor to start with you get a broken bucket, a throwing rock and some rags to wear. Also, the classes you choose have different starting levels, such as Dark Crusader starts at level 14 whereas the Condemned starts at 1, and a Lord starts at 23.
These classes have their own strengths and weaknesses, and as such, provide their own unique character builds that can focus on melee weapons such as swords, magic spells and abilities, to even ranged weapons such as crossbows. Depending on how you like to play these 'souls' games will determine a lot about your build. Just in your weapons alone you have the following categories:
Ammunition, Bows, Catalysts, Crossbows, Daggers, Fists, Flails, Grand Axes, Axes, Grand Hammers, Hammers, Grand Swords, Long Swords, Short Swords, Polearms, and Spears.
Now when you are talking magic and armor however, the selection is a lot more streamlined, as Magic deals with three types of spells: Inferno, Umbral and Radiant. Whereas the armor is broken down into Helmets, Chest pieces, gauntlets and leg armor. That's not saying though you'll be sparse on choices, but Lords of the Fallen does want you to focus on the weapons of choice for your adventure. While you may be tempted to focus on your weapons, you should not overlook your lamp. When you upgrade your lamp you can incorporate these "Umbral Eyes" which give both a main ,and a secondary effect, and throughout your adventure you can see how these eyes make a significant impact to your character build and your gameplay experiences. You can even use these eyes to deliver tremendous damage to bosses "Pale Butcher". I've got my eye on you.
You know the saying "if you can't beat the game by yourself, bring a friend and dominate." I don't know if that's an actual saying but I'm using it now as Lords of the Fallen offers a dynamic co-op experience that allows you to go through the main questline via a simple drop-in and drop-out system. Activating this is as simple as turning it on in the multiplayer menu system and does include cross platform support from PC to console (sorry but no Xbox to Playstation support). In these multiplayer sessions you can trade with players, and the game itself will balance out throughout. Should you and a friend take on a boss and your friend becomes downed, you can revive them in middle of the fight if able.
There are a few tweaks however that need to be mentioned. If you start your game and your friend joins in, they will gain XP and keep the loot that they acquire from your game, however their story progress will not advance at all. So technically it is possible to go through a friend's game and level up your character, gain all this gear and build it out to be a rampaging machine, then pop back into your game and lay waste to everything. A lot of this is similar to how games like Borderlands operated. You could go through, level up your guy and get all your weapons and then go back into your game and walk through most of it.
Speaking of which, the loot system in Lords of the Fallen multiplayer acts similar as well since the loot can be accessed by both players, however, the small caveat is that only the host can obtain world loot and hidden items that may be inside chests. As you get to navigate the areas either solo or with a friend, you're going to be in for a visual sensation that is what you come to expect from a wide open sandbox 'souls-like'. Crypts that are limited in visible space but not in danger, snow covered wilderness that takes you high into the mountains, arid and rocky terrain that will test even the most dedicated of followers. Each of the areas of the map bring within it unique enemies and their own distinct dangers, and this also counts for the Umbral world as well.
Fighting these monsters though can be a bit tricky and that is where the kinks in the armor start to show with one of the biggest challenges to ever face video games... the camera. Normally having the ability to free roam the camera can provide benefits, however, when you're locked onto an enemy, it can betray you when you least expect it. This can be an issue when you're dealing with a game where death is as constant as the northern star. Thankfully, through your combat you will level your character up through various stats and equipment that will turn your once meek adventurer into the savior of the realm.
Overall, Lords of the Fallen is an excellent example of if at first you do not succeed, try again. With a multi-realm dynamic to manage throughout your campaign, Lords of the Fallen delivers a challenging and highly rewarding souls-like' experience. With Unreal 5 delivering graphical presentations that are memorable, an incredibly deep character progression system, and enough loot to keep even the greediest of gamer happy, Lords of the Fallen takes its rightful place in the upper echelons of the genre. Grab your friends and some extra controllers because Lords of the Fallen is a quality experience that is rarely found.
**Lords of the Fallen was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10
Chessarama
Games have been a part of human existence for centuries. What started as simple sticks and stones evolved into games of thought and skill. This evolutionary trend continued all the way till now where we have hyper-realistic graphics and virtual reality. Along this evolutionary track, there are few games that stay consistent along their path, and Chess is one of them. The game of kings has gone through several iterations, innovations and other attempts to break the board down into something mathematically manageable. While some games will beat you like Bobby Fisher and not look back, others take a more cartoonist approach to their games, and Chessarama is that very title. Minimol Games has released Chessarama in an attempt to capture the spirit and excitement of this legendary game. Is Chessarama going to make you a chess wizard or will it get checkmated? Let's find out.When we load the game we are greeted with what would appear to be the pieces of a chess board come to life, and you have a few game modes to select from: Campaigns, Battles, and Chess Match. Normally when chess games get released, they try to deliver things such as "challenges" where you have to think through your moves as you try to get, for example, mate in 6 moves. These modes, while challenging and skill developing can become mundane, boring, and often overlooked. Chessarama strives to overcome this by using Campaigns.
These are a series of stages that gamers can play that contain challenges in the stage itself and focus you to work on developing a strategy with one particular piece. For example, the first campaign is called Farm Life and focuses solely on the Knights (the horse piece). If you have never played chess before, this piece can move either move in a 2x1 or a 1x2 fashion and Chessarama's very first campaign is 24 stages of pure Knight challenges and 25 level challenges.
There are little twists and turns as well within the game. Staying with the Farm Life example, you can only jump on flower plots one time as opposed to being able to hop into its multiple times like other plots. When you start to incorporate numerous pieces, you really have to start planning your pathways, otherwise achieving the side goals will elude you. These types of stages introduce a fresh perspective into the game of chess and can lead to either incredibly euphoric triumph, or controller smashing frustration.
Outside of the campaign you also have Battles which put you against the computer utilizing the pieces from the Campaign. This means your first battle will utilize your king and an army of knights. What makes this game unique is that not only can you choose the difficulty, but the board layout and piece positions are purely random, including the flower boxes so you'll never start the same way twice. This always keeps things fresh, but the downfall is that it prevents any type of consistent strategy.
These battles have their own goal criteria that you must meet to gain an experience bonus, and you'll need every bit of it because the ability to unlock other battles require thousands of XP. When you realize that you can earn between 10-50 (easy - very hard) XP per victory, and to unlock the second battle you will need a total of 3000 XP. This means it's time to get comfy because you'll be grinding this out for a long while. Along the way you'll unlock other piece sets, and completing these challenges becomes the only real value. This becomes a letdown when you take into account how much grinding you have to do just to unlock the pieces and sets. I'm all for the 3000 marks, but how about 50-100 per match?
If you do get tired of the grind you can find another challenge in the classic Chess Match mode. Here you can pick your set and play a match. When you win your rating will be adjusted based on win or loss and that's posted to the leaderboards, so there really isn't anything outside of bragging rights on Chessarama's leaderboard.
Graphically the pieces and models look nice and the matching boards really fit the feel of the pieces, but there isn't much content available. With only a handful of boards and pieces, tChessarama feels devoid of a ton of content. Older chess games on past generation consoles have provided more content choices to enjoy.
It's these natural shortcomings that make Chessarama feel like a good idea and premise, however the execution came up short and then abandoned all together. This is even more heartbreaking when you consider how rare a chess game actually is on the Xbox platform. Go ahead and search for the store. There are only a handful of titles, and some are even free. When you take these factors into consideration, Chessarama should be a title that is avoided or wait till it's free. I can say with a sad heart that when you have free games that offer more content, why pay for it?
**Chessarama was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Suggestions: Please provide more content and support your gaming community that buys your games.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Train Sim World 4
All aboard once again for the pinnacle of train simulation experience, Train Sim World 4. With all kinds of simulation games appearing almost monthly, the growing trend that could be argued is that a lot of these entries are just cash grabs. Simple programming to get something easy out there where you can charge a few dollars, and that pretty much is it. Dovetail though has engineered this latest release to provide the most realistic train simulation on any platform. So, is Train Sim World 4 another quick cash out copy, or is it the pinnacle of train simulation games? Get your tickets ready because we're about to go for a ride.When it comes to a train simulation game you need trains... lots and lots of trains. Throughout the years Dovetail has been modeling and providing numerous, highly detailed trains for you to enjoy, and this release is no different. With a focus for more inclusion of steam engines, Dovetail Games decided that this release would be the time to drop the most legendary steam engine of them all, The Flying Scotsman. A pure icon of legendary trains, this Flying Scotsman will test your nerves as you go through the in-depth process of operating this masterpiece.
This latest addition though isn't the only thing Dovetail Games has up its sleeve. If you purchased DLC from Train Sim World 2 or 3, that content will automatically be included in Train Sim World 4. This is a feature that I would love to see incorporated in other games as it truly showcases that the developer wants you to "own" your content. Speaking of content, there's a ton of it at your fingertips.
Starting your journey off, Train Sim World 4 gives you the ability to go into the training center. You don't have to do this, but with Train Sim World 4 not holding your hands, hunting and pecking for the correct order of things will rapidly become the source of tremendous frustration. These are incredibly detailed engines so don't expect just press 'A' to go and 'B' to brake. The training center is very thorough and will help you quickly become used to the various train functions, and the order in which things must be activated and operated to ensure proper function. This also applies to the steam engine trains that require some more work in order to make sure things run smoothly.
After you have passed the tutorial and are somewhat familiar with the mechanics of connecting and unhooking cars for transport, passenger pick up and drop off, switching tracks, and more, you're now on your way to a tremendous amount of railroad content, and when I say tremendous amount of content, it really is staggering. From the main menu you can select My Profile and that will load up your trains, routes, and route tasks. In Train Sim World 4 there are 385 total route tasks alone. The number of tracks as well only naturally increases when you factor in Train Sim World 2 and 3 content can also be used in this game. For a sim game, Dovetail Games has literally gone the extra mile to provide an overwhelming wealth of content that can be accessed from day one.
Dovetail Games also brings you what they call "guided experiences" within the game type Rail Journeys. Here you can undergo various tasks and scenarios that will teach you how to operate other trains within the game. These journeys provide a fun way of experiencing multiple types of trains by breaking them up into several chapters, but also grade you on your performance. I'll touch more about that later.
The content though continues with the store. There are content packs that range from $5.39 to $35.99 and even lines, locomotives, and Routes for sale. Should you also decide to jump right in, pick a train and start working away on the 1,360 services you will have to do across your train collections. If you think that adding some more "sim" to your simulation experience, the scenarios offer some enjoyable variants to experience. There's only 31 in total but hopefully this leaves tremendous room for expansion. It really isn't like you're hurting for content to play.
The content itself though is a step up from Train Sim World 3, but nothing that would be regarded as dynamic until you start talking about the train models themselves. The focus is on the trains, and Dovetail Games shows you why they are some of the best in the business. The detail of the cabins, the sounds of the switches, brakes, hydraulics, and even wheel spin add such an audio and visual sensory experience that these tremendously massive metal beasts can provide. The cabins and trains themselves are replicated with the utmost attention to detail.
Throughout the game, however, you're tasked with making sure you stay on schedule, park the train as close to the marker as you can, and then watch your speed. That last part is quite frankly one of the worst. You'll have sections where you'll be flying along at 80mph and then within moments you have to slam on the brakes and drop the speed down to 25mph. Needless to say you also get penalized if you drive over the speed limit. All of these factors into your overall grade, so it will boil down to managing your speed and stopping point above all else. Oh, and if you think "I'll just deal with the penalty and get there 10 minutes early", just remember that the tracks aren't always straight. Taking a 200-ton piece of steel and engineering to 80mph, making a sharp turn and expect to come out the other side will quickly have you wondering what other wrong life choices you made before you derail the train and go soaring off the tracks.
The only drawbacks are felt within the scenery and the online aspect of the game. The Creators Club allows you to customize your train through livery designs and you can unlock new logos and design elements through completing route challenges, but it would have been nice to offer some type of head-to-head challenge or something that would be far more engaging. Despite a few shortcomings with the graphics and the online content, Train Sim World 4 is a top tier simulator that exemplifies what it means to be a true simulation game. Recreating the experience down to the finest small detail should be the goal of any great sim game, and Train Sim World 4 by Dovetail Games is the definitive train experience.
**Train Sim World 4 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
RoboCop: Rogue City
The 80's were a decade of excess and the 90's were the societal revolution against it and this was ever so apparent when it came to movies. When it comes to iconic, almost cult like following of a movie, there are few that can stand the test of time like Robocop. The infamous "I'll buy that for a dollar" or "dead or alive, you're coming with me", the action, the sound effects and even the stop motion made the series one of those movies that you watched over and over. It became a guilty pleasure of sorts because it was far from the greatest of movies, yet provided so much enjoyment and entertainment that we as consumers of digital media have been wanting a Robocop game but in a way that paid homage to the nostalgia of the series that started this all. Over the years we have had many, and I do mean many attempts to bring Robocop to the gaming world. History shows us that movie games do not have the best track record when it comes to producing a quality experience that simulates the movie it's based on. Now though, developer Teyon has decided to step up to the plate and deliver Robocop: Rogue City which is supposed to be a cannon story that takes place between Robocop 2 and 3. All of us moviegoers know that sequels don't necessarily bring about the best in a movie trilogy and this is the case with Robocop. Entries 2 and 3 into the series showcase a downfall in production development, story, and a loss of what made the original so great. With a game now set in the middle of this, how will Teyon fare with it? Let's take a look.
Starting off the opening menu music to me was sensational. It was a soft piano version of the Robocop theme music and for some reason it just caught me pleasantly off guard. There is more that I'll mention later but to kick things off it was very refreshing. Another cosmetic treat off the bat is how the game takes the green "80's tech" feel that we have come to love from the movie series. This is when you know that starting this game will take you on a time warp back to the 90's. The menu system is fairly straightforward, but there are a few things I should point out. Robocop in the movies was not an agile, nimble hero that jumped and rolled and was very acrobatically. Nope, Robocop instead was a direct tank of a figure and that is where you will find a lot of your gameplay involved.
To put things bluntly, Robocop: Rogue City is your traditional formula of go to point A, shoot and kill every criminal, and the move onto the next objective. The story though, is a direct tie into the events in Robocop 3 so if you were to watch Robocop 2 and then play Rogue City and then watch Robocop 3, you will see how the stories connect to each other. This was a wonderful touch because it made it feel like a continuation rather than a direct "one-off" storyline that had nothing to do with the Robocop trilogy at all. If you haven't seen the Robocop trilogy or saw it many moons and decades ago, here's a brief overview synopsis of what you can expect when you dive into Rogue City.
The story is centralized in Detroit where rival gangs have claimed "territories" and crime is skyrocketing. Police are struggling to maintain order as they are woefully outmanned and outgunned. Enter now, OCP (Omni Consumer Products) which is a company with one objective in mind, the creation of Delta City. This utopia is supposed to replace the crime infested, run down city of Detroit. This company is the primary antagonist throughout the Robocop movies/games and in Rogue City they're no different. The problem with OCP is that they also created Robocop. While under the guise of a "good will" gesture to the City of Detroit and its people and police, little did they know that it was all part of an experimental cyborg program designed to create autonomous policing cyborgs that would essentially put the Detroit PD out of business. Like Robocop, OCP sees you as its property while the Detroit PD sees you as one of their own. This is the crux behind your gameplay in Rogue City.
The choices you make will ultimately reflect what your story plays out to you. Yes, you read that correctly. Teyon has not only put in player choices but has also developed the story so that depending on your choices. Your path will be different as will the outcome of the results. This is due to two main parts of the game which are your side quests and your "evaluations" at the end of every mission. The side quests allow you to choose between your primary directives in how you handle situations. For example, if you notice someone littering that is a crime and you can give them a ticket for it. On the other hand, you can also let them off with a warning and instead of upholding the law, you are increasing your public trust. Remember, you ARE a cyborg so people will need to trust you, yet crimes must be punished. What do you do? The choice is yours.
After these side missions, you have the main story line as well. Each one of these missions is done in a quality that pays homage to the Robocop movies. Without spoiling the plot, itself, when you progress through this story you will see how Alex Murphy (the slain police officer that became Robocop) has to manage and learn how to process these intense memories and painful emotional connections. Each mission takes you deeper along this psychological journey and when you're finished you actually get "reviewed" by a specialist who dives into your actions and how these moments impact you. How you respond in these sessions will also contribute to how your story plays out along with the endings. Yes, there are multiple endings in Robocop Rogue City and the outcomes are determined by your actions.
As you go throughout the game, you'll rapidly become acquainted with the gameplay mechanics. Remember, I said you were not nimble or agile. In reality you're a lumbering tank of a weapon. Using the sticks to move and fire, Rogue City allows you to really dive into the Robocop lore with the same exact targeting system where the enemies are scanned, outlined in a green box, and then tracked. This can come in handy as some of your main missions I talked about earlier involve some combat sections where you are having to outkill either some other police officers, SWAT, and even several ED-209s. This ability to be a tank allows you to run into fire and prove to OCP and Detroit why you are an invaluable asset to the Detroit Police Department. Completion of these go towards your mission rewards at the end and based off your grade, which will determine how many skill points you get.
Which naturally segues into the how to level your character up part of this review. In Robocop you gain experience through enemies killed, documents scanned, pieces of criminal activity acquired, opening safes, side quests, main quests. Now that may seem like a ton of opportunities to earn experience, when you see how the game breaks it down, you'll know why this game forces you to explore. Each 1,000 experience points allow you to gain 1 upgrade slot. If you get an A ranking on main missions you can earn up to 3,000 points. Now that sounds great but then you realize that side missions net you 50 experience points, criminal evidence can net you between 10-100 points depending on the item. Enemies can earn you about 10 points per kill, and so you can see how the mission breakdown is so important.
Every mission has side missions within them, plus other measurable factors such as how much crime evidence did you find? Did you perform side objective "a" or "b"? Hostages saved? These are all examples of some of the factors that are in every mission. If you want that A ranking and those points, then it would go a long way to exploring every inch of Detroit. These skills range from combat, armor, focus, engineering, psychology and more. Rather than some elaborate trees, Robocop: Rogue City offers a straightforward system that provides certain benefits at the beginning, middle, and end of the skill tree for a particular skill. Some examples of this would be in Engineering where you can invest 6 points and you gain the ability to unlock any safe without the code.
Your character isn't the only thing you can level up though. Your trusty Auto-9 pistol can also be upgraded through the acquisition of new PCB boards and various connector pieces. As you browse the areas of your missions, you will come across these PCB boards which enable you to upgrade your weapon and allow some bonuses as well as some penalties. You can upgrade your pistol's magazine capacity, weapon spread, reload speed, damage and armor piercing. You can upgrade these by using chips found within some enemies and OCP containers. These octagonal chips come in different power levels, types, and shapes. For instance, you can have a chip with an opening on both the top and bottom and is at 20%. This means you can take the power current from the PCB board and have it gone straight through and provide that 20% bonus onto your weapon. Each one of these boards offers a different configuration and different bonuses as well such as automatic fire, never reload, increased armor penetration and much more. Through the use of these chips, you can upgrade your weapon and then prevent any negative penalties.
These chips can also be upgraded but a warning before you do, it's totally random what you get so let's say you put in three "L" shaped chips, you may or may not get another "L" shaped chip. Without the ability to purchase them, some of these can be pretty valuable so take caution when/if you decide to upgrade your chips for your PCB board. Robocop Rogue City also offers a nice green monochromatic map that will help you find locations to explore as well as secrets to uncover throughout each mission. This is where the genius of the game resides though. You can use the map but since you're not nimble or agile, it takes you a while to move around and when you're looking everywhere for evidence and documents etc., this map becomes an invaluable tool.
Graphically Robocop Rogue City looks tremendous in some places but highly generic and low budget in others. The character modeling for the main characters is done incredibly well with a dynamic attention to detail. Robocop, the chief of police, and even his partner are spot on from the movies and the developers have done a fantastic job of making it believable. The rest of the environment and characters you can rapidly see were using what resources were left. While this was kind of a letdown, hearing the voice acting and seeing the broken animation on those who aren't main characters in the story really shows a difference. Other sound effects though are done brilliantly. Your targeting system, pistol, walking, ED-209's mobility and voice, all of it seems like it jumps straight from the late 80's and early 90's.
Robocop: Rogue City offers an ever-changing storyline based off your character's choices while paying homage to the amazing source material found decades ago on the silver screen. While not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, neither was the Robocop movie trilogy and it has become an icon of film, so why not this game? This is when I realized that I needed this game to be imperfect to be a perfect representation and Teyon delivered that in spades. If you're a fan of the classic Robocop and would love a chance to dive into a story that links movies 2 and 3 perfectly and have it been cannon, then you owe it to yourself to pick up Robocop: Rogue City, or else there could be.... trouble.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Mortal Kombat 1
In today's world it seems like everything is getting some type of "multiverse" treatment. In true Oprah-like fashion, the same can now be said officially for Mortal Kombat 1. We dear gamers were together as we climbed the various numbers leading up to 10 (X) and even 11, but now? Now we start back at 1 due to a completely redesigned timeline. It's this blank canvas that developer NetherRealm tries to paint the next future for the Mortal Kombat series. In their design for the future, however, it seems like they focused on the phrase "less is more". In today's gaming arena though, is it wise to uproot literally everything and start from a small seed again? Let's find out.As we begin our warrior's path, let's talk about the story of Mortal Kombat 1. In Mortal Kombat 11 you had a choice of whether or not you let Shang Tsung or Liu Kang be victorious. Now it goes without saying that the endings varied greatly depending on who you chose to be your champion, however Mortal Kombat 1 focuses on your choices on the Liu Kang side of the koin. The story is very well designed and speaks to the reboot very well. While some of the reality poses more questions than it answers, the cinematics make every moment of the game one enjoyable moment after another. It should be mentioned though that Liu Kang isn't the only one that can manipulate time. Shang Tsung can also wield the power of time and corrupt it beyond imagination.
This is thanks, in part, to Mortal Kombat 1's perception of time. Rather than a flowing stream carrying with it the very existence of everything, now we face numerous, almost countless time streams. At points in time, it almost makes me feel like Loki with all the different timelines. While the story is very well written and explained in a method that makes some of the most sense out of any multiverse expansion, as you begin the game you will start to feel like Mortal Kombat 1 is missing something and that would be found in the fighter count and their new kameo system.
In an effort to spice up the kombat of the game, NetherRealm studios has a pseudo tag team kombat aspect called Kameo. This Kameo element allows for momentary combat by another character. For example, you can play as Liu Kang and perform his dragon kick, and when the opponent goes flying back you can trigger Scorpion to appear and do some upward fire breath attack to help initiate a stagger, which will lead to a juggle opportunity and kombo extensions which deal more damage. Mortal Kombat 1 though does offer an in-game balancing system, so if you're caught in the middle of a juggle and can't get out, it's going to be OK because while you may be spammed in a 60 hit kombo, the game starts to negate a percentage of the damage every time till it's virtually nothing. This was a great way to keep things as balanced as possible and allowed for the concept of long, strung together kombos, but also giving hope to the opponent and a chance for redemption.
Each one of these Kameo fighters though have with them their own brutality and fatality, and this is in part to the new character progression system. Rather than go into the Krypt (which is now gone) and spend your koins, you have to play matches with your fighter to level them up, and in doing so, unlock new fatalities and brutalities. One thing I was missing though were the friendships and other unique things that Mortal Kombat would provide. Also, in the past there were tons of different fatalities, though now in Mortal Kombat 1 there are only a couple along with the brutalities. Other changes to the combat to offset the sparse fighter lineup and the upgrade system payouts would be the newly included air kombo system that we haven't seen in almost 20 years.
Each of the 23 characters can go up in levels as high as 35 and rank 15 for the 15 Kameo fighters and you have to almost ask yourself why? Throughout the level-up process, you unlock a lot more kosmetic items than anything, but why the 20-level difference between regular and Kameo fighters? When you take into account the sheer number of XP you will need to get to level 35 (315,000 total) you are in for an incredible grind for kosmetic items (all characters have the same path to level up and same number of fatalities and brutalities to unlock along the way).
Here's what the kombat grind looks like: In the invasion mode (more on this down below), there is a battle where you have to fight 3 opponents one after another. Should you get a triple flawless victory and end with a brutality, you will walk away with 1130 XP for your main fighter and 315 for your Kameo. How much is it to get to level 15 with your kameo fighter? Why it's 60,000 XP, and if you can earn max XP at 315 for your kameo fighter and repeating this triple endurance battle 279 times to max out your main character.
The grind has just become real. To compensate for that, Mortal Kombat 1 has instituted a new game mode called Invasion. This game follows up on the main story and should be played afterward to understand what is going on. Will playing Invasion mode first spoil the story? Absolutely not. To condense Invasion without giving too much away, imagine a map with a predetermined path laid out with numerous turns, and all of which navigated in a point-by-point manner. Each point along the path equates to some type of kombat. From test your might, to survival, towers and just a single kombat, the types of fighting options at your disposal are vastly limited. While the premise is cool, by the time you go through four massive levels which consist of over 30 fights (not to mention the ambush fights that surprise you along the way or the secret fights that can happen after you complete your first fight), the novelty of this becomes more of a chore than anything.
That's not to say that Invasion doesn't offer its own internal system and story. Each Invasion season is supposed to be one part of a random timeline and there's a story that coincides with it. In this current story, Scorpion is searching for a timeline where his beloved wife is still alive. After endless searches that came up empty, he found one where she was alive, but Hanzo was not. Therefore, she has taken up the mantle of the Scorpion and together they are on a quest for vengeance. After the time has expired on the Invasion season, another one will start, but the game became tremendously monotonous and highly repetitive due to the character upgrade aspect of Invasion.
Not only will leveling up your character unlock kostumes and a couple other ways to kill your opponent, but you can earn character points where you can invest them into various aspects. Here's a tip; I sank every single point I had earned into attack which made my regular attacks (uppercuts included) vastly more powerful. While your other stats will naturally level up with you, if you pour your main point amounts (10 per level) into your regular attacks, you literally become an unstoppable force where the only challenges you may face are the end boss of Invasion. This also helps when you realize you have to fight over 275 times to max out your character, you want those battles to be quick, very quick.
Going through Invasion though, with such a limited roster really makes it feel light on the kombat. When you take into account that a majority of the time you won't be hearing any type of character interaction at all, you start to wonder why? Why not have Babalities and Friendships again? Why would you lessen the number of fatalities and brutalities that characters can have? Why would you not have more innovative style matches in Invasion mode? Why would you remove all this past content without giving it a restart as well? This I feel was Mortal Kombat 1's biggest fault. They have what could arguably be the most in-depth fighting system, and while some may argue "same ninja, different color, different moves", and while they would be right, the dynamic of the different moves created a new fighting experience never seen before.
Some of the other changes I’m not too fond of either. These would be the removal of the Krypt, and instead now you get this gold melting dragon that you apparently put 1,000 koins into it, and it melts it down into some item for you. Whether it be some koncept artwork, another kostume, or some other item, you basically have to earn enough koins to continuously feed them into the dragon to get the item you hope to get. This can and will become very tedious, especially when you note the incredible delay in between each round. This means spend your koins frequently because if you stockpile them like I did, you will find yourself just sitting there endlessly pressing the button to melt your gold into some pointless item.
Speaking of pointless, why would you not include cross konsole fighting at launch? With today's hot word of the moment being interconnectivity, it should be priority one with any developer to make sure that your audience can connect with each other and enjoy your product (insert sarcasm here). Nothing brings gamers together like dividing them, and that is exactly what we have here unfortunately. Thankfully they said it would come post launch, but when? It was never mentioned.
I have to touch on one massive plus that Mortal Kombat 1 has going for it, and that is the sound and graphics. As the previous Mortal Kombat games have pushed graphic fidelity into new heights, Mortal Kombat 1 continues that tradition. The character modeling is absolutely stunning, and when you start talking about the fatal blow animations, they still will make you wince and go "oooooooooo" and cheer wildly when you connect for a game winning blow to setup an incredibly gory fatality. NetherRealm studios has gone above and beyond all graphic expectations to ensure smooth frame rates which permeates deep into the game's cinematic experience that truly makes for a wonderful journey.
Ultimately, Mortal Kombat 1 delivers a quality story that is rarely found in fighting games and one that naturally allows for many years of stories to be told. It can't be overlooked though the number of shortcomings that unfortunately plague this game, which is disappointing. If less is more than please NetherRealm, give us more. More kontent, more kreativity. This should be the one that starts it all over again, but unfortunately Mortal Kombat 1 feels like a step backwards rather than forwards. Despite all that though, despite the lack of content and all the shortcomings, Mortal Kombat 1 is an incredibly fun, gory, and fluid fighting game that should be enjoyed by all the fans of the fighting game genre. It may not have a lot of kontent, but what it does have is exceptional.
**Mortal Kombat 1 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Suggestions: More of everything. You have the kontent. Use it.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Forza Motorsport
In the world of games, there's one category of software that tries its best to deliver a real-world experience, and that would be the simulation genre. Rather than strive for some fantasy adventure or some arcade type experience, simulators look to not only teach, but train as well, so when and if you encounter such an experience in real life, you will have some simulated training. For years, Forza Motorsport has been the quintessential driving simulator. Since its inception, other racing simulators have been released whose main goal was simple; dethrone Forza, dethrone the king. There have been countless resources poured into this task, and while some of them came close, Turn 10 decided to release another installment of Forza Motorsport and show to the world why they wear the crown. Buckle up because it's going to be a white-knuckle review as we hunt for the apex and check out the latest Forza Motorsport.Starting out, Forza will ask you to select your graphics output, and there are three choices to choose from:
1. Performance - this will prioritize 60FPS on-track performance at 4K resolution.
2. Performance RT - Enables on-track ray tracing at 60FPS but at the cost of variable resolution.
3. Visuals - Maximize 4K visual quality on-track with ray tracing but at 30FPS.
Depending on your setup and system you will be able to select what is best for you. I found it helpful to try out the various modes to get a feel for them, but ultimately settled on Performance RT. Once you're into the game itself the game will take you through the Builders Cup Intro which consists of three different races. This will lead you to choosing some vehicles and begin your racing education. I say education instead of gameplay because Forza Motorsport will teach you how to get better at racing, through racing itself. Once you complete the intro series, Forza Motorsport will open itself up to you and you'll get to see the path laid before you.
In the Builders Cup you will see that it is divided into 5 tours (Modern, Enthusiast, Power, Legacy, and Open Class). Each one of these tours consists of 5 series and each series is made up of 4-6 races, with each race comprised of at least 4 laps. When you start to think that each series consists of a minimum 16 laps and up, you get a sense that you will be driving for a very, very long time. It's this time though that Forza uses to train you how to drive.
In Forza Motorsport, the game itself is almost entirely different to anything we've expected or seen in the past. Let's start with the settings. While the driving assists are still enabled, how you get to configure them with the additional assists is something that will help give you a deeper appreciation for real life race drivers. The Accessibility menu allows for an absolutely extensive list of customization options that will allow you tailor your driving experience. Once you have your settings sorted out on how you would like to drive, now comes the real fun.
From the main menu you have the ability to go to the store as usual to purchase any type of car packs / passes that will unlock more content for you, however, this is where Forza starts to have faults, but not for the reason you may be thinking. There are tons of cars that fill the roster within Forza Motorsport, but the lineup feels very, very thin. When companies are priding themselves on the number of cars to choose from, Forza Motorsport abandoned that for quality vehicles that will be the pinnacle of driving excitement. So gone are the days when you have like 40 Ferrari's to choose from or 45 different Ford vehicles. Why would Forza do this? When you see the new car upgrade system you'll understand why.
For those of us who love Forza Motorsport, we usually find ourselves a small handful of cars that we actually will drive. I can admit I never drove an old Impala or a Transit van. This is because when we have like 400 cars to choose from and only really drive eight of them, then why have the other 392 vehicles? This reality and rationalization are the core behind the new car development program and also where we see how Forza strives to teach us how to be a better driver.
In previous Motorsport installments the equation was simple; save up enough money through auction house sales and races and pick any car you want and upgrade it however you wanted. That's now gone, along with the auction house. Instead, Forza Motorsport has given each car 50 levels of experience, and the more you drive the more experience you have of the car, and THAT is what will unlock the items you can use to upgrade. Take note though, by performing well you gain car points for THAT CAR, NOT in general. What does this mean?
The Car Points (CP) will not go with you if you select a different car. Car Points are tied to the car itself and no others. For example, let's take your 1980's childhood poster Lamborghini and try to upgrade it right away, and you'll see you can't. After a couple of races, however, you should have about 1400 CP to spend on upgrades. Want a race intake? 400 CP. How about a race exhaust? 500 CP. Engine swap? Yes, but you'll have to finance your home to afford it due to the cost. I'm exaggerating of course but when you start taking into account the cost of upgrades, you'll see that the credits you earn are strictly for purchasing cars while the Car Points (CP) are used for your performance upgrades. One cool addition for this entry though is how when you hit level 50 you also unlock body kit aero components. All of these upgrades are also factored into your car's overall balance which you can clearly see on the screen, and you can see how each part will impact it independently.
As you drive your car of choice and level it up, you unlock more performance options which help keep your interest pinned for several races, but if you're really looking to upgrade your cars quickly, then become a better driver. Forza Motorsport will now give you multiple methods of earning CP and leveling up. For starters, leveling up the car itself will give you bonus CP and when you drive the course there are several sections and Forza grades you on each one on a scale of 1-10 where 10 giving you the most CP boost. Should you hit a car or venture off the track though, you'll be pulling 1's all day long.
This is because the key to Forza Motorsport is learning how to drive. How to take your car and put it right to its limits throughout multiple environments. Taking hairpin turns on the inside can open you up to contact and whether you're hit or the one doing the hitting, you're going to score a 1. This trains you to be patient and wait for your moments to overtake. Sometimes it's best to abandon the racing line to pass along the outside and gain position by not having a perfect lap. Getting a 7.5 in a corner is a lot better than 1.
Forza will also allow you to gain more XP bonuses by allowing you to set personal best times within various sections. These sections are designed to see how you master your handling of your vehicle within the corners and straights to shave as much time off the clock as possible. For example, if you set a section time of 20 seconds in one lap and go through the next lap and set a section time of 19.8, then you'll get an xp bonus. This pushes you to become a better driver to find the breaking point, the apex, and the straightaway speeds in every course you race.
Another interesting feature is how Forza provides a preliminary practice round of the track. This is where your section boosts can come into play. Each session is around 10 minutes long but only requires you to complete on average 3 laps, with a bonus objective of setting a particular lap time. Completion of that will also allow you to select where on the starting grid you will launch from. You can start as high as 3rd place, but the further back you put your car the larger your credit bonus will be, but the more challenging the race will also be. Should you opt to even go for more bonuses you can increase the difficulty, penalties and realism, and here is where Forza has always shined.
Every car has an established curb weight and therefore handles differently. In Forza Motorsport you can customize your vehicle with fuel weight, and the increase weight will dynamically impact the car's handling ability. There's even an achievement for finishing a race with less than 1 lap of fuel remaining. All of this impacts how the car handles, but that's only half of the big picture. The environment of Forza Motorsport is incredibly realistic, and when coupled with an even better weather system, it's not uncommon to find yourself hydroplaning as you tackle long flat straights or the inside of a downhill corner where the water has collected.
I'm happy to report as well that the paint department has returned with force. Outside of upgrading and tuning, that's all that can be done with the cars you own. Remember how I was saying that this game is very sparse? This is in part the number of race events that take place outside of the career. There is Featured Multiplayer which is actually a scheduled event that brings the best out to play. Free Play is exactly how it sounds. You literally choose everything that happens. Rivals are back where your only opponent is the clock. Set the fastest times and let the world know. Finally, there's Private Multiplayer where you can create completely custom events that is a hybrid of both Free Play and Multiplayer.
Graphically, Forza Motorsport is absolutely beautiful. The quality of the car models coupled with the lighting once again show the world why Turn 10 and Forza continually set the standard for graphic quality. From the exterior to the interior and every nut and bolt, the level of detail is without contest. There is no other competition. The smooth menu music is looped in, and when your car takes off at the light and your engine roars, hold on to your senses because on a home theater system this game sings. Realistic pit stops where you hear the engine just idling and sounding like Thor's hammer, Forza Motorsport delivers a driving presentation that is mesmerizing.
Forza has done so much for Motorsport, and hopefully when they expand on this platform and provide more driving content we can very well see the expansion of things such as legendary races that are recreated. When you decide to set out to create what could arguably be easily regarded as the premier driving simulator, Turn 10 did exactly that. Forza Motorsport is a phenomenal driving game that combines mind bending physics for driving accuracy melded with an audio and video presentation that is second to none. When you can combine those two elements to near perfection like Forza Motorsport has done, it goes without saying that Turn 10 has done an absolutely amazing job paying attention to and focusing on making you a better driver. That is the ultimate goal of any Motorsport game, and Forza wears the crown.
**Forza Motorsport was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.2 / 10
EVERSPACE 2
Kickstarter games are usually synonymous with the phrases such as "lackluster" or "disappointment", where the promise of a quality gaming experience is met head on by the freight train of reality, which usually produces an experience that is sub-par at best. And then there is the company Rockfish Games and their game Everspace 2. If you've been living on Earth for the last couple months you may have heard about another space game that has been released, and while going up against such a giant may not be the most ideal launch, when you have a quality product, you just showed the world why you can go toe to toe with one of the biggest releases in the modern age and produce a product that will happily suck weeks of your time into utter oblivion and leave you smiling all the way to the nearest spaceport. Make no mistake, Everspace 2 is a serious contender for Game of the Year, and normally I do not look at games that way, as I see them as more entertainment value for dollar invested, but wow. If quality Kickstarter games are a diamond in the rough, Everspace 2 is the best of the best.Starting out, I was excited to see a game utilize the almost comic panel type of cinematic layout and delivery. It allows the game to be presented in a way that minimizes the risk of deliverance, and at the same time allows the message to be understood. The game itself boasts an incredibly dynamic story arc that is very well written and provides some mystery and insight which is what is needed when you spend over 99% of your time flying your ship. Throughout the missions you will not only unlock the story, but other crew as well that have their own specialties and bonuses, which will get to here in a moment. It really is a breath of fresh air when you get the ability to enjoy a very long and in-depth story arc that does a great job pulling you from one area to the next.
While the story is top notch, the gameplay itself is some of the best you will ever get to experience. It could easily be argued that the flight mechanics of this game allow for some of the most enjoyable experiences of any space simulator game ever. Utilizing the methods of 3D spatial awareness, Everspace 2 takes a while to master your navigational controls, but once mastered, they will allow you to do tremendous things within your ship. There is a type of starship that could be argued is a direct rip off of the X-Wing, using the lateral thrusters and the flight mechanic buttons, I can strafe and alter my elevation in the blink of an eye and really maneuver the ship in ways that have yet to be replicated by any space flight game.
This is because the mechanics of the Left and Right Stick impact the X and Y axis of the 3D space, however the Left Trigger and Left Bumper work the Z axis. When you combine that with the pressing in of the Left Stick for your thrusters AND to the left while ALSO pressing the 'LB' button, and you will climb up while moving forward and strafing to the right. After a few moments of getting used to the controls you will be amazed at the maneuverability and navigation of the spacecraft. This reality is going to come in handy when you start realizing the balance of the ship traits themselves.
When you navigate the systems, you will see that the systems you can explore are all going to be interconnected through jump rings, and that each system contains a plethora of explorable areas. Each planet, space station, asteroid system, etc. that you explore involves using the gravity jump to propel you to the next target. What sets Everspace 2 apart though is the ability to control your own ship while flying at this rate of speed, not only that you will have spontaneous "pop up" missions such as distress calls or unexplored signals that will give you the option to find more loot/resources while on your way to your goal. It is not uncommon to have several of these side missions pop up on your way to an objective, but these do offer a great way of building cash and finding more items and resources to use. It may be worth your while to steer your ship into these and lock on to these side quests, but if your ship is not very strong, then combat may be best avoided all together.
There are multiple classes of starships that range from small, lightweight craft that are very fast and agile, to those who are large, slow, but can absorb a ton of damage. You can start to see how Everspace 2 sets the vehicles up. Each of these crafts has their own unique loadouts, traits, as well as an "Ultimate" weapon. When you are small and nimble you may only get a couple of weapons at your disposal, but when you are as big as a barge, you have a lot more real estate to pack on additional firepower. Early on I was adamant about saving and stockpiling as much cash as I could, and when I went to my ship vendor I came across Everspace 2's version of their X-Wing and I could not hit buy fast enough.
This ship came packed with three primary weapon slots, two secondary and on the slider between tiny+quick and large+slow, this fell right in the sweet spot of in the middle. While I will always have a soft spot for my starting ship, once I found this beauty I never looked back. Each ship comes equipped with primary and secondary weapons plus combines a booster (how fast your ship can move), radar (scan for loot, ships, resources), shield, power source (everything in the game takes power, how much power you have to spend on your weapons, shields, etc. is determined by this), armor plating, and multiple consumable items that you can use such as additional shields, nanobots for repair and more.
When in flight your ship will have three meters when fully outfitted. Blue is your shield, Orange is your armor, and Red is your health, and they operate in the similar way you would expect. Your shield takes damage until it is done then goes your armor and finally your health. Now you may think, 'oh that is a nice cushion', until you are at the tail end of a long combat streak of enemies and an enemy carrier warp in, unloads missiles and fighters at you, and opens up every turret it has. Your ship is not mint, you are down several missiles, and now this? Welcome to Everspace 2.
This reality is why outfitting your gear is going to be so critical. As you level up, not only do you have to concern yourself with the overall performance of your gear, but also the class of item itself. For example, if you have a rare sonar that offers you a 1KM scan for resources, you could find one that is less quality but offers greater distances for scanning. It is moments like this where you have to abandon what you typically know about RPG layouts and opt for a strategy of what is actually best for your playstyle.
How can you get this new upgraded gear? You have several options: fight for it and hope you get it, or create it yourself. Yes Everspace 2 also offers a tremendously deep crafting system that allows you to craft items from your grey common/standard items to your purple epic gear. Not only that, but you can even upgrade your components as well. By gathering resources throughout the game you can craft weapons, shields, power cores, and even upgrade components for your team skills, but we will get to that here shortly.
This is why scavenging for resources is critical. For example, if you need pure titanium, you can scan asteroids for various mineral deposits based on the scanning range of your equipped scanner, and then when you see the resource, open fire to collect it. You have to be relatively close in order to automatically draw in the mineral, and out of, let's say 10 units of titanium that you get from the asteroid, you may get one or two pure titanium while the rest is regular ore. This is how Everspace 2 keeps you hunting for more than just gear and weapons. Now, while you may want to go all gear heavy, just note that your cargo container that you have equipped will determine the number of available slots within your storage. Get too full and you will have to dismantle for parts or destroy it to make room. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to NOT have to do that? This is where your team skills come into play.
Now you read that I mentioned something about team skills, and this is critically important. Throughout the story you will get team members who will offer abilities and skills that can assist you in and outside of battle. Such examples of skills would be the ability to send items back to your home base so you can either collect them or sell them at a later time. A good rule of thumb is to start gathering resources as soon as possible and do not stop gathering. You can also mark the resources you need and even upgrade a team skill that allows you to see what elements are within the planet/system you are flying into.
Once you start getting to the higher levels of play you will want to start breaking down purple gear in order to gain the components you need to craft more purple gear. I found myself switching up to this after I started getting more and more blue items and started crafting from there onward. While crafting grey and green items is all well and good, you can find a lot of amazing items and once I had a blue shield that got absolutely smashed by a grey version, so that is when I only started looking at crafting higher quality of gear.
Everspace 2 has provided a quality example of how a sequel can excel from the original. While the game may be overshadowed by another recent space adventure game out there, Everspace 2 is so good and well-built that people may start to be saying "Star what?". While I still hold the belief that the majority of Kickstarter games either under deliver, fail miserably, or even cheat their backers out of money, when games like Everspace 2 come around, it's no surprise why these are the titles that deserve to be highlighted as examples of near perfection that, unlike the Easter Bunny, do exist. If you are looking for a highly polished, incredibly fluid and well-developed space combat game, don't look to the stars, look to Everspace 2.
**Everspace 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON
When you combine the long-standing quality of a company like From Software with customizable mechs, more firepower that exists on the planet today, and a strategic methodology, you get one of the most anticipated games of 2023. You get Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Imagine playing chess with your opponents where the right or wrong combination of skills and firepower make all the determination to succeeding and/or failure. Thankfully though, From Software has not only worked to deliver the same quality challenge you've come to expect from them, but do so in a way that encourages playthroughs, customization, and a dedication or pursuit to finishing the job. Time to take this to new heights as we look into the details of From Software's newest entry into their classic mech series, Armored Core VI: Fire of Rubicon.With a history of games where dying is frequent, Armored Core VI: Fire of Rubicon (ACVI) lives up to that same moniker but in a colossal mech that has enough firepower to put a crater into the planet. This game's enemy encounters can be summed up in a soul crushing manner. Fight through the map with enemies that pose no significant threat so long as you use some maneuverability, then you get to resupply right before a boss fight that will make you question the sadistic tendencies of the game developers. Maps where you'll fly about encountering enemies and then the developers say "OK, enough fun, here's where the game begins." and then you're crushed. Oh, and make no mistake, this fun begins from the very first mission of the game.
As the story opens up, you have been one of the few survivors of your human augmentation armored core project and are reactivated above the planet Rubicon 3. You realize that you have been reactivated to serve as a mercenary under your handler called "Walter". This opening mission is to get you used to the controls, which will be talked about here momentarily, but also combat and a taste of what you can expect from a game like this. You initially start off trying to find some type of identity so that your handler can start getting you jobs to get paid. You will go between several interactive points until ultimately coming upon the identification you need which will trigger the first boss fight.
As you hear over your radio of an incoming ship you find out that it's from a faction calling themselves the PCA or Planetary Closure Administration, or massively powerful space government. This jet has several absolutely crippling attacks and will quite rapidly get you acclimated to the movement style of ACVI because it is here that you will get just a sample of what to expect moving forward. It's about here that you would naturally see a training montage but there's an actual method to the strategy within ACVI and learning to adapt will ultimately decide whether or not you're cheering for your success or clicking restart from checkpoint in controller shattering frustration. Let me explain.
Armored Core VI is nothing but chess in a multi-directional format that relies on your tactics and weaponry to come out on top. Let's take this first boss as an example. With it flying around, you have several options. You can fly around and chase it and shoot ranged shots on it, or you get fly right at this thing and unload everything in point blank range. What do you think I did? If I'm literally standing on the cockpit of the craft, then the ranged weapons can't hit me. I can't stay here long because it will move, but it allows me to get in close and do some serious damage. Once enough damage is done the craft is staggered and is vulnerable, and this is when you have to fire everything you can. It doesn't last long but if you can time it, you can utterly demolish bosses in a few runs if you're lucky.
That means that you can, as an example, have 2 laser cannons on your shoulders that you can charge up, plus a hand laser rifle that can be charged as well. Swing your sword, stagger the enemy, release everything and watch at least 40% of your enemy’s health instantly vaporized. Remember though, we are talking an opening window of mere seconds, so plan your methods wisely. There is nothing worse than using everything you have to stagger an enemy, only to have nothing to shoot at it with because everything is reloading. If the time window wasn't challenging enough, imagine trying to do this while constantly strafing to the sides, dodging, jumping, flying and maneuvering in a 3-dimensional space at high speeds while trying to survive. Thus enters the main challenge of ACVI.
This produces the natural cycle of "trial and error" because your strategy may not work in certain areas, but adapting to it and your environment will help increase your odds on a dramatic scale. A simple, yet great example would be this: You have an enemy controlled AC (armored core) that is fighting you and has a shield in one hand. Frontal attacks will help stagger, but attacks from above will have more impact. Now picture this question while circling around like some DBZ meets Gundam hybrid while trying to stay alive and create an opening that will allow you to deliver devastating damage. Now you ask yourself, would you go with 2 missile pods that did 10 missiles each in a frontal attack, or 2 missile pods that have 8 missiles each that attack vertically from above?
This is where your tactics are absolutely vital to your success. While speed is important in a lateral axis, having vertical superiority can and will may a dynamic contribution to your survival. Imagine your mech walking normally, while this is very slow, it uses no energy. Should you wish to move around quicker you can engage your thrusters which also require no energy. Then by pressing in the Left Stick, you can engage in a boost that is directed by your reticle, which means you can start from the ground and take to the skies while locking onto targets below you. Now while the boost is engaged and you're flying ahead, you can use that to get close to bosses, or even setup some of your biggest weapons because don't forget, if you're flying towards your opponent, they can be trying to back up which means they're right in front of you to fire any weapon you want. Again, this is weaponized chess.
There have been times when I've charged up some shoulder cannons, dashed towards the enemy, they backed up so I let lose my cannons and they hit, then I fired up my grenade cannon as an instant round to connect. Another hit registered and now he's staggered. Finally, going in with an energy sword style weapon and melee like crazy while in close to really give some damage, and after the swings, my shoulder cannons are refilled so I quickly snap off 2 shots. Then my grenade cannon is cooled down and ready, I let one shoot off quickly before the stagger wears off and the damage just broke the enemy. There are many ways to achieve victory over your opponent, but sometimes you just have to go in and literally don't stop firing.
This was how I decided to also use my 2 miniguns. Imagine having a minigun on each shoulder AND on each arm. Dashing in and just nonstop unloading it can become absolutely savage in attacking, but you have to get them staggered and have to have all weapons ready to fully fire and not partially cooled down. One boss I literally just walked right up to it and never stopped firing and it just got wrecked almost instantly. That fight actually surprised me and that's when it hit me, don't waste time on ranged attacks, focus on getting in close and staggering an enemy, because when you do, they don't attack. Why try to avoid a boss attack when you can stagger it and prevent it from even occurring?
If it seems like I'm focusing now more on the play style and mechanical controls of the game rather than the story, that's because there really isn't much of one to be focused upon in the beginning. On the planet Rubicon there is a substance called Coral and this red substance is sought by governments, corporations and even scavenger/raider type entities. Each one of these wishes to use Coral in a different way, and for different reasons. While each one has a unique reason for its development and use, your character's sole focus is that of money. There will be missions though that are choice points and will set the game moving forward based off your own choices, so the replayability of ACVI just went up tenfold.
This is when ACVI boils down the story to having you use your acquired funds to build up your mech how you see fit for your playstyle. Personally, I preferred to switch between some shoulder mounted vertical missile pods, laser cannons, or forward directional missile pods with a hand laser cannon and a sword. I would use some charged attacks from my hand weapon to build up the stagger meter quickly, then rush in, unload 20 rockets at point blank, swing twice with my blade and then fire again with my laser cannon. This damage made me a wrecking ball... when I could survive long enough to get in position to deal that kind of damage. This is because the type of enemy you will face will determine your strategy.
Most of the game you'll fight some mechs mixed with light vehicles such as helicopters and tanks. Some of the earlier classes you'll face will be either the generic weaponry class where you have a basic missile or laser pod on 2 legs, or a light MT which is a very basic and lightly armored mech that is easily disposed of. Then the game ramps up a bit by delivering some artillery weaponry. These things are no joke if they hit you and are usually set up in a grid covering position, so while you may be thinking of taking one down, just remember in doing so, you'll be the target of at least three other cannons. Finally, you get to the elite of the "standard" enemies, the other AC (Armored Cores), the Light Calvary (LC), the Heavy Calvary (HC) and the big brother of the light MT, the Heavy MT.
These later enemies are not to be taken lightly because they not only possess the tactics and speed to outmaneuver and flank you, but possess tremendous firepower that if you don't dodge, will completely wreck your mech. Outside of the bosses, the HC are ones to be legitimately feared. Their weaponry varies, like all other enemy classes, and what may work with one may not work with another. But after all this, the Bosses are the ones that will leave you absolutely in pieces in the blink of an eye.
There was a boss at the end of Chapter 1, and I thought, hey I'll go in there close, hit him with my sword and my shoulder and hand cannon, then go in for the sword attack again and just keep the cycle of damage going. Turns out this boss has an energy shield that needs to be taken down before any damage can be dealt. It took some damage but tried to keep as close to it as possible and not let off my attack. I ended up staggering it and unloaded everything I had. A nice 15% of the health down, and I keep that up till we get around 50%, only for it to do this attack to switch modes that creates an energy pulse that instantly staggers you if you're too close and get hit by it.
This second phase I thought I'd repeat what I did in the first and then it whips out these multiple flaming swords that form on the ring around the boss. Nothing like speeding into an enemy who is swinging these weapons. OK, time to think where I went wrong here. Restart from last checkpoint. Repeat until this phase and then use ranged attacks until AFTER the flame sword attacks are done then rush in and go to town. I found an opening and then proceeded to dash and dodge my way under or over it, avoided the attacks, then immediately switch to my sword and start attacking from behind at its weak spot. Now it's staggered again.
Unleash hell.
Now down to about 20% health left, I use my last repair kit and make a decision; either stay inside and fight, or try to pick apart from the distance. I reload and I stay inside and fight. I get right on this thing and never stop firing. Dodging constantly but while turning so I can keep my weapons focused on the inside I never... Stop... Firing. Right shoulder cannon empty... Left shoulder cannon empty. 30% ammo in hand weapon and I've got my sword. I charge my hand weapon, use my dashing and boosting to stay as close as I can, use the homing feature of the sword to lock in and dive right into it, hit it twice, then unloaded the hand weapon and it staggered it again. I'm swinging like crazy and shooting my hand weapon as fast as I can and BOOM. It drops and I'm barely alive... but I AM alive.
These are the experiences that you'll come across, and how you decide to handle them will be up to you, however, there is more to ACVI than just the story missions. You will have the opportunity to partake in a combat challenge based on your class that will enable you to get OST chips, and it's these chips that you can use to upgrade and unlock various elements of your mech. From damage mitigation, to shield technology, increase damage output, to even unlocking new movement abilities. Upgrading your OS is going to be vital. There are limited resources though, so invest to where it will help you the most. For me it was damage mitigation and melee damage increase, but now I'm on a quest for a shield. The arena is set up so it's a 1v1 mech fight, and as you continue on, the challenges get progressively harder, but the payouts increase as well.
What the Arena has in common with the main story progression is the ability to alter your mech after death and pick up where you left off. This quality allowed me to switch between various weaponry and tactics, however, to acquire these choices I had to replay several missions trying to get an "S" rank to maximize the payouts. After grinding out several missions I'm sitting at just over 500K and now can go into the shop and start spending. I have to point out that not all weaponry and gear has to be bought at the shop. In fact, going through some of the main story and the arena will also automatically unlock some items for your mech without you having to spend a dime. However, if you really want all the gear in the game you’ll have to find the combat logs which come through combat. While you have the option to avoid enemies if you wish throughout the mission, should you choose that, then you lose the opportunity to gain access to weapons and gear that cannot be unlocked any other way.
While some may scoff at the ability to go into a boss fight, lose, then adjust your mech and retry right from that boss fight checkpoint, it goes a long way to keeping the determination value high to completing the fight. One boss fight took me several days of attempts, but when I finally killed it and felt such an accomplishment rush which lasted all the way to the next boss fight. It's little nuances like this that go a very long way to not only attracting new gamers to the series, but keeping them entertained. If you said to someone up front, "Hey here's a game that will make you frustrated to a level you never knew existed and keep you there until you figure a way out of it." then you may get a lot of gamers turned off by that.
Graphically, ACVI has its moments. While some of the larger and more dynamic interactions are entertaining, the actual landscape of the game is relatively mundane which, when you're focused on your combat, means very little in the long run. But with such a fluid game you can easily see why they made the choice to focus on speed rather than high graphic fidelity that would eat up resources which could cause disruptions and latency, impacting impact combat and throw off the entire game. Where the graphics really shine is the customization options of the mech itself. Outside of the appearance that will change based off your legs, torso, arms and head, you have the ability to really develop some stunning paint and design schemes to truly customize your mech. Not only can you adjust the paint though, but you can also create your own decals and apply them to your own mech.
This uniqueness will carry with you throughout the game, and you can create multiple profiles so you can really get creative with your design process which will make you stand out in the NEST. If the Arena was you vs another computer opponent mech, the NEST is you vs another player. Sadly, at the time of this review there was no way to test this mode as there were no rooms created/hosted and traffic was limited. However, having said that, the NEST is where you go to fight for who's the best. You can create your own rooms, set your rules and standards, and even spectate other rooms as well. With everything that ACVI has to offer, you can expect some incredibly epic fights taking place within the NEST.
When I talk about the uniqueness of your mech, I'm not just talking about your paint job, but your loadout(s) as well. The weapon categories essentially break down into kinetic, explosive, energy and melee. Inside these categories are a wealth of weaponry options from grenade launchers, laser cannons, miniguns, rifles, shotguns and more. Each weapon has its pros and cons and should be based off the situation you find yourself fighting in. I mentioned earlier the types of weaponry, well let me break it down to you in greater detail.
Kinetic - Think of this as your "bullet" weapons. Your shotguns, rifles, miniguns, SMGs and others. These allow more rounds to be fired in quick succession than other forms of weaponry, but their damage is mitigated against it because of that very reason, except when it comes to staggered enemies when it really opens up because of the quick firing of the weapon itself. Better to be used in close range than long range, this weaponry if used improperly will actually ricochet off your opponent.
Energy - These are your "laser" style weapons and while the kinetic weapons fire quickly, these do not. While the speed of the firing may be slower, these weapons are vastly more powerful and can even be charged to create even more damaging shots. These are broken into different categories: Laser - your standard energy beam rifle that deals moderate damage in the class. Plasma - takes even longer in between shots but creates a small plasma explosion when the beam makes impact causing damage. Hands down the highest damage output in the class.
Pulse - Finally it's the Pulse weapons which fire these orb shaped projectiles which do wonders when trying to shut down any type of pulse armor or shields in lightning-fast succession. The key here is not to deliver single devastating shots, but to get in close, unload an entire clip and watch the shields melt away, exposing your target for direct attacks.
Now let's get into the crowd pleasers or explosive weaponry. These are VERY high damage but VERY high risk. These types of weapons range from bazookas to grenade launchers and even missiles. If you save these weapons for a staggered enemy then nothing will stand in your way as they utterly destroy everything in their path. But should you miss, there is an incredibly long reload time for your next shot.
ACVI also sports some incredibly powerful melee weapons for the in close fighting. These weapons are brutally fast and lethal in close range, and the lock-on effect can draw you into an enemy even while they are strafing. On top of this, some bladed weapons can string together a multiple run of attacks. So if you have a blade that does 1700 damage, but you have a blade that does 980 and has 2 swings you have a chance of doing 1960 with a 2-swing weapon vs 1700 from one swing. Some of these bladed weapons can even be charged up for other devastating moves that deliver far more power.
Protecting you outside of your skills and maneuverability are your shields. ACVI offers quite an extensive shield list that grants damage mitigation at the cost of one of your slots, unless you start talking about your core shield capabilities that you can unlock via the Arena and OS upgrades. While the OS shields do not require you to take away a hand weapon, the manual shields do require a shoulder to mount them on and their benefits are determined by the type of shield, the damage it can absorb and the time frame that they stay active for.
Now before you start picking your loadout and going to town, there are a few things you need to concern yourself with. Let's start with weight. It goes without saying that a grenade launcher weighs more than an SMG, but it doesn't stop there. The legs of your mech will help determine how much weight your mech can carry. Some lightweight legs may allow you to have greater time in the air and more maneuverability, but will prevent you from fully outfitting your mech with some heavy hitting firepower. Same thing if you decide to make your lower body a tank platform. You'll max out your weight capacity but have very limited air maneuverability and therefore spend most of your time on the ground.
Your arms will also take and share some of the load bearing, but you must remember that should your mech weigh too much, then you will have to get rid of things such as weapons. This is why I opted for my first build to be a heavier mech build because I wanted to fight in close. I wanted to just fly in there, rip the mech open and just unload heavy ammunition into the vulnerable mech. So, styling your mech is going to be up to you, but if you go light and opt for a more maneuverable mech then you should get really familiar with AP or Armor Points. Think of this like your health bar. The heavier arms, legs, and torso will give you more AP because you'll naturally be slower.
The other factor to pay attention to is your EN load/output meters. If you require more power than your generator can produce then you enter what is called an EN Shortfall and there's no bypass to fix it other than reconfigure the weapons, loadout and build of your mech. There are generators that you can buy in the shop to increase your EN output and allow you to really put on some heavy destructive toys to your mech. This is why the balance of the mech is totally in your control and based on how you play, can determine the outcome of many matches.
From Software has always strived to develop quality games that not only are some of the most challenging around, but also some of the most rewarding. While the learning curve is steep, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon delivers a remarkably in-depth mech customization game that is less mindless combat and shooting and more tactics, strategy and adapting to hostile situations in order to survive. Every challenging moment will leave you on the edge of your seat, and should you persevere and succeed in your mission, Armored Core VI will deliver a euphoric sense of accomplishment and skill rarely found in gaming today. Think you have what it takes to take your mech combat skills to the next level? Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon awaits you. See you on the field of battle.
**ARMORED CORE VI FIRES OF RUBICON was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Redfall
Sometimes there are games that are best left alone. Sometimes there are games that offer so much potential yet fail to deliver on even half of it. Sometimes there are games that without question haven't a clue what they are supposed to be. Redfall is all of these and so much more. If you've been living outside of reality for the last few weeks, Redfall has released on the Xbox platform and almost instantly became absolutely legendary, but not for the reasons you may think warrant success.Imagine Arkane Studios (the people behind games like Dishonored, Dishonored 2, Prey, Deathloop etc.) is given the task of developing an open world adventure that dives into the world of vampires, the occult and magic, that also packs a lot of firepower through the use of tons of weaponry. Already you're thinking, this sounds like it's going to be amazing, and you'd be right. Now take this same thought and give it some reality when you see it for the first time in 60 FPS and you're ready to mark the date on your calendar. Now imagine you wake up and you rush to your Xbox and fire up the console and you jump into Redfall only to be catastrophically disappointed.
Originally the uproar of Redfall was that the console versions were going to release at 30 FPS rather than the displayed 60 we saw when the game was running originally. However, as you dive more and more into Redfall, you'll quickly see that there are more faults than just that underneath the skin. To kick things off, the story behind Redfall offers tremendous potential. In a Massachusetts town, they have been overrun with vampires and cultist fanatics. During the day these radicals patrol the neighborhoods and work on cultivating the areas for their vampire masters who come out at night. Basically, you go throughout the game on a never-ending cycle, cultists by day, vampires by night, rinse and repeat. While the cultists can be killed with your weaponry, vampires cannot. Instead, you have to either hit them with a stake through the heart or attach one to your weapon and drive it into them to eradicate them permanently.
While this may seem mundane as all you do is try to clear the vampire infestation from your town, it's made more challenging by the sensitivity of the gameplay. When you start out, there's a phrase I like to use called "Portal Twitchy", and it applies perfectly here. I approached this mechanic with the feeling that you literally need to keep your head on a swivel, otherwise you'd lose it. Doing this however has naturally over-complicated the combat mechanics making shooting and aiming while moving incredibly challenging, almost to the point of unplayable. Thankfully you can dial down the sensitivity to something more manageable.
During the game you will rinse and repeat the same process over and over again while working your way through the vampire hierarchy, but I started to ask myself, if this game HAD 60 FPS at launch, would that really have made a difference? Would it have made the gameplay mechanics more solid? Would it have fixed the boring overall story? Would it benefit the game in any way outside of the graphical presentation? Sadly, the answer to this is a resounding no. From games like Deathloop and the Dishonored series, you have a pedigree of quality games under your belt, and this open world is a tremendously disappointing release. I know you've read all the bashing over this game, but some of it actually is justified. However, there is still fun to be found within.
That is thanks to the multiplayer, which provides the game's best redeeming qualities and also some of its worst. It's the aspect of the game that creates the largest dynamic. Without question, traversing the neighborhoods and open world is much more entertaining with friends, but let’s say you have a friend who has been playing for a couple hours, unlocked a safe house and you join in from the beginning. The two of you go through your friend's game, unlocking several safe houses, taking down a vampire boss, completing side quests and having a great time. Now, let's say your friend has to get up for work so they leave, and you go back to your game. You go back to a blank slate. The only thing that carries over is the gear and your character, as the progress you made in your friend’s game only applies to them.
One of the biggest challenges for a game like Redfall is how do you balance the loot, and there's sadly no other way to put this statement gently, but legendary weapons can look like child toys next to a higher-level common weapon in Redfall. Your weapons are broken up into categories such as stake launchers (it does what the name says), UV lasers, shotguns, assault rifles, and pistols and in typical loot grind fashion, come in different colors from white/grey to orange. But when you find a legendary weapon and see that your green weapon has better stats, you really get to asking yourself what were they thinking?
The biggest grind for loot in all games is for those epic legendary pieces that you spent days/weeks/months, etc. for. I can't recall people saying, "I did these loot runs hoping to get this white/grey weapon". Once I went from epic weapons to normal tier just to get the increase in damage and performance. The issue though isn't the grind (because it'll be a long one), it's answering the question, why bother?
To go along with the gear, each character comes with their own "special abilities" on a skill tree. While this is alright in some games, this aspect doesn't carry well into Redfall. When you team up with friends and combine abilities, you can really enjoy some moments, but again regrettably they are going to be too few and far between to gain any real substance of the game. Unfortunately, one of the most major downfalls is the difficulty of the enemies being unevenly scaled. This means while you may join a game, you'll be up against impossible enemies for you.
If that weren't enough, the bugs in the game almost make the game not worth playing. Bethesda has been known for legendary bugs that produce some startling results, and Redfall checks all those boxes. One time my character got downed, then I got revived but kept going into the 'downed' animation on my friend's screen while everything seemed fine on mine. I'd just crumple over, then pop up, crumple over, and this went on until we quit the game and restarted. Then my friend ended up with a sniper scope... on every single weapon he had. This colossal scope on a pistol? Sure. How about a UV laser? Why not? It became the Oprah of scopes where "You get a sniper scope, and you get a sniper scope, everyone gets a sniper scope!".
I just have to say this again, From the Dishonored series, Deathloop, Prey and now this? A boring story with un-innovative characters that leave you with literally little to no attachment or concern for. Sub-par gameplay mechanics, which are hypersensitive and make gameplay incredibly challenging. The only multiplayer progress that is saved is the host. Pointless legendary weapons in a game where you grind for loot. Game breaking bugs left and right. Oh, and tack on that 30 FPS while you're at it at launch.
Now ask yourself, would 60 FPS have made a difference given all that is wrong with Redfall? No. I, like many others, was so badly hoping that this game wasn't a complete and total failure, but gamers are used to disappointment. Sadly, Redfall had unbelievable potential and a dynamic studio behind this that is known for quality gaming, but under delivered at quite literally almost every facet of the game. Redfall, unfortunately, should be avoided, and in fact, I hope that the industry starts taking a look at these games and starts evaluating its processes, because if you're only as good as your last game, then Arkane isn't looking good at all.
**Redfall was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
EA Sports PGA Tour: Road to the Masters
Golf has been deemed one of, if not the most, challenging game on earth. Unlike other sports, Golf tests the individual unlike any athletic trial you can think of. Taking a stick with a weighted end on it and hitting a ball across 300, 400, 500+ yards and more and try to knock it into a cup that is tucked into a green that is firm and feels like concrete can be next to impossible. Like most sports, in Golf you will fail and fail and fail again. There will be times when you think the sport just hates you and you feel the frustration pulsing through your veins, until... you hit that 'one shot'. The excitement and exhilaration felt when you get it close or even knock one in ignites your enjoyment on levels not felt in any other sport. Now personally speaking, I'm so terrible at Golf in reality that I can hit a drive and have the ball travel behind me off the tee. This doesn't stop me from loving the sport. Thursday and Friday rounds that lead to incredible moments in sports on the weekends are what will create memories and moments that will last forever. This is the essence of the sport, and it has been presented in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR in a game that, I'll come out now and say it, IS the new standard for excellence in a Golf game. Time to take a swing at EA SPORTS PGA TOUR and find out what makes it the elite golf game out there.One of any Golf game highlights is when you get to create your own golfer, and in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR, you do get an average amount of customization from hair, eye, face shape, body, etc, but you also set up your primary game mechanics at the same time. This is where you're first introduced to how deep this game actually is. Configuring options such as lie effect, shot shaping, auto tap-in (I set this to 3 feet and LOVE IT) and even mulligans are some of the choices you'll have during the initial setup. Currently though, there is no 3 button push input and it relies entirely on your controller sticks, however 3 button push input will be coming soon at a date "TBD". Now one of the interesting things I found was that you can set your golfer to have a certain approach to playing games while you're offline. This was a thought I had years ago when Forza came out with the Drivatar; why couldn't you store your shot inputs and the results based off the conditions and make your own "Golfatar" (bad name but whatever), and now apparently you can! You can have a balanced, conservative or aggressive styles when it comes to playing in simulations.
This is thanks to the immense amount of research that has gone into developing EA SPORTS PGA TOUR. Millions of recorded shot data from all golfers from all the included courses makes you actually feel like you're playing against them. This also means that when you play like them, you also get to experience how their gameplay is set up, along with their strengths and weaknesses as well. No other golf game has done that, and the sheer amount of data is mind blowing. While the Golfers are critical to get right, the courses that you play on must also be of the same quality of standards, and I'll say it, they're better. These Golf courses are done in jaw droppingly beautiful detail thanks to the use of the Frostbite engine. I was wondering just how detailed this game was going to be, and when I saw the foliage of Augusta in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR match what is in reality, my mind was blown. Every single course is mapped, scanned and recreated in pixel perfect detail. Even attention to the right kind of grass for the fairways, greens, and even rough/deep rough have been painstakingly duplicated to a borderline perfection level.
There are though, a couple of issues with the graphical presentation of the game itself. Issues such as the lack of quality of the crowd and/or main golfer. While the main golf character does look decent, the background crowd looks laughably bleak and is almost like an afterthought. Maybe it was to preserve resources within the game, who knows, but if you're going to create the best Golf game out there, then this can't be an overlooked aspect. Another issue comes with the cut scenes. As you play on through facets of the game, you'll be bombarded with so many splash screens it's almost feels like the hole itself is its own break from the seemingly constant bombardment. A good improvement here would be to just consolidate the hole flyby from the beginning and use that as the transition to help keep the pace of the game. All of this, however, culminates into the creation of an absolutely incredible Golf game.
After you've created your character and set up the game how you like it, you'll be greeted with tons of options and menus right from the beginning. From the main screen you'll have the following game types: Quick Play, Career, Competitive, Challenges, Social, Tournaments and Private Match. Without question a lot of these are self-explanatory, however, here are some slight differences. Social, for example, allows you to play all par 3's or 5's at a random course with up to 16 other people. Competitive though offers either the front or back 9 of a random course with up to 16 other people, and they also provide feature competitions such as the current Masters 3-hole stretch at Amen Corner. While these modes are separate, the content inside them feels unsubstantial to the point where maybe consolidation would be better and the theory of "less is more" being practiced? Before we dive into career I've got to touch on Tournaments. This is where the majority of people will be spending their time outside of Career mode.
In Tournaments you have such categories as Daily, Weekly, Seasonal, Pending and Final. While the names themselves will tell you about the details for the tournament, some of the more prestigious tournaments require "tickets" to enter and yes, these tournaments often provide some of the best gear in the game. There are other tournaments though that are free to enter and some that cost Reward Points (RP), but keep in mind that these points require you to grind like crazy so, as normal, EA offers you the ability to do microtransactions to buy more tickets through a currency called "Golf Points". If you are looking to spend more money, the three tiers you have are 500 points ($4.99/$4.49 with EA Play), 2750 ($24.99/$22.49 with EA Play), and 5750 ($49.99/$44.99 with EA Play). If you went for it all and got 5750 points, you could cash in 2,000 of those points for 30 tickets. The other tiers are 1 ticket (100 points), 5 tickets (450 points), and 10 tickets (750 points). So, at 5750 you could get (2x 30 tickets = 4,000 points) + (1x 10 tickets = 750 points) + (2x 5 tickets = 900 points) + (1x 1 ticket = 100 points), for a grand total of 81 tickets. That may seem like a little amount when you get 81 tickets for basically $50, and you would be right, especially when you have some tournaments that cost 10 tickets per entry. This is a crafty way of getting people such as myself to invest heavily in these tickets because to get the best gear you'll have to give your best performances.
While we're on the topic of purchases, it should be noted that the only other tabs to be focused on in the store are the Featured and Specs tabs. Featured offers some limited timed gear for purchase by either golf points or Reward points and is the only place where you can find both ball and club effects. These are cosmetic treats that add a type of graphic effect to your ball and/or clubs. You can use either point methods for purchase, but before you go buying things in Featured, you may want to save for the Specs tab. This is where you can go to buy some specs for your clubs that can increase their performance based off the "type" of spec it is. Specs themselves come in the typical variety of tiers such as grey, green, blue, purple and gold, and can be applied to drivers, woods, irons, wedges, hybrids and even the ball itself. Now throughout the game you'll earn more naturally as you complete challenges (more on that in a moment), so these are ones though that you can purchase right off the bat. I should point out that there is no way of combining or upgrading them, so as of now it's either equipped or unequipped. There's no limit thankfully to how many items your character can hold but without the ability to even delete them from your character, meaning that you'll have a bunch of useless specs once you start leveling up your character.
This is where the main development of EA SPORTS PGA TOUR comes to life. The primary place of focus is going to be the Skills section of your Golfer, this is where you will learn various shot types and can work on improving them, for a cost. Yes, it's time to include the last piece of currency within the game, and that is Skill points that you gain 2 for each level you climb. You can spend these points on leveling up your character, but you can also retrain 1 or all of a category of your skills for a set amount of RP. Your current breakdown of skill categories and their sub-categories are Power (Power), Driving (Accuracy, Control), Approach (Accuracy, Control, Recovery), Short Game (Accuracy, Control, Recovery) and Putting (Putting). Power is by far the most expensive and will require over 70 points to max out, whereas Approach and Short Game have the most sub-classes but also the cheapest costs, so where you want to begin your focus is up to you. If, however, you make a mistake you can retrain which will refund your skill points, but the more you retrain the higher the cost, so think carefully how you want to build your character. The rest of your character development is purely cosmetic except for the ability to choose the type of club you want in your bag. This is because the various angles of the club head will produce different yardages. Thankfully when you want to make a change to your bag you can change it for all bags with the push of a button.
While I mentioned the microtransactions for the points and how each was earned, I never touched on how to earn Reward Points. To acquire these points all you have to do is fulfill various quests and challenges, and the points will come rolling in. For example, in the play mode Challenges, you have over 1,000 Golf challenges to play through. Here is where you will find the training you will need in the Coaching Academy because it will not only help you understand and grasp the fundamentals of the game, but will also allow you to have challenges with every shot type, so you get training on all the various shot types you can unlock. I cannot stress enough how important this mode is, and in fact, I spent the first two days of my gameplay in the Coaching Academy going for 3 star unlocks on the challenges. From Driving to putting and everything in between, this is your stop to learn it all before you hit the courses in Career mode. While the challenges are fairly straight forward, EA SPORTS PGA TOUR also allows you to go for various "Quests" which are broken down into 4 categories: Career, Mastery, PGA Tour, and Road To PGA.
Each one of these categories of Quests is broken down even further. In Career there's a group of Quests called Tournament Wins Pt. _, and completing each one of these three will net you 9,000 Reward Points. The Masters Quest in the Career tab will net 3,900 points for making the cut + win the masters + Score -9 or less at the Masters. Do those 3 sub-Quests of the Masters Quest and you'll get a total of 3,900 Reward points. The Mastery category of Quests are more course specific and require various feats to be performed such as the Augusta National Mastery Quest, broken into 3 chapters totaling 2,000 Reward Points. Chapter 1 requires you to complete a round at Augusta National, cover a total of 7,510 yards using Drive shots, and Eagle the 2nd hole. The PGA Tour Quests are related to the event itself, like the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am or the WM Phoenix Open, and are only comprised of a single chapter that will net you at least 775 Reward Points. The Road To PGA is set up identical to PGA Tour Quests and all quests will allow you the chance to unlock new specs for your equipment.
This is going to benefit you in the long run as you create and develop your golfer and make your career even more dynamic, however, there are a couple issues I have with the career. While you can choose where you wish to start from and whatnot, in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR you have a choice of either playing the full round, or only certain holes. If you play the full round, you're looking at 4 rounds of 18 holes, and if you're going for quick then you may only play 5 holes. The downside for quickly moving through the course is that you only get half the XP, so if you normally gain about 19,000 XP playing a full round, you'll only net around 8-9000 depending on performance. In the future I think a great addition to this gameplay setup would be to allow for 1 full round of 18 or set how many rounds you want to play in a tournament (1-4). Despite this, however, you'll make your choice of where to begin and then it's up to you to show the world why you're the best. After my initial rounds of my first ever USGA amateur event I was granted a pass to play at Augusta, which proceeded to show me why I need a LOT more work on every facet of my game. Come the end of Friday and the cut line is +2 , here I am sitting at +9, having a humbling feeling, and I can say that I have much more respect for these professionals and the courses they play on.
As you can see, EA SPORTS PGA TOUR has come back with a passion and purpose, and to help them achieve that goal the audio of this game is unbelievable. From the menu music that varies from a breakbeat/hip hop style rhythm to rock guitars, to jazz pianos, the scope of the music for the menu is vast and eclectic, but the real detail comes from the presentation itself. Watching the opening of the Masters introduction and hearing the iconic music just made everything fit perfectly, and with each hole preview you hear the music and see the course open up to you, almost daring you to try. Combined with the equipment noises and ambience help deliver an immersive gaming experience. The best though, by a mile, has to be the crowd noise. You'll hear them talk and whatnot and then when you're ready to swing it dies down, but once you hit the ball you'll hear people say "Sit! Sit! Sit!" or "Get in the hole!", and it's a wonderful bonus to hear the people in the crowd shouting what I'm thinking.
This is because the gaming mechanics of EA SPORTS PGA TOUR allows you to customize your experience all the way up to full simulation mode. The basic mechanics of the swing are reliant on your Left Stick or Right Stick, based on your settings, and the arcade feel of adding power before the strike and developing spin on the ball while in mid-flight are back in full swing, but the biggest setting you'll want to contend with are things like your forgiveness in your swing. Trying to make sure your swing follows the line perfectly while maintaining power and measuring for our old friend the wind, and you have yourself an incredible challenge that faces you every shot. Thankfully, as stated earlier, the 3 click input method will be coming soon. There have been some comical moments throughout my career so far. For example, in my US Open performance I tied with 3 other people and we went into playoff holes. After the 3rd round of playoff holes the announcers were saying ".... and that's going to be it for all of us here at EA Sports. Thank you for playing and we'll see you next time on EA SPORTS PGA TOUR.". Here I'm sitting at the tee box thinking "Ummmm.... what?". Other shortcomings existed as well such as I'll have a severe left to right break in the green, yet I need to move my cursor to the right of the cup so that it breaks right to left? I'm hoping bugs like this can be fixed quickly and easily as they did detract from the overall experience.
The rest of the mechanics though are your standard fare and should be easy to pick up and play. The 'Y' button acts as your zoom, 'X' is your reset of your aiming, the D-Pad moves your aiming marker around, and the Right Stick determines the spin/angle of the shot. The big focus though here is the Bumpers will choose your shot type (if you've learned it), the Right Stick to dial in the spin, Triggers to select the club and 'Y' to see where you're aiming for. Once you think you got things dialed in, swing away and then join every single other Golfer alive to hold their breath while your shot is in the air and hoping for a good result.
Good things come to those who wait. We waited years for EA Sports to deliver a quality golf game, and not only have they delivered a quality golf game, but they have delivered THE golf game by which all future games will be judged. EA SPORTS PGA TOUR isn't just a new golf game, it's the standard. Deep character development, tons of different shot types to master, focus on accuracy and experience and the deepest collection of utilized data pertaining to golfers and their shots and performance are just a few innovations in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR that make it the uncontested king of Golf. The question shouldn't be are you getting this game, but when. A few slight blemishes within the game do, exist but now that the bar has been set, all of us Golfing fans are eager to see where the future goes with this sport's representation in video games. Congratulations to EA Tiburon for creating the best Golf experience any gamer could ever play.
**EA SPORTS PGA TOUR was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Suggestions: Fixes would be:
1. Improve the crowd graphics and character modeling.
2. Allow for the user to pick the number of rounds in a tournament in career mode.
3. Various bug glitches.
4. Give us gamers some value in these old/low quality specs for the gear by allowing us to upgrade them through combination or destroy to get resources.
Overall Score: 9.2 / 10
Atomic Heart
Greetings Comrade! Welcome to a world full of endless opportunities and possibilities. A world where individual thought is banished as your very thoughts are poured together into the Kollektiv and shared with all of society! Welcome to a post WWII scenario where Russia defeated the capitalist United States and cemented their dominance to the entire world. Imagine a world where robots exist to not only help you understand science, life, art and other philosophical elements, but also to free yourself from the bonds of menial labor so that you may pursue your dreams and ambitions to forward Russian innovation and improve the lives of everyone in society. Developed by Mundfish, Atomic Heart sets the stage where this fictional utopia leaves many questions and many more enemies in your path. Imagine taking games such as Bioshock Infinite and Fallout and brought with it an open world sandbox that it quite massive in scale, and then let you run wild with guns and special powers and abilities? How about we take a stroll and see if Atomic Heart is strong or if you need to bypass this one.You just read that I mentioned games like Bioshock Infinite and Fallout because that is what the environment in Atomic Heart is like. You can almost feel it ripped straight away as you ascend to these floating islands in the sky, full of civilization and life and all mechanically connected to each other. These islands are connected by a rail system which you'll utilize as you progress through the story, but these large sandbox areas are broken down into 2 distinct areas which I'm calling above and below ground. Above ground, the landscape will vary from farmlands, little villages, to massive complexes, research facilities and everything in between. The below ground aspect of Atomic Heart will focus on you trying to utilize your skills and abilities to solve puzzles and navigate your way through chests and unlocks for your weapon upgrades. These varying environments may provide hours of exploration, but the sad reality is that, you really don't have to.
This is because Atomic Heart is setup to where you don't have to explore off the beaten path, in fact you can take a lot of linear progression straight through from point A to B to C, etc. Given this reality, the majority of what you will fight will be irrelevant. This is kind of disappointing because these sections offer weapon upgrades that you won't get otherwise, but you really don't need them, and their upgrades are incredibly limited. Regrettably though, this means that you have really two options to pick from: either follow the story directly going from A to B or increase your time in the game by going for upgrades that really aren't meaningful in the game at all, and then progress on. Whatever you choose, also bear in mind that the environment isn't "perfected". What I mean by that is that if you're not careful, it's possible to get caught in an "endless fall" where you're frozen in place and you can't jump, dash, or do anything to help your character move. This will cause you to load your last save, so heed my advice and save frequently.
As you venture throughout the areas you'll start to see what kinds of enemies you'll be facing. One of the biggest annoyances will be the sunflowers. Think of these things as a surveillance camera that is shaped like the head of a sunflower and is attached to a standby a flexible pole so it can pivot and shift to scan a wide area. If these catch you, you will see the outside ring start to fill up with red. Once it does, it triggers an alarm which increases the enemy robot quantities for a time being. If you still take out the enemies without destroying the camera you will increase the warning level until it becomes almost like a tidal wave of enemies coming at you at once. This can become frustrating as you have to keep your head on a swivel and watch for attacks and enemy positioning. However, despite all of this, you can use this to your advantage thanks to the one robot, the OWL. These robots originally were the biggest pain to deal with, and not because they attack you, but because they repair all the robots and things you've destroyed. It can become incredibly frustrating to take down a strong robot, only to have the OWL come by and repair it back to normal. But that's when I made Atomic Heart work for me.
Early on in the game, you'll come across an area that has a couple robots that you can take out but then you have these OWL robots that will come in to try and repair them. You can use your melee weapon and knock them out of the sky and just literally stay there and swing away. I quite literally did this for HOURS and it was the most incredibly boring experience I've had with gaming in quite some time. But there was a reason I did this. When I couldn't take the monotony anymore I went over to the pile, held down 'Right Bumper' (we'll get to mechanics here shortly) and collected an incredible amount of resources that allowed me to level up my character early on to an almost unfair level. As you progress, while you're given the illusion that this game allows for exploration, you're going to rapidly discover that the game structure is incredibly linear. You can almost say that this illusion is Mundfish's greatest accomplishment in Atomic Heart.
As we talked about part of my adventure and exploiting the game, you read that I would hold down 'RB' and that is because it is one of the primary buttons you'll use throughout the entire game. By holding down 'RB' you can do an automatic mass collection of items around you which is a wonderful addition to the gameplay and makes life much more enjoyable. Now if you double tap and hold the bumper instead, you'll go into what I call X-Ray mode and you can see through walls and floors, as your screen will show you enemies that appear orange in color, searchable items are blue, and interactive items in white. I will also say that it's this mode that you will most likely be in 98% of the time if you decide to explore the areas. While in this scanning mode, you're unable to fire your weapon or use any other abilities, but this mode is vital if you wish to see all lootable containers.
Inside these containers you will find elements that you can use to upgrade your existing weapons or build new ones if you have the blueprint unlocked. While this upgrading does seem enjoyable, there also is a finite limit to what you can accomplish, so after that happens, all the resources do become completely worthless as there is nothing more to build or upgrade. The same goes for your abilities unfortunately. Since your "GLOVE" is where your abilities come from such as shock or freezing, it takes a type of polymer to upgrade it which you can get from every single enemy in varying quantities. Now I should point out that upgrading your abilities will take FAR MORE material than your weapon upgrades, but doing that little trick I talked about earlier, I was able to get the more expensive energy upgrades out of the way first, and then focus on less expensive abilities, so upgrades went by a lot quicker.
Not all mechanics though are done properly and it can become disorienting. Jumping for example is not always reliable. Jumping to a ledge may or may not allow you to grab onto it, and there have been times when I've jumped to a ledge that was at an angle, only to turn and have my hands above the ledge and the game still say "no ledge for you" and I fall and take injuries (yes fall damage is VERY REAL in this game). Walking/running is also inconsistent in Atomic Heart as many times I've tried walking straight and my character will go a certain speed, but rotate my character and do more of a strafe and he seems to travel much faster. It's almost like Atomic Heart chooses when to have you run or walk. The interesting thing about all this is that the guidance you do get is next to non-existent and what guidance you do get is not always correct.
Despite the flaws of the environment, upgrade system and the mechanics, Atomic Heart does deliver a very beautiful experience despite how twisted the experience may be (sisters I'm looking at you). Going through the various dungeons and on the top, you'll see a bunch of reused materials but that material is tweaked just enough to give it that unique feel which made exploration quite fun. The enemies themselves will vary, but make no mistake, 99.9% of them will try to kill you. Delivering a quality shooter experience is one of the primary goals of Atomic Heart and thanks to the graphics, this is one goal that hit its target. To compliment the graphics, the audio fidelity quality of Atomic Heart is also enjoyable. From classic songs done with a Russian 'twist' that are heard on the radio, to the ambient sounds of automated machinery nestled deep within an underground dungeon, every note helps the gamer become more absorbed into this utopia. There is one aspect though that doesn't quite sit well with me and that relates to when the combat is over. You just killed your last enemy and you're safe for now and the game will still play the dynamic combat music for far too long almost to the point of annoyance.
We've covered a lot of ground but one thing we've never touched on is the plot. This is because the Atomic Heart plot is one filled with twists, turns, and of course, backstabbing. Basically you play the role of a special forces operative that suffers from memory loss (you can probably start to see where this is already going), and during the launch of Kollektiv 2.0 something goes horribly wrong and the robots that were supposed to aid in humanity now are set on eliminating it entirely. Throughout the game you'll find out what this Atomic Heart program is, the history, and more importantly, the future that's in store.
Overall, Atomic Heart is an enjoyable FPS title that sadly misses out on being great. From issues that were stated above, Atomic Heart had the potential to be up there with games such as Bioshock, but in the end came up short. While the plot does offer some amazing moments that seem to raise more questions than they answer, Atomic Heart fails to deliver any meaningful reason to go explore and in that reality, shortens the gametime to about 15 hours(ish). Despite all that, did I have fun playing the game? Without question yes. Atomic Heart may not be perfect but it does deliver an enjoyable FPS experience with a plot that will take you on a rollercoaster ride.
**Atomic Heart was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Shatter Remastered Deluxe
In gaming we find ourselves amidst an endless supply of cookie-cutter titles that struggle to find their own identity and innovation, all the while charging top retail figures and expensive DLC. Shooters, sports games, RPGs, platformers, all of them require identity and innovation to stand out amongst the crowd, but there's one game that has done just that. Shattered Remastered Deluxe by PikPok (insert legal joke here) has taken the brick breaking sensation of games like Breakout and married it with classic concepts found in games like Tempest, sprinkled in some side-scrolling magic and physics and topped it off with some power-ups, and ultimately in the end created a $9.99 wonder that I can easily see taking the mantle of the best brick breaking game that's ever been made.First and foremost it has to be stated that this game does provide a challenging amount of story related content, and by story related I just mean there's levels you go through then fight a boss and then you repeat it nine more times and then game over. But you just read you have boss fights? How could you have a boss fight in a brick breaking game? Well, the simple answer is, because. Honestly, there isn't much of a story at all, but what there is, is innovation. So the big innovation with Shatter Remastered Deluxe is that the 'LT' and 'RT' triggers push and pull objects, gems, power-ups and even blocks towards or away from you. Now this concept is fairly straightforward, but how you utilize the innovation mechanics will make or break your game.
I say this because the game itself sets your craft on some type of axis either vertical or horizontal, and while your craft will glide along this axis reflecting your ball(ish) projectile, it has several features. For starters, you have a shield to protect your craft from being knocked off axis. Now you are thinking, 'why a shield?'. Well when you use suction to draw gems into be collected, there's a great chance that you will have some blocks that will come along for the ride. If they hit you and knock you off your axis, then it's one life down. Now to generate your shield it requires energy, and this is where the gems fall into place. Breaking blocks will create multi-colored gems that will remain on the level for a little while, and when you manage to draw a bunch in, your energy bar will charge up, and this is where you can activate your shield. Each block that it hits will be destroyed but you'll lose energy in the process. It is a small price to pay to save a life though.
The energy meter however is not just for your craft's shield. The energy meter also provides you with a massive multi-streamed projectile laser blast that lasts several seconds, and drains the meter completely down (already knowing that this is the primary weapon for taking down most boss fights). The toss up though to this weapon is that not only can you only use it sparingly, it takes a while to collect all the gems to fill the meter, so if you happen to use it the level before the boss fight and you can't replenish it in time, well... you get the idea.
I keep talking about the bosses though because that is where the innovation really takes hold. Some bosses require you to use suction and pull the weak spot of a boss downward into a position where it faces you and forces you to attack it. You don't really see boss fights where you get to control the boss's weak point exposure through manipulation of the environment, let alone in a brick breaking game.
The other tool at your disposal throughout the levels is the ball itself. Through various power-ups that appear after breaking certain bricks will transform your ball into various forms such as an unstoppable form where your ball enlarges slightly and will travel in a straight line, uninterrupted. One of my personal favorites though is the highly maneuverable form where you can quite literally hold down 'RT' and keep sending the ball down the level destroying tons in its path.
Now earlier I mentioned that this game put your vehicle on an axis that was either horizontal or vertical. In Shattered Remastered Deluxe though it seems that PikPok has tapped partially into an old classic game, Tempest, for its inspiration. So rather than those type of axis to move on, some levels will actually have you in a quarter circle. While the same rules and mechanics apply, you now have to be extra careful of your position within the circle arena. These were my least favorite levels, by a mile, because of the mechanics of thinking within a circle rather than square or rectangle.
As you play through the story mode you'll unlock other modes for you to enjoy but are completely self-explanatory. Endless Mode, Boss Rush and Time Attack are all exactly as you would think, but what was a massive ding in my eyes, is the Couch Co-Op. In today's interconnected society, how often are you going to call your friend up and say "Hey would you like to come over and play some couch co-op on Shattered Remastered Deluxe?". Having the ability to connect online is critical in today's gaming world, and omitting that very feature is a risk that only pays off if you're developing a single player game. All in all however, you're going to be going through over 70 levels throughout all the game modes and in 4K 120FPS quality, so to say this game is smooth is an understatement, and the remastered soundtrack makes it sing on a 5.1 system or a quality headset.
While you may be thinking that this game originally came out in 2009 and how could a game that is over 10 years old possibly be worth $9.99? With the amount of content provided and the increased audio and video fidelity upgrades, Shattered Remastered Deluxe will provide you with some of the best quality brick breaking action you will ever play. Challenging, rewarding and always entertaining, PikPok did a fantastic job remastering this game and it's definitely one that should be strongly considered given the quality for the price.
**Shatter Remastered Deluxe was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
New Tales from the Borderlands
When you limit player interaction within your game you are taking one of the biggest gambles in gaming. This is because you are essentially selling an interactive story that is laid out in cinematic cutscenes. This type of technology has been around for decades, but Telltale managed to develop it to near perfection. With previous releases such as Batman, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and more, Telltale delivered a narrative that captivated gamers and provided an incredible depth to their storylines by often developing multiple endings which end up creating the modern day version of 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books, but in digital form. Recently however, things have shifted in the gaming industry. While Telltale has done Borderlands before, The New Tales from the Borderlands game is done by Gearbox themselves. With a whole new author at the helm of this project, how will Gearbox fare?Well, that depends actually on what your values are. Let's get back to that in a minute. The primary focus of any of these games in the genre has to be on the story. The narrative needs to captivate you, draw you in, create emotional bonds with the characters, look to have you make an emotional investment into the game, things of that sort. Telltale Games in the past have been renowned for their stories, character development and a deep player connection to the story. In the New Tales from the Borderlands game though, you'll find very, very little, to none of that at all. In fact, Gearbox has dropped the ball so badly on the story that there is a playthrough that I had where the ending quite literally made no sense and didn't tie in at all to the previous scene. Imagine going through Empire Strikes Back, and when Vader asks Luke to join him he's like "Yeah, sounds fun. Why not?". It literally would make no sense, and that is the type of ending that should never happen in any medium, yet it unfortunately occurs here.
That's disappointing, and you can see why this is the cause. See, in the past, Telltale games have been story focused and used the medium of the subject to form their stories, no matter what the cost. Gearbox however has taken a far 'woke' stance on their story which utterly destroys it entirely. The character development is incredibly weak, and some of the supporting cast, like Stapleface, actually detract from the story due to the execution of the character. This story seems more about enforcing an agenda than trying to make sure there's a quality story to tell, and that's the biggest heartbreak of all. I want to make a connection with characters that don't follow stereotypical tropes and that are poorly executed. Anu, for example, is one continual anxiety attack mixed with poor writing. Her character becomes more of a nuisance than anything and it follows the typical 'come to terms' with their own self story path.
There are some moments of humor in the story which come from an ongoing gag where a Tediore guard continually challenges you to a game of Vaultlanders, an entertaining minigame that parodies Skylanders by making these figures such as Handsome Jack, Brick, Mordacai and others and you go through QuickTime Events (QTE) to dodge and land attacks. There was an issue though in which the computer never dodged the attacks, so it literally became mash the 'A' button, press either Left, Right or Down, and then repeat until the match is over. Plus, not all Vaultlanders are equal in strength and defense, so once you found one that hit hard, it made no point to ever switch characters, which in turn made the rest of the figures pointless. This provided some moments of humor amongst the story but were few and far between. Despite their best efforts though, Gearbox's story isn't even close to how Telltale would present their narrative. This is because even though the story does have disconnecting moments, the biggest weakness is the character development.
There is an initial 'core' of 4 characters: Octavtio, Anu, Francine and LOU13 "Louie". Gearbox tries to introduce us to these characters through their environment, however never fully develops them into any character you could care about. I touched on Stapleface earlier, but one of the most pointless characters has to be Brock. Think of this character as a literal Tediore rifle with little legs and an AI processor which speaks and has emotional outbursts of narcissism. Yes, all this from a rifle. Now while the angle was unique, it was poorly developed, and by the end you really didn't care.
Speaking of pointless things, I have to mention the money and skins. This is quite literally worthless. New skins don't impact the story in ways and are 100% cosmetic, but they cost money you find in game. So if skins are like this, what about equipment? Sadly, that too is in the same category. If that is the only thing you can do with the money... why does it exist again? They could have easily done the skins through character choices or something like that, but nope.
Like I said before, New Tales from the Borderlands is absolutely heartbreaking to play and experience. I went in with a hope and optimistic belief of a good quality, story based Borderlands experience. Sadly what I got in return was a 'woke' story devoid of character development, emotional investment or any drive to really connect to a player through the Borderlands environment. As of this writing though, I'm trying to decide which is the greatest loss, that it was released, or the game that could have been that never will be. If you're looking for a quality story experience then go with the Telltale games instead. When you limit the player interactions and focus on the story, you take a big risk, and sadly this is a risk that didn't pay off for Gearbox and certainly didn't pay off for fans of the Borderland experience.
Suggestions: Please drop the 'woke' from your stories and pay more attention to how Telltale developed stories, characters, etc.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Family Man
Take the 80's video of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits with the serenity of Minecraft and Roblox and inject a heavy amount of dark humor and unending stress and twists and turns, and you get Family Man by Broken Bear Games and No More Robots. It's rare when an indie game with a small development force can create a game that can bring more enjoyment than those AAA blockbuster titles that cost hundreds of millions to develop, but this $19.99 release does just that. So, I'm going to go for a pack of smokes and tell you why this budget indie game should be on your radar. Don't worry, I will come back, I'll only be gone a moment. I promise.Family Man begins its tale through a weird Twilight Zone style opening sequence. While some games are introducing you to vast areas and sweeping landscapes, Family Man starts out by sending you through years of your life, but contained in only minor interactive segments. Such moments would be when and where you meet your significant other, family Christmas, etc, and each one of these storied moments in your life plays a dark and direct connection to the rest of the game. Without spoiling too much, Family man is a game that prides itself on your ability to manage life itself. From doing illegal activities to pay off a debt to the mob, to flipping burgers and doing odd jobs around the house, time management is going to be your major challenge.
On one hand, you have your family who if you neglect and don't feed them, give them medicine, spend time with them, then they will leave you and your game is over. However, if you don't work and gather enough money, then the mob will kill you. How can you justify to your wife that you're not going to make it home to tuck your child into bed so you can go assassinate someone at night to pay the mob not to kill you?
This is the very balance that you will quickly come to terms with throughout the entire story. Now while that may seem like an easy task, you should note that you will be doing chores around the house, however there is a tradeoff. While time stops while you're in your house, it then advances upon completion of the chore to simulate time that had passed. Outside of your house though, time figuratively flies by. The clock ticks down very rapidly, almost to the tune of 1 minute = 1 second in the real world, so 1 hour = 1 minute.
Now your jobs outside of the house take time to complete, and don't forget, you may have the jobs done to pay the debt for the day, but you also have to feed your family, tuck your kid in, tell them a story and spend the night in with your spouse to keep them healthy, happy and fed. Based off this revelation it's 100% clear that the clock is quite literally your biggest threat.
Most of the time this game will be about trial and error. I lost count how many times my family left me because of some neglect or I opted to spend more time with the family at the cost of my life. Thankfully though, Family Man allows you to restart from the beginning of the day. If, however, you find yourself unable to manage your way out of your situation, then you may want to start over. This is probably one of the most repetitive functions you will do when you play.
To add to this replayability, Family Man boast multiple endings. Yes, while some AAA titles only have one story that is a premade path through the game, Family Man boasts four. Four endings that you can experience should you complete several criteria that are outcomes of various missions. Yes, morale will play a dynamic role on how your game unfolds for you and it's this combined with your choices in the missions that will determine what of the four endings you get to experience.
Family Man, despite its deep and robust moral gameplay, is relatively simplistic in design. The characters look like they were the spawn of the characters in the Dire Straits video Money for Nothing and practically every character in Roblox. All of this graphical joy comes with a very tranquil, almost Minecraft style of music that really is a stark contrast to the tension that you will naturally feel when you're trying to complete these missions in time, and then your phone rings and it's your baby girl asking when daddy is coming home to read a bedtime story. The contrast fits the narrative of the game as well, because if you're trying to race the clock, having these local characters take their sweet time talking to you can really bring about some unnecessary stress.
I have to admit that normally I pass on indie games because I feel that the entertainment experience to price point actually devalues the game when you have something that may not be as polished, interactive, or even enjoyable, but priced out of the market. We've all had that game where we've bought it and then kicked ourselves later for doing so. Family Man isn't that game, and in fact, I can say that it's this game itself that has made me take a more serious interest in indie titles. Priced at $19.99 USD, Family Man should definitely be on your radar if you're looking to enjoy an amazing gaming experience that is innovative and refreshing, yet incredibly challenging and stressful.
**Family Man was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Cult of the Lamb
Imagine sitting there at work one day and thinking, "you know what? Let's make a game where we have a really cute lamb as a main character and a bunch of really cute animals that follow this lamb. We'll have pigs, goats and all kinds of cute animals, and they'll all look towards this lamb for guidance; it'll be great! Then let's have this lamb turn out to be a cult leader that was created by a demon during a ritual execution and fill the game with satanic imagery, rituals, religious doctrines and have them all work together in this demonic setting for a better life." Now imagine everyone else at work saying, "GREAT IDEA!" And thus, Cult of the Lamb was born. Imagine taking the Woodland Critters of South Park and mix that with Lamb Chop and sprinkle in some Hades and top it off with some lighthearted village building elements, and you essentially have Massive Monster's latest hit. Now normally I review things from a cost versus value perspective because in today's world money is tight so quality gaming is essential, and Cult of the Lamb could easily be a contender for Game of the Year.So, in the beginning our little lamb was doomed to be sacrificed in the name of everything unholy and evil, however just as the ritual was coming to a climax, our lamb was saved by none other than a demon who has been imprisoned and requires your help to build a cult that will follow in its name. The lamb is tasked with formulating enough influence to spread devotion to other souls that will pray in its unholy name. Should you succeed, you will not only create a flourishing community devout to a demon from hell, but you will have proven your worth (probably) to the very demon that saved your soul. Ready to sell your soul for your salvation? Everyone has a price.
Cult of the Lamb is setup to combine a lot of hack and slash elements with base building community management, and from the beginning you have to start with the basics, and what's more basic than creating your name for your cult? For me, I chose The Cult of Personality for my first playthrough and for my second I chose Blue Oyster Cult for more of that cowbell flavor. In your community sandbox when you start you'll have rocks, berry bushes and trees all to harvest. This sandbox is where your cult will literally do everything from eat, sleep, work, build, poop and die. Your cult will only consist of those who you choose to save. You are quite literally the savior of these animals, so they become devout followers, but only for a time being and that depends on your actions.
It's entirely possible for you to save someone and recruit them into your cult, only to have them turn around and think you are weak and that your gospel is that of lies, and they will do whatever they can to spread disinformation against your cult and try to get more people to turn. This can happen through things like not enough beds or food, to even failing missions. In one mission I failed my followers lost over 40% of their respect for me which seemed ungrateful given that I did save them from a future filled with unending torture. This is also when I found out that followers will leave. Yes they will be thankful you saved them, think your weak and then leave. Really makes you think twice of who you will let into your cult. One of the things I did was always keep a few followers waiting to be inducted into the cult in case I had to perform a sacrifice to raise my follower’s impression of me.
I mentioned sacrifices because your chapel where you perform your sermons once a day will develop over time as you start to gain influence. Essentially your chapel is arguably your most important building given that it's within here that you build your satanic beliefs through choices in your doctrine that you preach. You'll get 5 classes of doctrines, and each features 4 levels of devotion which you can chose a side/pathway, and these will be beliefs and rituals that you can perform within your cult to gain favor with them. Keep in mind though, these rituals do have a cooldown process so it's not like you can fight to the death in your chapel every day. To create these doctrines, you will need to collect tablet fragments so you can form these magical stone tablets. There is so much more to upgrade in the chapel such as your character cape and abilities that you'll need to think and plan carefully so that you maximize your balance between yourself and your cult.
This is when you'll start to see just how deep the Cult of the Lamb can be. Another very critical object is your prayer shrine. Here your followers will gather and pray their essence into this shine which you can collect and through this, upgrade your camp with various buildings that can do things such as give your cult places to sleep, farm and mine. It's through this shrine you'll also unlock buildings such as prisons to house heretics who dare spout blasphemy against your divine following and your rule as their leader. I can honestly say I had fun with this one. I started small and maintained my resources and kept my cult small so I could maximize my storage of materials. This also helped by keeping the levels of poo low. Yes waste management is one of the joys of this game.
So, your followers will poop just like we all do, and if that builds up in your community your followers will get sick, and if they don't rest to get better they can die. Remember how I kept a stockpile of followers who want to be saved? Cue the work till you die and then clean the land, then recruit more people. Hey, if they can preach against me I will have no problem literally working these dead spirits to um... death? If I felt sporty and I had some sick followers, I'd just have them fight to the death and winner would get bedrest to get better. How badly do you want to get better? Now this was my mindset until I started to unlock some of the better buildings such as outhouses and fertilizer and huts for sleeping. Once I started to develop more quality buildings I started expanding and growing my cult.
Now your time isn't always going to be spent in the confines of your community. You will have to venture through four dungeon doors, each of which corresponds to one of the spirits who has imprisoned the devil who saved you. Each one of these doors can be opened by having a certain number of followers in your cult. Through these dungeons you'll come across your basic rooms of hack and slash glory, but you'll be able to find rooms like ones that have tarot cards that will help unlock various temporary bonuses such as extra health or extra damage. Other rooms you come across will unlock various regions around your camp that you can travel to and partake in various quests from fishing mini-games to finding mushrooms to deliver to someone, all the while rewarding your lamb with items for your cult's survival and growth.
Ultimately you could easily say that you have a 3-way scale that you have to balance, and focusing on one area too much could easily lead to failure. While the adventures will either boost or sink your follower adoration, spending all your time in the camp will drain your resources quickly and the world doesn't open up rapidly, so finding some balance between exploration and cult management is essential. Each doorway that you must vanquish contains four levels and each level consists of a multi-room layout that ends with a boss fight where you get to choose your pathway through these levels. Let me dive a little deeper into this.
You pick the first doorway; you go through it for your first of four sections which ultimately ends in a boss fight on each level until you get to one of the four main gods. Here you are given a path to choose. On the left you have a square that is a market where you can buy things, on the right you have a path that leads you to get a new follower. On the left path, after the market you can go to the boss and on the right, after you get the follower, the path takes you to the boss. You are the one that makes the choice of what path you follow. Do you gather resources? Do you focus on gathering followers? The pathways you decide will ultimately shape how your game plays out.
Thankfully navigation and the control mechanics are very simplistic where 'B' is your dodge, 'A' is attack, 'Y' is magic, with your Left Stick controlling movement. This helps keep your combat mechanics in order when you have a screen full of enemies and you find yourself doing some attacks, dodging and repeat until room is cleared. Your magic that you can wield is capable through fervor that drops as small red orbs when you defeat an enemy. The premise is simple, collect enough fervor and you can launch your magic, but be careful because sometimes it can take a while to recoup enough fervor to launch more magic so use it wisely.
One of the most pleasant surprises of Cult of the Lamb has to be the art style. Without a doubt the expressions of the followers and the overall presentation of the game is both over the top adorable with a heavy, and I mean HEAVY, dose of dark, satanic comedy bits. From marriage to the sacrificing of the elderly to make sure you have no dead bodies; Cult of the Lamb delivers a vibrant yet distinctive graphic presentation that makes playing the game an absolute joy. This is complemented by sound effects that have a dark, almost twisted presentation and these sound effects that attempt to be "dynamic" but end up being present in an adorable way, so the edge is lost, but in a hilarious way.
I can honestly say that Cult of the Lamb was a pure enjoyment with every minute of gameplay and worth every penny of the $24.99 price tag. Massive Monster Studios has an iconic hit on their hands with Cult of the Lamb and that is thanks to a simplistic yet fluid gameplay mechanic, combined with a creative community management balanced with exploration and depth that rival some mainstream titles. After playing this, I am looking for something this year that can come close to touching this for Game of the Year. I can say that I'm a devout believer and 100% converted follower to fan.
**Cult of the Lamb was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Sniper Elite 5
One of the greatest weapons ever used in any shooter game is the Sniper Rifle. Being able to send a round down range that normally would be impossible to shoot is one of the greatest thrills we can experience; and Rebellion Developments have been working hard at bringing that very experience into your life with their Sniper Elite series. Recently their latest installment of the Nazi hunting sniper game, Sniper Elite 5, aims to shatter organs with greater detail and provide new features that breathe new life into this series. Is it enough though to make this game a crack shot at a distance or does it miss wide on the target and reveal the flaws that keep it from succeeding?For those new to the Sniper Elite series, you play the role of German sniper Karl Fairburne who has defected to the United States to fight against his homeland during the events of WWII. The stories told throughout the series are ones filled with dramatic moments and this one is no different. While on mission you discover something about Operation Kraken and then the game opens its sandbox up to take you through multiple missions to uncover some of the German's most devastating and secretive operations that, if successful, will hand the Nazis and other Axis nations an almost certain victory in the war. The story itself is done well in unfolding throughout the levels and you can definitely see similarities to the Marvel faction, Hydra, to the point where it's almost time to get some IP lawyers involved. Some issues that were faced during the pre-launch of this game were severe stuttering of the screen during the loading sequences but those seem to have been remedied.
The campaign consists of eight missions and a ninth that is setup as your 'ending'. Each one of these first eight missions plays out in a massive sandbox area that, even though incredibly massive in size, Rebellion Developments ended up finding ways to direct or funnel your movements, so while the map size may be very large, your actual traversal will be very limited. The best way I can describe this would be to imagine the map broken into 'sections', and while these sections are separate, there are multiple paths to go from one to another. While this greatly narrows down your options I would have liked to have a little more freedom in my movement choices. If you decide to go through the maps you will discover secondary quests that will allow you to earn not just XP, but in some cases weaponry and achievements as well.
These secondary quests are purely optional and the game does a great way of outlining that for you. Yellow targets circled on the map are primary targets where blue markers equate an optional mission objective. You'll also notice a red marker which is the mission's "Kill List" objective. This objective is also optional, but fulfilling the Kill List by completing the kill challenge requirement, will unlock a new weapon for your use. In one instance, fulfilling a Kill List objective by completing the kill challenge in one mission will automatically net you a weapon you need for a kill challenge in a later level.
These levels are unique and visually there are some distinct differences which make every level feel special in their own way, but for the most part Sniper Elite 5 seems to switch between lush, beautiful scenery such as countryside and woods with meadows to broken down and destroyed as you go throughout the war efforts and see the outcome of them. While you may be thinking that these maps are limited in movement, and with only eight, rather short for a game, and you'd be right. Having these limitations could be forgiven if it weren't for the gameplay mechanics that you have to deal with every moment you play. Let me explain.
You have your basic controls as before, and similar to ones you'd find in third and first person shooter. With limited customization options, your Left Bumper can bring up a wheel for quick selection of your weapons and items. 'B' button crouches and held can lay prone if possible. Your empty lung is now more prevalent than ever. With different rifles reacting differently under various conditions, it's almost critical to make sure you have the right weapon for the mission, but not really. You see, this is a tactical game, well, it should be played as one. Granted yes, you can use your SMG and start emptying clips left and right and clear out areas loud and violently but being an army of one is where this game's soul resides. Being able to throw bottles, whistle and incite little distractions that will grant you an upper edge in battle can make all the difference and therefore make weapon selection AND your perks completely irrelevant. Here's why...
One mission I did a stealth kill takedown, now this enabled me to lay a grenade trap on the body, then a wandering soldier came by and saw the body, went over to it, examined it and blew himself up. Being nearby this allowed me to go search the new dead body, find a grenade and lay a trap on that one. Now with the explosions being very loud this naturally sent surrounding guards into investigating mode. So, they wander off and what do they find? A fresh dead body that they go to examine. As you can guess, the body got blown up by the trap. Which again sent more people looking, however, this time I loaded up subsonic rounds which are quiet and enable you to fire the Sniper in close quarters without risking much in terms of detection. Up comes the first muppet to look at the body, he kneels down and BAM, headshot. No one hears the round and they continue their search until another discovers the body and kneels down and BAM, another headshot. Tactics such as using your own enemy's body almost as a beacon can be highly effective. With tactics like this you can easily dispatch numerous enemies throughout the levels so there's no reason to really ever use your SMG. While you may have the weapon, I never found much use for that or the pistol. Think through your missions and you'll just need your rifle and some good aiming.
That's not to say that the gameplay is perfect mind you. Flaws definitely exist within. For example, you will need to hide and find cover from the enemy from time to time, however when your character goes into cover you run a high chance of the character failing at this move which can cause your character to be seen. The same inconsistencies apply to the foliage as well. While you may have bushes that are above your head, your character is somehow visible, yet go into some tall grass and they're not. Shipping crates act as an object you can hide behind, however, metal plates along a walkway that block you from the enemy's field of view do not. While these situations do exist, like the statement above, if you are tactical in your thought process of how to bait enemies, how to maximize your silence while getting the most eliminations, then none of this is really an issue to contend with. Remember, if you have an enemy 90m away and your gun can only be heard from 60m or closer, then have fun.
Finding that audible range though is all part of the customization of the weapons which are done via the workbenches in the level. Each level contains three workbenches (1 for rifle, pistol and smg) and throughout their discoveries you'll unlock new attachments that will give you the ability to shrink the weapon's audible range. Suppressors can dampen the sound, but overpressure chambers can increase your damage, so finding combinations that work well together can truly make you lethal. Get yourself a 'Kar 98 Rifle' and you can have a weapon at max damage and an audible range of 60m, combine that with the M1911 which you can equip a 6x scope and with more power than any other rifle than the Kar 98 and nothing will ever touch you. Sound plays another important role in the game by allowing you to mask your actions so that you can actually go as loud as you want and not worry about it. There was a time I even was able to destroy a tank under a raid siren and have the sound completely masked so no surrounding guards were ever alerted to the explosion. This is why tactical approaches can lead to quicker and quieter mission accomplishments.
While going through these missions you can play through the campaign or co-op but the new addition is the Axis invasion mode which means you can have an enemy player jump in and act as a Jager Sniper who will have a set amount of skills and can see their own troops, so this is a good thing, however, when pinpointing the sniper location you can also see which troops are being dismantled so you can get a feel for the direction and location of your target(s). You will find a phone in various locations which you can use sporadically to call out a general area where the enemy sniper is located but in turn can also give away a general position of you.
One of the best things that I love about this is how the game forces you to actually move to avoid giving away your location. While some will say that snipers don't move much and are more stationary scouts than frontline warriors and, in this game, though movement will keep you from being detected. Even if you camp thinking that you will get the enemy Jager Sniper and see them running the game will actually punish you. Rarely do we see games punish you for camping and being stationary, but this game does which is a refreshing aspect that forces action. If both of you never moved, then none of you would ever find each other. Sniper Elite 5 also offers your basic compilation of multiplayer options such as team death match etc, but the most excitement is felt in the Axis invasion, especially if you invade a co-op game. Good luck with that.
There is a lot that Sniper Elite 5 has going for it that makes it a quality experience. There are some graphical glitches though such as weapons being invisible and some other shortcomings that ding it, and one of the biggest gripes is the actual in game audio. There are moments when you need to listen in on a conversation to get intelligence for something nearby, but the music becomes a dramatic loop of annoyance that if it weren't for subtitles, I probably would have missed out on the information. This applies to every level but can be avoided should you be tactful like I mentioned earlier, but should you go loud and proud, your ears are going to hate you for listening to the same dramatic loop over and over and over and over and over again. Despite all of that however, Rebellion is well on their way to turning Sniper Elite games into tremendously enjoyable sniper experiences and one that I'm personally looking forward to seeing where Sniper Elite 6 takes us.
**Sniper Elite 5 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
ELEX II
In the entertainment world you have the big AAA blockbuster releases that have millions in marketing being pumped behind them for support, and then there are those titles that I'm calling "straight to DVD" which almost regarded as the neglected stepchild of the entertainment world. Upfront, it should be noted that ELEX II is 100% straight to DVD material, but does that make it bad? Some entertainment has become a bigger hit later on in its career. Can ELEX II do the same thing? Let's take a look at the latest offering by THQ Nordic and see whether or not ELEX II warrants the $59.99 price tag.Before we begin, I should be upfront with you and tell you that this game has its flaws. When I say flaws, I mean this game has a LOT of flaws. Some comical, some nonsensical, some game breaking. Despite that though, ELEX II brings a lot to the table. For starters, the fundamental core of this game revolves around a dynamic choice/morale system. What really sets this apart is how it sticks to its dynamics. While some games will let you get away with things, I've had followers who admire me before a conversation and despise me afterwards, but we'll get to that in a moment. ELEX II wants you to make the hard choices. It won't hold your hand and even the random chance encounters with the side missions (there's a lot of them) will play a key role in shaping what kind of character you decide to become. This system is sort of faulted because the negative side is called "Destruction" and basically there's a meter that will tell you how 'bad' your character is. While this is very simplistic in its design, it's functional to a point. You can actually buy your way out of your Destruction. Yes, pay a large enough fine and that innocent person you murdered because they caught you stealing something in their safe will all be forgotten. Doesn't that though negate all morality? If so, then the fundamental core of ELEX II is flawed. Does that take away from the gameplay experience though? No. You don't know the outcome (unless you cheat and look on YouTube, but in doing that you're already exercising bad morals by cheating so the outcome has already been determined).
If ELEX II is a game that you think "There was an original ELEX?", it's totally understandable. Quick recap for you: In the first game, you play the role of Jax who is a military commander for a group of people known as the Albs on the planet Magalan. This planet was impacted by a gigantic comet that brought to the planet a mysterious substance known as Elex. This substance was sought after by multiple factions (Including the Albs), but for various reasons. The other factions fighting over Elex were the Berserkers (these people purified the Elex by converting it into Mana to gain access to magic), the Outlaws (these renegades only care about profit and using whatever scrap and weaponry they can find to make it happen and they use Elex to make more potent drugs), and the Clerics (this faction believes the comet came from their God, Calaan and use Elex to power their technology). These factions fought the Albs over Elex because of its properties, but for the Albs, the Elex was the focal point of their people. The Albs are cold, merciless, calculating and are the antagonist group of the game who are ex-Clerics that decided the best way to use Elex was to consume it directly, thus granting them exceptional powers and strength at the loss of emotions and free will. The game is about you learning about these other factions and making your choice as to how you will proceed and which faction you will join. Along the way you'll have companions (as you almost always do in games like this) and your choices will impact how the game unfolds for you.
In ELEX II, all four of the factions return (Berserkers, Outlaws, Clerics, Albs) but now you have a new faction to consider, the Morkons. This is nice and all, but only one new faction? Anyways, moving on... You have the ability to join each faction, but as you guessed it, joining one can close the door on others. There's also some more familiarity brought into the game from the original. In the original ELEX, your character Jax is shot down in the beginning of the game and knocked unconscious for a time. During this time the Elex was drained from his Alb body and he became weak (it's how the game justifies you building your character) and unable to contend with the newfound emotions that flood his body when it's off Elex (consider this the ultimate drug withdrawal). In ELEX II, apparently almost everyone on the planet has forgotten about you (yup you literally save everyone, and they say "Thanks, bye") and you have neglected your family and moved out to the wilderness to be alone and... fish, I guess? Anywho, your character has let himself 'go' in regard to physical conditioning (this is ELEX II's way of saying you're back to square one and aren't all powerful again) and you spend the game killing enemies, completing quests, reading books and more for experience. Gain enough and you'll level your character up which lets you upgrade your character's stats such as strength, dexterity, intelligence, cunning, etc. Along with that you gain the opportunity to learn abilities such as ranged or melee proficiency, lock picking, hacking, and even faction specific skills such as fireballs and chain lightning.
This all seems well and good and everything, however, there's a bit of a flaw here as well. When I did my playthrough I literally did NOTHING but side and companion quests, and by the time I was done with Act One I was already pushing over level 25 and was stockpiling skill and attribute points like crazy. Along the way though I discovered a secret; shotguns are your friend. To be more precise, the enhanced double barrel shotgun is a game changer. While I was doing these side and companion quests, I noticed there were enemies that had skulls next to their health, and just like you would imagine, one hit and it would be game over man, game over. I needed to figure out a way to beat these enemies and that's when I found the damaged double barrel shotgun on a Reaver (think of these as like the token enemy just thrown in there with so significance). The gun itself is powerful and when taken through the upgrade process can become quite lethal. Learning this I sank my learning point (LP) balance into these categories: Ranged weapon proficiency (and the corresponding branches of it), Weapon building (so you can build the best weapons in the game), Health (more hp), and when health was maxed, I went into Health regeneration. This was by far the best path I could find because I found three damaged double barrel shotguns (don't waste your money buying them) along my journey which I then combined into a singular double barrel shotgun. Three more damaged double barrels latter and I have another double barrel shotgun. Here's where the game's building mechanics take over.
You can then use the scrap you find lying around (that you're hopefully picking up) and combine that with some type of element, plus 2-3 regular weapons and create an enhanced version. Now I have constructed my enhanced double barrel shotgun I needed to try it out, so I venture north where some of the strongest enemies are. I go to a cyclops which has a skull icon, and I proceed to bring the pain. Because of the build I'm gaining about 50 points extra on my ranged damage, my enhanced shotgun is doing close to 200 damage already and the fire rate is unreal. You only get four shots but sometimes that's all you need. On the cyclops though it took a little over 2 full clips, but after that, nothing touched me. I found myself abandoning the quests and instead going right into these alien bases and focused on leveling up, and with my healing regeneration I almost became invincible. I then decided that with this new level of power I needed to gain as much XP from this as possible, so I sought out trainers and put my focus into experience increase, experience from reading books/letters etc, and skill and ability point increases. After that I headed back out to the alien bases and notice what was once giving me 500 XP was now giving me over 550-575 depending on the beast. Now the game was set in basically God mode. I had no enemy that could beat me. Health that never went away and I was leveling up like crazy (because the XP increases also apply to missions, so those 2000 XP you earn get a bonus as well), and it came down to trying and max out my character then. The story really didn't matter to me at that point in time.
Before I go on I have to mention a flaw with the weapon enhancement system that can work to your favor lining your pockets with a ton of elexit. Oh, yeah you have Elex and Elexit in the game, where one is cash (elexit), the other (elex) is a material everyone wants. Yet Elexit is made from Elex... it's confusing for no reason. Now, back to the weapon enhancement. Remember that shotgun I told you about that I made? In ELEX II when you have one of these enchanted weapons you will gain the most Elexit you can get per weapon, but ask yourself if you want to get rich quick, is that the best thing? Nope. Let's say you have an enchanted weapon that will fetch you 3500 Elexit, yet you have to make that with three regular weapons and each one of those pays you 1900 Elexit.
While considerably less than the 3500, the quantity is where you get rich. 1900 x 3 equals out to 5700 Elexit which is 2200 in straight profit. This is why making the weapon you want to use for the rest of the game is critical because then you can literally just start making these normal weapons in quantity and then getting wealthy. I hear you; you're saying that two of the enchanted weapons would net you 7000 Elexit which is 1300 more, and you're right. However, to get that second enchanted weapon you would need three more regular weapons which would be an additional 5700. You can start to see here why building these enchanted weapons is only good for the one(s) you want to use, but to get rich quick? Sell normal weapons. One quick tip I also learned, set the NORMAL WEAPONS to default to trash, along with every "other" item that you pick up in your miscellaneous inventory along the way (cigarettes, toy cars, claws, bones, etc.). The reason for this is because as you go around Magalan, you become like a hoover of items. You will acquire so much 'stuff' in your time it's like a George Carlin skit. You ONLY select the normal weapons to be trash because you use the damaged weapon versions to make normal ones, so you just keep making trash that makes you rich.
If you find it hard to make Elexit in the game use that principle, and then when you stop in villages or see merchants you can click one button to sell all your junk and just watch the currency roll in. What did I buy with my Elexit? Two things. Armor and shotgun rounds. I found three merchants that I could stop by and pick up a total of 700 shotgun rounds every day to the tune of 4,500 Elexit a cycle. I stockpiled my ammo constantly and always kept over 2,000 shotgun rounds in my inventory, which made ELEX II a walk in the park. This did make the game quite easy, but there were still moments of enjoyment. The big issue here is that the hitboxes in the game's combat system aren't very well defined. I've walked right up to a forest troll's leg with my enhanced shotgun, put the barrel to its leg, pulled the trigger and hit absolutely nothing. Then the troll got mad, turned and tried to embed me into the crust of the planet. Other times I'll see a flying beast off in the distance and I'll pull my shotgun out, pull the trigger and drop its health by 20% from over a mile away... with a shotgun... This made the combat system very repetitive because when faced with multiple enemies, just walk backwards. shoot and strafe side to side if projectiles come and you'll literally kill anything in the game.
If you're finding that you need some help and want to power level quick? Get yourself some Elex, Moonshine and bottles of Wine, and start making potions to give you skill and ability points (You'll need the chemistry level 3 ability first and a recipe which you get at merchants). The story did bring some familiarity because a lot of the companions you have in ELEX II are part of the original ELEX, and if you didn't play it, no worries, there are moments of flashbacks where they give you the cliff's notes treatment and you learn a little about the companion and their backstory and relationship to Jax in a short cutscene. In case you're already wondering, yes there are some repetitive companion quests (go here and kill everything) but they give you opportunity to grab some XP and loot, so take them whenever you can.
The biggest innovation of ELEX II has to be the modifiable jetpack. Yes, now you can play Iron Man as Jax since he now has a jetpack that can allow him to fly through the air so long as your rechargeable fuel tanks let you. Want to hover in the air and shoot down on enemies with your shotgun? You can. Want to fly across a massive chasm to another side? You can. Want to die horribly because you forgot to conserve a bit of gas in your fuel tanks for the landing from 100+ feet up? You can. Yes, this jetpack will quickly become your favorite mode of transportation and it's customizable where you can upgrade things like the range, speed, gas tank and even retrorockets. These little gems will be your saving grace and fire if you forgot to keep some gas in the tank to prevent you from becoming a stain on the ground.
When I was going through the game I did find the various lands to be diverse in their atmosphere and design, but sadly again, not to the level you'll find with other third person action RPG games, and that's disappointing. The graphics do not feel like something you'd expect to find on an Xbox Series X console. The detail in the character models and environment was lackluster and there were numerous glitches in the game's map section that was really disorienting. I was also treated to many graphical glitches such as rocks that looked solid but weren't, seeing the inside skeleton of my companion, and others that made the game feel like I would have enjoyed this more had it been released seven years earlier. With games coming out that provide breathtaking visual artistry, games like ELEX II simply can't compete.
All of this could have been overlooked if it wasn't for the biggest pain of ELEX II, and that is your inability to pick up items with your weapon drawn. Oh yes, you have to put your weapon away EVERY SINGLE TIME you want to pick something up. When you start to play and you witness just how much 'stuff' there is to pick up this becomes such a nuisance that it's singlehandedly the biggest fault of the entire game. Not the mediocre story, not the last generation graphics, not the clunky and unrefined combat system, none of that. The biggest flaw by a mile is the reality that your weapon has to be put way just so you can pick up anything in the game.
Despite all of this though, I really enjoyed ELEX II. As I was going through playing and thought that given all the negatives that ELEX II has going against it, am I still enjoying playing? The answer was a resounding YES. ELEX II is like the direct to video category that only becomes popular with a niche crowd, but that crowd loves it. Now the big question though, would I spend $59.99 for it? Absolutely not. I would for sure though, pick this up for $29.99 without thinking. ELEX II offers a continuation of the foundations that ELEX was built upon while providing you dynamic story options to choose your path, new characters and factions that enrich a narrative that thankfully continues. Faults and flaws aside, THQ Nordic created a game that was fun to play and, in the end, that's the only thing that matters.
**ELEX II was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2
Over the years there have been many weapons in first person shooter games, but arguably the one weapon most sought after and talked about as a "skill" weapon is the sniper rifle. This weapon is designed to deliver halos to unsuspecting individuals from hundreds and thousands of meters away. In the past we've been fortunate to have amazing sniper games that highlighted the stealth, decision making and even targeted kill shots, and now CI games has taken this beloved weapon and opted for a different approach in their latest release, Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2. This is a different approach from other sniper games, so let's dive right in and figure out what is a hit and miss with this newest entry.If you haven't played any of the Sniper Ghost Warrior games, you take control of an operative named Raven. This individual is quite literally an army of one who is handled by a voice-only contact who provides mission intelligence pertaining to the various targets within your mission. Think of your handler as your guardian angel who is designed to do one thing, make sure you succeed. Throughout the missions you will engage in conversations with your handler about target acquisition methods, troop layout, movement patterns and much more. In Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 your primary objective is to dismantle an organized crime syndicate from seizing power over territory in Syria and Lebanon and are actively making strides to seize power and establish a corrupt foothold amongst the population. This is how the game breaks up your missions in to several different "segments".
You will see that there are only a few of these missions to select from and that's where this game's first blemish comes into play. It's not really a blemish because that describes something that tarnishes an object, but more of a deprivation move. The levels in other sniper games are wide open sandbox areas that offer a ton of options at your disposal as to how you wish to approach your situation. This game takes that concept and severely limits your options making things seem incredibly linear despite having a small sandbox map. This is caused by having only a few designated "pathways" that your character can move through, so total exploration is completely impossible. Let me explain a bit more.
You start out at an insertion point, from here you have multiple options or "paths" to take which is totally up to you how you wish to handle your objectives. You take whatever path you choose and that leads you to a sniping vantage point, which you then you can begin your reconnaissance of the surrounding environment and start tagging your enemies and noting their location, movement, etc. Once you've made your choice as to what your targets are and how you're going to proceed it's time to execute your plan. Once you've completed your tasks, it's up to you to choose another limited "path" choice to your next engagement zone. This literally makes the game feel like you're choosing your starting point but from there you just go from point A to B to C etc. whereas other games allowed you to explore other areas and were truly an open sandbox to play in.
During these missions you'll have not only multiple targets to eliminate but you'll have numerous challenges as well which is the heart of Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2. This is where CI is betting their chips on you replaying the levels to fulfill these challenges because this is where your primary source of income and unlocks come into play. Let's say you have a mission where you're supposed to kill a drug kingpin and the corrupt politician that is in league with them. You may have several challenges such as kill the kingpin with an explosion, kill the kingpin without raising an alarm, kill the kingpin while trying to escape, you get the idea. These challenges offer a wide variety of payouts such as $50,000 for killing with an explosion but $300,000 for killing while trying to escape and $25,000 for killing without raising an alarm.
However, going for one may lock you out of other challenges in the level because in every level there is a challenge for killing people in various "zones" without raising an alarm. So, for example, you may select to go for the higher payout of killing the kingpin while escaping. Well, for that to happen you have to have troops set off an alarm that will trigger the kingpin to make a run for it and allow you to kill them while escaping. The bad thing about that is there a challenge for killing everyone within the "zone" without raising an alarm. This is where the game will force you to replay the level as the game will lock you out of certain challenges depending on how you play the game. While this allows you to select how you want to play the game, you'll quickly learn that Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 limits you to your options in order to fulfill challenges within the levels.
These levels are basically broken up into three different types: close engagement, medium engagement, far engagement and that should tell you the range in which you're going to be taking on your enemies. There is an issue though that I have with the game and that is with the AI, no matter the distance. Let's say you're 1,200 meters away from a target and you line up your shot and drop them. Congrats, you killed someone, now a roaming guard you didn't tag before shows up out of nowhere, sees the body then sets the whole compound on alert. Now, magically EVERYONE knows apparently where you took your shot from. This is, I'm assuming, because every enemy secretly knows the angle and trajectory of a round that just blew off half of an opponent's head. Now you'll get incoming fire (which also magically starts to hit you for whatever reason) and if that wasn't enough, you'll get a patrol unit to come to your area and start scanning for you, and should there be a mortar launcher in the compound then it'll start raining death upon you as well. How is this possible again? I understand it's the game's way of going after you, but this is ridiculous. You can't tell me some random guy who just finished having a smoke and stumbles across a fallen soldier and now instantly knows where you are. This is a big flaw in the game, especially when you realize how non-realistic the enemy interactions are.
Let's stay on that example of the soldier who discovers your body and instantly showcases their PhD in forensics by identifying your location. A security patrol is dispatched to your exact location and enemy fire starts pouring in on you as well. This continues for a couple tense minutes and then *poof* everything is back to normal again. The body of the soldier you killed is still laying headless on the ground but what once was an entire base alerting event now just turns into your basic "meh" moment and people just go back to their basic routines. I know this is a habit amongst MANY games and it never made sense in those games either and I'm guessing that I'll just have to sit and wait till some company takes a shot at correcting that. This type of discrepancy is highlighted the further out your contract is located.
That's not to say though that everything about this game is unrealistic because there's one thing that Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contract 2 does well, and that is the actual bullet mechanics of the sniper rifle itself. In Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 you can use the money you earn in the missions to buy different rifles which are classified into 3 categories such as light, medium and heavy. And I'm guessing I don't need to point out the differences and tradeoffs (power for silence, stability for maneuverability, etc.) but this game allows you to customize your weapon from multiple areas such as the magazine, barrel, and what you'll be using the most, your scope. I should point out that I'm all for giving players options, but let's be realistic here, I have never known someone to say, "boy I want that ****ty weapon because this one with such maxed-out stats just makes playing the game less fun". This means that in Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 you can make do with a medium rifle for almost everything and after you save enough money you can outright by the best weapons in the game and go to town, but in doing so, will you honestly ever buy the lower quality weapons? No. So why have them then?
This concept also applies to a scope. You'll have one that offers 3 different magnification levels and no distance adjustment and then you'll have one that will enable you to see the individual eyes of a fly from 10 miles away and adjust to everything in between. I wonder what scope you're going to buy. Same with the clip. Your killed enemies will provide resources when you loot their bodies which can include refilling your primary ammo, pistol ammo, equipment and more. What this means is that you will always have 'options' for restocking and refilling ammo, so why again do you need to hold more rounds if you're almost always going to be full? Having completed the game I can say that I never once ran into an issue where my ammo went dry so I don't know why someone would waste an upgrade on being able to hold more ammo of which you'll never run out of. The game though does a fantastic job at showing you how your upgrades will impact your weapon stats, but being a sniper game we all know that sound suppression is key, firepower follows that next then stability and so on. To me this is a concept that many games have adopted and to this day I'm still puzzled as to why.
The upgrading though doesn't stop at your weapon though, there are new gadgets as well such as a sniper turret that can target up to 3 enemies, drones that can hit enemies with poison darts, and that's pretty much it. You have a mask throughout the game (in fact the only time you see any sort of face is in the artwork for the game itself) and this mask allows you to activate what I call "batman detective mode" as you can see your environment blanketed in a geometric pattern of orange lines that can highlight interactive objects, climbable ledges and that's about it. This mask can also be upgraded along with all your gadgets but there are a few issues with items such as the drone and remote sniper turret. The drone is a wonderful option for stealth, however, to combat this obvious avenue of potential spam, the developers put up "anti-drone towers" (clever name) that emit a signal that will not only block your drone signal but also destroy it should it get too close. Throughout the game I honestly barely used my drone, not because I didn't want to, but because there were so many of those ****ing towers that it made use of it almost worthless. There's another issue as well with the sniper turret and that's it's firing mechanism.
So let's have this example: You're 1,000 meters out from a compound. You see 2 guards patrolling the grounds, a sniper up on a high perch and a guard at the back gate. You scan these enemies and mark them for your turret (which maxed out in this example will go after 3 enemies) and you decide that out of the 4 targets you're going to go after the sniper. You fire off your shot to engage and you take out the sniper, now you need to press in the Right Stick to fire your sniper turret, FOR EVERY TARGET. What does this mean? Your turret doesn't just fire automatically on the targets after you pull the trigger, YOU have to control that. This means that using it to target groups of 2 or more enemies together is not ideal unless you're going to target the other enemies within the group because before you have time to pull the second shot from your turret, they have already sounded an alarm. This is where killing two enemies with one shot quickly becomes a skill you will have to master if you wish to remain undetected.
This brings me to the kill sequences of Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2. There are moments when you will be engaged in hand-to-hand combat with enemies and have the ability to interrogate them. This, in theory, should benefit your character by pointing out troop locations, supply depots, collectibles and more. I say in theory because normally after the first two enemies you interrogate, you'll find that the rest literally have nothing to say, and you start getting the same type of conversation loop and animation sequence which can be repetitive. Side note: This is why I just went to upgrade my close quarters combat to automatically loot enemies I kill from behind. We all know though that the highlight of any sniper game is to see the impact of your round upon the flesh of your enemies and graphically this game delivers on that front, but again, comes up short.
I was debating whether or not I would mention this, but I believe it has to be said. The targeting of the individual organs of Sniper Elite series is FAR superior to this game in every possible way. Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 does a fantastic job recycling similar kill animations that boil down into 3 categories:
1. You blow half a section of your opponent’s head off in grotesque fashion.
2. You create a nice linear stream of blood from an exit wound.
3. You see a faint red splatter and the enemy just drops.
That pretty much sums up the kill sequences using your sniper rifle and the bullet animations also become tediously repetitive to the point where I turned them off after the second mission and that's a massive disappointment to me. That's because Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 is a beautifully stunning game and delivers quality sandbox environments that feel unique to each mission. The little details of the environment such as running rivers, trees and even server rooms really help you submerge yourself within the role of your character. With all of this beauty at your disposal why couldn't you target an enemy's lungs? Or throat? Eyes? You get the point. Why graphically limit yourself to one of three outcomes? This monotony is why I ended up playing through a lot of this game using just the basic silenced pistol they give you at the beginning and trying to just harness my inner John Wick and just fluidly and rapidly dispatch enemies and use the sniper rifle when I need to.
This also isn't the only element I'm calling wasted with this game. The game itself gives you the option to have a secondary weapon which can range from SMGs to Assault Rifles and I'm here thinking, what's the point of that? Your regular silenced pistol will eliminate almost anyone within 20 meters that isn't a heavy soldier, so why again do you need a loud assault rifle? One may argue that it's for protection should you be spotted and a squad sent after you, but my claim is that if you're good, then you shouldn't BE spotted, so again, that makes the weapon worthless. I can honestly say that throughout my gameplay I never used that secondary weapon and primarily used my pistol and only occasionally my sniper rifle.
That got me thinking, why would this be more entertaining to NOT use a sniper rifle in a game designed for sniper rifle use? While the gameplay mechanics of Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 are quite clunky with regards to climbing, all other movement is relatively smooth. This is a blessing when you're trying to line up that shot at 1,500 meters on a moving target. This is also where I rapidly became aware at just how bad of a shot I am. Let me paint you a picture here. I've managed to work myself into a position where I have a view on a drug compound. Enemies everywhere including two snipers. I decide to target the snipers first and on Easy mode I have a nice white cascading line that showcases me what the wind is going to do to the bullet after firing, plus I get this nice bright red circle that indicates a kill shot. This then basically simplifies the game to "pull trigger only when red circle is lit up". Ok, so here I am thinking I'm so good that I decide to put it on extreme difficulty to see what it was like. I look through the scope and *poof* nothing. I have my basic lines from the scope itself but that's it. So I thought, ok no problem, I vaguely remember the direction, wind, elevation, and so on so I should be good. I decide to go after those snipers again.
I line up the shot to where I think it's going to go. Hold my breath to steady the shot, and BAM! Fire off a round. I see the bullet travel through the sky and the wind taking it where I thought it would go, but I noticed something. The trajectory of the bullet was dropping a lot faster than I had planned. Then the next thing I know *PING* the bullet hits a roof tile of the compound below the sniper position. Within a blink of an eye both snipers see it, instantly lock onto my position and fire. Upon my respawn I thought I would try it again. This time I hit a window which again, caused my location to be aware to everyone and my life was considerably shortened. I put the controller down and started to contemplate my life after that one. Not because I'm a horrible shot and the difficulty is off the charts, but that this game delivers absolutely fantastic realism when it comes to the firing mechanics of the sniper rifle itself. It really made more aware of the brave men and women of military forces who choose to become snipers and the skill required to hit a target over one mile out. That's where this game really shines.
Even though there are only 5 missions, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 does a wonderful job highlighting the actual mechanics of what it takes to be a sniper when it comes to planning your shots. Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 takes a lot of what was fantastic of the original game and improves upon it in many ways. A graphically beautiful sandbox game that blends strategy and gameplay into an incredible tactical experience and a realistic firing mechanism that immerses you into a real-world situation. This game does have its faults and shortcomings, and yes, sadly it has a lot of them, but that didn't stop Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 2 from finding the target even if it wasn't a bullseye.
**Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
I've always been fascinated by mech games. From my childhood days of Voltron (yes, I'm that old), I've always enjoyed being able to control massive robots from within and unleash an absolute torrent of weaponry against adversaries to save the day. Now though, when someone says to me, "Hey there's a new mech game coming out", my initial response is one of reservation due to the history of mech games and what they've been able to accomplish. Recently, Piranha Games has released Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries onto the Xbox Series X and it must be said up front that this game is basically a port of a 2019 PC release. Let's dive right into the good, the bad, and the 'W-T-F' of the port of Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries.In today's world we are interconnected to multiple devices, platforms and people, so when you port a PC game over to console, one would venture to say that you would also adapt your game to fit the platform it's releasing on, but not here. When you hit the main page of the game itself, you'll notice in the top left-hand corner that there is your gamertag with a long number underneath it. This is what I'm calling your pilot ID. That ID is what your friends will have to type in to add you to their friends list so they can invite you to a co-op game. I know you already have a friends list on Xbox, but this is more complicated and serves for multiplayer support. You can't invite friends to play through your Xbox friends list, so it's either utilize your pilot ID code and play or stick to single player. This is a feature that I felt could have used some refinement and adopted the use of the existing friends list.
Sticking with the co-op, should you go through the numerous steps to find someone who wants to play this game on your friends list, add their code to your friends list in the game, you can then have some control of content, but it basically boils down to if you want someone to be able to help you or not. Should you opt to be the dictator of your party, you have say over every setting, every repair, every upgrade, every purchase, you get the idea. This also means that all the responsibility is on your shoulders, however, if you don't have proper management of your resources (cue big upcoming foreshadowing moment here) then you have no one to blame but yourself. Should however your Grinch heart grow three sizes that day, you can give access to your teammate who can repair, upgrade, purchase, etc. This actually makes them engage in the game rather than just sitting there as you do all this behind the scenes stuff. It's not all frustration and dictatorship though with co-op, as you can take your single player progress into your co-op experience with you and build off of that with your team and then jump back to single player and vice versa. This is a clever feature that actually makes playing the game worthwhile in single player mode, especially when you take into account how poor the AI actually are in this game.
You have the ability to hire up to three other pilots, but it should be noted that you need to take into account not only their weapon proficiency but also their ability to grow and learn and improve those skills. While having a pilot that is 4/4 for energy is good, it's not as good as a pilot that is 0/7 because the growth isn't there. As you go throughout the systems, you'll encounter various areas where you can hire pilots, so keeping an eye out for potential quality help should always be on your radar. Having a quality AI pilot though doesn't always translate into having a reliable teammate though. Using the game's ability to issue commands to either all the AI pilots or an individual one, I find myself trying to ask them to form on me, and when some mechs that are used go really slow you can easily find your squad separated and not very helpful when surrounded by 4 enemy mechs and light assault craft.
Going into single player mode you will be choosing a faction which offers various types of mechs from light, medium, heavy, and assault. Each of these mechs not only are tailored individually and look independent but also provide varying types of firepower on board and maneuverability options. The overall map when you first see it is colossal in scope and at first can seem very overwhelming, especially when you dive into the details of the various sectors within the system. There will be conflict zones where you can do missions and earn resources (cue 2nd foreshadowing moment here) and you will find friendly outlets within your system of choice that will offer you deals on mechs for sale, certain weaponry and much more. There is a major difference between these two areas (conflict/other regions vs. friendly/home region) and that is with your repair work.
Let's be honest with each other here, you're going to get bombarded CONSTANTLY by incoming fire from various light attack craft to other enemy mechs and there were times when I would watch as one of my arms got severed off by a laser blast, or worse, both arms. Depending on your mech that would normally spell disaster but thankfully I had one rocket pod and some mediocre AI to help see me through the mission. When I was finished, I had to not only repair the missing limbs (which cost money) but also the weaponry attached to said limbs which also costs money. Now earlier I mentioned about managing resources being a foreshadowing moment and here is why that is. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is primarily about managing resources. When you do a mission, you have your choice between cash or salvage or a mixture of both for payment. You also have the ability to buy damage insurance which will pay you for damage occurred on the battlefield or call in a bombing run from above.
Here's a scenario. Let's say you have a friendship with another faction and they like you, so when you do a mission for them you will have, for example, 7 negotiation points. These points can be spread out or focused depending on what rewards you want. So, when you are in the mission screen you will be able to increase the value of each of the factors (cash payout, salvage shares, insurance, or bombing run). Let's say cash payout has 0/4, salvage is 0/4, insurance is 0/3, and bombing support is 0/1. With 7 points you can do things like a max payout and full insurance or do 2/4 for both payout and salvage shares and full insurance, or any combination of how you want to play.
You may be thinking why salvage shares? Well, when your weaponry gets destroyed, where do you think you find replacement weapons? From the battlefield and market. However, some weapons can run in excess of 400,000 credits so when you're only getting a payout of maybe 1.2 million, to sink 400k of that into replacing one weapon can be a tremendous setback for your resources. This is why salvage shares will allow you to pick weapons from the battlefield to stockpile for when you need them. Not only can you get weapons from the battlefield but you can also get enemy mechs as well. Mechs, you destroy on the battlefield can be reclaimed as salvage. This is especially valuable when you take into consideration that purchasing some mechs can cost well over 4 million credits and a lot higher. To get them for free from salvage allows you the option to either sell the mech outright and get what you can from it (think of this like a bonus payout), or you can repair the mech completely and replace all the weapons on it and then either sell it or use it.
You do have a limited amount of space that you can store your mechs, but should you need extra room you have the option to put a mech into cold storage which will strip it of its armor and weapons and put it in a holding section. It won't be counted as your inventory but will be available if you wish to use it. The reason I just went through the incredibly long description is because should you be in a conflict/enemy zone rather than your own, the repair work will cost more and take longer to complete. Normally you can expect anywhere between 10-40% increase depending on where you are and the faction's respect for you.
All of this deals directly with the single player campaign where you can dive through the story missions and explore vast areas of space. I should point out here that the further you travel in your jumps, the more money it costs you as well. It's not uncommon to sink over 900k into a long flight, so make sure that you have enough cash in reserves. One point I need to touch on is the cantina. As you level up, you'll gain access to the cantina and its missions. Here you will have the ability to complete various side objectives to earn upgrades for your mech and reputation increases. You can unlock things like an increase to your energy weapon damage, heat reduction, weapon range extension and much more. These cantina missions can vary as well from collecting so many of a particular type of weapon, to killing a certain number of "X" type of mechs, etc. and are critical for improving your mechs for the latter missions in the game.
As you may have noticed though, in the beginning, I mentioned this is a port of a PC game that came out two years ago. There are still issues with it such as notifications when you have human teammates that they can hit "Tab" and other computer key combinations. This is minor in scale but is a lazy oversight and shouldn't even exist to begin with. Other issues as well would be that the lands and map layouts feel recycled with slight alterations to map layouts and level design. One of the biggest learning curves though, by a mile, would be movement. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries utilizes a two-stage movement where one stick controls your legs and the other controls your torso. While those familiar with mech games will take a fair amount of time to acclimate themselves to the controls, for someone just starting out though, the experience will be a bit frustrating.
Learning how to manipulate both parts of the mech is going to either determine your victory or send you to the scrap heap, so to help me I spent a lot of time in the opening areas trying to do weaker missions but allow me to practice maneuvering in low combat threat conditions while managing a party. The game itself does do a good job bringing to life the scale of these massive machines, but the overall graphic detail of the game is something you would have marveled over seven years ago. While the graphics may not be all that impressive, the audio is clearly lacking as well. Poor voice acting and a soundtrack that isn't dynamic or memorable leaves you focused on the combat in order to maintain interest and that is few and far between when you take into account how much managing you will be doing in this game.
Despite all of this, Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries is a game that I love to fire up, sink some hours into and call it a day. Yes, the graphics aren't up to par, the AI is bad, the port at times tells you to input PC commands and there's so little combat that the game turns into a managing resources simulator. Regardless of all this, Piranha Games delivers an enjoyable single player mech experience that will keep you playing for many months to come. If you're a fan of mech games, then this should definitely be on your radar.
**MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
NBA 2K21
One of the absolute hardest genres of any game to keep fresh are sports. While shooters can rely on an entertaining (albeit short) campaign and thousands of multiplayer games going on to keep things fresh, sports games have a greater challenge because most of the time they seem like minimal improvements for full retail price which can come across as a cash grab, and that really upsets the gaming base which is something you never want to do. With that being established, NBA 2K21 from 2K is trying to do multiple things with this latest release. Improve upon the incredibly rocky release that was 2K20 through gameplay improvement, pay homage to a legend that was lost and deliver an incredible amount of content that will allow the gamer to spend countless hours enjoying their NBA experience. Has that happened? Lace up because we're going to find out.As we kick off this review it's got to be said that the 2K NBA games have become the definitive bar that is set for all others to follow for NBA sports games. Over the years the series has taken the globe by storm with incredible graphic presentations, gameplay mechanics that become almost second nature after playing and delivering what could easily be regarded as the premier NBA gaming experience. A lot of familiar modes will make their return from the previous installments. Modes like MyTeam and MyCareer return, and already you will see that this is a basketball simulator, not an arcade style basketball game. What do I mean by that?
Well, in MyCareer you will take on the role of "The Long Shadow". Basically, you're going to start from the beginning of High School on your quest to become an NBA legend. Throughout this adventure you'll realize that your character isn't going to be some incredibly dominating player. You're going to have to grind it out and work your way through High School to one of the 10 officially licensed college programs: West Virginia, Florida, Gonzaga, Syracuse, Texas Tech, Michigan State, UConn, UCLA, Oklahoma and Villanova. Just like in life, when you start something you want to excel in you'll quickly realize that you're not that good and you need to put in the work to get out the results you want. In MyCareer that is through earning Virtual Currency to spend on upgrading your player. Microtransactions DO exist and sadly you get the feeling that unless you spend your real money to gain virtual money, your character will not amount to much of anything. This makes the initial grind of the game very tedious, and you'll rapidly see that the importance of that virtual currency (VC) is a heavy focus on making sure your character actually is somewhat talented. If you wondered why some of the pre-order bonuses were 100,000VC, now you know why.
Me personally I'm not a fan of this at all. I think using microtransactions to improve a character that you control is not the best way to move forward. I can understand a company uses microtransactions as a revenue stream to fund updates and future content, etc. however, to have your character development basically hindered unless you spend a ton of VC on it seems like a bad way to go about it. I understand the grind of life and what it takes to accomplish a lofty goal such as making it to professional sports, however, I feel that 2K missed the mark on this and I hope that moving forward they focus more on actually giving you the ability to make the same rapid progress without having to spend money on VC for your character. In the future I hope that there is greater incentive to actually grind out the character rather than pay to boost your stats and be done with it.
MyTeam also makes a return but there's a new twist with this that involves the next generation consoles. If you're making the switch to the Xbox Series X, then you'll be happy to know that your MyTeam collection and progress will carry over from one platform to another. Other things that will carry over are your VC (thank heavens for that), your pulled cards, Tokens and your MyTeam Points, so when you get that next gen console you can pick up where you left off with your MyTeam. MyTeam also tends to follow a similar feel to MyCareer in that you are trying to upgrade your team of players rather than your individual athlete. To do this you'll need some player cards and thankfully, unlike MyCareer, there are multiple ways for you to earn and unlock new cards, but there are times when it's still a gamble. Let me explain.
Think of this like a trip to Vegas; you sit down at a progressive slot machine and the more you play the greater your chances of winning are. That is the principal behind MyTeam and its cards. There are different tier cards that you can earn and once you hit that "jackpot" you're going to be hooked. To earn these cards, you can play online in full games or even 3v3 style games, plus you have the single player challenges. If you think you have what it takes to dominate you can enter for a chance to play in a real money tournament, and on the weekends 2K will be featuring a MyTeam Limited mode where you can earn a championship ring. If you earn all the championship rings during a season you'll then unlock the best rewards. The Unlimited MyTeam mode also returns with 9 leagues that you will need to triumph over in order to reach the premier rewards of the top tier. Also like life, there will be times when you will get cards that you don't want, no worries because now you can trade cards away, and since every card has a value attached to it you will be able to get the cards you do want.
One final note about MyTeam is that now the hunt will be on for the IDOL Series Collection. These cards consist of the NBA's legends from the past to the present and contain valuable cards such as a Pink Diamond card. These cards will ONLY be collectable through 15 special releases so make sure, if you want the best, to keep your eyes out and grind for those limited-edition cards!
All of these new modes though mean very little if the gameplay of NBA 2K21 isn't up to par. This release sees a shift in the shooting mechanics and has been known to be the feature that is the most critical of anything in NBA2K21 and it makes perfect sense as to why. What good is dribbling the ball when you can't hit water if you fall out of a boat? Basically, what good is the rest of the gameplay controls if you can't shoot and make baskets? This new shooting mechanic is called "Shot Stick Aiming" and fundamentally changes how your shots are going to be made. While this will understandably frustrate gamers, it will make the gameplay more realistic. If your character is covered, your target window will be smaller. If your character has poor shooting percentages then the window will be smaller still. There are many factors that contribute to the shot's difficulty and that is the same that would happen in reality. So, while this statement may offend some gamers out there, this is setup to make your game better so quit crying and devote some more time to actually getting better and you'll be happier.
The Pro Stick has also been revamped and now offers a wealth of dribbling options that make the play mechanics feel more natural. Crossovers, break down dribbles, various steps and fakes and so much more are at your disposal, and going through the 2KU (NBA 2K21's tutorial) teaches you all about this, shooting, defending and more. I strongly recommend that you check this out so you can get a feel for the game first and then adapt your play control to match the new features found on the court. Defense though still feels a bit weak with the primary focus involving you almost running into your opponent’s ala Bill Laimbeer Combat Basketball style. Hopefully in future editions there will be more of a way to break this down into a way that allows defenders the same type of play control that we have when we are dribbling the ball.
Graphically speaking, NBA 2K21 is once again in a league of its own. Visuals in regard to the players themselves look stunning, including the WNBA players. Even though the announcers and whatnot seem like a rehash from a previous release and the soundtrack isn't anything that is going to be standout or memorable, the visuals are absolutely incredible. Over the years the NBA 2K series of games have worked hard to provide an incredible realistic experience, and as the technology improved, so have the standards by which the graphics are delivered. What personally blows my mind is that the graphics now on the Xbox One X look incredible but what will the upgraded version look like on the Xbox Series X? With such tremendous potential at their fingertips I can see NBA experiences that will defy anything we ever thought possible and I can't wait for that day to arrive.
While 2K has done a fantastic job in delivering the standard in the basketball simulation game, that's not to say that the game is flawless. Actually, it's far from flawless if I'm honest. One thing for example is the difficulty set in MyTeam. It's uncanny how it seems like everyone controlled by the CPU seems to make impossible shots on anything higher than the lowest difficulty setting. So you could be leading a close match in Superstar difficulty and then it's like the AI could do a bounce pass that gets tipped like a volley ball, hits the backboard, and then the AI grabs it in the air, throws it back to mid court where the water boy steps in, grabs the basketball, turns around with his eyes closed and throws it over his shoulder backwards and makes it in. Also remember how I said you can earn cards and whatnot through single player challenges? Well if the challenges are online based and your opponent quits, your work toward the challenges don't count.
Yes, even in today's world you still can become the victim of rage quitting. Also remember I mentioned about the pink diamond card in Unlimited mode. Well apparently, you can only get rewards once. So, once you get 12 winds and unlock the pink diamond card, that's it. You literally can't earn more rewards in Unlimited mode. So... Explain to me again the reason I would keep doing this after I gain all the rewards? These are a few of the numerous bugs/glitches that plague the game, but thankfully 2K will go to any lengths to update the game and get things dialed in perfectly. Out of all gaming companies, I do have faith that 2K will keep updating NBA 2K21 until it's near perfect. The sad reality is that it takes quite a long time to update everything. As we know, NBA 2K20 was being updated for MONTHS after the release to make things perfect. You would think that after making such improvements that some of that quality would transfer over, at least in the main structure of the game. One of the fixes in 2K's patches involve a problem with apparently clothing that was causing glitches. Yes clothing. So apparently you could not have "Tall Scrunch Socks" while wearing "Compression Pants". Of all the things to have a problem with, no one from QA ever thought that this would be something important?
NBA 2K21 from 2K is the bar setting standard for NBA simulation games. It delivers the closest thing some of us couch warriors will ever experience when it comes to playing in an actual NBA game. It has faults and flaws for miles, but it also has a company that cares about its customers and wants to keep supporting the gamers with massive updates that improve every facet and function of the game while listening to the feedback from you the gamer. Not many companies do that in today's world and would rather consider you to be just a dollar figure to them. 2K on the other hand values your input and honest feedback, which is why I feel comfortable knowing that moving forward with NBA 2K21 you're going to get a fantastic basketball experience. Rather though than buying it new at launch you may want to wait until the updates have improved the gameplay and functionality. Please though 2K, GET AWAY FROM THE MICROTRANSACTIONS and work on a better, more entertaining way to get player upgrades and improvements. That is one of the things that will forever stain something this good. NBA 2K21 is a good, but severely flawed game. Once those flaws get fixed though, there won't be a better basketball game on the market.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Wasteland 3
What if there was a game that you never knew existed, yet when you played it, wondered how in the name of everything that is holy, did this game slip past you. That my dear readers is Wasteland 3 by inXile Entertainment. If you've never played Wasteland or Wasteland 2, then Wasteland 3 is surprisingly a great place to jump into the story. Hoping to deliver a strategic RPG experience, Wasteland 3 is priced at full retail price $59.99. At that price however, can this be the RPG experience we have all been waiting for, or does this game leave players out in the cold? Let's take a look deeper into the realm of Wasteland 3.On the surface, Wasteland 3 looks to be an incredibly in-depth RPG game that offers you an opportunity to jump right into battle with your premade character pairs, or you can spend a lot of time going through and customizing your characters and their traits that best match your gameplay. Do you spend all your points on AP so you can always have tons of moves per turn, or do you focus on defense and become an agro sponge to your enemies and in turn save your friends, or do you spend it all on toaster repair skills, because what's worse than some bread with oil on it right? Here's a rough breakdown of how the character development becomes so important for Wasteland 3.
For starters we have the backgrounds. This is a new setting for Wasteland 3 and provides various bonuses (along with some backstory) to your character. Bookworm gives you +5% Experience Bonus, Goat Killer gives you +5% Critical Chance, Mannerite gives you +1 to Kiss Ass and so on and so forth, you get the idea of where this game is going with this. Now, you're probably sitting there going, "did I just read that a bonus you can get is called Kiss Ass?". Why yes, my astute reader, yes it was. Those are but a few of the many skills you find to choose from. Skills such as brawling, sniper rifles and big guns are very self-explanatory, but skills such as Sneaky S*** which improves your ability to approach enemies undetected for stealth attacks or Weird Science which unlocks science arms and allows you deal elemental damage to your enemies, is less descriptive. Choose these skills carefully because some of them will unlock various story moments throughout the game which I will get into later.
Next on the character creation tour we have our attributes. These provide various stat modifications such as Coordination which contributes primarily to your AP and Max AP stats which allow you more options in combat (a knife attack may only take 1 AP point in a turn, but a sniper or rocket can take over 5 AP points in one turn). Awareness increases your hit chance, as well it impacts your perception and ranged damage. Strength will allow you to use the biggest weapons and the heaviest armor, but you will have an impact in Constitution, Melee Damage, Throwing range and more. These skills, without a doubt, will help shape your character and your gameplay experience.
The last element of meaningful character development comes within your Quirks. These can wildly alter your character and experience in Wasteland 3. You have the option to not even take a Quirk, but sometimes the risk is worth it. For example, the Quirk Death Wish gives your character +3 to Max AP and gives you +3 AP, but what's the cost to your character? You can never wear any armor of any kind. Ever. The Sadomasochist Quirk gives your character +33% to both Melee and Ranged damage but in turn, you receive +33% more damage. Towards the later parts of the game, that can be quite severe. As you can see, creating your character will take quite a long time given the sheer number of customization options at your disposal. And that's wonderful because in an RPG experience, the more customized character you can create, the more unique and independent experience you can develop.
Wasteland 3 enables you to almost become lost in all the customization options that are at your disposal, but if you thought that was deep, once you get out of the character creation and into the cold, vast wilderness of the game itself, you'll quickly see that this game offers so much more than you could possibly imagine. Now as for myself, I can say that I haven't played Wasteland or Wasteland 2, and the post-apocalyptic setting of Colorado delivers an ominous atmosphere of both savagery and hilarity. You play the role of the last standing member of a ranger squad called Team November that is tasked with bringing peace to the states like Arizona and Colorado, but first you must deal with the offspring of The Patriarch. Think of it like this, a dad has offspring that grow up to be real a-holes and have amassed their own armies and power, seeking to take the father down and the other siblings as well to obtain total control of the region. Your task is simple; stop that from happening. Along the way you'll gather various troops to aid your party including a foul-mouthed parrot, a half cyborg/half chicken... Yes, chicken, and other animals that contribute to making your party highly entertaining. And in the end though, you need that because the setting overall is a post-apocalyptic Colorado that looks remarkably cold and miserable.
While the plot is fairly direct and to the point, and the combat of this RPG is familiar and one that will require little time to become efficient in. Being a turn based combat system, you will have to not only manage your AP between movement and actions, but you'll also quickly become familiar with the cover system which can either provide half or full protection. If your cover can provide full protection, then your character will receive a maximum bonus for your defense and can only be flanked to receive any credible damage, so you'll know where to look for enemies. This is part of the in-depth strategy that Wasteland 3 brings to the CRPG realm. While this may seem to create a combat system that is overly simplistic where all you need to do is create a choke point and focus your attention on eliminating your enemies as they funnel their way towards you, the open levels of the world prevent that.
Instead you will have to balance your cover, hit percentage, AP point usage, critical change, any penetration percentage, enemy cover (yes the enemies will also seek out cover), environmental interactive pieces and more just to stand a chance of making it out alive. Remember how earlier we were going over characters and all the details surrounding them? This is where all of that becomes critically important. If you like to try and tank your way through enemies and overpower them, then tailor your character to wear heavy armor, have a lot of strength, specialize in melee combat or short arms combat and literally agro the opponents and go smashing while your team hits them off from other areas of the map. And believe me, you'll be glad you have your team when you're in combat.
Throughout the game you can build this team however you wish and that's in part to how you play the game and your interaction with characters. Through intimidation you can force weaker characters to bend to your will and submit to your requests, but hard headed and stubborn NPCs will see that as a threat and could potentially turn violent against you, forcing you to eliminate them and thus possibly taking them out of your party, and the game permanently. Other times however, a few choice words can smooth over an intense situation which can lead to valuable intelligence and even a possible teammate or two. Wasteland 3 though does have its "decision" points where there are times when you will have to decide if terminating an alliance with someone is worth it to ensure the safety of others, including yourself.
While you're travelling and exploring the lands of Wasteland 3, you'll come across various items for crafting gear, weapons, items etc. and this again is where it is valuable to have competent team members who have unique specialties. What this means is that you don't need to have everyone with an ability to craft armor and upgrades if one person in your party is already very proficient in that skill. As you can see this once again points back to where developing and selecting what type of character you will have, and their skills, is critical. Now you will have to be cautious. For example, if you are controlling the only party member in your group that can do armor upgrades and they die and you don't revive them (because you're out of health packs, etc.) then you have no one in your group that can make armor upgrades. If I've said it before, I'll say it again; character development in this game is fundamentally critical. One way that Wasteland 3 allows you to deal with this is by granting you the ability to play with a friend through co-op. This way you can spec your character one way and your friend can complement or break away from your character with regards to skills and development.
One of the biggest surprises I found was the audio of Wasteland 3. From the dialog, which can be comical in its delivery at times, to the dynamic soundtrack music that kicks in between overworld navigation and the battles you'll face, every note seems to have been crafted with the same level of quality that we see in every other aspect of Wasteland 3. You can see where inspiration was found throughout the soundtrack and it goes a long way to making your experience in the game one that you'll remember.
Outside of combat the gameplay mechanics of Wasteland 3 are very simplistic where you have a camera control mapped to one stick and movement to the other. You do have the ability to map certain items, weapons, etc. to "hotkeys" on the controller which can be priceless to you both in and outside combat, especially on the harder difficulties that Wasteland 3 offers. The biggest challenges I found were navigating the environments. At first I would take my entire team with me and then when I would accidentally trigger a trip wire or step on a landmine, a lot of damage would go to my entire team which forced me to utilize a ton of my health packs. To solve this I would only control one individual on my team (who would be able to scout for traps) and they would go throughout the pseudo open sandbox areas and explore for various pieces of loot and disable whatever traps they found.
Wasteland 3 is about adapting to a situation and environment while managing a "choose your own story" adventure. While the main story is fairly straight forward, how you experience that story is totally in your hands. This is why I can say that Wasteland 3 is one of the best CRPG games you will ever come across. It provides a depth that would allow you a seemingly infinite way to experience the game without being overly complex and hard to manage and all the while not taking itself too seriously in its delivery. If you want a good RPG there are a ton out there that are a dime a dozen, but if you want one of the best CRPG experiences you can have, then you absolutely have to purchase Wasteland 3.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Railway Empire - Complete Collection
Before the days of interconnectional flights and transoceanic shipments, nations were dependent purely upon rail transport for almost everything. From vacations to employment to farming and commerce, the railroads became the vascular, nervous and skeletal structure of every growing nation. Game developer Kalypso decided to not only show how powerful the rail system was to developing nations, but create a massively deep experience in doing so. Going into this game I thought "oh I'll just hook up some stations, send some trains out and call it a day.". I've never been more surprised and more wrong in my entire life. Having missed out on this title back in January, I was excited to see what this game had to offer, and it turns out it was more than I ever imagined. Real Time Strategy games require you to balance expenses with the resource management, then expand and dominate your opponents. This quintessential core function is Railway Empire's strongest feature. Starting up you're greeted with a long list of options at your disposal, and every one of them is going to happily drain countless hours of your life away. I started out with the campaign and decided to see just how Kalypso decided to tell their tales, and the campaign is broken into chapters where each has with it a set of objectives where some are required and others are optional, but all are time sensitive. This small adjustment forces play and requires you to start thinking of a plan and how to properly develop your company.
Railway Empire is more about managing your railroad company against your opponents. However, there is more to this game than just developing faster. You will have to manage your business by paying attention to things such as the stock market, your competition and the needs and wants of the various towns and businesses. This is how the campaign attempts to get you to focus on the basic methodology of the game itself. Every town has supplies they stock for shipment while at the same time are in need of others. This way direct lines of transportation are established that ship from one city to another dependent upon the need. However, as you will see on the map there are various businesses that provide things such as milk, cattle, corn, wheat and more, and it's these places that need to be connected to various cities so that goods can be traded.
Should these businesses fall on hard times you have the ability to buy them, but auctions are also available but can become more intensive with your competition. While you may see it as a way of blocking an opposition from expanding their grounds, they may see it as a necessity and will bid high for this, putting it possibly out of your price range depending upon your cash reserve. You can also play the stock market though, which can provide you some ample cash injection should you strike it big. To adequately manage this side aspect of the game though requires tremendous diligence as you will constantly have to micromanage the investments, but for now, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Back to the campaign.
Railway Empire's learning curve is steep; very, very steep. I hit the start button and I said to myself "self, why is there a highlighted blinking circle on the Tips & Tricks part of the game?". 10 minutes into the tutorial and I'm digging deeper into that than a colonoscopy. The game itself will go through a tremendously shallow introduction that will teach you about connecting cities, supplying trains with resources, setting up side tracks with switches, establishing a maintenance building and that's what the game basically covers in the beginning. Now as you progress, the game will take you through the rest of the menus in again, a very anemic way which will, once again, have you looking at tips and tricks to see if there's something that can help you.
One of the big aspects of the campaign involves the research tree. Before I get into the research though, let me touch on how the game expands and some resource management. Throughout the game your cities will grow in size based on the happiness of the people. This comes by meeting the needs of the city while setting it up to sell its goods and have an economy stream of its own. When the population expands, the city grows, and when it grows you can start to generate some businesses that can start producing better quality items should the resources be available. All of these take time to produce and require large sums of cash to begin with, plus as stated earlier, the resources required will be tremendous, so start thinking of warehouses. These act as massive storage facilities and can house resources from other trains. For example, let's say you have an area that has about 5 production businesses near a town. Create a warehouse and have those businesses funnel their resources into the warehouse, then send a train from a warehouse to a city station. This way you don't have to worry about congestion, as you can have a dedicated line for a warehouse and a dedicated line for transportation between cities.
Now as you progress and grow you'll have the ability to expand into the research tree of the game. What this will do is allow you to unlock permanent bonuses for your trains, unlock new main trains, and even acquire specialized train cars as well. The main train unlocks will grant you access to more specialized and bonus upgrades that you can acquire by spending what is called "innovation points". You get a set amount of points every month, but you can also do things that increase that amount. A lot of these permanent bonuses can mean fantastic things for your trains such as shortening the time for repair work (yes your trains will break down), resource increase (your trains will need to have resources feed them along the lines otherwise they will not run efficiently), to increasing the fares you get when transporting passengers. This research tree is fairly expansive and will require a lot of playing to unlock but that's the beauty of it.
You'll already be engrossed into hours and hours of the game, and once you start to get over the learning mountain (no hump here), you start to have fun with your strategies and how you network the cities and grow your business. Which reminds me, earlier I touched on the stock market. When you take a look at the company tab you'll notice your competitors, see the stock market and banking activities. If you want to dominate your competition, you'll need to buy their company. To do that you'll need to buy shares in the rival company. Doing this early will undoubtably set you back tremendously early on, however, would you rather buy Apple shares when they were $20 or $400? Exactly. Should you wait, the competition's company will grow and become more valuable. Now you're getting money for your percentage ownership if the company grows, however, the stock shares become higher value as well. Once you gain 100% of the company you own everything.
To acquire the capital you can have some options at your disposal outside of just grinding it out. You can buy stocks as well and you have various fields such as consumer and industrial goods or food and raw materials that you can invest in. These can net you a tidy profit but take time to grow, so don't look to this to make you an overnight millionaire. You can also gain extra cash through bonds which act as loans for your company. While this sees a tremendous increase in cash, you will have to pay that back after a set time, and yes, there are even prepayment penalties as well. Going after your competition has always got to be on the top of your agenda because throughout the game your competition can do some serious damage. For starters, they can completely take over your cities. They can buy out businesses in your cities and take it over from you. Next, just as you can buy out their company, they can buy shares in yours and make money off your efforts. Yes, you can actually fund the bankroll of your competition, but that's business. Then they can even hit you hard at the auctions or even steal your employees away from you.
Yes, in Railway Empire you will have to manage your crew on your train. When you observe your train you'll see 4 slots for personnel. The train personnel are the two squares on the left while next two consist of your office worker (who impacts things such as faster unloading times, lower construction costs, etc.) and the last slot are your commission personnel such as the about to be mentioned Saboteur. There are many different types of personnel that you can employ including characters like a Saboteur. What does it do? Well you can deploy one on an opponent's industry or city and cause damage to the company which can lower the share prices of the company. Not bad if you want a quick way of cutting the competition, but beware because they can do the same to you. Your train personnel has to get along with each other which means you have to be mindful of the stats that each available personnel carries with them. If you have a good crew that will work well together and get along, then you can expect a more efficient train with bonuses to your income. Should you though have a train where arguments and fights break out then you will run the risk of them leaving, or being targets for your competition to steal them from you.
There are other personnel that you can acquire that provide interesting bonuses such as Promoter, Spy, Auctioneer, Bandit and many more. Each one of these is on a limited time availability and can cost a nice bit of coin for a high quality personnel. You should consider what personnel to look for and employ based off the needs of your situation, but I can't stress enough to always be mindful of your competition and how they headhunt employees away from you. Should you take on regular employees you will have to pay out regular sums of money but it will be smaller than the one time large payment to a commissioned employee.
Everything I've covered so far pertains to the game mechanics themselves, but doesn't begin to start talking about strategy. Trying to navigate these menus and options will take some time to get to become comfortable with as the buttons can feel a bit cumbersome as they change context from menu to menu. As you progress though and become more comfortable (I've personally played a bunch of practice and campaign sessions to familiarize myself with it) you'll get used to networking, managing and micromanaging all at the same time. And you'll be doing all of this while looking at some beautiful scenery. Railway Empire looks absolutely beautiful and Kalypso has done a fantastic job in all the details from the bridges, to the tunnels and the cities themselves. You can see how cities expand and how the citizens evolve with their transportation and society and all of which blanketed by an ambiance that fits the area you're looking at, encompassed by a soundtrack you feel is plucked straight from the 1830's itself.
The other modes for Railway Empire consists of challenges and scenarios as well as a free mode sandbox that allows you to experiment and try out new strategies and methods, but I strongly suggest you go through the campaign to get used to the game, the mechanics and the initial strategy of the game itself. Once you progress through the game and become comfortable with how you plan your operation, then think about venturing into the scenarios to test your abilities.
When you start to think of the depth of involvement that trains played in the beginning years of any developing nations, Kalypso has done a masterful job in delivering an experience that will leave you captivated and challenged for hours. Railway Empire is beyond deep with the amount of content and management that you will have to commit to, but at the same time it looks beautiful, sounds authentic and provides a level of strategy that will have you wonder where the last few weeks of your life went. Now when you combine all the DLC that has been released since January, Kalypso has bundled this incredible experience together for only $40 which makes this one of the best investments you can make on the Xbox One and should definitely be experienced.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
F1 2020
Lauda, Senna, Schumacher. What you just read are three names that have changed F1 racing for eternity. Just as teams such as McLaren and Ferrari have impacted the automotive world, the drivers of these very cars are the quintessential key to understanding the potential power that is quite literally in your very hands behind the wheel. Codemasters for years has been trying to develop a quality F1 racing game, and this year they put Schumacher's name to the game. For those who need to be brought up to speed, Michael Schumacher is arguably the greatest F1 driver ever to have existed. He started in 306 races during his career, winning 91 of them and taking 68 pole positions. Sadly, on December 29, 2013 Michael Schumacher suffered a skiing accident and spent 6 months in a medically induced coma, and while alive, his status as of today remains shrouded. If Codemasters is going to put this legend's name on their game, personally speaking, they better do it right.They surpassed all expectations.
While Codemasters' F1 games have been decent in the past, you kept feeling like there were things missing and things weren't polished enough, but in F1 2020 you get the sensation that everything you ever wanted in and F1 game has finally come to fruition and in a way that is purely spectacular. Normally you can expect racing games to rehash familiar resources which can produce a game that almost feels like a cash grab that we see in other games every year (Madden I'm looking at you), but not this time.
Loading up F1 2020 you'll see that Codemasters included a mode called "My Team" which is hands down the biggest success of the game. Yes, the basic driver's career is still included where you can go through as you always have, or you can jump straight into racing and time trials, etc. But My Team is the mode that takes this game into stratospheric heights. Normally, F1 games make you the driver of a team and you go about your career, however this time you are not only the driver but owner of the team as well, which means you will have to contend with all the logistics of being a team owner. You'll have to manage your budget, performance, schedule, drivers (yes, you'll have to sign a teammate), R&D, sponsors, strategy and so much more.
This literally added a depth to the game that felt like it had been missing for the longest of times. So, when you begin, you will have to first sign your sponsor. Here you will have to determine your initial cash allotment which needs to be divided up between hiring your driver and building your power for the car. Now, your sponsors will give you an upfront amount of money, however, they provide bonus payouts should you complete the secondary goals of the sponsor. These bonuses should be a priority for you considering that every week you have your weekly expenses for your team (divisions of your race team, drivers, etc.). As you progress and win races and level your team and drivers up, you will be able to select more sponsors with more secondary goals and more payouts.
One of the sponsors I selected had a secondary goal of do 75 laps combined from the start of the first practice day to the end of race day. I thought that things were going to be going well for me but then when the end of the race came and I saw that out of 75 laps required, I only did 74 and I was gutted because I missed out on over $130K because I needed 1 more lap during a training or qualifying session (races are set amount of laps). The negative here is that there's no real way to tell how much progress you've made throughout, so if you have a secondary goal like that then you have to pay attention if you want that bonus. Some secondary objectives can be simple such as lead the race for four laps and you get an extra $160K. These secondary goals may seem trivial, but are essential for your development of your team. How do you develop your team? Well...
After you've begun your team, you'll be tasked with generating a schedule. These activities are spread throughout the upcoming week and can range from 1 - 4 days on the calendar. You obviously can't do them all, and if there are any events that take a day or two out of the week then you'll have to make some tough choices. After you've planned out your week, you'll need to take a look at your facilities. This is where your team is grows and is divided into 6 departments (Aerodynamics, Powertrain, Durability, Chassis, Personnel and Marketing). Each facility generates weekly resource points that you can use to develop new upgrades for your vehicle. These upgrades take time and are not guaranteed to be successful, so if it fails you can install a lesser version at a higher success rate. The rate of success is determined by your upgrade and morale of the individual facility.
To boost morale you can invest into upgrading these facilities which increases the weekly running cost (remember you have a budget to think about) which also increases the number of resource points you can generate. If you can't keep your facility open, you may have to shut it down to make sure you don't bankrupt your own team. When you invest you can spend millions, so if you're thinking of emptying the bank early on then you're going to be hurting when your cash reserves are almost nonexistent. When you upgrade you can purchase things like decrease failure rate by 10%, decrease development time, work on multiple parts at once, etc. You can also boost morale by saying complimentary things about the different departments during interview sessions. When the mic gets thrown in your face and they ask you about how the car handled, if you give a positive answer then your aerodynamic team will take notice and they will get a boost of morale which will slightly decrease the development time of an upgrade and slightly decrease the failure rate.
After you've managed your facilities then it's time to get into the R&D of the game, and this is where you can branch out in Powertrain, Aerodynamics, Chassis and Durability. Each branch gives you the opportunity to improve various functions and features of your car, but as I stated earlier, these upgrades are not guaranteed to succeed and they do take time. Some of the upgrades you can't even get until you get through your first season, so if you want to really develop your team and make your mark on F1 glory, then you'll be racing for many seasons. To purchase these upgrades, you'll need resource points, so here is where your department management is critical. You can also earn resource points for your actions during the race weekend.
Your vehicle tab will keep track of your components of your car, the status and wear of each part. Here you can see the overall wear and tear on and how much performance you can get out of it before it needs to be replaced. The Corporate tab will allow you to manage your drivers, contracts, sponsorships and more. Starting out, my driver was beyond poor and finished in 21st place as his highest placing, which earned my team nothing, but if I want to sink 19.5 million I can buy Lewis Hamilton who is currently rated the best driver in the world. This plays a massive role because throughout the season if you're saving your money, when contract negotiation times come around you can either replace your driver teammate or negotiate the current driver you have. The reason this "Driver Market" is important is because it's based off performances. Meaning if you notice that a top tier driver is going through a slump you will watch their price drop significantly, which means you can get a deal on amazing talent (better than what you can start with obviously).
After you have managed all of this, it's time to race. You have 3 practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself. Now you can go straight to the race and bypass everything, but here is everything you miss out on. For starters, you will have various team objectives during the training session that you can complete for resource points, as well there are numerous challenges such as tire wear, fuel economy, pace setting, track acclimation and more. The better you do in these challenges the more resource points you get to spend and after these events you can be greeted by a news reporter who will ask you various questions which will give you an opportunity to boost morale in your various departments.
You can also tune the various aspects of your car such as your Aerodynamics, transmission, suspension, suspension geometry, brakes, and tires. The level and degree that you can adjust these dynamically impacts your car and your experience. The beautiful thing about this is you can read a description of what each modification will pertain to and you can test it out on the track during these practice sessions to see what best fits your method for driving and car development for the track itself. When you actually get to the race itself you can also customize your race strategy to either pit earlier and be on the track for longer periods of time or stay out longer and risk wear on the tires.
Other modes such as the Career mode offer the identical experience to everything you just read about the My Team except you're not the owner, you're simply the driver and can select if you want to start in F2 or jump straight into F1. You are also able to customize your race season all the way up to a massive 24 race season. Everything I've written so far is easily enough to make a phenomenal racing title but Codemasters isn't done yet. They have improved on the handling tremendously, so the car feels far more responsive, and you can really feel a difference when you start switching tire compound and go from medium to hard tires. This difference also applies to wear and tear on the tires themselves and can find you losing tremendous amounts of time as you start to lose your grip. This plays a massive role when you take into account the dynamic weather, and God help you if you're caught on the track with racing slicks and a storm opens up. I'm speaking from experience because one time I ignored my pit telling me to come in and switch tires and a storm opened up and the rain came down in sheets and I was stuck going like 20mph around every corner just trying to limp back to the pit lane.
Another neat feature that surprised me is that this F1 game can utilize Kinect. Yes, the dead peripheral of massive wasted potential can actually be used to deliver commands to your pit crew. You can order up new tires, new strategy, etc, all with your voice, or a headset if you're like the millions who don't use Kinect. This is one of the downfalls of the game because you have to hit the B button to open up the in game menu where you can make all these changes, but you can't do it when the game is paused so you actually have to slow down, take your eyes off the road and examine your options and which can be very costly.
F1 2020 also ticks the boxes when it comes to graphics and sound. The pit crews sound authentic and the engine noises (especially when you upgrade them) sound like angels blasting their trumpets with hundreds of horsepower under your right foot. Also, the menu music is sensational and really does a fantastic job at not being annoying, but rather melodic and soothing. This audio contrast is pure blis,s and when combined with the amazing graphical work, helps create such an immersive and dynamic racing experience that you'll never forget.
Oh, and did I mention that this isn't a full retail price game? This was truly inspirational to see the quality and depth of work done on this title. Many have tried to make a good F1 game, but Codemasters not only did so incredibly, they just became the new standard for F1. F1 2020 has exceeded any and all of my expectations and Codemasters has not only set the bar the gaming world was hoping for, but has generated a new standard of improvement and innovation that the rest of the racing game industry should take note of if they don't want to get lapped.
Codemasters put Michael Schumacher's name to this game and delivered a racing experience worthy of the greatest F1 driver in the sport's history. An incredibly deep and extensive game, F1 2020 has very negatives which is why Codemasters has released what could arguably be called "The Defining F1 Experience" ever to be found on Xbox One. If you are a fan of racing games, pick this up and you can thank me later. Are you in the market for an F1 racing experience that is quite literally second to none? I give you F1 2020 by Codemasters which I'm calling "A Thank You to Michael Schumacher".
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
Assetto Corsa Competizione
So here I am bounding through Forza Motorsport, making tremendous progress thinking I'm a good racer. Then I hit up the Project Cars series and I think, OK I'm probably not as good as I thought. Finally, I hit up Assetto Corsa Competizione and I realize I'm like the John Snow of racing, in that I know nothing. Released at the end of June 2020, Assetto Corsa Competizione (ACC) by 505 Games hits the track and it catches the gaming world by surprise, not just with the amount of content, but how exacting this game actually is. Start your engines and hold on tight because I can guarantee you're not ready.Starting this review off, I cannot stress enough how much of a simulation this game is. Read that last sentence again. Assetto Corsa Competizione is without a doubt the absolute undisputed king of GT3 racing simulation. Driving games are all about physics. Once they get too comical, they start to become "arcady" in feel. Not here. Nope, in Assetto Corsa Competizione you strive to master the physics. When I mean strive, I mean you will devote hours upon hours to this game for the quest of completing 1 clean lap. Let me explain.
When you start the game, you can go instantly into one of the championships (think of this as stepping on to a 747 plane for the first time without any training and flying it, thinking you'll make it, or will you crash and burn?). This is where you can recreate actual championships that have races that range from 1 hour, to 3 hours, to even the infamous 24 Hours at Spa. Don't worry you can pause and save and come back to finish the race so don't worry about having to block off an entire day to finish a race (unless you wanted a realistic experience). All the teams from GT3 racing are here with over 200 drivers, 120 teams, 24 cars and of course 11 racing circuits that were duplicated using laser measuring for accuracy. If the track is like that in real life, it's like that in the game.
If, however, you wish to gain a feel for the game first, you can try out the career mode. Here you start at the beginning at the Lamborghini test track. You'll be racing alongside a few other cars, but your main quest will be to set the fastest CLEAN lap time you can. So, this is where I decided to start my ACC adventure. I went through the settings that made me feel... well, insulted. I went through and customized my setup for a dry/safe condition rather than fast because I wanted to get a feel for the car before I worked on performance (sounds legit right?). So I use the Y button to switch my view to outside the car (the controls aren't really explained to you but I'll touch on that here shortly) and away I went out of pit lane to start my 10 min training session.
Yes, I had the course arrow on, but you know what, it didn't matter. By the time the arrows went red my car was already flying past 180 mph into a series of tight 90 degree turns. Having literally cut that entire corner not only was my lap time invalid but my car and its tires were already damaged not even a quarter mile out of pit lane. Oh, this was going to be fun. So, I approach the next corner which is a medium sweeping curve to the right and try to keep control of the vehicle. In doing so the back end kicks out which I over correct and end up in the gravel. I manage to get the car back on the road and lower my goal bar from finishing first to just get around a corner.
This is because the driving physics on this game are absolutely incredible. Yes, it's very, very hard to manage at first, but after a while, you still won't get it. I played 30 minutes of training and out of that time I only completed 4 clean laps and never got higher than dead last. This mind you, was accomplished with all driving aids on and the difficulty set to practically newborn. This is how unforgiving the game actually is. So, then I thought it was the way I had the car setup. Of course, it couldn't be my driving skills, right? *insert rolling eyes*
So before the 2nd 10 minute test run session, I go over and configure the car and what you can adjust is literally everything, right down to how the aerodynamics of the car impact the air around you as it drives. There are menu setups for tires, electronics, fuel & strategy, grip, dampers and even aero. The tuning options of this game is unbelievable. You can tell where the air makes the most impact as well as the downforce generated which help create grip as it pushes the car down onto the track. So, the trick is to find the right balance between grip and speed. Other things you can change are the controls itself of the game. ACC allows you to bind various factions within the car to buttons on your controller and/or steering wheel setup. Sadly, we were unable to test the steering wheel functionality, but ACC has partnered with Fanantec to deliver a realistic racing experience wheel specifically for ACC. Of course, since this is a simulation, I fumble around like I know what I'm doing and then I take off out of the pit!
Up comes the series of 90 degree turns and I'm thinking I'm going to take this like a pro and teams are going to be knocking on my door to lead their racing team. Well, in reality I made the car totally unstable, and as soon as I went to turn my car basically had a seizure, locked up and I never knew a car could slide so much. Oh yeah, I had made it totally worse. Restart and reset to default settings. Yeah, the customization of this simulator is incredible and not to be taken lightly. Now I'm off for my 3rd restart of the training session.
Opting for safety over speed I get out of the pits and I start breaking a little earlier, using more inertia in the corners to allow my car to accelerate through them. I start racking up the clean laps. One, two, three, four! I couldn't believe it, and let me tell you that this is a WONDERFULL STRESS TEST of the Xbox Elite controller... WONDERFUL. I felt like I was on top of the world and I crushed it! I was so happy, and then the standings came in. Dead last. Yeah, thanks. Not by like a tenth of a second or anything, no. More like 7-8 seconds ahead of me which is enough time to read War and Peace backwards, twice.
Since I finished clean I thought I could just do some slight tweaking on the next practice session and I could shave some time down right? So, the game gives me a pop-up that basically says I suck and should play the game on easy with everything turned on but traction control. See, to fully experience what racing is like you HAVE to have the traction control turned 100% off, not even 5% and the game points this out to you VERY clearly. So, I crank that TC all the way up to 100% on. Just try and stop me. Now the next session loads up and guess what, it's RAIN! Oh happy day.
Naturally now my friends decide to hit up a multiplayer match. Sure, why not? I've been doing so well so far. So, popping over to the multiplayer server side, you're greeted with the server list at the bottom, Quickjoin on the left and competition server on the right. In the middle is where you can select what team and car you use when you drive. The entire roster is here for you to choose from and you can also set your livery and your racing number as well. Once you've selected your team and you're back to the main multiplayer menu, the Quickjoin is what you would expect, but the competition server is where the real racing is and your access to this server depends on your rating within the game itself.
One of the interesting aspects is how ACC tracks your progress in the game with the cars and the tracks. This data is found in the main menu under driver (bottom left) and then click the rating menu. You'll see a vertical menu on the right-hand side that details various stats of the game. For example, Track Competence is about how many clean laps have you done on the tracks. Each track has medals to win, and when you win the medals, the track competency grows. Consistency pertains to how often you can post similar lap times, and should you see lots of yellow and red, mixed with green, that's not very consistent.
Then car control is interesting because ACC is grading you on how often you put the car into a position to get the maximum speed and grip out of the vehicle and essentially crashing or overdriving the car and spinning out. Again, unlike golf, a higher number is desired here as well. Pace pertains to completing events and leaderboards. The next is a big one... SAFETY. This monitors how safe of a driver you are. Again, you want a high number here because that can affect you joining multiplayer matches. As you can see there's a ton of data being logged throughout your gameplay and all of it is important for multiplayer. So anyways back to the friends and the multiplayer.
We head into a match from the server list as we were clearly not ready for a competition server and we wanted control of what to play. We start off and there's a moment just like the beginning of every race where you have to stay within your limits for a rolling start. We learned that the hard way as all 3 of us hit the gas and practically failed instantly. Once you complete the rolling start and the green light drops, the gas pedal gets planted and the race begins. I kept clipping corners and kept getting penalties, but I remained within the top 3, but then I was called into the pit and was disqualified because I apparently didn't know the rules of racing.
Being disqualified just meant I had to wait till the next game so I would go into camera mode and look at my friends and how they were doing, and that's when the sheer beauty of this game shined through. ACC is an absolutely beautiful game to behold. The car models and cockpit views look painstakingly detailed and the racing environments themselves are so detailed that you almost wish you could stop and look around you, especially when you hit up legendary tracks like Spa-Francorchamps and Laguna Seca. The only downfall I could see would be when you're in the cockpit view, the slightest move of the Left Stick causes your steering wheel to almost go into convulsions it becomes so jerky. You could be smooth on the corner but inside your driver looks like they are experiencing a serious cerebral medical condition event. But damn does it sound good.
The main menu music and all that is meh, and if I'm honest, I turned it off after a while. Why? Well for starters it's nothing that stands out as quality, and the real beauty of the sound is to be found in the cars themselves. Get into a McLaren and go through the various views including the cockpit view and listen to the engine sing. Now hop into a Ferrari and listen as everything is tuned perfectly to be unique. This is the best soundtrack to any racing game if the engine noise is authentic, and thankfully it is. Everything from a low rumble growl to a high-pitched humming can be found on cars such as Bentley, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche, Lamborghini and so much more.
We decided to play another race and I was racing clean until towards the end and I got disqualified again. Yes, I know I need to work on that IF I want to actually finish a race. After that I decided to confront my training session which, may I remind you, is now in the rain. I set my car up for default on the wet setup and lap after lap I managed to finish 1st! I could not believe it, so I took a picture for recorded evidence. It goes to show that the best thing that you can give this game is time. If you can give ACC some devotion, it will make you a better racing driver, period.
Despite being horrible at Assetto Corsa Competizione, I have no doubt in my mind that this is the best pure driving simulator that you can find on Xbox One. That's a big statement I know, and I'm sure you Forza fans are sharpening your pitchforks, but hear me out. The main focus of making an accurate driving simulator IS the physics and ACC delivers a racing experience unlike any you can find on the market. While other racing games may be fun to play because of their entertainment, ACC can actually help you become a better driver because of its realism. Don't get me wrong, I'm terrible at this game, I mean absolutely horrible, but that's just because I have limited knowledge, which is a nice way of saying I know nothing.
If you don't mind being SEVERELY humbled by your talent and skill behind the wheel, Assetto Corsa Competizione hits your wallet with a bill for $39.99. Huh? From incredibly gorgeous graphics of the cars and tracks, to the detail of tuning and adjustment, to the engines that scream as they fly down the straights, to the physics that take the handling of this game to new levels,and more, for $20 less than big named racing games. I guarantee you right now Assetto Corsa Competizione just made Turn 10 and others take notice, and they should. Assetto Corsa Competizione is one of, if not arguably, the best racing simulator you can find on the Xbox. Sure, it may serve you some humility with a side of humble pie, but if you stay with it, it will become one of the most rewarding racing experiences you can have on the platform.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Disintegration
Have you ever heard the phrase; a jack of all trades is a master of none? It's a phrase that signifies that while it may be tempting to do a little of everything, the lack of focus will prevent you from mastering anything. This is the same theory that directly applies to Disintegration from V1 Interactive. In an attempt to integrate both FPS and RTS elements within the game, you can already see going into this the ambition on the table. Does this game though break the mold and find a way to harmonize both genres together in a fluid gaming experience? Let's find out.For starters, Disintegration was directed by one of the co-creators of Halo, Marcus Lehto and his V1 interactive studio. This instantly perked my attention being a titanic Halo fan, but such aspirations have burned me in the past and led to disappointment, but I was hopeful. The backdrop of Disintegration takes place roughly 150 years from where we are now. Science has figured out a way to let our "existence" carry on beyond our physical bodily limits. We've seen similar plot lines in science fiction movies before, and like those movies, a race of integrated machines called the Rayonne rise up against humanity and without anyone to stop them. They work on enslaving the rest of mankind and forcing people to turn and become members of the Rayonne army. Cue heroic music now.
You play the role of Romer Shoal who used to be a celebrity grav cycle pilot. Shoal was not some ordinary pilot though; we are introduced to him as arguably the best (he'd have to be right?) pilot ever seen. These grav cycles can be outfitted and modified to increase speed, damage, etc, and the Rayonne saw this as a threat, so grav cycles were outlawed. Shoal though wasn't having any of that though, so he started smuggling grav cycles and thus broke Rayonne law. Well, it's not long and he finds himself imprisoned in a mechanical Rayonne structure called the Iron Cloud, which was run by the commander, Black Shuck. A daring jail break and rescue operation commence, and you not only manage to cripple the Iron Cloud, but also escape the grip of Black Shuck.
As your team makes it to the ground you come across a massive ship that acts as your team's base of operations. With a crew that consists of characters that we typically see in a party system game, although this time, they're robots, but with personalities. You've got your mechanics, scout, big tank brute, etc. Before each mission you can go throughout the area and talk to all your members to get a deeper sense of the story, as well as these "helper robots" that give you challenges for the upcoming mission. It's here that I found my first flaw. There is a LOT of dead space in this sort of "gathering area". I find myself literally quick walking throughout this massive structure just to talk to one NPC, and should you just press 'A' to trigger the conversation and then walk away to save time, the conversation won't register so you have to walk your *** back to the NPC, hit 'A' again and literally sit through the conversation.
When you play the game, you will see how the entire area has probably about 70% wasted space. This trend continues throughout every gathering point, whether it be in the ship or not; By far one of the worst aspects of Disintegration. After you've talked to everyone (or not if you don't want challenges) you will go to a designated point in the gathering area and load up the next mission. Here you can also hit 'RB' and switch to configuring your team members and upgrading their abilities and yours as well. To do this you need to find upgrade chips as you scan the environment, but more on that soon. Once you're good to go you can press 'LB' and go back to the mission and launch it.
The loading times aren't terrible, which is surprising given the sheer size of the maps and levels. There is though one aspect that really didn't sit well with me though, which was the lack of a map of any kind... at all... ever. These wide expanse levels and I'll be trying to go off the path to find secrets only to be given a pop-up saying I'm out of the mission zone and I have 8 seconds until I'm dead. Thankfully, this is solved by pressing 'A' for a boost and directing your grav cycle back in the direction you came from to return to the map. Would have been nice to have A MAP so that didn't happen, but I didn't make the game.
Speaking of the grav cycle, you'll need to get accustomed to its mobility, and fast. Think of these like flying command centers with weapons. You can direct your team and their actions through it, and you can cue up special abilities such as a concussion grenade, ground slam, mortar strike and more. You can also have them team up and target enemies. This helps a lot if you wish to focus your attention rather than let the Muppets roam free and shoot things. The handling of the grav cycle though is sluggish so it may take some time to get used to its maneuverability. You can scan for loot and interactive items by using the 'B' button to enter a scan mode that is similar to the scan feature we find in the Batman Arkham series. The downfall of this? You can't use weapons in this form, but you still have full tactical control of your team and their skills in this mode.
Managing the crew almost becomes your primary focus throughout all the missions. There is a button combination 'RB + B' and that will bring your team back to you, which can be advantageous, but also risky, as no one on your team seems to be able to walk backwards and shoot. They all run back to you, exposing themselves and not firing back. Should your teammate fall, depending on your difficulty, they will respawn near you after a set amount of time with limited health. Or if you play on the hardest difficulty, they're dead and will not come back. This is where Disintegration tries to excel in its RTS capabilities, but there really isn't much worthwhile to it as it feels unpolished and almost segregated. You can do either FPS or RTS but you can't do both. So rather than trying to work on molding the two genres together into some type of super hybrid awesome type game, you're left with a game with one hell of an identity crisis. But oddly enough, it's enjoyable.
This is the basic format of the campaign itself. Go between enormous gathering places with tons of wasted space, to a level that's vast and open and doesn't provide ANY MAP, complete the goals, back to enormous gathering place and finally onto a vast level with NO MAP. You get the point. If you want to achievement hunt, you'll need to really grind out some of it. When you scan with the 'B' button you can see that lootable objects show up with a green outline. Well, on these massive levels there will be well over 15 hidden loot boxes, and trust me, you need them. These containers can hold upgrade chips which you use at the party screen where you can upgrade your team members, as well as scrap which is needed to collect to level up. The kicker though is when you kill an enemy, they drop scrap; Yay! But if you don't move your grav cycle near the scrap, it will disappear and it won't count to you leveling up; Boo! This means in a heated battle, when there are dozens of enemies on the screen at once and all of them are firing at you and your team, trying to come out of the battle with all the scrap you need can be quite difficult.
These levels though provide some fantastic detail and beauty, and the artwork you see throughout the game and in the environment is stunning to behold. The music feels a little canned at some points, along with the voices of your teammates. While trying to create some type of unique character in the robots, the dialog doesn't feel natural and it almost seems like they were trying to create comical moments that don't fit the narrative. While it's nice and all, there isn't much in terms of character interaction with your team to create any sense of bonding which is kind of a big disappointment. They're your team and you don't really get presented with a reason to care about them. Not very human.
Outside of the main campaign is also a very anemic multiplayer system. With a stable of varying grav cycles to choose from you get the familiar sensation of "heavy, medium, light" vehicles that we have in other games, each of which comes with their own unique weaponry. You also get to design your character, and just like the campaign, you get a crew with you as well. While you may sit there and think, "Oh OK, I'll take out the smaller enemy team members and then focus on the grav cycles!". Well, if you destroy the cycles then the enemy team that follows them is also destroyed. So, there's literally no reason of any sort to go for anything but enemy grav cycles. Since you have a team in multiplayer, you can also give orders to that team as well, but remember it will be challenging to get your team to target enemy grav cycles with abilities since there's only so many with range.
In multiplayer there are only 3 modes to select from: Zone Control, Collector, and Retrieval. Zone control requires you to occupy a zone to "claim" it and is the basic fare that we've seen throughout many, many years. Collector involves you killing an enemy and collecting their "brain can". Think of this like Dog Tags in Call of Duty but with less enjoyment. Retrieval is a remarkably similar mode to capture the flag and will require the most teamwork to complete it successfully. Another massive knock against it, outside of the sheer lack of enjoyment found in all three modes, are the lack of multiplayer levels. There's only a few, so the repetition can become, well... repetitive. What sent me over the top was the microtransactions for the skins. Yes, you can spend real money or grind this multiplayer matchmaking for an exceptionally long... long time. So rather than unlocking via merit, these cosmetic items unlock either via grinding or cash only.
Disintegration had amazing potential and it still does. I do enjoy the campaign, but I can't forgive or overlook the sheer number of faults and flaws that exist within. I hope that V1 Interactive genuinely takes the feedback from the community and improve upon this game because I see the potential, but the execution is what prevents this game from taking flight. Would I recommend this game at its current $49.99 price? No. Half of that and below though? Every day of the week.
Suggestions: In the name of everything holy can I please have a map in the sequel?
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
World War Z - Game of the Year Edition
Last year XboxAddict got the opportunity to review the zombie game World War Z. While there were some who didn't enjoy this, and probably don't like puppies, or kitties either, we found it a wonderful zombie game that was a diamond in the rough, which is almost "unicorn status" given that it's a game based off a movie; and we all know how successful those can be (insert sarcastic eye roll).Now that the world is gripped in a viral pandemic of Coronavirus, we here at XboxAddict found the timing a little eerie that we get the opportunity to review the Game of the Year Edition (GOTY) of World War Z. So naturally a game about destroying an obscene amount of zombies while a virus rampaged the world and claimed countless lives in reality, provided an interesting backdrop. I guess this sort of 1up's 'Dead Island torso' controversy, but let's move on.
Without going back into the detail of the core game review, this article will more focus on the content that you get with the GOTY Edition. Priced at $49.99, World War Z GOTY Edition comes with the game, season pass, one extra mission that is split into 3 levels, all the character skins from both sides, weapon skins, and also a weapon packed to be named later. On top of that, you also get some game modes to contend with (challenge and horde).
When you step into Challenge mode, take note that like Walter said in The Big Lebowski, you're entering a world of pain. Now, I'm not saying you're going to die a lot, I'm saying you have a very slim chance of survival given that this game mode offers up some pretty insane random gaming modifiers to make your experience more memorable. This mode has weekly goals that will set you in the levels you're used to, but the modifiers is where you can really get the short end. Modifiers can and will alter the game dramatically. What if you were playing a game and everyone but 1 person on your team were invincible, not just that, but all the damage taken from the invincible 3 went to the 1 normal team member. Or what about increasing the damage to friendly fire? How about the game producing literally endless waves of zombies and you having to literally run and gun your way through? These are but a few of the over 40 modifiers that exist within the challenge mode.
If you're lucky enough to make it through, you'll be rewarded with challenge coins which you can use then to modify your character's appearance. You can't purchase these through the store, so everything, and I mean every character customization option, will have to be painstakingly earned. But if you want that special backpack charm, like Rupaul said, you better work.
If you're thinking, "oh I really wish there were other ways to earn challenge coins!", well, wish granted with the new Horde mode. This is where the developers literally want you to last as long as you can before you die (which you will over and over and over again). You know those moments in the game where you have to defend swarms of zombies from overrunning your position? Well now take that same experience, but never have it quit and get progressively harder. In between each wave you'll be rewarded with loot that you can decided how/when you will spend it on upgrades (that will continue to carry over). If you can save some loot in the earlier stages, then that savings will come back to become invaluable later on.
Yup, in this mode you're going to be dying quite a lot, but that's the point. You collect what you can for your character, grind out the loot and experience, die and repeat the process from where your character left off. Now you may be thinking, well we have defenses that we can fortify and if we work together we can survive right? Wrong. First off, this new version adds some new "special zombies" to the mix.
You have your enemies like the zombie signal beacon and the screamer, but now you have this zombie called a Bull which is a massive zombie covered in police riot gear who will lumber towards you, but shoot it enough times and it'll get angry and like the Hulk will want to smash things, including your skull; very, very violently. Then you get the Bombers who... I don't want to get into trouble... so I'll just say blow s*** up, but they do that by running right into your group. As Aragon said to Legolas; "Bring him down, and do it quick." Other zombies such as a Lurker are now in the mix and these Adidas pant wearing zombies love to hide around corners and sneak attack you, so when you hear a snarling growl, start checking corners from a distance in case it leaps at you.
In some sadistic world, the developers thought, "Hey, let's make this experience more rewarding to the gamer. So how can we do that?" Well that answer came in the form of a Horde update back in February that applies to today. The list is extensive and can be found onliune(https://forums.fo3852/patch-the-profe020) but here's a small snapshot of a few:
• Rewards for beating wave 10 and higher are greatly increased
• Wave difficulty increases much faster
• The amount of resources player get is slightly reduced, especially after wave 20
• Introduced a limit to the number of defense kits of the same type that can be deployed simultaneously
Oh you're wondering about those challenge coins again? Well while normal difficulty Horde mode will allow you to grind and upgrade your weapons and classes, but doing Horde on hard mode will allow you to earn challenge coins. As if you needed to increase the difficulty to have more fun with this game.
One slight problem I came across, which wasn't mentioned in our original review, is that sometimes there is this graphical shifting hue that seemed to make focusing on navigation and targeting a real challenge. It didn't happen often but was distracting and really took away from the feel of the game itself. I wish it wasn't there, but it's a small price to pay for a fun and entertaining experience. For $49.99 World War Z GOTY still brings about a lot of enjoyment. I do though wish that they dropped the price to $39.99 (which oddly it is if you get game pass ultimate) because the content that is technically "new" outside of the zombies and the 3 stages is all cosmetic and things that have been released already.
Suggestions: Visual rating would have been higher without the graphical distortion.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Darksiders Genesis
Ever since there was recorded time, there was the story of Good Vs. Evil, Heaven Vs. Hell and God Vs. The Devil; the stories have echoed throughout all of recorded human history. Throughout the Darksiders games, we have always been treated to 3rd person games that were littered with impressive cut scenes that depicted the horsemen of the apocalypse and their battle to maintain balance at behest of the Charred Council. Now though, things have changed. Developer Airship Syndicate Entertainment has opted to go a completely different pathway and give us a top-down isometric view, akin to a Diablo style game experience. A complete shift from the games we've come to expect from a Darksiders game, but with such source content at their disposal, what could possibly go wrong? (Insert foreshadowing music here)In Darksiders Genesis we get to take control of Strife, who is, for lack of a better phrase, the "Deadpool" horseman. His primary weapon are his two guns which are basically two handheld machine gun pistols. These have tremendous range so they work well in targeting enemies from far away, and as you go through the game you can customize their damage, but more on that shortly. Strife is paired up with War and the two are sent to deal with Lucifer and Samael as the Charred Council claims that they have been conspiring with each other. In reality though, Lucifer has offered a price that no demon would ever be able to resist; anything they want for the death of Samael.
The story behind Darksiders Genesis IS a Darksiders story that is done well. The game consists of you literally teaming up with Samael (as you always seem to do) to go after Lucifer. The game itself boils down to doing the errands of Samael in an attempt to get closer to Lucifer. It's something similar we've seen before in the original Darksiders, but on a much larger scale. There are over 15 levels and each one of them is a very large sandbox world that is laid out and designed to offer rewards to those who go exploring. However, there is a massive problem here. The map sections.
This thing is one of the absolute worst abominations of any map structure. For starters, you have absolutely no icon to show where your character is on the map itself. Think that may be a helpful thing? I do too. Instead of a very logical pointer icon, they have sections of the map flash to indicate that is where you are. That makes absolutely no sense and there were times where I had to go to previously opened chests or collectibles and gain my bearings from there. Why? Because as you navigate, the map doesn't rotate. You can shift the map around and even zoom in (which is literally the most useless feature I've ever experienced in a game... ever). If you don't even know where you are, the point of zooming in is to what, see a larger flashing area that you don't know where you're at? How hard would it be to get a simple icon that said "you are here" and put an arrow or a dot, or ANYTHING other than this. Sigh... This is a big blow, especially when you gather how large these maps actually are and all the intricacies within them.
Now onto another thing that is kind of pointless, but for other reasons. The characters Strife and War. Now you're thinking, why are these pointless? The reason is, when we first see Strife, we see a fleeting glimpse in Darksiders III of him going to wage war on an oncoming demon army. Now, in Darksiders Genesis you get to upgrade your character and unlock abilities, but that's the problem. War isn't how we left him and there’s no sort of "backstory" as to why he now needs to go around upgrading his abilities. Strife is the exact same way.
There are three abilities that each character must unlock by obtaining them, 3 distinct gear slots that you have to obtain to unlock, and finally, each character also comes with a unique skill wheel that pertains to their character. You have to also obtain these as well. If these are supposed to be the horsemen of the apocalypse, then why are they always so weak to begin with? I understand that developers want to give something the gamer should work for, but you could also increase the challenge on a fully powered character and get the same effect. Alas, in Darksiders Genesis you'll be forced into navigating the levels and figuring out how to access these upgrades and unlocks. Good thing you have a good map system to guide you right?
The game controls are pseudo simplistic. The Left Stick moves the character while the Right is where you aim your focus for your attack. Your bumpers and triggers do different things depending on the character you're controlling, but your Right Bumper calls up your skills menu where you can select X, Y, or B to perform a unique skill. For example, if you're controlling War, pressing RB with X performs a massive AOE attack that sends blades up in circles around him that deal massive damage and knock enemies back. If you're controlling Strife though, pressing RB with X causes Strife to move out of the way exposing a shadow clone of himself that fires at enemies with ammo that can not only pierce through, but also bounce off surfaces and draw the aggro of surrounding enemies.
The transformations into Havoc forms exist, and while we are accustomed to War, Strife's form is interesting, as he seemingly turns into a massive demon with some truly overpowered swords and what appears to be a minigun. Along with the havoc form, since there are two horsemen to play as, there is a special link attack as well. Let's say you're playing as War. You're killing enemies left and right and this little bar builds under your character's wrath that is your link gauge. After you've done enough action your meter will be full. During this time, you can hold down A and Strife will come in and essentially perform a screen clearing, Quentin Tarintino shooting scene that decimates everything.
There is a new tree that focuses on Demon orbs. These orbs come from fallen enemies and consist of both minor and major quality. There are three classes for these orbs which I'll call health, attack and wrath. This tree allows you to insert these Demon orbs into these slots that will grant you upgraded powers such as increased damage, increased wrath time/power, more souls, etc. Now should you match a slot on the tree with the corresponding orb (attack slot + attack category orb) then you will receive an extra bonus to your enhancement. This is particularly helpful when you also realize that the slots range from tier 1 to 3, where 3 provides you the biggest bonuses. This means you have to choose your orbs wisely, but the customization options are endless since you don't HAVE to go for these extra bonuses if you don't want to. This tree is a wonderful addition to the game and one of the best parts of it. To obtain these orbs you can either farm through the game's levels or you can enter the arena and go through all the stages for a really easy way to max them out.
The graphics of the levels are nice sometimes, good most of the time and meh sometimes. There's one massive flaw though in this game's development and that comes with the boss fights. Once you get Strife upgraded through the tree, he literally becomes a one-man wrecking crew with his guns. When he fires and hits, he builds a meter that when full, unlocks his full shooting ability and you can unlock a charged version of his secondary ammo. Secondary ammo? Yes, outside of the infinite standard ammo (which honestly, you'll use 99.5% of the time and be perfectly fine with), you get the ability to have different types of shots from your guns.
You can fire chain lightning like a Sith lord, you can fire a gravity shot that acts like a mini black hole on enemies or how about healing shots that act like a shotgun blast that converts shots landed on your opponents to health orbs (this is a GREAT way to survive long rounds in the arena but you don't get this shot till later on in the game). When you reach a boss, Strife literally just needs to go in a circle (if possible) and strafe and shoot until the enemy is dead. This makes the fights incredibly boring. What about those who you can't orbit while firing? Simple, switch into Strife's havoc form, target the boss and literally do not let go of the trigger. The damage inflicted will be incredible which will allow you to simply mop up the rest when you break from the form.
This hurts the game because Darksiders is always about the massive boss fights and you don't really get that sensation here. Sure, the character models themselves are big (sometimes) but there's no real grand scale since we are looking from the top-down. This is where I felt a detachment from the Darksiders genre. I would have given anything to switch into a 3rd person point of view for the boss fights and just alter the controls for a time being and really produce something incredible. Sadly, that isn't found here. Just like Dark Helmet said, "Keep Firing" and you'll beat any boss with very little trouble.
Another letdown are the cutscenes themselves. Done in a scenic still display with narration rather than actual movie cutscene, these moments helped showcase the grandeur of the characters and the roles that they play. I'll even admit it, I miss the old Vulgrim. Darksiders Genesis could have done so much with all the characters, especially with Samael. However, we do get the voice actors at least (thankfully) so I guess that's something? Speaking of the audio, that has to be my favorite part. There are scenes of choirs chanting, melodies ringing, beats driving and I loved hearing every minute of it. I think it was easily the part I enjoyed the most.
I would talk about the camera system but honestly, I don't want to beat a dead horse... I'll just say that it's fixed position would be OK if there was absolutely never any level design feature that would have served better through a rotational camera. Say when trying to traverse around poles, ledges and performing jumps and glides that require precision. Think of the camera system like the quality of "map 2.0" and that should sum up how absolutely terrible it can be at times. OK so I did actually talk about the camera, you'll be glad I did.
Darksiders Genesis is heavily flawed. If you're thinking it's simply Diablo with a Darksiders skin you're going to be disappointed. Darksiders Genesis is a cheap Diablo knockoff that doesn't provide the same spectacle that made the previous 3 games the iconic status that they are. Despite all of that though, I LOVE DARKSIDERS GENESIS. Yes I'll tolerate the worst map ever, a camera and movement system that makes me want to hunt down the developers and deal with all the problems of level design and boss development, because I enjoyed playing the hell out of it. A game doesn't have to be perfect to be fun and Darksiders Genesis proves that to be true.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Zombie Army 4: Dead War
Zombie shooters have been popular for ages. Wielding weapons that unleash tremendous amounts of punishment, caution is thrown to the wind and you live and die by your ammo count. Rebellion has thrown their hat into the ring with Zombie Army 4: Dead War, and if you ever wanted a game where you literally killed everything you see, this is it. Stealth has been replaced by survival and Rebellion has decided that while killing Hitler in the Sniper Elite games was fun, killing zombie Hitler and his army of the dead would be even more so. Because why not right? Let's see if Rebellion can take a bite out of the Zombie shooter genre.The premise of the game itself couldn't be simpler. The main hero from the Sniper Elite series returns, Karl Fairburne, and he has been called into action because of a "Plan B" that Hitler was working on; a way to raise the dead and have an unlimited army at his control. Well, in war, there's no shortage of bodies, so you can imagine the size of the army that you're up against. It’s up to you to go back into the fight and this time, kill Hitler... umm... again. I guess make him more dead this time. If we are honest with each other though, playing this game for the story makes as much sense as having a screen door as your boat hull.
That story will carry you through vast, detailed terrains that follow a basic formula, to create chokepoints and force action upon you. It sets the pace of the game well and allows you to have moments when you can catch your breath and reload. While you navigate these sandbox levels you'll come face to face with some of the most incredible undead enemies you've ever faced. Hitler wasn't playing around, and because this game doesn't take itself too seriously you can expect some insane, over the top moments. Sure, you have your basic walking zombie, but this is Zombie Army 4 and it's time to go big. Ever face a colossal zombie great white shark? What if you had a zombie tank coming after you? If you want to survive you have to balance your stamina and utilize your environment to your benefit.
The environment itself is unique throughout the levels. With a wide-open sandbox at your disposal you have many paths before you. Each level provides it's unique "feel" and that really helped break up the monotony of go here, shoot everything and repeat. Also, I was a big fan of the lighting effects in the game and yes, being a zombie game doesn't mean bright and colorful, but what is done with fire and the light sources is done brilliantly. The levels do look amazing, but at the same time, provide some shortcomings. For example, they are done with such detail that there were some incredibly creepy moments right from the start. However, on the negative side, there are graphical glitches sometimes with the kill cam along with the environment itself. None of the glitches were anything that became game breaking, but even though there were some negative ones, there were some weird ones as well.
There was a typewriter that was sitting in a room that had debris in it and I could interact with it, so I did and the type writer prints up a message on a blank page that says "They want to play with you..." and then the paper goes back into the typewriter. I interact with it again and it says "HAHAHAHAHA...". I repeat the process and this time the message says "Don't look behind you...". So of course, I do and there's 6 Anabelle-like dolls with a pentagram in blood on the wall behind them and they screamed so loud it almost made my ears hurt before they vanished. I went back to the typewriter and it kept giving me different messages (over 20) but no repeat of the dolls. This level of detail is amazing to experience all throughout the game and really adds to the enjoyment. You know what else adds enjoyment to a zombie game? Guns. Lots of guns.
This is Rebellion and their Sniper Elite weapon customization makes a wonderful return in Zombie Army 4, and being a zombie game, we just can't have weapons without ways of customizing and upgrading them. Through the use of upgrade kits you can go to town on your favorite weapons and really turn them into items of immense damage. Thankfully you'll be able to see what the stats are of weapons so you can choose which one works best for your style of play. For example, some weapons allow you to opt for "healing bullets" over increase in damage output. Yes, shooting your teammate with bullets will heal them. It's a zombie game, I don't know. Even handguns can become powerful hand cannons if upgraded properly, so make sure to keep an eye out for upgrade kits. You can find upgrade kits throughout the levels, but you can also gain them for completing challenges. Each level gives you challenges and upon completion of them, you can earn upgrade kits as well. I found that this tremendously helped the replayability factor for the story levels.
I cannot stress enough though how your chances of survival increase dramatically with the increase in ammo storage. As your character levels up themselves you'll be able to use perks which will become a blessing as you literally will have moments when you see no end in sight. Use these perks wisely and you will make it out alive. Thankfully to do that, your control scheme from previous Sniper Elite games makes a return, and the more modern setup makes for a hell of a lot of fun, especially when that kill cam gives you that zoomed-in-gan-explosion.
Although, what would a good zombie game be without a horde mode right? Rebellion has you covered. Their horde mode is what you would come to expect from other games and requires tremendous teamwork to survive. You get an option to leave around wave 12 and this is the game basically giving you that last chance, because once you get into wave 13, you're there till you drop. This mode is incredibly fun, and I can easily see how this will drain many, many hours out of your life and each one will leave you smiling ear to ear.
Rebellion absolutely killed it with this release of Zombie Army 4: Dead War. Everything we love from the Sniper Elite series is tailored into an intense yet amazing experience that will satisfy any zombie craving you could ever want. When you take a game concept and simplify it, you have a greater chance at perfection and Rebellion came damn close. A few graphical bugs were really the only negatives, which is honestly, an amazing thing to say given how other top tier games have far more going wrong for it. Priced at $49.99, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is one of the best shooters for value that you can find on the market.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
Hot on the heels of the groundbreaking Baldur's Gate I & II Enhanced Editions, Beamdog is at it again bringing the spectacular world of D&D to life in both Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale, and both releases are getting the "Enhanced Edition" treatment. Both games offer you a top down view that we all have come to love, but there are some dramatic differences between the two games. This means that there are some new tweaks and changes, but is this going to be enough to deliver a quality gaming experience, or should we retire these titles to the oblivion of the past?I say the past because these games both came out around the turn of the century when many of you who may be reading this now weren't even born yet. Back in the gaming days of old, game developers needed to keep people playing their games even without DLC to purchase. They did that by making their games incredibly challenging, and we find that tradition hasn't been broken in this bundled release, also offering options for gamers to experience the game utilizing real D&D 2nd Edition rulesets. Without question, one of the largest innovations relating to difficulty to come from this new release has to be the Story mode difficulty in Icewind Dale, which actually eliminates the chance for your character to perish. Think of this as the ultimate easy mode for those who wish to enjoy the story of the game itself.
In Planescape: Torment however, you may wish for that ease of difficulty. Planescape opens with a classic computer-generated introduction movie that sets the stage for your character who wakes from certain death with amnesia and can't remember things such as, who they are, how they got there or whom put them there. Utilizing the guide at the beginning that happens to be a talking skull named Morte, you'll be guided through the walkthrough and then you and your team will be diving into the story which unfolds as you experience some of the best quality writing that can be found in a RPG.
Planescape: Torment's graphics don't appear to be as dynamic as Icewind, or even Baldur's Gate, so out of all the recent D&D releases, this one stands out as the weakest graphically, but the real downfall of this game involves the combat itself. With the hidden roll system determining your fate, there are numerous times when you think your character will easily defeat an enemy, only to suffer mortal wounds as your blows miss wildly and yet, somehow, the opponents you face don't seem to be so unlucky. This type of imbalance isn't found in Icewind and is a dynamic contrast in gameplay that may not have aged so well. That isn't though to say that there's no joy to be found though.
With what could be argued as one of the most dynamic storylines ever written, the audio that blankets this game comes to life by the dialogue that is presented throughout the game itself. While the combat may be challenging and the graphics on the mediocre side, it goes a long way that the audio of this game actually does more for the delivery of the story than anything else. These details are very apparent as well when you start talking about who should join your party and jumping into their histories. The level of detail far exceeds what we will see on most modern-day games today and highlights something that seems to have been lost over the ages; quality storytelling.
The companion title to Planescape: Torment is Icewind Dale, and as stated earlier, offers a little bit easier setting for those who wish to just pick up and jump right in. This is also where you will find a more traditional D&D experience with character creation, party creation and so forth. The gameplay does offer some areas to explore, but for the most part, gamers will find themselves more along a predetermined pathway with the core focus being combat. Already graphically better than Planescape, Icewind Dale tells the story of Jerrod who makes the typical ultra-hero move and sacrifices himself to save the land from an army of evil creatures, and then picks up the story right with your party.
While Icewind Dale packs a tremendous amount of new content, the biggest inclusion has to be cross platform multiplayer. Yes, you read that correctly. Now you can play with other people on other platforms right on your Xbox One! In today's world when we have games that come out that don't offer multiplayer even on the same platform, to offer this on a game that came out back at the turn of the century is pretty amazing and should sound an alarm to all developers that if a game that is almost 2 decades old can do this, so can they.
There are a couple of gripes though that I must touch on. First, in Icewind Dale, the combat can become so hectic at times that it's not uncommon for you to lose all objectivity within the battle. This makes party management absolutely critical and can make you more than dependent upon the ability to pause, survey the action going on and then queue up commands. The next issue is shared amongst both titles, and that is the menu system. While both share a similar menu system, both are equally cumbersome and derail a lot of momentum that the game itself builds for the audience. While these may seem like small issues, when you take into account how often you'll be trying to navigate the menu systems or pausing to direct the combat and make sure you don't lose your grip on the battle, they rapidly become pretty large over time.
Despite these faults, Beamdog has done something that, until it was released, was only a myth. With the release of Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Editions, Beamdog has once again delivered an experience that will last well over 200 hours combined and produce stories that will captivate your imagination and leave you spellbound. What would normally cost you $49.99 is currently on sale and can be found for only $29.99, which makes this release from Beamdog a must have for anyone who is a fan of RPG games.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts
There are few first-person shooter games that prioritize stealth, adaptation and military tactics. For the most part, it's the same methodology that we've experienced for decades. Spawn in, run around, kill people, die, respawn and repeat. This formula is literally the foundation of a lot of games, but what if there was a game that challenged that status quo? CI Games tries to tackle that very notion with their latest installment of their Sniper Ghost Warrior games, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts. Let's take a look through our scope and see just what this latest release is all about. Stay focused Seeker.The last word of that title should already tell us a few things. First off, this really isn't a sequel to Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, and the word Contracts indicate multiple options/targets. In Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts (SGWC) you play the role of a Seeker. One who is contracted out for a variety of specific tasks and paid accordingly by your boss, The Handler. Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts takes place after Siberia went to war for independence against Russia, and in typical fashion, once the war was over, the corrupt took over, which is where you come in. The game is split into 5 massive sandbox areas, and while you may be sitting there and think, "only 5 areas?", what you would be missing is the fact that the size of these areas permits you to actively pursue multiple targets however you wish. To do that, you'll need some gear.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts offers up a few pieces of kit. You have throwable items such as throwing knives, frag grenades, EMP grenades, flashbangs, etc. and you have items that you can plant such as warning detectors (you plant them and when an enemy gets near, they're tagged and you're alerted) and mines (which can also be used in a gas form to target enemies and is very useful for patrolling enemy pairs). However, there are two items that will become invaluable to you; your drone and your remote sniper turret. Yup, in Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts you can outfit and even upgrade a sniper turret that can take out multiple enemies with a few button presses.
This turret can make small groups of enemies drop in moments and will become crucial to some strategy, but we're not done yet. There are still two more pieces of gear that are essential; your mask and your rock. Your mask is used by pressing 'LB' and acts as what you would use as your heads up display, as it allows you to see traps, highlight enemies, auto tag enemies, and when you upgrade it, even follow footprints of enemies to see where they went. Your last bit of kit I want to touch on is your rock. This tool will help you guide enemies to locations you want to use as a kill spot or steer them away from your location. Moving from cover to cover and utilizing a rock, you can gain access to even the hardest fortified areas without firing a shot. And speaking of shooting...
You're going to do a lot of it, but you need to learn the mechanics of the game in order to be successful. First, let's talk about your scope. There are multiple scopes for purchase, so I strongly suggest checking out the distance measurements as well as the magnification range. The more of each, the more detailed a shot you can get. Now that your scope is selected, you need to focus on what rifle you wish to use. Naturally you can expect a trade-off between power and noise suppression, and another trade-off between handling and preferred range. While some rifles are tailored for incredible range, I find that only a few times will I be engaging targets from over 400+ meters out, so based off how you play, this should be something to consider.
With all this gear and weaponry, you may think you're an incredible shot, but unless you practice the mechanics of shooting, all your gear means nothing. Let's say, for example, you have an enemy that is far away. You break out your binoculars or drone and tag the enemy and notice that the icon above his head reads 335m. Now you switch to your sniper rifle and take aim. You can manually adjust the zoom on the higher end scopes, so let's say you take the magnification up to 10x. Now you need to adjust the distance markers on your scope with the D-Pad until the number on the right of your scope reads 300.
You'll notice that the first tan line underneath 300 is either 325 or 400 depending on the scope, but let's say that it's 325 for this example. So, you make one final adjustment on your distance and cue up 325, and while you're doing this, you notice a dotted white line appearing intermittently about an inch from the center of the scope. This is the path of the bullet when it will be at the target, after factors such as elevation, distance and wind are factored in. Now, since your target is at 335 and your scope is dialed in to 325, you put the head of the target a little bit below the sights and line it up with the dotted line. Next, we hold our breath and pull the trigger. The 'bullet cam' doesn't always activate, so even if it doesn't load, you can still get an enemy kill.
All of this is important if you wish to take on your contracts which is what the bulk of this game is about. Each sandbox area carries with it at least 5 contracts. These contracts range from assassinating targets, retrieving items and even freeing prisoners. Within these sandbox levels also come with various challenges such as get 10 double kills, 2 kills with 1 sniper bullet, blow up 5 enemies, gas 3 enemies and so on. Each challenge will also pay you for your performance, so if you're looking to score some extra cash, this is the way to go. Also included in these levels are rival snipers (hey you thought you were the only big gun in town?) who are after you as well. If that weren't enough, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts also pack in a few bounties as well.
Just to do a quick recap, in one area you have your contracts, challenges, bounties and rivals. Completing all of this will seem incredibly daunting at first, but after a while you'll get the hang of it and how you need to go about planning your mission. Each one of these areas is prefaced with a video that goes into a generalized overview of your mission's contracts only. This lengthy introduction movie is also followed by a rather lengthy loading screen. Ultimately you will find some rather long load times when you play this game, however, should you have to reload a checkpoint the loading time is remarkably quick.
Now you're probably thinking that this game is incredible, and if it wasn't for the glitches and faults of the game, you would be right. For starters, the game has three difficulty modes. One of them I'm calling Blind mode, another I'm calling Normal mode and another I'm calling cheating overly sensitive mode. In their easiest mode, the field of view is relatively narrow and limited and takes a long time to 'dial in' on your position. This is thanks to a simple outline on the bottom right of the screen showing your character. Solid white means you're open and exposed. Solid black means you're hidden. This basic visual principle even applies to standing, so you can literally stand next to an enemy and have them not detect you as long as your character at the bottom right is solid black.
In normal mode, the field of view widens and the detection happens more rapidly. In cheating overly sensitive mode, every enemy becomes an omnipotent being of all knowledge that will be able to pick you off of a mountain edge at 400m with an assault rifle should you fart while crawling. This mode is what I like to call, comfort with restarting checkpoints mode and it's quite simple; either you kill your target with your first shot, or your position is then relayed to every enemy within the sandbox and they all descend upon you at once.
There are other issues as well that pertain to trying to navigate the levels themselves. Quite often I found myself getting stuck on invisible objects, or what I found to be the worst, instant running. I should point out that this happened quite often. I would take out some perimeter troops no problem, but then I would walk in a crouch position to eliminate sound (there's an upgrade where movement of any kind is silent). I would work my way to a point where I was just outside the target area and I wanted to do one last recon. Still crouched, I find some cover and send out my drone. I scan the area and realize that there's an enemy about 10m to my left. He's my target. Then, I go out of my drone and load up my rifle to see if there are any stragglers that I can pick off for engaging. With the coast clear I turn to go after my enemy that was just 10m away, but then it happens. Instant running.
Now, for whatever reason, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts thinks that I want to sprint as fast as I can to the target, so my character literally starts running towards the enemy. I was crouched but as soon as I started moving, my character it was instant running. Well of course the enemy heard that, turned towards me and opened fire. This caused me to restart my checkpoint and became a real pain in the ***. However, when you talk overpowered glitches, the enemy AI takes the cake hands down.
Let's say you're 800m away from your target and on top of a hill looking down at an industrial complex. You start tagging enemies and notice that there are some enemy turrets stationed throughout the place. They don't detect you as you're too far away; remember that fact. They... Don't... Detect... You. So you load a round into your rifle and shoot the turret that's oh say 750m away. Instantly, the turret starts locking in on your location and can see you with pinpoint accuracy. Just to quickly recap, these turrets go from not being able to see you at all to having the accuracy of Robin Hood in the form of an automatic gun turret, leaving me wondering"What the hell?". So now this turret is locking in on your position and you try to find cover, but in doing so you get stuck, because apparently the Sniper's feet get stuck on ledges? This stops all movement and also allows for the turret to lock in on your position and start firing. Now your cover is blown and it's time to start looking at restarting the checkpoint.
Other traversal issues arise as well. There were missions where I had to traverse side to side across ledges that I was hanging on. The problem with this is that the game doesn't allow your character to 'jump' to the next ledge at all. Instead you almost have to turn your field of view totally to the side to 'activate' the jump feature, and then you're jumping literally to the side and not to the ledge. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there IS fall damage. A LOT of fall damage. You may be a lot of things, but a sure-footed mountain goat that doesn't get hurt from a drop of 20 feet isn't one of them.
Another glitch comes from having a computer system that doesn't apply the same rules to the AI enemies as they do to you. Case in point, being in Siberia, the water you find there is obviously going to be freezing cold and you suffer tremendous damage should you have to swim in it for any period of time. That is, of course, unless you happen to be an enemy. There was a level where I was observing enemy positions on a dock where some boats were kept. I missed a shot and that sent the enemies into cover. Well, one of the enemies ended up taking cover behind a floating crate in the water. He was completely submerged in this water that damages me if I touch it, but yet he can camp there unscathed without any repercussions. This happened a few more times in the area and it became annoying because I was unable to try and interrogate them or even loot their bodies after I shot them in the water. However, I tried to loot their bodies thinking that there was some glitch in that area that I could do it and not get damaged; I was wrong.
Even though Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts has its share of faults and is far from perfect, it still has its moments of beauty. The sandbox levels feel unique and offer a variety of terrain styles to navigate through, the lighting effects are done well and the game offers a lot of various options for how you want to actually pursue the contracts. When you get down into the details though of the items in the game, you get the sense that this could use some more time in the oven to cook as it feels a bit unpolished at times, especially when observing the military vehicles.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts offers a lot in a surprisingly small package, however, with all the glitches and errors, there is just some guilty pleasure I get when I drop a sniper from 500m+. With a lackluster story mode that means relatively nothing, some graphics that are good but not great, an army of glitches at its disposal and no bullet X-Ray kill cam, this game is far from perfect, and at $40 maybe even a bit overpriced. When you think of all the content you get for that price however, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts just may be on your radar.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Baldur’s Gate & Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition
Growing up a child of the 80's, it's fair to say that I've developed a unique perspective of the gaming industry, and more specifically, the RPG tabletop style games. This came in the form of an iconic series that's still played to this day; Dungeons and Dragons. What started in book form with physical dice has digitally transformed into what could be called a "genre defining" title, Baldur's Gate. This game released back in 1998 (some of you reading this weren't even born yet) and it become the definition of an icon, legend, myth or whatever word best befits a game that helped shape CRPGs to this very day. Many moons have passed since the game's original release and now RPG games are focused on player UI, graphics, story, or at least they should be.Very few games have made such an impact on the industry as Baldur's Gate, and it's easy to see why. Baldur's Gate offers an immensely in-depth character creation and gaming experience that always feels fresh and very challenging at the same time. This is because Baldur's Gate focuses on delivering the quality classic experience that made it legendary. Rather than bowing to the community that would demand "pretty" graphics and a more "modern" take on the game, Beamdog decided to bring this iconic staple back to life in all its original glory, and I love that.
That means that this game isn't some hyper reality visual masterpiece that you find in current RPG games that have 15 entries, but rather 1998 graphics done in beautiful detail. Yes, the pixels are back and very tiny! The environments are steps above what you would find back in the 1980's, but nothing like you have come to expect from today's games obviously. While other games have incredible lighting effects, Baldur's Gate does not. I cannot stress this enough, as this is classic gaming at is absolute finest, so if you're expecting something different, then you're going to be disappointed.
As I stated before, Baldur's Gate is a pure Dungeons & Dragons experience. You start off by choosing your difficulty. There are 7 levels to select from which, as you may have guessed already, get progressively harder. Just as you would expect to have variety of difficulty, you also have more choices when pertaining to the type of character you want to play as. Not only do you have your basic single class characters, but in Baldur's Gate you have 2 and even 3 class characters. Now, before you go off thinking you're going to be some trifecta God that can steal anything undetected, pick any lock without fault, slay any enemy with more physical power than a deity, and conjure up the most devastating magic by selecting these multiple class characters, you will have drawbacks including not being able to master weapons, etc. This is because Baldur's Gate is setup so that you can play how you want.
While you may be able to play how you want, Baldur's Gate will implore you to play as a team and as you progress along in the game, and you'll be glad you did. You're guided along your quest by a narrator which acts as the game's dungeon master, and throughout the game you will be faced with moments that will define your character. How you choose to interact with these moments will encapsulate how your character is viewed by your party and will affect the dynamic in which they interact with you. These are all mechanics we find in today's top of the line RPG games that capture our imaginations for days, weeks and months, but games like Baulder's Gate is where we can trace some of the earliest examples of this.
To say that the customization level of the game is deep is like saying there's a few grains of sand on a beach. If you're familiar with D&D and those massively detailed character sheets, you'll understand and appreciate just how well they transferred over to the console, but if you don't want to spend all this time creating your character from scratch there are tons of presets that you can activate and just jump right into the game. This aspect helps cater to the hardcore and casual fans simultaniously.
Earlier I touched on how the graphics of Baldur's Gate seem dated, but when you dive into the realm itself you'll see just how open and expansive this land really is. While the visuals of what you can see will be shown via a revealing circle, the fact that you can see the land itself and plan is paramount when talking strategy. One thing I have to make note about, the one thing that has aged like fine wine is the soundtrack. I found the voice acting to be better than average, but nothing, and I repeat, nothing compares to the soundtrack itself. The chords and melodies that construct every second of audio within this game is reason enough to make it one of your top favorite games of all time.
With this "bundle" you get Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, but if you jump right into 2 you will effectively ruin all of the first story, and if you have never played the first release, the game should almost lock you out of playing the second because the story is one of the best ever experiences in the video game industry. This "experience" however, wouldn't be possible unless the great minds of Beamdog figured out a way to allow the user to interact with all the endless menus and selections and sub-menus all from an Xbox controller. It really is a tremendous feat to see what kind of UI interaction Beamdog created using the limited controls that you find on a console controller rather than a keyboard with many more keys.
This new interface is an absolute blessing but it's not the only new thing in town. Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition also brings to the table some brand new classes and characters than what was available back in 1998, but guess what makes its debut after all this time? MULTIPLAYER! Yes, now you can dive into this D&D experience with your friends and really enjoy everything that Baldur's Gate has to offer. These upgrades help solidify why Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 became iconic staples and foundations of an entire genre of future gaming.
In today's world, you can pay full retail price for a RPG experience and most people expect a grand cinematic interactive experience, and an overwhelming majority of the time they are disappointed. Not in the pretty graphics, or the sounds, but in the story. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 provide what could arguably be called the greatest RPG experience ever found on a digital platform (even better than Final Fantasy VII). Yes, the graphics are dated, but now they are 4K dated, and the audio sounds better than ever before, and the story you find in both games is the reason why for $49.99, Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions is the best value for money that ever existed on any outlet to date.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Surge 2, The
When game sequels come out, I'm always cautious as to how the developer took the input from the community to build the latest release. I will openly admit upfront that I never played the original Surge before so jumping into The Surge 2, so I wondered if I was going to be confused or if there was some type of backstory that I needed to brush up on first. Thankfully, this sequel has nothing to do with the first game, so if you're like me and haven't played the first game, then don't worry. In this sequel, developer Deck 13 doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, but rather deliver a more robust experience to create an entirely new and enjoyable experience. How do they do that? Well, let me explain.The Surge 2 starts you off by selecting and customizing your character. In the previous Surge you took control of a character named Warren, but rather than continue a story that ended on a cliffhanger, Deck 13 lets you customize your character. This new hero awakens after a crash into a place called Jericho City, where you have no idea as to what is going on, but yet for some reason, you're directed by a sort of phantom little girl. The main story behind The Surge 2 opens up throughout the game with more of the mystery being unveiled, but your choices will determine the outcome of the ending.
The Surge 2 follows along the "Souls" style of gameplay where your ability to block, dodge and parry will become your saving grace. Along from the previous entry returns the dismemberment system that, some could say, is the entire crux of the gameplay system. In The Surge 2, you're able to auto lock on an enemy by pressing in the Right Stick, then you can move the stick to target various parts of your assailant (head, left or right arm, chest, etc..). Now when you select the various targets you may see a blue circle or a yellow shield, which represent either armored sections or not. While you may be correct that a non-armored section of the enemy is weaker than an armored section, if you want the gear, you got to break the armor.
When you are fighting an enemy you may see the 'X' button appear during your fight, and it's at this point that if you hold the 'X' button down, a killing sequence will occur and you stand a chance to gain blueprints for gear that you can craft using the scrap. So, let's say you see someone wielding a plasma cutting torch and you want that weapon. You press in the 'RS' to lock onto the enemy and slide the stick to the left to select the opponent's right arm (remember you're looking at them, so your selection would be reversed). Then you proceed to attack, and during your combos you see and press the 'X' prompt and now your character goes into a sequence that dismembers the arm off the body and kills the enemy. Your spoils for this fight? Why your own plasma cutting torch that you can craft and then upgrade throughout the game.
This is how the game essentially functions and this is also how grinding should be. Case in point; when I first started out, I worked on my blocking, dodging and parrying skills in the very early moments on weaker opponents. Once I got my defensive skills down to where I was comfortable, I would progress onward to the next medical station (think of these as your "checkpoints") where I would spend my scrap to upgrade what I could, construct what I could and level up my character, and then I went back to the grind.
I would go back through my earlier areas, as the enemies respawn every time you enter a medical chamber (much like a Dark Souls bonfire), and in doing so, target other pieces of the enemy. If I got a weapon one time, I'd go for the chest and try and get an armor blueprint, or I'd go for the head and go for an implant blueprint. I would literally work on these types of cycles in an area, and once I had the blueprints, I would then go back through the cycles some more and go for upgrade parts and more scrap. As I said before, this is what is regarded as the currency of the game and is used for basically everything.
When you spend scrap to level up your character you can upgrade your health so you can take more damage, or you can upgrade your stamina so you can do more attacks, or you can upgrade your battery charge capabilities for your exoskeleton so you can hold more charges for health (like a health potion that essentially charges based on combat, so the more you fight the more you can heal yourself). Upgrading your character also allows you to equip more implants that your character can use to improve themselves. One of the implants that I have grown fond of is one that allows you target any "area" of an enemy and no matter the angle at which you attack, so that you will always hit that designated spot. This is invaluable because if you target the right arm, but swing and hit the left, then you'll just damage the enemy, but you won't hit your target.
Scrap is also used to construct items from blueprints. At medical stations you can make any item from blueprints so long as you have enough scrap to make them. Scrap is also used in part to upgrade your items, but the main ingredient for that would be an "item specific" scrap. What do I mean by that? Certain scrap from level 1 items, level 2, etc. This is what I was gaining by grinding these cycles over and over again. Now, as you level up an item, you obviously have no more use for the certain level scrap, so you move onto the next area. Should you die though, your scrap remains where you perished, and you respawn back at the nearest medical station along with all the enemies between you and your scrap. As you fight your way back, and acquiring more scrap along the way, you'll notice your scrap is on a timer, which when expires, will vanish. Should you die again as well on your way, you will lose that scrap. Plan wisely.
This scrap, as you progress, will become your most challenging balancing act, because as you increase in levels, so does the cost of scrap. Meaning you'll be finding yourself taking bigger risks thinking that you can stretch yourself just a little further, and that's when you'll usually expire. While it may seem a bit overwhelming at times, early on in the game you'll come into contact with your new best friend; your combat drone. This little guy can be dispatched by pressing the 'Y' button and then pressing the button again to fire. Whatever you have locked and targeted (for example, and enemy's head) the drone will shoot at. You can find ammo scattered throughout, but the real fun comes when you start upgrading the weapons on the drone. That's when The Surge 2 really has you feel like you're an unstoppable force and the game really kicks into gear.
There are a few downsides however, but they aren't game breakers by any means. The first drawback has to deal with the graphics. When you're on the Xbox One X and trying to bang away at 4k resolution, the game doesn't look that smooth and the character modeling doesn't seem to be at current gen levels. To compensate though, the game does offer some very nice effects and a new RPG choice system in your dialogue that will affect the outcome. I'm OK with that. There are some other points to note as well. Graffiti makes a return and throughout the game you can place tags around and rate them, point towards hidden items, etc. Also, just because you may be alone, doesn't mean that you're alone on the network. Whenever you see an enemy that's designated a Revenge Enemy, that is an enemy that has killed another Xbox player in their game. Should you kill it, you'll gain bonus materials. I'm sure I've already got an army out there for people to vanquish.
When you have a fairly well-done RPG element, story choice, character upgrades and development, smooth combat and a gameplay system that allows for a fluid experience, you have The Surge 2. If you're a fan of "Souls" style gaming, then Deck 13 has a very solid title for you to experience. It may not be on the same level as other "Souls" style games, but what it does deliver is amazing amounts of entertainment and fun. Bring on the sequel.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Tom Clancy has, arguably, one of the most popular IP stables in the history of gaming. Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon are all iconic series that push adventure and excitement to entirely new levels. The latest installment, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, provides us with a diverse adventure on the tropical island of Aurora. It goes without saying that Breakpoint has very big shoes to fill, given that it’s predecessor, Wildlands, was a wonderful game. Does this trend continue in Breakpoint or do the hopes of this latest Ghost Recon game go up in smoke? Lock and load because we’re going to tackle the latest Ubisoft game in the Tom Clancy series.Starting things off, you’ll notice that this game has a gigantic day one patch, so to save time on the install I’m suggesting you take your console offline (if you have the disc version) and install the game, and then bring the console online and then download the patch. If you’ve got the digital copy, my condolences. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint follows the adventures of Nomad and Walker. If you haven’t played the connective mission in Wildlands that gives you some background insight into the relationship here between the two, I strongly suggest you do so, otherwise you will essentially be jumping into a story that is partially told already and things may not make sense. In Breakpoint, Walker has essentially formed an army of ghosts that are called the Wolves. These characters travel in packs (just like ghosts), wear protective gear that makes them harder to kill (again, just like ghosts) but use the same tactics you would (for instance, flash bang an area to blind your opponent before going in guns blazing). You will find that these enemies practically require precise head shots to drop them (or a helicopter rocket fire is another great way).
Walker has structured his Wolves just like you would expect any other military bad guy to do so. Of course, Walker is at the top, but below him are a few select Wolves called, Alpha Wolves. These are your sub-bosses that unlock the main boss Walker. It’s a structure that we have seen before in the past and allows for nice organization of missions, and it’s here on your mission board where you can dive into everything Breakpoint has to offer. Like Wildlands before it, Breakpoint allows you to tailor your mission selections so you can work on what you want, when you want to. If you want to prolong the 28 main story missions, then dive into over 25 side missions and explore some of Aurora’s best kept secrets, or tackle the faction’s missions and help the Homesteaders reclaim their island.
I’m not going to dive into the story too much, but if you don’t want to play the mission in Wildlands, here you go; Walker felt betrayed by the CIA and the country he swore to protect. He leaves and joins a private military group (Sentinel) and basically becomes the general of the army. This army became employed by Skell Tech, a company on the island of Aurora that is fixated on creating a Utopian society. Free from disease, poverty, hunger and violence, Aurora was supposed to be a paradise. Until that is, Skell Tech partners with Sentinel and their technology is used to create drones of incredible power and lethality. It is this very tech which managed to sink a ship that was headed towards the island, and that’s where Nomad and his ghosts are brought into the picture. They depart with several helicopters from a carrier that’s sitting offshore and are on their way to investigate the island and figure out what sank the ship. This is when the helicopters are attacked and are torn out of the sky by hundreds of these tiny drones. You survive the crash (got to have a main character to play right?) but the status of your own crew is MIA and presumed dead. What does this mean? This means get ready for a solo fight.
In Breakpoint, you’ll tackle this adventure alone. Personally though, I miss the team. While the AI was a times “less than efficient”, when you combined them with the drone and decided to play the game from a tactical position, it made Wildlands incredibly fun. You don’t have that here. Rather than use your drone and team to sync up your shots, now you have these sync shot drones which are a pain to use. Normally, you would think you could just mark enemies from your drone like last time. Nope. Instead you have to spend a slot in your utility wheel and equip a sync shot drone and then target your enemies through your scope, not your drone. This becomes quite cumbersome and detracts from the gameplay that we had before. This is sadly, a step backwards for me, but what’s even more regrettable is that this isn’t the last step either.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint offers you a central location which acts as your “hub” if you will. Here you will find various individuals that can deal with missions, a store that allows you to buy items, weapons, etc. and locations for PvP actions in Ghost War. This mode pits two teams of players against each other and can get really intense if you’re not in a group relaying information to each other. It’s here that you see that this Ghost Recon is trying to be almost like the Division game of Ghosts. Where Wildlands had its own unique identity, you feel that they literally tweaked some mechanics of Division and just stuck them all on an island. To me this seems lazy because it loses the feel of what a Ghost Recon game should be. Rather than develop on the Wildlands identity, it feels like Ubisoft took everything they had from Wildlands and literally just threw it all in the trash. Unfortunately, there’s more broken about this game than good and there’s very little “Ghost Recon” and quite a bit “Tropical Division”.
One of the qualities of Breakpoint is that it allows you to pin up to 3 missions that you want. They can be any kind, just mix and match however you want. The problem here is that when you’re looking at your character and you have your missions pinned to the screen, there is well over 40% total coverage which blocks and inhibits your field of view, ultimately leading you to have tunnel vision as you can’t see your peripherals very well. This could be solved by backing the camera a little further away rather than close enough to do a colonoscopy. This clustered view continues onto the map as well. When you call up the map, you’ll notice how it is divided into several regions. These regions will range in difficulty and character level, but like your field of view in the game, become so overly populated and crowded with information that you would literally pay someone at Ubisoft to code in a map filter, but sadly you get none.
This means that when you go and look to where your mission objectives are, you have tons of little circles of all various meaning that are sprinkled throughout your view and finding out where you have to go next can be quite challenging. The best way I’ve found to help quickly identify the area(s) I need to go to, I turn in the game to face my objective, call up my map, and then move the cursor in the direction I’m facing. Otherwise, I’m zoomed all the way out trying to find what little circle is my next objective. It can be challenging at times. I wish I could say this was it for the problems folks, but there are other issues I discovered with the gameplay as well. Multiple times I found that vaulting over an object when there was another object on the other side led to my character being frozen within the vaulting animation (so basically my character looked like he was falling with his arms in the air) and I was unable to move. I tried crouching using the 'B' button but that didn’t work, I tried running but that didn’t work and I even tried vaulting with the 'A' button, but that didn’t work either. You know what did work? Completely shutting the game down and restarting it.
There’s another gameplay bug that ties right into the new leveling system of Breakpoint. Now, you have the option to select various classes, and each class unlocks with it, its own perks that alter the game in unique ways. Each one of these classes can be ranked up by going through the various stages of the class by doing various challenges. For example, in the Assault class you may have to kill 3 enemies within 20 seconds of each other which you’ll have to do 5 times. Well on Level 8 of the assault class, you have to kill over 20 enemies with an assault or shotgun without reloading. I killed my first guy, second, third, and worked my way up to 15 and then old habits kicked in and I reloaded. My counter then reset to 1 instead of 0 and now I can no longer advance my class. I tried things such as switching classes at a bivouac and then switching back after a kill, but no such luck. Apparently now, if I want to go for level 9 or 10 in the Assault class, I have to start a brand-new character. Yeah, that’s not going to happen.
While we are on the topic of gameplay, the cover system in this game is downright horrible at best and non-existent at its worst. Trying to get into cover will find you fidgeting constantly with your character, and God forbid you wish to shoot someone while you’re in cover, you’ll find that your aim (when you peek around corners, not over boxes) that your sights are half covered by your cover and find yourself trying to lean further out which eventually will break your cover and leave you exposed. I would rather see a snap-to system where you can enter and exit cover with a button press, that way it would be more manageable when you’re playing to effectively utilize cover. Other bugs that pertain to gameplay involve going into prone position, and when you lay flat you fall straight through the ground (I have a clip of my character doing that, it’s pretty interesting), having mission characters unable to move or talk to you which prevents you from completing missions so you have to restart them, and so much more. With all this talk about bugs, glitches, and disappointment, I figured I continue the tradition and talk about something that really gets to me. Breakpoint requires you to have an online connection to play. No offline playing for anyone.
Outside of the gameplay bugs and glitches, Breakpoint fails as well with the weapon customization. 7 years ago, Ubisoft unveiled a system to modify aspects of your weapon and show any/all benefits/bonuses in real time, and it had a tremendous amount of customization options. Now fast forward to 2019 and you’ll find nothing but a shell of what it used to be. Why was this included this way? Here’s the more important question: who at Ubisoft looked at this and thought that this skimmed down version of weapon customization was a good idea? This shortsightedness may go unnoticed for so long until they decided to go and put their entire inventory of EVERYTHING behind in-game purchases and real currency. Are you impatient? Don’t want to tackle a Behemoth to try and gain a weapon blueprint? Ubisoft is here to offer you a way you can bypass all the grinding and just become “instant soldier” by giving Ubisoft more of your money.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint’s character customization is broken down into a few areas. For starters, your gear score becomes your best friend. This is taken from other games, but if you’ve never experienced it, your gear score is a summary of all the gear you have equipped (clothing and weaponry). There are also various typical tiers of items that range in colors of value such as white, green, blue, purple and yellow. Each weapon can be broken down for components to upgrade, or it can be sold for credits at the store. Your character can carry 300 points of inventory, and one gun counts as 1 point. When you dismantle a weapon you gain components, and like you’d expect, if you dismantle a high-end weapon, you get high end components. One issue I talk about later involves the gunsmith itself, but while we’re talking about weaponry, if you want to be able to max out your weapon’s potential, you’ll need to invest skill points into the MK2 and MK3 tiers of the skill tree which are immediately on the right hand side.
What is the skill tree you ask? The second aspect of your character is your leveling system. In the next menu over from your inventory is your player skill tree. Here you will unlock the 4 classes (Assault, Panther, Sharpshooter, Medic) and be able to branch into numerous trees from a central hub. Each one of these classes have their own unique item and ability. Assault carries with them gas grenades and their skill of True Grit which offers healing of your character with every kill. The Medic carries a medkit into the field and has a unique skill of a healing drone. Panther class is equipped with a cloaking spray that can make you invisible from drones for 60 seconds and has a skill called cloak and run. Finally, your Sharpshooter packs a sensor launcher that is basically a recon grenade that outlines enemies in range, with their skill called armor buster, where you get 3 rounds of increased damage and penetration (this is VERY nice to have when you go against a Behemoth). You gain skill points through leveling up your XP level and finding them in chests. Once you hit XP level 30 though it stops as that is the cap (for now). Some skills in the tree are equipped automatically while others have to be equipped to gain their benefits. You can equip up to 3 skills so make sure you chose wisely for how you enjoy playing. One of the perks allows your mini map to highlight nearby resources for collecting. This is a great bonus as you can see resources for crafting, but again, is relatively pointless and let me explain why.
In Breakpoint, your Bivouac becomes your temporary base out in the wilderness, and it’s here that you can equip perks, buy things at the shop (because it magically appears at every camp somehow?), but the two options that are interesting are the garage and the crafting. The garage is nice because you can request vehicles be delivered whenever you are at the Bivouac and when you leave, poof, they are there! This is convienient and all, but if we’re honest with each other, once you start getting the attack helicopters for 54,000 credits, this will be the only vehicle you request, ever. So basically your “Garage” option is just a way you can summon a helicopter. Now to crafting that’s essentially useless. There are recipes that your character can use to make various consumable rations that do things such as increase damage resistance or increase your stamina, etc. These types of rations have 3 tiers with their effects being greater and lasting longer in the other tiers. You can also craft consumables such as frag grenades, rocket launcher ammo and more. However, as you play Breakpoint, you’ll realize that this is one of the most pointless features in the game.
When you take on enemies at bases, or even checkpoints, you’ll quickly realize that enemies drop ammo and explosive consumables almost constantly. Plus, when you are out exploring and come across a small group of soldiers by a car, or buy some vehicle, you’ll also come across many resources there as well. If you didn’t want to deal with gathering resources, you can always save money by obtaining a perk that decreases the cost of consumables at the store at your main hub base which will enable you to buy more for less money. What this means is that with the abundance of ammo and consumables I can’t see really any point to waste on these rations. Sure, you can gain some damage resistance, but if you’re sniping from 500m away, it’s not like you’re going to need to take less damage.
Ok, things are getting a bit negative, so why not dive into some positives? Breakpoint’s island of Aurora is absolutely beautiful. The dynamics and contrasts of environments that can be found on the island will be some of the most impressive sceneries you’ll ever see in gaming. Waterfalls crashing, fog rolling in through the forest while the sun shines through as you catch all the individual rays of light popping through, and even the character models in the cut scenes look amazing. Ubisoft has done an outstanding job delivering more dynamic environments in a beautiful presentation. Couple of issues though. First, during the cut scenes sometimes the focus of the character is off, so it looks out of frame for the scene. Second, can someone at Ubisoft PLEASE IMPROVE YOUR MOUTH MECHANICS. I don’t know what has to happen, but sometimes the mouth moves, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes it doesn’t even look like they are speaking the words of the voiceover. I’ve seen better work on old dubbed Kung Fu movies. The environment is this game’s saving grace, and if I may make a suggestion, get to the highest point and just sit there and look at your surroundings and take in every bit of it as it’s truly breathtaking.
Breakpoint does offer some type of comedy throughout the game. For example, apparently people of Aurora think it’s wonderful to put almost every chest in the game on the roof of buildings. Very rarely will you ever come across a chest on the ground, so be prepared to look for ways up. While we are talking about loot, these chests contain things like weapons yes, but you’ll also find boots, pants and other articles of clothing. Yes, you can get through a massive firefight, navigate your way to a chest only to pull out some boots as your reward. This also goes for enemies, on top of collecting ammo and explosive consumables from enemies, you are rewarded with items such as pants, boots, and honestly, I’m not trying to take a dead guy’s boots to wear, and it’s kind of morbid if you think about it. Plus, with the microtransactions you can just buy your guns, and not have to fight Behemoths for blueprints.
Now, I know you’re probably reading this and think “wow this guy must not like the game”, and you would be wrong. I’ll say it, Breakpoint is broken. I think for a full retail game, it’s unpolished, underdeveloped and inexcusable for the poor choices in its development. It’s an incomplete game, and what is there is full of gameplay glitches, numerous bugs and game breaking moments that really make you wonder why you paid your money for this. Despite all of this though, I love every minute that I play. I know these issues will hopefully be addressed in upcoming patches, but for now despite all these issues, the core of Ghost Recon Breakpoint still delivers an amazingly entertaining experience. While it’s far from perfect, it’s not far from fun, and in the end, if a game is fun, then it should be played and enjoyed right?
Suggestions: There's honestly so much to list, I would need a database.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Meow Motors
Racing games are quite honestly one of my biggest addictions in life. I love the ability to race vehicles I'll probably never see, let alone drive, but outside of the realistic racing games, I LOVE games that put the arcade combat racing on the forefront, much like what we see in games like Mario Kart. In fact, recently a game came out that seems to take a LOT of cues from that very game, but does so with a feline twist. Time to start those cars and get those motors purring because ArtVostok has released Meow Motors for the price of $14.99, and if you're telling me I can get a Mario Kart experience with cats for under $15 bucks, then I could be looking at the game of the year for me here. Time to get this review into gear right meow.When you start Meow Motors, you'll see a rather barren menu system that consists of Continue, New Game, Quick Race, Options and Quit. This is where you'll enter your career under New Game, as Quick Race is a mode that just lets you do local co-op racing only (I'll touch on that here in a moment) on various tracks. Meow, your career mode will be comprised of three different modes: Race, Strike and Drift.
As your career begins, you'll come face to face with your nemesis in a sort of comic scene layout as your villain in black (think a Darth Vader-like cat) comes through and crashes your car, gets out, taunts you mercilessly and then jumps back into their car and drives away to victory. Your character watches teary-eyed as all the other racers speed past, which lights a fire within your character, and you're now off to the races as you work to form a team of cat racers to go after this main villain. The premise of the story is one that doesn't fail, but what really stand out are the racers themselves.
All different species of kitties, each one of them provide some benefit to you such as being immune to oil slicks on the road, a damaged car automatically repairs itself or more power for jumps and collisions. There's an achievement for racing with each character but you'll want to tailor your driver to match the race you'll be driving. For example, if you're doing a race mode, it'll be in your best interest to pick a racer that has an immunity to an oil slick. What this ultimately means though is that even though you have many different racers, you have only 3 types of races, so you'll only have the need to race with 3 of them. This red flag sadly is just the tip of the iceberg.
Meow Motors has a very simple control scheme. Your Right Trigger is your gas, Left Trigger is your brake, 'B' button is your handbrake, 'X' is for boost, 'Y' button is for your oil slick and 'A' button is used to fire your weapon. As you drive along, you can throw your car into a drift fairly easily, and the more you drift, the more your special meter fills up. This meter will allow you to either use your boost or your oil slick. So you essentially have one tank to draw from and you decide how you want to use it, as it's pretty self-explanatory (boost makes you go faster, oil slick causes them to crash behind you). Drifting charges it up, so go sideways as much as you can and you'll always have something in the tank.
As you progress through the story, based off the number of stars you gain, you'll automatically unlock various cars, drivers and weapons at multiple milestones. To say that this game is pun crazy is an understatement. Instead of a Lambo you get a Leo, instead of Ferrari you get Purrari, and so on. The tracks are done in a very light-hearted way with a cartoonish feel to the layout and design. They provide instances of jumps and "secret" pathways that you can explore for shortcuts, but each track also offers obstacles that can naturally hinder your path and slow you down.
Earlier you heard me touch on weapons, and they are your lifeblood on the track. They range from your basic machine gun, to a great white shark missile launcher, to a freeze ray, dome shield, land mine and so much more. Thankfully since you'll be sliding around the track at high speeds, the targeting system auto targets for you, so every weapon will automatically target your nearest opponent. This is a blessing when you're trying to avoid obstacles while you're drifting, yet want to blast your opponent with a great white shark. Each weapon though does have a limited range, so if you're fast enough with your boost, there's a good chance you can outrun them, however, you will practically need a full boost to do it, and not... hit... anything. If you hit anything, your speed drops and the weapon has you.
This is a great feature to have, despite one tiny flaw, which is the AI rubber bands like crazy to keep up with you. One race, I had a full boost and buried my paws into the gas pedal. My tail hit the boost button and I launched. I was flying along the course and drifting (which kept my meter building after each completed drift) every chance I could, and I pick up a Nitro power up and use that as well, which adds even more speed, and then I look back and magically the whole pack is somehow just a couple seconds behind me and charging up fast. Huh? This is a bit annoying because you can race flawlessly and still be under fire from weapons from behind. What really rubs salt in this wound is that the ONLY weapon you know that will be coming for you is the great white shark missile. Everything else will be a total surprise because the game doesn't tell you anything.
There is though one gargantuan problem that almost immediately made me turn the game off completely. No online multiplayer. Excuse me? In today's world when you have lesser racing games that are worse to play, released with online connectivity, it's kind of a shame. But with Meow Motors, it feels like a knife in the back that totally blindsided every ounce of joy out of this game. It's by far the biggest failure of potential ever. In fact, had this had online multiplayer I would have struggled to give it less than a 90% because the quality is good, but if you can only enjoy it in your own home and not with friends elsewhere online, then what's the point? Oh, sure you can have people over and do local co-op, but this is a textbook example of a colossal failure to capitalize on quality and enjoyment. I'm not sorry I said that because it's true.
In today's interconnected world, everyone wants to play with other people. Look at the most popular games now that are out there and what is one of the most common threads they all share? ONLINE MULTIPLAYER. Why, in the name of everything that is holy, would you release an amazing kart game and NOT provide it? I can say this, I'll play through, get the achievements and then I'll be deleting this game from my hard drive, because if I can't play with my friends around the country and the world, then why would I pay $14.99 for a game that should be the cat's meow, but instead, Meow Motors puts the "CAT" in catastrophe.
Suggestions: Unless you can somehow come out with online connectivity, this is basically a $14.99 waste of time. You broke my heart over this game.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
PC Building Simulator
At the turn of the century (wow that makes me feel old), I had opened up a computer business with a partner and we took it upon ourselves to build computing solutions for both individuals and small businesses. This was an amazing experience because we realized that everyone uses a computer for different reasons. Now though, developer The Irregular Corporation, has tried to bring this PC building to a virtual environment with the aptly titled: PC Building Simulator for the price of $19.99. The goals here are to provide you with a realistic environment to build the PC of your dreams and take a peek behind the curtain of what it takes to run an actual PC business. So, does PC Building Simulator overclock the competition and deliver an amazing performance or does it get a blue screen of death (BSOD) and crash spectacularly? Let's find out.At first glance, PC Building Simulator seems very sparse with not a lot of content on the surface. You're granted only a couple options which are career and free build modes. I'll tackle these individually, but the primary difference is that with career, you have to work your way through the trudges of the business to unlock new components and build opportunities, whereas the free build already has everything unlocked for you and you can build whatever you wish, however you wish. Other than that, the mechanics of each mode are identical, so let's dive into career mode!
In career mode you play the role of a nephew who's Uncle owns a PC repair/building business. This Uncle has decided to venture out in search of another business to start up and has left you in charge of the PC business. This Uncle also decided to take $15 out of the drawer (for gas he says), so you find yourself starting out -$15 in the hole and left with a business that you don't know where to begin. Thankfully the game's tutorial will take you through step by step as to the procedure which is as follows:
1. Check emails for PC jobs (repair or builds) and figure out what they need.
2. Load up your "Store" and browse through the various components (CPU, CPU cooling, Memory, Storage, etc.) that you will need to complete the various jobs.
3. Select 2-day shipping for the components so they will arrive the next day (should you forget you can get your components on the same day for an extra $100).
4. With your components ordered, go back to your emails and accept the jobs that you ordered the parts for.
5. Now leave the store and you'll advance to the next day. If you select "Go to work" then you'll arrive in the hallway and you'll see your parts and the PC's that need work.
6. Pick up the individual computers and follow through the necessary repair/upgrade work that needs done, then place it back in the hallway to pick up.
7. Go back to your emails and find the job you just finished (I use the subject line as a good way of recognizing what PC needed what work done and what needs to go out) and click "Accept" to have the PC picked up and money deposited in your account.
8. When you're finished with that PC and the money has been deposited, you can get rid of the email to make things less cluttered for you.
9. Move onto the next PC and repeat steps 6-8 until everything is all sorted and completed for the day.
10. Now go back through steps 1-5 to get new work and more components.
One thing to make note of though, just like life, customers have certain "requests", and your business can make a much better profit by paying attention to the customer's requests. For example, you may have a customer who states in the email that they want you to build a PC and they'll state: "I've heard Intel CPUs are the best." If you build this customer a PC with an Intel CPU then you'll have an extra happy customer and your review will reflect it and this is important.
It's important because some jobs will only unlock when/if you have a certain star rating, so the more you make your customers happy, the better the reviews and the higher rated your shop will be, thus more business you will be able to do. The more business you do leads you to level up and unlock new parts and equipment (this will be especially helpful when you try to go for that achievement of hitting a benchmark on the amount) that you can use on upcoming builds/repair work.
This aspect does inject a lot of real-life situations in it. For example you'll get emails that say things like "my son was using my computer and now it's slow and pop ups are everywhere", or "my computer doesn't work and I don't know what's wrong with it", or even things like "I got this from you a while ago and it doesn't work, can you fix it?". These represent the bulk of the emails you'll be addressing and will tend to represent a typical business deal. You will also get the occasional email about how some Nigerian Prince wants you to build him a PC and once you do, you'll be rewarded with $4,000. Things you can expect to appear in your spam folder will appear and I'm not going to tell you what happens if you build the Nigerian Prince his PC because you should experience it for yourself.
This simulator also provides a great deal of components to use and, should you not be familiar, will teach you about overclocking your CPU, GPU and RAM, and will take you through the details regarding water cooling systems as well. It's quite possible when you've unlocked everything to build a system that is easily over $10,000 worth of components and make it a legendary behemoth of a machine. The nice thing about this is that if you manage to screw up your overclocking you can actually test your machine beforehand and see if/where errors will occur, and you can also test your water cooling system as well to make sure that there are no problems within.
I do have one colossal gripe though. For instance, when you're doing ANY work with repairs, just like life, you'll have to connect the power cable, the cable to your monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Now this normally wouldn't pose a problem, except for the reality that moving these cables to connect can be a painstaking process due to the movement sensitivity of the cable. Granted, there is a benefit by seeing an orange(ish) outline on the area the cable gets plugged into, but moving the cables to their connectors can be a pain (again, like life). To solve this, you can spend thousands of your hard earned dollars on "quick connects" that will instantly connect peripherals, internal components and even the wiring outside as well (all the cables described above), and that seems like a cop out to me. It seems like the game makes doing the work more tedious than it has to be, so you almost feel compelled to invest in these types of "aids" to help make the work feel less strenuous.
The reason I'm talking so much about the career mode is because that's where the heart and soul of this game resides. The free build mode just gives you all the toys to play with and you can create and experiment at your leisure, but that's it. There's no bill paying, no customer emails, no jobs, nothing but building your own PC at your whim. This doesn't seem like much but there are a couple of achievements you can snag in this mode since everything is unlocked already and you don't have to work for your levels.
The graphics are decent and provide detailed views of the actual real-life components. The cases are all modeled correctly and the game is setup nicely to help those who don't know what they're looking at, understand what the component is and what it does thanks to a small pop up dialog window that displays the information. Now, for those who may already be a pro and understand what everything does, this may not be a worthwhile thing, but for those who wish to learn, this is invaluable. Sadly though, there isn't much of a quality soundtrack, and thanks to all the PC's I had to clean and dealing with the sound of the compressed air can (which is realistic by the way), I ended up turning the sound effects and music completely off and just put on my own tunes and went to work.
If you're looking for a simulator that offers a taste of real-world PC building and customer interaction, then this game is a must have. With some relatively easy achievements to compliment the experience, you'll quickly realize that the only thing that isn't real world about this simulator is how your screws magically vanish whenever you need them. I'm rating this game just shy of 90 because outside of the graphics and the audio, but the entire composition of PC Building Simulator is near flawless. For $19.99, PC Building Simulator is one of the best, and unexpected, sims the Xbox platform period.
Suggestions: Could you please not charge so much for the "auto-connecting cables"? Maybe make it an option that you can toggle on and off? Also include bags of screws in the shop because everyone already knows that they will go missing.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Pawarumi
One of the original styles of video games that gained tremendous, almost god-like, acclaim in the video game world are shumps (shoot-em-ups). From the days of games like Space Invaders, Galaga and even Tempest, massive shoot-em up games have always worked to deliver an experience that was easy to pick up and play but challenging to master. As technology has advanced, so have the games within the 'shump style". With much competition from other titles, developer Manufacture 43 has released Pawarumi for the Xbox One for the price of $14.99, with the hopes that we find a game that is captivating and stimulating. As a big fan of the genre, I'm expecting big things given that the competition has set the bar very high. So, to stand out and make gamers want to spend their own money, Pawarumi has to bring its 'A' game. Right; enough chat, let's see what is under the hood.Starting out you'll notice a few things, but the big standout is how sparse the game actually is. The opening screen has you pick between the Play, Leaderboard, Settings and Credits. Selecting Play will open up another menu where you have the choices of: Tutorial, Arcade, Training and Back. I strongly recommend you spend quite some time in the tutorial though, because Pawarumi offers a different twist to modern shump games, mainly being the inclusion of a 3-way color system interaction.
While other great shumps have included color themes before, this takes it to a whole new level. The enemies of Pawarumi are going to be designated colors of Red, Blue or Green, and coincidentally, your weapons are Red, Blue or Green as well, mapped to the coordinating buttons on the Xbox controller (since there's no yellow color, the Y button is used for your "special attack" or basically a screen clearing massive explosion). Now this is where Pawarumi shows off its individuality.
If you have a red enemy on the screen you can use various colored weaponry to eliminate it, however, what color you decide to use will determine what also happens to your ship. For example, if you shoot a red enemy with your red weapon, you'll regenerate any lost shield power you may have taken. This is CRITICAL when you're finding yourself with a screen full of enemies and energy shots all around you. Being able to repair your ship by just eliminating enemies is a massive help, rather than waiting for a power-up to appear.
Now let’s say you use that same red weapon against a green enemy. That is how you fill your meter to unleash your special attack. This means that once you use it, you can use your appropriate color attacks to rapidly build it back up so you can use it again (great to use for boss fights, etc.). So now we've seen what your red weapon will do to a red and green enemy, but what about blue? This is where you find that your red weapon will actually deal more damage than normal, so think of it like a damage boost.
So, your one red weapon has multiple different uses depending upon the enemies you decide to terminate with it. Now if this seems confusing to you, rest easy, because it is. This is why the tutorial is so important, because it will get you acclimated to thinking along the lines that the game wants you to. There is though, a slight flaw in the execution of this, and that is it provides little to no incentive to ever switch from the 'B' button (red weapon). So, your blue weapon ('X' button) is a narrow stream that looks like an Ice Laser, and your green weapon ('A' button) is about 10% wider but still isn't the width of your craft. Your 'B' button though (red weapon) is this wide scanning cone that fires missiles at those it tags. Basically, you can get through most of the game simply by holding down the 'B' button and moving back and forth. The reason for this simplicity is thanks in part to Pawarumi's own unique color balancing trait. Let me explain why.
With the 'B' button being the best weapon in the game outside of your special attack, any red enemy you kill with it (where there are a LOT of them), then my shield is always going to be refilling. With green enemies dying to it, I'm gaining more special attack power, and with blue enemies I'm obliterating them almost instantly because of the damage boost. Quite frankly, because of this, Pawarumi's own weapons and color balancing system has taken what was supposed to be a unique feature that made the game stand out, and made the game more boring. Literally holding down the 'B' button constantly and strafing from left to right, you should be able to tackle 99.9% of the game without any problems; and that made me wonder: Why even have this? Why have the other weapons if they are rendered relatively pointless? Why even have the color scheme at all?
By having the three colors Pawarumi is trying to innovate, but instead has created a game that offers no upgrade in your ship or weaponry, and generates no real reason to switch from one single weapon. This type of reality made me wonder what else Pawarumi has to offer, and that's when I noticed a continuing trend... of sparseness. Arcade mode is your Story Mode and is broken down into three difficulties. Now it's been said that the story is unique for each one, but having experienced it, there's no real story to begin with that is of any worthwhile value to the gamers. There's no connection with the gamer, and Pawarumi doesn't give a reason for the gamer to care, but the story is laid out in very beautiful painted imagery. The main difference between the difficulties is that the levels you experience are in different order, the enemy’s patterns are different, they take more damage and their shots hit harder.
There's a MASSIVE problem though with the story of Pawarumi. Let's say you spend the time and get all the way through to stage 4 of 5 and you die. Since you only have one life in Pawarumi, should you expire on level 4, you have to start ALL the way over from the beginning and fight your way through. Forget starting out where you ended, or even have another life to play. In Pawarumi, once you die you have to start your journey all the way over again. This became a massive source of annoyance throughout my time playing the game, but then I thought to myself, why not train on the levels so you can beat them in the story? This is when I started struggling to look at positive things for Pawarumi.
Graphically speaking, the game looks wonderful with environments that range from industrial, volcanic areas to digital warfronts and areas that reminded me a bit of Bespin from ESB. I'm sad to report however, that the music though is not on par with its competition and actually became something I turned off. Unfortunately, there are other flaws that have to be mentioned as well. For starters there's no co-op system, so Pawarumi has no way of pitting you with your friends, except for the leaderboard. So, unless you have a strong desire to climb the leaderboard, Pawarumi only offers up some insanely hard achievements to get (at least they are based off multiples of 5).
For $14.99, Pawarumi offers up a weak story, overly simplistic gameplay, very sparse content and a gameplay system that offers up no reason to continue playing, ever. This game is actually a heartbreaker for me because I wanted to love this, but I can't overlook the sparse content and all the flaws that come within the game itself. If you're a fan of shumps then look elsewhere for a quality title and pass on Pawarumi until a big sale.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
SAMURAI SHODOWN
Being a child of the 80's had its advantages when it came to video games. Sure, the games weren't as advanced graphically and there was no internet connection gameplay, so playing online was out of the question, however there was a system that became mythical in terms of status; Neo Geo. While others had their Sega and Nintendo, Neo Geo pushed the boundaries of what was possible in gaming back then. SNK had prided themselves in developing an iconic fighting game called Samurai Shodown back then, and when you saw it, and then saw games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, you wondered what these people at SNK knew that others didn't. Samurai Shodown became a staple on the system and held its own fighting crown because no other system could touch it. Now though, times have changed.Gaming platforms are exponentially more powerful today, and while we have seen groundbreaking revitalizations in both the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter series, the gaming world had heard of nothing from Samurai Shodown since 2008. Since then, we have seen beautiful, fluid fighters from Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur, to completely new mechanics in games such as Mortal Kombat. How can a game that hasn't been seen in over a decade be now worth full retail price? Can Samurai Shodown come back and deliver the same performance that left it light years ahead, decades ago? With the hardware being relatively equal, it comes down to the game itself. Let's take a look at SNK's latest version of Samurai Shodown.
Right off the bat I should make this a point. Samurai Shodown was never a controller destroying button mashing fest, but rather a more tactical "chess" style of fighting. Rather than beating someone repeatedly with a stick, you look for the slightest opening (or make one yourself) in your opponent's guard and deliver unrelenting brutality with every swing of your weapon. Samurai Shodown delivers a type of fighting that is less hectic and more strategic, but once your opponent has an opening, you can guarantee that a lot of pain is coming your way rapidly. Because of this, I can't stress enough how important it is to go through the tutorial. While going through the actions is OK to get you through it, I would recommend repeating these short exercises until you feel comfortable with how the mechanics of Samurai Shodown are.
I say this because Samurai Shodown's gameplay involves intricoes that can literally turn the tide in an instant. For example, one of the methods of defending is to dodge your attack. Dodging an attack takes your character and shifts them into the background for a moment which then allows the opponent's attack to miss entirely. Benefits of learning how to do this effectively will not only keep you alive and provide you no damage, but also create an opening that you can exploit for massive amounts of damage. This simple little mechanic provides a whole new dimension of fighting as you could be getting demolished, then dodge one attack, trigger your rage meter with Left Trigger and do a lightning blade attack with the trigger again; and if the enemy's health isn't full, then you stand a good chance of winning the match. All of this happens within mere seconds, just like how a sword fight in reality is like.
Samurai Shodown's mechanics ride on an edge that’s as sharp as the swords in game. While dodging is an invaluable skill to learn, trying to open up counters requires timing that would make you the master of any dojo. Counters require you to perform your move within the window of movement of your opponent's attack. So, if your opponent is winding up for a massive heavy attack, getting in close to land a light or medium attack can counter with some bonus damage applied. If you miss however, you're going to be cleaved in half, but what is life without a little risk right? You can find similar techniques used in timing your character's blocking ability. While you can block attacks and stave off tremendous damage, you can time your block which will cancel the attack of your opponent and give you an opening to counter. Again though, if you block to early, you'll defend the attack, but if you block to late then you're going to be annihilated.
This approach to Samurai Shodown's gameplay mechanics is just one example of how it's more of a thinking game than wildly slamming buttons, and why I must stress again how important practicing your timing can be for your survival. What's more interesting is that while every character has their own style of attacks, they also each have their own style of attack if they are disarmed as well. Samurai Shodown offers you ways and techniques to disarm your opponent, and in the heat of battle, a quick disarm can confuse your opponent who would normally rely on their weapon attacks and is now resorted to attacking with punches and kicks. I know now you're thinking if I'm unarmed and my opponent has a massive sword how can I block it? Well, if you time your block correctly, you can actually catch the blade and disarm your opponent. This will create either a balanced playing field or an opportunity for you to get to your weapons and pick them back up.
I keep harking about this I know; however, a fighting game is as only good as it's gameplay mechanics, and Samurai Shodown practically demands a more cerebral approach. This type of gameplay though is split between a few modes, such as online fighting, story modes and even the dojo. The dojo is probably my most interesting mode outside of story because it puts you against the ghosts of real opponents. You can have multiple difficulty level,s but fighting against someone who is better than you will condition you to improve yourself, figure out what areas you need to work on and formulate a strategy for victory.
There is, however, a minor knock against Samurai Shodown which involves the story. I'm sorry, but there are elements that seem to be directly ripped off of other fighting games (I'm looking at you DoA glowing blue energy boss character). To me this has always been the biggest gripe about fighting games, that being that the story doesn't always fit the narrative. When you have a roster of over 15 characters, writing story arcs for each has to involve something more than an opening splash scene with some text to read and a final ending sequence. With all that has been created here, it feels like the story itself got dealt the short straw.
Despite the ding, that doesn't stop Samurai Shodown from delivering absolutely beautiful graphics that equate to a beautiful piece of evolving artwork. Remember when Street Fighter IV came out and the new art style took the gaming world by surprise and people fell in love with it? This is another one of those moments. The levels to compete in are absolutely stunning, and when you start getting into these super special moves, the screen becomes ignited with various colors and effects to compliment the weapon's use. I also must touch on the audio, as it made me feel like I was in Japan and going through these different levels. Upfront, I'm already a massive fan of wind and string instruments from Asia, and the sounds they make in Samurai Shodown felt like I was transported elsewhere, and I loved every moment of it. Speaking of moments, I need to take this moment to say thank you to everyone at SNK who worked on making this game possible because you delivered a graphical masterpiece for fighting games.
Thanks to the hard work of SNK, Samurai Shodown has become the emperor of the fighting game empire. Breathtaking graphical deliverance of tactical, cerebral fighting that can be over within the blink of an eye, thanks to the balance and content of Samurai Shodown's gameplay mechanics. I do wish there was more in terms of content that would keep me drawn into their world, but what is there is nothing short of mind blowing. I tend to base my reviews off of value for money, and at $59.99, Shamurai Shodown is worth every penny, and for a limited time, the season pass is FREE to download, so make sure you pick that up as well. Who knows when, or if we will ever have games that have free season passes (looks around at all the other gaming companies and developers)? For an unbelievably entertaining fighting game experience that is far beyond simple button mashing, Samurai Shodown is where the real fighters can be found.
Suggestions: Provide better story content that is unique to each character and have it evolve throughout the story mode. It will take time to do it right but will be better in the end.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
MotoGP 19
Being the avid racing fan that I am, I tried my hand at Moto GP a few years back and quickly came to a few realizations. For starters, I couldn't control a bike, know anything about how physics work and the list continues. Now though, Moto GP 19 is out, and I thought I would like to see how the game has evolved throughout the years, and I have to say, I was surprised. Priced at $49.99 I was wondering how this would hold up compared to other bike games out there, and it feels like Moto GP 19 has had major improvements throughout every facet. How about we take a look and see what you get for that $50 bill shall we? Get ready to ride.Moto GP 19 comes right out of the gate and delivers a tremendous career mode, where the overwhelming majority of your time will be spent. There are going to be a couple options you can select for your career, those being standard and pro modes. You could call this more of arcade vs. simulation, where in arcade mode, you can tailor the driver assists, number of laps, weather, etc. You also have access to the rewind feature (which I'll be the first to admit I used from time to time) that is plucked straight from Forza, so if you happen to mistakenly take a hairpin right at 150mph, you can rewind to a position that allows you to break in time.
Now in standard mode, the laws of physics are somewhat forgiving. While this won't allow you to distort them in some Matrix, "I know kung fu" fashion, it will keep your bike and your rider upright for a majority of the course. It will still brutally punish you though should you wander very far off the striped paint on the sides. Also, you can expect your fellow CPU riders to act accordingly aggressive dependent upon the difficulty you set it to. You can also tailor your race weekend with multiple practice sessions so you can get used to the track before qualifying, should you opt for it. You have the option though to just jump right into the race, but I will stress that having the practice sessions to get used to the corners and the speeds you need to be at in the entrance and exits makes the qualifying sessions that much more valuable when you can start at the head of the pack, rather than skipping everything and going straight into the race from last place.
In contrast, the pro career mode locks in what drivers aids you will be running on and turns the physics up to an unholy level of pain. This means you have to be on your game if you think you can compete at a quality level. While standard was more forgiving, pro mode will take the slightest challenge to physics and immediately toss it, forcing you to have a spectacular crash. Now, normally in standard mode you would just hit the rewind button and adapt so you don't have that problem again. However, in pro mode, no such rewind exists. This could pose a monumental problem should you crash late in the race itself. See, in the standard mode, you get to set the laps you want, etc, but not in pro mode. Nope, in pro mode you're locked into the full race amount, so it's not uncommon to have a race last over half an hour.
One massive benefit of this career mode is that you can start, should you feel brave enough, to begin competing within the actual MotoGP Cup, instead of having to work your way throughout all the previous tiers of racing. Once you move on from the Red Bull Rookie Racing Cup though, the game will open up and allow you to upgrade your bike through the completion of various research and development tasks that your crew will set for you at the beginning of a race. Completing these mini tasks will allow you to upgrade various components within your bike and also allow you to customize the ride of the bike even further.
While the gameplay mechanics have improved as these generations continue, sadly the weather of all things doesn't seem to play as dynamic a role as you would find in other games. In other racing titles, there's dynamic weather that impacts the control and handling, and in MotoGP 19, that doesn't seem to be the case. It's a shame because this game looks jaw dropping beautiful on the Xbox One X. When you have the Unreal engine pushing beautiful graphics at 30fps, it's easy to see that MotoGP 19 appears to finally have a winning formula on the console. I took some photos in the game and was honestly surprised at how amazing they looked given the limited camera control/options at your disposal.
With the career out of the way, there really isn't that much more to MotoGP 19 unfortunately. Of course, you have multiplayer modes where you can go in and manage the independent aspects of the race before beginning, but it really becomes self-explanatory which is similar in nature to MotoGP 19's quick race mode. There is one small caveat though, and that is MotoGP 19 does include some very historical races that you can compete in. Think of these as situational challenges much like you would find in other games of racing and sports, and once completed, you are graded on your performance and earn stars, unlocking new material within the game.
There were a few hiccups as well. While I did enjoy being able to select what events on a race weekend I took part in, I did not enjoy the loading times at all. The loading times felt a lot longer than they should be and became a setback. Also, while I loved the look of MotoGP 19, I didn't enjoy hearing it. This is thanks to the bike noises which, by the time you get into the E bike series, will have your ears bleeding. Not because of some non-authentic noise, but because the sound seems like it has 2 modes: Off and blasting full on.
Overall MotoGP 19 is a fantastic racer that delivers the quintessential motorbike racing experience in a way we as gamers have never experienced before. Despite this though, I do feel that $49.99 is a bit too high. Let me explain why as this pertains to how I value the content within the title itself. For me, MotoGP 19's multiplayer and quick race options don't really interest me. Its pro mode career is something that not only will leave me frustrated to the point of not playing the game, but also provides such an experience that it doesn't keep my desire to continue playing.
Where MotoGP 19 really shines is in the standard career mode and its historical challenges. So, for me, with only 2 parts of the game that stand out as a must have, I feel that $49.99 is too high a price to pay. I will say though, $29.99 and below makes this a pickup all day long, and twice on Sunday.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered
Over the past 10 years, the Sniper Elite series of games have tried to establish a new level of production when it comes to being a one man army that's tasked with herculean efforts to stop a war. Originally, Sniper Elite V2 launched way back in 2012 on the Xbox 360, but now has been given the "Remastered" treatment in an attempt to bring this dated experience to be on par with what would arguably be considered the best release of the series so far, Sniper Elite V4. Having done the review for V4, I was anxious to dive in and see what was behind this new remaster that warranted a $39.99 price tag. Like a sniper, this remastered V2 has one shot to hit its mark. Let's see how things shape up.For starters the plot behind V2 is essentially the same that you experience in every single other Sniper Elite game. That's not saying it's bad, considering this game was one of the first entries to do it, so being almost the original counts for something here. Sadly, though this game's story misses its target for one simple reason, the inability to vary the mission platforms. For instance, one mission you have to fight your way to a vantage point where you snipe the main bad guy and then have to run away to the extract location. Then the very next level, you do the same, and then again and again. You start to feel that the missions become all about shooting, but then again, you are a sniper, right? This mundane trudging through the various missions means that you have to get creative to stay interested, that's where the fun begins. Let me show you how.
Let's say you're at the top of a multi-level building and that there are hallways and stairs between you and your goal down below in the extract location. Maneuver your way behind a random guard (who provides some of the weirdest movement patterns I've ever seen) and silently take them down. Then I move the body to a doorway and set a booby trap on it with a land mine. I then move down the hall and place a trip mine at the end. Afterwards, I then turn to go down the stairs to the landing and put another trip mine at the bottom of the stairs. I then turn left again on the landing and go down and repeat the process. Now I have three trip mines placed and a booby-trapped guy above me that's by a doorway. Now, I fire off some rounds from my machine gun, which of course will trigger the enemies to come find me. This is where I run back up to the platform and fire off some more, this sends the bulk of those enemies near me to rush to my location. At this point they funnel their way into the trap, and it goes off. I take the body from the bottom of the stairs and bring it to the top of the stairs. This causes the next enemy to see a man down and rush to it.
The enemy then upon rushing to the top of the stairs will set off another trip mine which blows him up as well. Carrying the body to the top of the stairs from the original hallway I was in, I repeat the process until they all have fallen, and then I proceed to the next area and repeat the process until it's all done and work my way to the extraction point. You don't have to play it that way though. The beauty of these games is you can play how you wish. You could choose to just go through as stealthy as possible, or you could be like Rambo and go in guns blazing. However you decide to play Sniper Elite V2 is up to you, and that's always been a wonderful staple of the series. There are times though that you will have to fight, and that's when this game's mechanics start to take a long walk off a short cliff.
For example, there is a level where you start on a street that's seen the aftermath of a bombing run from above. The houses on either side of you are blown into mere shells of what they once were, and you have to navigate your way down the street and then turn the corner and continue onward until you reach the tank at the end. So, you start to take things slow and crouch walk through these homes, and that's when the game will automatically get you caught on invisible items that prevent you from walking. This doesn't sit well with me considering that when you're in combat, you have to be allowed full mobility because the battle is fluid and ever changing, and if you can't adapt, then it's not a question of if you will die, but rather, how quickly will it happen. There are other gameplay issues that unfortunately hinder this game, and sadly one of the main ones involve sniping and using the binoculars.
Since weapon customization isn't a factor, the game centers around you being able to use your binoculars to scout the land, pinpoint enemies, and you sniper scope to lay in the kill shot. I'm going to first start with the binoculars. Utilizing them isn't smooth because of the controller layout. The second problem with the binoculars/sniper scope is that if you try to adjust the magnification, you will find yourself fighting the overly sensitive controls, and therefore be left with only 2 forms of magnification; either no magnification or magnification so intense it's like you're deciphering the atomic structure of the enemy's uniform. These devices can magnify in between but you will spend a good amount of time trying to get them 'just right', and by then your target will have moved on and you'll have to start this process all over again.
You have the option to 'lock' in your magnification settings but there's a problem with that as well. Let's say you're on a sniper perch, and you go to zoom in all the way on another sniper you locate off in the distance, you mark him and your settings are set to keep the magnification. Now let's say you move from your location and you try to maneuver your way throughout the level when you come across another patrolling enemy that's unaware you're there. You find cover (obviously) and attempt to mark the new enemy with your binoculars, well your magnification is locked in from before when you were going for your sniper, so now your magnification is locked in atom mode and you'll have to fight with it to get back to where you want. The problem here is that the game will allow you to do that but only after you've gotten out of cover and exposed yourself. So, while you're fighting with the binoculars or scope, you're leaving yourself exposed and a very big target.
You can definitely feel how the system has progressed throughout the games and how the Sniper series has moved on in over a decade with refinements of the newer games become a much missed aspect of this title. This is disappointing because you feel that this is a missed opportunity to take the refinements of the newer games and apply them to make your older releases better, but sadly that didn't happen here. Instead, though, we get a beautiful makeover of the game, and when I say beautiful makeover, I mean a stunning graphical overhaul of the entire game. The environments look incredible compared to the original, and even the enemy models themselves look almost life like. What else got the updated graphical blessing? Well if you're a fan of the sniper shots that give you an X-Ray image of your target getting destroyed, then this game is for you.
There's nothing like firing a sniper round and hitting a grenade attached to a belt of an enemy, watching as their body turns their bones into a sticky messy paste (that's an achievement by the way), or counter sniping an enemy sniper by sending your bullet through the scope of the enemy to take out their eye and blow a massive hole out the back of their head through their eye socket. Or chain your kills by sending a round through an enemy's heart and have the round exit the enemy and enter his fellow soldier's chest cavity and blow out his heart as well. Yes, these killing sequences that you create will be the main reason you start getting creative with your dealing of the afterlife.
Sadly though, this isn't going to be enough to overcome Sniper Elite V2's shortcomings and certainly doesn't warrant the price tag associated with it. If you're a fan of the Sniper Elite series of games then this game is going to be one you want to have in your collection, though only when it goes on sale. Instead of thinking of this as a complete ground-up rebuild of the game, Sniper Elite V2 Remastered just got a brand-new plastic surgeon. So, while the game looks revitalized on the outside, on the inside it's still a 7-year-old game that maintains the internal faults.
Overall Score: 7.4 / 10
Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark
If you would have told me that a $45k Kickstarter game could grow into a game that would not just be a decent game, but one that future games would be judged upon, then I'd say you were lying. I've never been happier to be so wrong. If you're a fan of RPG tactics games (ala Final Fantasy Tactics), then let me introduce you to Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark. Developed by 6 Eyes Studio, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is priced at $29.99 and attempts to deliver a deep RPG experience across 2.5D stages on a story that is filled with action, emotion, plot twists and so much more. I'm liking this game so much I'm breaking from what I normally do and am going to say "BUY THIS GAME NOW" if you're into these types of turn based RPG tactics games. Now that I've told you that you should buy Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, let me tell you WHY you need to buy this game. In order to make a great tactics RPG style game, you need to have the correct type of components, and Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark tick all the proverbial boxes.First off, the story is intriguing. Not the best story I've experienced, but at the same time the story itself is incredibly well thought out. Imagine a world that is ruled by a Council of Immortals who use justice and law to establish peace, and one of the many tools of the Council are the use of Arbiters. These individuals could be considered the authoritarian figures who do the heavy lifting in the field and maintain peace and order. Should crimes be committed, these Arbiters are sent to investigate and deliver culprits and suspects to various chapterhouses in towns to await trial and sentencing. When the time comes for an Immortal to step down (I don't know why anyone who is Immortal would want to step down from a rule of complete authority and power, but alas it's in the game, so we go with it) from the Council, each Immortal gets to select an Arbiter and brandish them with a special mark. These new "Marked" individuals then are set out on a pilgrimage to complete, and after that, will be judged upon who will take the newly vacated place as an Immortal on the Council.
These Marked though are above any and all laws. They can literally do anything that they want and cannot be stopped, as it's a crime to prevent the progress of any Marked, especially while they are on their pilgrimage. As we see today from our own governing bodies, corruption has a way of entering the Council in an attempt to gain more power and control. You play the role of one of the Arbiter's, and through your 40-50+ hour adventure, you'll be uncovering corruption, deciphering its source,solving if any member of the Council is involved, forming character bonds with other party members through events that feel like a nice way to break from the grinding (more on that in a bit) and provide greater detail as to "why" we should care about these individuals. The story itself is very impressive and easily has outshined even some larger AAA titles as well with regard to story development and execution. Box ticked.
One of the characteristics that Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark prides itself on are the classes. While we are used to the various classes such as wizard, thief, knight etc, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark offers over 20 classes to choose from which produce over 200 skills at your disposal. Each class carries with it a unique skill tree that provides passive stats that you can unlock for your character, offensive/defensive abilities/spells (depending on the class) and counter attacks. Each character can switch to an unlocked class at any point and time, so I started getting really creative with some characters in terms of their abilities. For example, I created a group that was pure magic and they were devastating. Since this was more of turn based chess match, I wanted to prepare my team while allowing my opponents to move closer (putting them within range).
I started off by buffing my characters to give my party shields against physical and magical attacks, granted haste and all the while storing up my magic each round. My enemies would advance, and after about 2 rounds of my preparing, I literally had them in a kill zone. I had 6 magic wielding bad ***es that hit them with maximum damage spells that effected the 5 square area (think of a + symbol) and would be crushing hundreds of points of health. Outside of the basic spells of fire, water, earth and lightning, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark also deals with Holy and Dark Magic. These two types can wield tremendous power if you structure your character properly. The right gear produces the right results and Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is no different.
Your character can equip a certain number of items, but it's up to you to decide how you outfit your characters. For example, you can have gold armor (heavy), a gold helmet(heavy), a gold shield (heavy), 2 handed hammer (brutal weapon), gauntlets (boost physical attack power), poison ring (blocks poison) and be all set to rampage the field of battle, but what if you removed the helmet, the armor and instead, equipped more accessories to boost your power. I experimented with this thought process with my group of hybrid magic users, and now they can go full Palpatine as I used wizard gloves to boost the spell power ability. This customization aspect is hands down one of this game's strongest points. You have full retail priced games that provide not even half the quality and quantity of content, yet charge double the price. Here's the fun thing though, you can build your team how you see fit. Box ticked.
Throughout the game, as your group begins to level themselves up and you go throughout the story, you can hire teammates from various towns and cities. These new hires will be at your level, so if you're characters are around level 20, then you can hire your next character at around level 20 also (again depends on your character). These characters can also mix their classes, so you can really be creative with the team and the character builds. You can only use a Main and Sub class, so remember, while being able to sling damaging spells may be cool, you have only 1 other tree you can draw abilities from at a time, so making sure you select proper abilities is crucial to success. But you can mix any passive abilities you've unlocked from any classes. So, let me explain it like this. You can have a knight main class, a wizard secondary class, with passive stat abilities from an assassin class along with another passive ability from a witch doctor class, and even a counter ability from a scoundrel class. This level of customization of over 20 classes puts Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark in a whole new level of entertainment. Box ticked.
You learn these abilities either in battle or sitting out. Yes you are only allowed to take up to 6 characters into battle at a time, so if you have 12 people in your "team", then those who aren't selected to battle will still get a portion of the AP (Ability Points) at the end of the match. This way your characters who do not fight won't be completely useless and can still level up their abilities considerably. This is because more classes are unlocked the deeper into every ability tree you go, and by doing it this way, Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark immediately makes going through every single class almost a requirement that you'll enjoy. This is thanks to the different abilities that unlock with each unique ability tree.
The reason this is so critical is because combat is the backbone of this tactical game. Should you be unlucky and have one of your members fall in battle, they will receive an "injury" and will suffer decreased stats. Should the individual be revived (even to full health), the character will still have an "injury" stat and should they fall again, the injury will stack and your character will now have to sit out for 2 entire battles before the injury is healed and your character stats are brought back to normal. To compensate for that, it's wise to have characters ready to go (or hire one) as backups so that these sit out periods don't feel much like a punishment. Still, this feature makes you pay attention and when you have classes like the Mender that can cast healing spells that can restore groups, you start to get the sense of the whole "strength by numbers" mentality. Box ticked.
In terms of gameplay, it's your basic turn-based structure where the individual gets the option to either move and then do an attack/ability/item, or do either attack/ability/item and then move. Every action that you do generates EXP and every 100 EXP you gain a level, so when you have teammates that need health and you heal them you could earn, for example, 17 EXP for that. Only actions that don't result in any net outcome (for example, healing someone with full health), or turns that are ended prematurely, will fail to generate EXP, otherwise, you will always gain at least 1 EXP per action. Now remember, the characters sitting out will NOT gain EXP, but WILL gain a portion of AP points at the end of the fight (for a while I had those mixed around). Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark also dives into crafting in a big way. Throughout your fights you'll come across chests, stage specific resources, end of fight resources, and even their version of a loot goblin-like-thing, and all of it provides resources that you can use to craft items and upgrade consumables.
In Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, your battles start out with a pre-determined amount and quality of usable items, however, through crafting you can increase the quality and number that you have in battle. For example, you can upgrade a basic healing potion which you can use only 2 of, and as you progress through the stages, you can increase its use to 3 and even upgrade its potency to what is known as a heavy potion. These resources are highly sought after and will be where you completionists out there will love the grind for these. It will take some time, but I found myself literally spending hours upon hours of fun, grinding away at abilities while upgrading gear and tweaking various elements of my group till I found some methods that work wonderfully for me.
Another fun experiment I tried was I have massive physical power groups that all have a fleet of foot ability to increase walking distance, and they literally wait to get everyone near and send them right into the mix and attack with incredibly powerful physical abilities. The reason I would put them right into the fray was that should they be attacked, I had them equipped with a counter that dealt my main weapon as a physical attack counter on an adjacent tile and would deal another smashing attack should they receive damage. It was a brutal massacre that deserved its own History Channel special. Box ticked and ticked.
If there was going to be any gripe I had about the gameplay it would have to be the camera system with the sections of the game that were below others. What I mean by that is you could have an enemy standing in a grave, for instance, and a character standing in the square directly below him, and you won't be able to see the enemy in the grave because the character standing outside the grave will be blocking them. I think having a camera system where you can push a button and have the axis rotate could provide a solution to that while increasing the strategic value of the game, but that I'll put in the suggestion box below. While I do wish for an option for different camera angles than the fixed one provided, everything about the gameplay of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is done to perfection. Box ticked.
There's more good news as well. Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is a beautiful game. The map itself is laid out into different areas, such different shops, guilds, numerous wild land encounters and even an Arena and Tournament sections. As you progress, you can patrol any wild area you've already completed and harvest more available resources, as well as unlock any chests you may have missed before. Occasionally you'll see a small square with an exclamation point inside it (!) which indicates that there's a side/story event that you can witness. Some of these events are time sensitive, so it's in your best interest to interact with these when they occur.
Every step of the way is done in a retro nostalgic feel. The stages feel unique in their construction and 8-bit execution and the artwork that adorns every square of these levels look defined, vibrant and is complimented by a soundtrack of synth goodness that delivers that classic RPG experience that we know and love. Fanfares, combat music, event music, overworld music; every note fits this genre and every pixel feels purposeful. In fact, I'll even say that the soundtrack of Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark can go toe to toe with Final Fantasy, and in some cases, surpass it. I can honestly say it's been too long since a tactics game looked this good and sounded this amazing. Box tick and another tick.
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark got its birth as a Kickstarter game and delivers everything you want in a 2.5D tactics game to produce an experience that delivers such an enjoyable gaming experience that it surpasses a lot of bigger games at full retail pricing. Beautiful graphics, an incredible soundtrack, a decent story and exceptional gameplay and character development that holds no equal make Full Seal: Arbiter's Mark one of the best RPG tactics games you can ever play.
Want to know something else that's amazing? This entire masterpiece was crafted by only 2 people. Not multiple teams spread out across the globe and interconnected through a digital network. 2 people. For $29.99 Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark is one of the best experiences you can have on the Xbox platform. Box ticked.
Suggestions: Adjust the camera to maybe allow for a rotation on the axis.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Vaporum
It's been seemingly years since I've had the chance to dive into a dungeon crawling adventure game. Lately I feel that this genre is in desperate need of some fresh blood, and Merge Games has decided to step up and deliver Vaporum from its PC format to the Xbox One platform. Filled with puzzles, enemies and dungeon exploration, Vaporum is poised to deliver a Bioshock-esque steampunk RPG adventure priced at $24.99. Yes, you read that right. Merge Games released a budget friendly, dungeon crawling RPG game that delivers a haunting steampunk environment for $25, and to say I'm excited for this is an understatement. Let's dive right into this and see what we can piece together of Vaporum.Starting out similar to Bioshock, the story of Vaporum involves you taking control of a man who has no idea who he is, where he is, or more importantly, where everyone else is. This controllable character is who you'll use to navigate the Arx Vaporum. This is a spire like tower where each level constitutes a different map, different enemies, and hopefully provides insight as to the murky details that remain a mystery. This story is propagated by numerous reading materials and audio diaries that try to give more of a backstory behind the Arx Vaporum and its previous inhabitants. I found the overall design of the game itself to be a Bioshock meets Bruce Lee's Game of Death with traps, enemies and an ever growing and shifting layout between levels where the main character tries to discover more about himself and solve an overall mystery. Starting out, Vaporum isn't shy on delivering potential and possibilities for quality gaming.
Even though the character will climb through the Arx Vaporum tower, the story itself will not. This is because the narrative itself isn't very well constructed and/or executed. Yes, the main character does have a full voice script, but whether you're reading it or hearing it, the story must be built that actually makes the reader/gamer want to experience it. This is a tremendous setback because while the environment is set in this dystopian steampunk setting, the story can't match the quality of the environment of the Arx Vaporum. This, however, isn't the only major drawback against Vaporum. The controller gameplay is remarkably poor.
This, I'm willing to wager, is because Vaporum originally was launched on the PC, and when you start factoring in the differences between the mouse and keyboard interaction vs. the console controller input, it seems as though the transition hasn't been good to Vaporum. The gameplay mechanic is setup in a grid style movement system, but the controls feel both hyper-sensitive and clunky, but thankfully you will be able to manage time as needed, turning it into an almost turn based experience, and you'll need it. The combat is incredibly clunky and very challenging as well. This doesn't bode well for your character when you take into account that pushing to rotate the camera one direction will more than likely cause you to rotate two spaces and not face the direction you want to. This is especially bad when you're trying to navigate traps, environmental hazards and fight enemies simultaneously. The other gameplay controls as well feel cumbersome and clunky and all of this was quite honestly the knockout punch of Vaporum.
In Vaporum, instead of leveling up your character, you spend your time leveling up your rig. In the beginning you're going to select between 1 of 4 different rigs, each of which provide their own specialty and range, from your basic tank setup where you go looking for the fight, to traps where you try and navigate your enemies to their doom. These exo-suit rigs are now your lifeblood. Vaporum sports a basic grid inventory system and provides multiple skills that your character can develop throughout your adventure, but ultimately at the end, Vaporum has an uncanny focus on one principle; don't let your rig break down.
All your skills and items won't matter for anything if your rig becomes broken. All this means is that you're going to want to watch your repair kits and the damage you take in combat. While you may want to play a more ranged or crafty style of gameplay, the vast majority of the combat you'll encounter will be up close and rely on you either swinging wildly away with a melee item or shooting a firearm. Whatever the weapon though, get ready for a lot of close quarter combat, which means that there are some rigs that naturally put you behind the 8 ball when you're starting out.
While Vaporum does post some entertaining puzzles, they quickly become more of a change of pace tactic than actually something worthwhile. This sad reality combined with the previous disappointments and letdowns means that in all good conscious, I cannot recommend purchasing this game for $24.99 when you can get better dungeon crawlers for less money. When your game thrives on a quality story and entertaining gameplay mechanics, and both of those areas become lackluster and suffer, thus hindering the enjoyment, then it's time to move on. Vaporum may be set in a steampunk environment, but the game itself ran out of steam.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Tom Clancy's The Division 2
Years ago, Ubisoft unveiled a game that set new standards of sandbox gameplay. From exemplary combat and in-depth character customization, The Division released to critical acclaim throughout the gaming world, and now Ubisoft has released the next installment aptly titled Tom Clancy's The Division 2. Poised to set new standards and provide more of everything to the gaming community, The Division 2 just got a massive number of steroids shot into it, so let's dive right in as we see just what is going on in the streets of Washington D.C.Yes, this time The Division 2 takes place right in the United States' capital, Washington D.C., and your base of operations is, of course, The White House. Keeping with the same theme of the original game, you're thrown right into the middle of the same type of attack but from the standpoint of the United States Government. Factions such as the Hyenas, True Suns and the Outlaws have taken hold over various outlets of the city, and it's up to you (because honestly who else would step in and help right?) to solve the city's woes and vanquish the foes and save the city from the brink of annihilation. Washington D.C. is broken up into various sections and each one of them has a designated character level range that should take notice of, since venturing into them too early will almost guarantee certain death.
Throughout Washington D.C. you'll come across various monuments and historical sites where civilians have taken up places of shelter, enemies have established control points (think of these as fast travel points to save in walking) and areas of resources that have been distributed for collection. What would such a game be without collectibles though right? In The Division 2, you'll notice that cell phone, echo and SHD collectibles return but also now you have to recover historical artifacts and paintings, of which there are quite a lot. When you think about the sheer size of the sandbox and the multiple vertical levels contained within, the total area that you have to search is actually quite immense. Ubisoft did a tremendous job incorporating Washington D.C. into the Division fold with wide and diverse environments.
In regard to the story though, there really isn't one. The overall concept is about saving the city and its people by killing bad guys, but sadly there isn't much of a plot that keeps you entertained. Let me explain why. From the beginning there's no real emotional connection to any character in the game. Understandably that reality is because it's a whole new game itself. However, any details relating to the characters comes from your ability to find things like echo recording devices that will help uncover more of a back story of some of the people you're working with. Sadly though, not you. The Division 2 does feel like they focused more on the environment and the player interaction with it, rather than any real plot of value, and you know what? That's what makes it perfect.
The Division 2's main purpose is to try and get you to band together as a group and play this game with your friends through multiplayer, and when you don't have such a strict narrative to follow, you allow the focus to be on whatever you want it to be. Don't want to play a story mission? Then go capture a control point, loot crate drops, hostage rescue mission, stop a public execution, stop a propaganda broadcast, collect resources, do a bounty hunt, complete a project or even do side missions that are separate from everything I just mentioned. This is easily The Division 2's greatest strength by a mile. The amount of content that constantly evolves and develops throughout your time spent is truly massive. Yes, the Dark Zone does exist again (this time it's divided into 3 sections), but the amount of continual content within the main sandbox will keep you locked in as the hours drift by and your days blur together.
This is due in part because the gameplay structure of The Division 2 is remarkably complex, but at the same time, just barely manageable. It's your basic cover system that we have experienced before, however at the same time, similar control glitches occur that can make the game very disorienting at times and even unplayable. Multiple times my character would try and climb down a ladder and would get stuck in the transition motion and be unable to bring up any menu or make any input. This caused me to have to restart my game completely. Other gameplay glitches include the mod section of your inventory. As you collect mods, you'll want to either sell or destroy some for resources. However, when you do that, it automatically locks you out from scrolling through your mods and instead goes section by section. To cope with this I would go into my mods section and press RT to make items my favorite and back out and continue the process (there's only a few you're really going to keep anyways), then press the Left stick in and bring up a menu which I can mark all as junk, and items that are favorited will not be marked as junk.
Another gameplay glitch comes as well as my character slides down the ladder. When my character climbs down a ladder (successfully) and it reaches the bottom, the GPS seems to know where the positioning of my character is within the world and all is well. However, should I slide down the ladder, upon impact the game doesn't know where the hell I am and instead sends my character walking in odd directions until I relinquish total control of the character and allow the game to sort itself out. Given how much of The Division 2 takes place on different levels of action, having issues traversing vertically isn't a good thing to have.
These are all types of glitches that were also apparent with the original game as well, so you get the sensation that the control scheme was carried over but only slightly tweaked (going into cover seems more responsive), but if the gameplay feels recycled, then what is actually new in The Division 2? The short answer is practically everything. One of the major reasons you'll play The Division 2 is because you love to grind for loot; it's nothing to be ashamed of, millions of others have the same symptoms. The gear in this game has changed in dramatic ways. First off, the whole "set" style returns, and as you collect more of the set you gain more bonus stats. However, this time there are actual "brands" of gear which give you unique and immediate benefit. Similar to the sets, the brands will give you more bonuses as well. Keep in mind though some of the brand bonuses require you to be wearing so many of that brand, so pay attention to your inventory because equipping that new gear may remove your bonus if you're not careful.
The gear can also be manipulated through the recalibration station. This station (which is unlocked at the White House through missions) allows you transfer a stat from one piece of gear or weapon to another. Now there are some limitations to this. First off, the item that you are pulling the stat off of will be destroyed (well you're not using it anyways, so it doesn't really matter). Another limitation is that you can only transfer the same "type" of power. So, you can't take something like a 3% chance of critical hit and replace it with +300 skill power or +1,000 health. This limitation prevents you from creating items the way you want to create them, but the limitations continue.
You can only recalibrate 1 stat EVER on an item. What this means is that you will be unable to EVER adjust a secondary stat on your item once it's been recalibrated. Then the last limitation is what makes this whole recalibration station a complete waste of time. The cap. Yes, you ARE capped as to how much you can transfer. Let me give you an example. I had a high-end chest piece which I wanted to recalibrate with a health stat which would in turn bring up all three of my character stats. I had a junked piece that had a stat bonus of +7,787 health and thought that this would be perfect to add. So, when I went to recalibrate, I see a message that states, "Capped at +1,987 Health". What? So, you can't alter other stats, the stats you want have caps on them, and you can't switch out other stat categories. So, what exactly is the point of this again? I'm sorry but this is one of the worst parts of the game because it was such an opportunity to allow you to tailor your gear how you wanted it, and now what is presented is a watered-down version of something that is supposed to resemble optimizing gear.
Another aspect that received the steroid treatment involve your skills. Now they can be customized with individual mods themselves that provide their own bonuses. Sounds good until you realize that you have to have your skill level at a certain point for the benefit to be active. With so many ways to develop your character, this directly forces you to focus on your skill level if you want to utilize them, and that I feel is another missed opportunity. You see, with your weapons, you can craft and fit various scopes, magazines, grips etc, and with your skills you don't have that luxury. I would rather want to construct items that improve my gear naturally, rather than rely on focusing some of my character's gear towards a skill level. I feel that you should be able to modify your skills just as you would a weapon because they are weapons themselves. The Division 2 attempts to rectify this situation by allowing you to unlock various versions of the same skill (so various versions of the turret for example), but the overall modification system for your skills seems lacking tremendous substance. While there are some dings and bullet holes though, The Division 2 is a game that keeps on giving.
This is because when you think you've completed everything and you've hit level 30, The Division 2 changes completely. The way you view your gear will change completely. New threats arrive. It's like you almost start over from the beginning. So, think of this time as your introduction to adulthood. This whole "shift" that the game goes through helps keep the PvE section fresh and full of challenging content that will keep you addicted for hours upon days, and during all of this you'll be loving what you look at.
This is due to the amazing graphics that permeate every aspect of The Division 2. The cut scenes look almost life like in their presentation (the actual "acting" could be done a bit better) and the environment looks like a realistic depiction of a nation's capital city trying to recover and survive after a horrible viral attack. I will admit there are definitely some recycled bits from before, but the amount of original graphic content is quite astonishing. While The Division 2 is a beautiful game to see, it's not such a beautiful game to hear. The soundtrack at times takes on this horrific style of what I would call death metal and it doesn't fit the mood of the game itself. Sadly, there isn't much in regard to any redeeming factor about the soundtrack, but the environmental sounds are astonishing. Hearing the coo of a dove, the weather crashing down with torrential rain and lightning, all of it helps you really transfer you right into the game itself. I actually turned off my music and have loved it ever since.
Now onto the Dark Zone. This area returns from the original and was one of the main reasons I quit playing the game. The Dark Zone is The Division 2's main PvPvE section and is also where the best loot in the game can be found. In the original game, players found a way to cheat their way into having overpowered weaponry that would kill you instantly. Thankfully this time Ubisoft has employed 3rd party software to severely cut back, if not eliminate all cheating. This was good, because as you would try to extract your collected gear, you would be instantly shot and killed and then your loot would be stolen and collected by others. It will be interesting to see how this battle between cheater and company will ultimately prevail, but my money is on the cheaters. If this turns out to actually work though, it'll be a blessing that keeps the game going for many years to come. Putting the Dark Zone aside, The Division 2 needed to deliver more content outside the Dark Zone, and they did exactly that.
The many teams that made The Division 2 put forth an incredible amount of work into making this sequel and it shows. Ubisoft decided to take what worked and keep it untouched, then increased the content for the main PvE section of the map and allow it to continuously update to provide more content for the gamers. Yes, there will be bugs and glitches but those can be sorted out (provided Ubisoft knows about and cares to fix them) and that doesn't take away from the crux of the game which is done to near perfection. Outside of some terrible soundtrack music and gameplay mechanic hiccups, The Division 2 is everything you hope a sequel should be. In today's world it's rare to see a sequel deliver a better experience than the original. The Division 2 does just that. So, to sum things up, buy the game. You can thank me later.
Suggestions: Really open up the recalibration station to gamers. Please get a better soundtrack.
Overall Score: 8.9 / 10
Pipe Push Paradise
When it comes to the world of puzzle games, the gaming world isn't really spoiled for choice. With the focus shifting into shooters, racers, fighters and other genres, the puzzle games tend to get overlooked. However, Digerati Distribution developed a puzzle game for the Xbox One called Pipe Push Paradise, which attempts to deliver a challenging plumbing experience. With a price tag of $10.99, you won't be pushing the wallet very hard, but is it worth the price? Let's find out!The plot of Pipe Push Paradise is relatively simple; this island that you're a part of has apparently had a colossal plumbing problem. Every part of the island's plumbing became undone and it's up to, the island's premier (and only) plumber to fix it. The problem though is that he's been asleep for a long while, so the task of fixing the entire island's plumbing is up to you, his niece. I don't know why you're staying alone on an island with your Uncle (maybe punishment from your parents)? This concept makes up for 100% of the entire story, and so now that you know everything, you should know that this puzzle game may look cute, but sometimes looks can be deceiving.
This is because the gameplay of the pipe puzzles starts off with some easy and fairly manageable puzzles. This is done to get you used to the physics of the gameplay, and let me explain quickly why that's so important. Unlike other puzzle games, you can not rotate objects or alter them without taking a movement space. A movement space is what I like to call a part of the puzzle area that you have to work with. So let's say you want to flip a piece on one end; when you roll the piece, you actually will also move the piece forward (instead of rolling it in place and then moving it). This extra space means that you need to plan your positioning carefully if you wish to correctly solve the puzzles ahead.
And there's a lot of them as well. 47 puzzles that are designed to make you swear unholy allegiances to complete, break controllers in frustration, and give you the ultimate satisfaction upon completion of an incredibly hard challenge. This is thanks to what could be described as an incredibly steep learning curve. As you progress through the island's puzzles, you'll come across various island dwellers who literally mean nothing to the game at all. In fact, they are actually more useless than the terrain itself, but anyways... These people speak a garbled mess of noise, but provide no real benefit so again... Pointless.
Should you make a mistake in your puzzles (and we both know you will a LOT), there's a handy reset button to revert the puzzle back to it's original layout. Speaking of the gameplay, it's remarkably simple with buttons that allow you to go forward and backward through your steps of solving it (this came in handy when trying to figure out how to solve the harder puzzles). This gameplay will become essential when you start trying to solve puzzles in 2.5D by trying to rotate pipes to deal with overhead leaking.
There is a MASSIVE problem though; that your character moves at such a blinding speed (even when you use the D-Pad or sticks) that she will undoubtedly knock into pieces and operate in a hyper spastic way. This cripples the game and makes it not fun to play, because while the puzzles can be fun to accomplish, having to deal with a constant hyper-speed character that naturally causes gameplay issues within itself, is not something I care to spend my money on.
The graphics of Pipe Push Paradise are simplistic, as in child cutting shapes out of construction paper after nap time kind of simplistic. There's sadly nothing remotely beautiful about the island, and that's depressing because while Pipe Push Paradise is going for a more cartoon feel, I think they nailed their target audience in the 3-5 year range. However, I would have been far happier to ditch the pointless people who do nothing and instead increase the graphical assets. The same nightmare exists for the audio as well. It became so bad I turned everything off regarding sound because it literally drove me to knock back massive amounts of Advil to kill the headache it caused.
So as a quick recap, the movement controls that you deal with constantly are over sensitive, which making controlling your character through the pipe puzzles relatively difficult. There have been better graphics through Mario Paint and the sound was terrible in every aspect. However, the pipe puzzles in 2.5D were both frustrating yet delivered a tremendous amount of satisfaction upon completion. Should you spend your $10.99 on Pipe Push Paradise? Quite simply, no.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Stellaris: Console Edition
Space based adventure games have always been one that sparks a journey of mythical lands and incredible experiences. What if though, you could formulate your own journey? What if the incredible experiences are yours to create rather than scripted plotlines that follow in sequence? Enter the real time strategy game Stellaris: Console Edition, by Paradox Development Studio. Stellaris attempts to bring one of the most in-depth real time strategy experiences to the Xbox One and at a wallet friendly price point of $39.99 USD. Normally, I would insert some clever transitional phrase here, but let me just start out by saying if you're a fan of real time strategy games then this is a must have for you, and let me tell you why.Loading the game up you're witness to some incredible cinematics and presented with a start screen that boasts some simplicity mixed with and incredible soundtrack that really helps set the mood up for this immense experience. Upon hitting Start, you'll be tasked with choosing your race to play as. For the social justice warriors of gaming, you'll be happy to know that there exists a vast and incredibly diverse number of races to select from and that each one is unique in its own way.
You could have one type of government be a democracy while others could be classified as military tyrants. While one race may be open to new species as a method of working together, another may be looking at them as targets that they can occupy for resources to fuel their own civilization. I found myself actually going through each individual option and checking out how some benefits of the passivist style governments, set them up with bonuses that adequately correspond to their own ethos, where as an enslaver style of ruling would grant bonuses to military power and be less "diplomatic" when it came to be interacting with other races in the universe.
After you've selected your race, you can go to customize the game as you wish. You can designate how many AI are playing in your level, their difficulty, how many star systems there are and much more. This type of tailored customization works wonderfully instead of the typical branded "easy, normal, hard" pre-configured motives. Once you have all that configured, kiss your foreseeable future goodbye, as the game starts up and your experience begins. I strongly recommend going through the tutorial and keep the hints on, as there is so much to discuss that you'll find that 90% of Stellaris: Console Edition is centered around menu management.
First, you'll find each border of the screen is a menu. The right side is what I'm calling your quick selection menu, where you can select individual items within your entire content. Selecting a science ship or construction ship is as easy as pushing Right on the D-Pad and then moving the cursor to the ship and press A. The bottom menu is your alert menu. This is where you will get notices about your completed research, any sort of scientific discovery, election results (if applicable, will discuss later), and any other point of interest that comes up pertaining to your game. The Left menu system acts as your reference point where you can review your completed logs (quests) and current ones that you have available. The top menu acts as your resource’s menu.
It's important to note that every one of these menus have multiple menus within them, and multiple menus within them that lead to yet, more menus. And that's just on the main screen edges, because every ship, building and planet that you can use has another menu that can lead to other menus and more menus after that. For instance, there are multiple types of scientific research that you can pursue, and each one of these three researches breaks down into 3 more possible research options. You can easily find yourself lost in tasks and spend a lot of time trying to figure out what, or more importantly, how, to do certain tasks, which is why tips should be always displayed until you feel comfortable with the enormous amount of content that you have to cycle through.
It also must be said that you have to also manage your citizens/slaves as well as explore other systems and enter into either diplomatic relations, or try to conquer them, or let them be their own sovereign species and act as an alliance, etc. This is where the depth of Stellaris rests. Not only are the customization options numerous to the point of almost madness, but the having to simultaneously tend to the needs of your people and see to their happiness means that this is like a steroidal version of The Sims at times.
The goal ultimately is to beat your adversary(ies) through the use of researching technology and expanding your civilization's boundaries into neighboring stellar systems. Each system is unique with their own mix of planets, moons, asteroids and much more. One really cool feature I loved was how the game notified me if there as a celestial event, such as a comet, and I was able to watch it as it traveled through space. These types of events really help bring the universe to life and I'm actually excited to witness other items such as black holes. Should you encounter a neutral planet (one that hasn't been occupied by the enemy), then it's up to you to turn the system into your fold. If, however, you come across enemy terrain, then any sort of confrontation could lead you to war.
When you're at war you'll be going up against other civilization(s) who are trying to either defend their own territory or expand into yours. To achieve victory in War, you'll have to decimate your opponent, and to do that you'll need to be building ships, researching technology, relying on allies and neighboring systems and much more. The formation of a technologically advanced army is crucial to winning a War. I found that it's best to start small with Stellaris in terms of your game creation, and once you overcome the 90-degree learning curve, you'll be in a much better position to go against multiple civilizations at once and utilize the old phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
If you thought that was it for the depth of Stellaris, you'd be quite wrong. Stellaris though continues to go deeper. In peacetime through War, each race has their own sets of beliefs. How they perceive their own civilization, how they perceive other civilizations, etc. These beliefs bring about Edicts that affect the civilization. More Edicts can be learned over time and development, but these should be regarded because they can help shape the development of your entire race and possess unique trait bonuses. It goes without saying that Stellaris makes sure that there is just as much focus on intergalactic politics as there is in collecting resources or researching new technology.
This is one aspect that makes Stellaris one of the most in-depth RTS games you can find now on the Xbox One. Another aspect is the absolute brilliant graphic system that you find throughout every facet of Stellaris. It took some time to adapt to working in a pure 3D styled environment, but once I started to get familiar with the control scheme, it became far more manageable. I will say though that I can see why a keyboard and mouse for this game would be a massive benefit when compared to the controller. While I get the reality of the controller being the primary input device may not be the ideal situation, Paradox Development Studio did a fantastic job converting the user interface to fit the controller like a glove.
While the PC version came out in 2016, Stellaris: Console Edition delivers one of the most amazing individual experiences to be found on the Xbox One to date. Full customization and so much content that you will easily wonder where the last two weeks of your life went. Stellaris is a game that allows you to become a benevolent leader, interstellar overlord and everything in between, and tailors a graphically beautiful real time strategy experience that shouldn't be missed. For $39.99, Stellaris: Console Edition is one of the best bargain priced titles you can find to play.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Haunted Halloween '86
In the time I'm calling the golden era of gaming, children around the world flocked to their NES systems to engage the cartridge and set off of their adventure. Retrotainment Games set off on a task to help recreate that exact sensation. Priced at $9.99, Haunted Halloween '86 (The Curse of Possum Hollow) is designed to deliver the 8-Bit nostalgia that will hit us older gamers right in the feels and take us down a memory lane of Saturday morning cartoons with cereal, sunny days that turned into nights of playing outside and so much more. I'm about to say something that is going to make some people very upset. I feel that a lot of gamers today are spoiled in gaming thanks to innovations that have evolved over the decades. Back in the 1980's gamers had a handful of lives, and even less chances to increase them throughout the entire game. If you failed? Then you got a game over and had to start all the way over from the beginning. Haunted Halloween '86 delivers the same twitch happy platforming experience that we have seen back in those golden ages of gaming.
There is a steep learning curve for this, and I know it sounds odd for me to say about some 8-Bit platformer, however, since you don't have analog support (big drawback for me), you'll have to get used to some very sensitive D-Pad action which will almost certainly be the difference between losing a life or getting through the level. This type of hair trigger jumping style is only complicated by the numerous types of enemies you'll face. However, it's up to you to figure out how enemies are dispatched.
The controls though of this game are incredibly simplistic. Just as before with the NES controller, you will only need to use the A and B buttons, as A is your jump and B is attack. To take advantage of the extra inputs on a more modern controller, gamers are given the ability to switch between fighters, each with have their own special abilities. To say that mastering this is easy would be a lie, so to help make things easier, Haunted Halloween '86 allows you to collect green cans that apparently act as lives. Some people have green mushrooms, some have green cans.
The story follows up the Haunted Halloween '85 tale and brings back the main character in a new adventure that happens to be very similar to their last. This time however, there are many... many differences... in many... ways. I never played Haunted Halloween '85 so I can't really compare the two plot lines, but if you and I are honest with one another, that's not why you're playing this game. You're playing it for the achievements.
Yes, that is the best thing, by a mile, about this game; the achievements. You can rack up 1000 Gamerscore in less than 15 minutes without any hassle. To be fair to this game, I did end up playing through it past the 1000 Gamerscore to give the plot a chance to entertain, and I can honestly say that it did deliver that nostalgic feeling that I was looking for, but not the quality I was expecting. I did enjoy the classic feeling, but even games released back in 1986 delivered better stories than this.
All throughout this review I've stated that this is an 8-Bit graphic layout, and both the visuals and audio pay significant homage to the time period. One of the hardest things to do would be to simulate shadowy areas, however, thanks to the graphical restrictions, you'll find yourself pausing while trying to distinguish what you can and cannot jump onto. Even the classic Super Mario Bros did their underground areas in a method that was easy to identify, but sadly not here.
While yes, you'll get a sense of a period of time when life was simpler and much better, the execution of Haunted Halloween '86 leaves little to be desired. While attempts are made to deliver that experience, the execution seems to be lacking intently. I would identify Haunted Halloween '86 as that one cartoon that was in the middle of your "Saturday Morning Cartoon" block that just didn't deliver that same "wow" factor as your favorites did. Remember, this is costing you $9.99 to experience this yourself, but is $9.99 worth 1000 Gamerscore boost in less than 15 minutes? That's a mystery you'll have to solve for yourself.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN
It has been over a decade since Bandai Namco allowed us to take to the skies and engage in non-stop air combat over fictional terrain set in a time of absolute war. Ace Combat 6 was Bandai Namco's attempt to bring about a quality flight/air combat simulator, and their Project Aces team excelled. Then as quickly as it appeared above the clouds, it vanished... for over 10 years. During this drought, the Ace Combat badge did resurface, but the thrill of the experience disappeared as it was put on hold for a more arcade type experience; however, the spiritual successor has been released, and once again we take to the skies in Ace Combat 7. Now grab your flight suit because it's time to earn your wings pilot.As we taxi to the runway, Ace Combat 7 opens up to us and delivers a simplistic, yet beautifully designed layout. The options and menu are very simplistic, yet designed in a way that makes navigation through multiple options very manageable. You will make selections to play in the main campaign that consists of 20 missions (more on that here in a bit), multiplayer, go to the Microsoft store, game options and more. I started by going over the flight controls and found that if you're an Ace Combat veteran, then setting the flight controls to "advanced" allows for way more control over your aircraft. I also noted that there is an extensive flight control setup for those who should be lucky enough to have flight stick and throttle (I always wanted the old Ace Combat 6 flight stick bundle).
After going through the setup, it was nice to see that Bandai Namco and the Project Aces team kept a lot of the controls very similar to those of Ace Combat 6. The 'Y' button switches targets (though it should be pointed out that pressing 'Y' may not select the target immediately in front of you) through a sort of "list" of prioritized 'bogeys'. The B button is what you press if you want to unleash hell. The A button fires your guns. You can see where the rest of this is going, but I am very pleased to report that everything that was wonderful about the gameplay mechanics of Ace Combat 6 (AC6) made their return, but this time everything was tweaked to be better in every way.
If you've played AC6, then it should be no surprise that the same style of story follows here in Ace Combat 7. There's a war that breaks out between two rival nations and you are tasked with essentially bringing that war to an end. To do that, you'll have to essentially shoot everything down that you can. The story is hands down the weakest part of the game and provides little enjoyment except for the fact that you get to watch lengthy cinematics done in amazing quality and detail. Other than that, you fly and shoot things. It really doesn't get more simplistic than that. While I'm glad that the story does exist, the cinematics will sometimes go on for a long time, that your controller will actually turn off from non-use. I wish though the story was done in a manner that made more of an emotional connection, but sadly I wasn't involved in the writing process.
Trying to find innovation in any game is challenging; however, when you talk innovation in an air combat simulator, then you're going to have an even bigger challenge ahead. Ace Combat 7 put this challenge in their sights and blew it out of the sky thanks to one thing; weather. While you're flying, you'll notice things like rain, lightning, and even wind will make a dramatic impact on your aircraft. Lightning will temporarily short out your electronics (good strategy if you're looking to evade a lock on your tail), while you'll find that the wind will actually push your plane around so you will find yourself having to adjust your controls accordingly. This added realism was a much-welcomed blessing for this game, but what really took me by surprise was the new and innovative Aircraft Tree.
Think of the Aircraft Tree like your typical skill/character tree(s) that we find in most games today. This one, however, deals with planes, upgrades and weaponry on a colossal scale. Starting with an F-16, you will accumulate points/currency by each multiplayer mission you compete in, as well as each campaign mission you finish. This currency is used to unlock new aircraft, special weaponry and upgraded parts. YOU CAN NOT RESPEC YOUR POINTS USED, so be VERY careful as to how you decide to spend them. I find that it's best to plan by seeing what aircraft are on the path you initially want to take and then look for other upgrades that you wish to unlock at a later time.
When you purchase a new plane from the Aircraft Tree, you will automatically get one special weapon unlocked for that plane, but you will need to spend more currency to unlock the other weapons. For example, if you want to unlock the F-22A Raptor at the end of the tree, not only will you need to buy your way to it, but at the same time it will set you back 920,000 credits, and each special weapon you unlock can cost over 100,000 credits each one, so get ready to spend like crazy. This method allows you to feel like there are goals to reach and progress to be made while you grind away hours of your life flying in multiplayer.
Not only will you unlock new planes and ordinance, but you'll also unlock new parts which is another new innovation for the Ace Combat series. You'll be able to equip your plane with various parts that fit into the slots that impact different aspects of your aircraft. The first tab allows you to focus on things like maneuverability, stability and so forth. Your second tab relates to your armaments, and it's here you can tailor things like increased or standard missile homing, reload speed, etc. Your third and final tab deals with what I'm calling the technology aspect of your plane, by allowing you such options as enhanced deicing, decrease in enemy lock on and more.
Each plane has the same number of slots that you can use to equip these new parts (or as I call them "plane perks"), however, there are costs that are involved with each plane and part and that can impact what you face in multiplayer. You see, in multiplayer you can set up what types of planes you want to fly against. Not by type of plane, but rather by cost. Case in point, when you setup a multiplayer match, you can create your room with restrictions on aircraft cost, and there's options such as under 2000, unlimited and more, but here is how this works:
Let's say you join a room and its cost restriction is 2000 or less. An F/A-18 can cost a little over 1900, and each part that you put on the plane (not weapon but parts) costs between 20-50 credits, so you'll have to choose wisely if you want to maximize your aircraft under the 2000 limit. Or you can take a less expensive plane and load it up with tons of parts, so the decision is totally up to you on how you wish to approach multiplayer.
Graphically speaking, Ace Combat 7 is stellar. It takes everything from AC6 and enhances it in every way. The cut scenes are jaw dropping beautiful and the environments you fly in seem to be straight out of photographs. There was some screen tearing though, but it was incredibly minimal and didn't detract from the overall aesthetic of the game. There is one issue that I have to mention, and that is that I was hoping for a way to save some of the replays to watch later, or find some way to make clips of my flights, but the camera system was average at best in the replay sector and no such option exists to actually save your replays. A minor gripe, but when you're playing at such intense speeds, having to record your own manual clips can be a bit disorientating since you shift your focus to record some moment that went flying by you at 1000 mph... virtually of course.
Just as the graphics deliver an experience that makes your jaw drop, the audio surpasses any of the games that came before it and stands in a class on its own. Sure, the audio from the cockpit returns in its classic glory, but the actual soundtrack is what surprised me the most. Classical harmonies and a symphony of melodies bombarded my ears, while the tempo and direction of the music changed dramatically when the action became intense.
Without a doubt this IS the Ace Combat experience fans around the globe have waited over a decade for. Bandai Namco and Project Aces have done an incredible job delivering a truly remarkable flight combat experience that shouldn't be missed. With 20 story missions and a multiplayer that will leave you wondering where all those hours went, Ace Combat 7 deserves a medal of commendation for the execution of a near perfect flying gaming experience. If you're a fan of the Ace Combat series, or just flight games in general, then Ace Combat 7 should be on your radar to purchase.
Suggestions: Please do not wait over 10 years for another entry like this. This is the version of Ace Combat your fans want to enjoy, and feel free to make another one sooner than later.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Asdivine Hearts II
Following up on the release of the classic RPG game, Asdivine Hearts, KEMCO has decided to roll the dice again and deliver the sequel, aptly named Asdivine Hearts II, for the price of $14.99. Now, the first one really won me over, so is it possible for lightning to strike twice with KEMCO delivering a game that is built upon the solid foundations of the original? Let's find out.The original Asdivine Hearts was an amazing shot of nostalgic RPG gaming that offered a surprising amount of depth to it. Fittingly, KEMCO went the smart route, as they were of the the mindset that if it's not broken, don't fix it.
In this sequel, you will find much of the same that you have before, should you have played the first game, albeit this time with a slightly different twist. In the original, we learned that there was a clash between Light and Dark deities, however, in the sequel you will fight alongside both. It seems a bit confusing, but should I completely spoil the story of Asdivine Hearts? Believe when I say that there's a reason for the deity partners.
With regards to the actual story of Asdivine Hearts II, I have to say that this is where one of the biggest faults of the game resides. In the beginning of the game you have the option to observe an incredibly abridged description of the plot and story of the original Asdivine Hearts so you can get caught up to speed, however, while that provides somewhat of a backstory, it does very little to help set the stage for this adventure. Then, throughout the game, you're going to encounter the obligatory side quests, but the main quest feels watered down and almost forced this time around. Sure, all the quirky mannerisms of your characters return in their awkward, pseudo-erotic nature, but after going through the new story, it doesn't captivate me as the original did.
Your characters from before return, so there's some form of familiarity. Zack is apparently the only male in the story and is surrounded by women who fall in love with him, and throughout the game you'll be subject to some really subpar emotional writings based off how these characters trust Zack (which can be altered by giving gifts as well). You can essentially bribe women to fall for you, and a big way to do that is by giving said gifts. Hmmmm... any how, each character has within themselves a special ability to examine objects and items while venturing in the overworld. Some can read ancient inscriptions within stones, some can use a whip to bring the party across gaps to reach hidden areas and so on.
A classic RPG game, such as this, depends on the story to make it worthwhile and enjoyable, and with what I experienced, I do feel the game takes a hit here. Despite this, there is still quite a lot of redeemable qualities within Asdivine Hearts II, starting with the battle system. As you venture forth, you can have a support character that can do actions for you, such as using spells to defend fellow teammates, decrease the cost of spells for the main character, increase damage dealt to the enemy and more, so you get the idea. If you decide to utilize both your main and support in the same turn, you have the potential to do an incredibly powerful combined attack that is known as a union attack.
These attacks should be used sparingly though. In order to properly use one, you first must select a spell with your main character, as this will be the base for your attack. Next, you will want to see what support spells have a question mark next to them and select that. Should you do everything properly, you will see a tremendous magical spell (which is delivered in some amazing retro goodness which I'll touch on later) that deals an incredible amount of damage. Your attacks (of any type) build what is called the trust gauge, and it's from this front that you will utilize these immensely powerful attacks.
Visually, Asdivine Hearts II seems to be in the recycling business. Not only do the graphics feel identical to the previous release, but each house/cave/business/castle feels similar to every other one and looks completely identical too. What's even worse is that the game's enemies also are almost taken straight from the original game and only given new facelifts and colors. There is very little originality and thought into this area, and to me it indicates that not a lot of effort and innovation was utilized to create a unique environment. I will state however, that if you're looking for a pure trip of nostalgia, then Asdivine Hearts II delivers but for fans returning from the first game it will seem very limited in scope.
One of my favorite aspects from the first game makes its return, and that is the Rubix system. For those who haven't played the first, or read my review, the Rubix system is what allows you to develop your character's bonuses by socketing jewels. You start with a basic grid layout, and through your battles and collected chests, you will be able to socket various shaped jewels that will grant bonuses to your character's stats. Also, you can combine jewels to make more potent ones, or if you're lucky, utilize them as one of your new companions.
Not all jewels are made equally, and some do contain monsters within them that, should you use them, will actually fight alongside you, or can be called upon to access their own skills for a fight. How you decide to use these types of jewels will impact your battles greatly, so make sure you get accustomed to trying different arrangements with different characters to see what works best for you. Should you also feel the need to battle these monsters, you can use them within an arena in the game where the more difficult the battles, the bigger the prizes are.
All of this aside, I must make a note here that the control system of Asdivine Hearts is just as hyper sensitive as it was before. What that means is that your 8-way directional movement when walking doesn't always function properly, and you find that walking around becomes a challenge in and of itself. Not really the best thing to do when you spend 1/3 of your time reading, 1/3 fighting and the other 1/3 walking around. Then when you factor in the random enemy occurrences and you are left with the reality that your movement now is broken, and you will have to start it all over again.
Asdivine Hearts II tries to deliver a sequel, but the story isn't as captivating as the original, the graphics feel recycled and the movement feels jerky as opposed to fluid. While some attempt at innovation tries to bring about some wonderful new aspects to the game, sadly Asdivine Hearts II falls short of bringing an adventure that felt fresh and new. I wish I could recommend this game, but at $14.99 it breaks my heart.
Overall Score: 6.8 / 10
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
One of the best ways to get your game to stand out from the rest of the pack is to be innovative, and apply said innovations to multiple facets of the game itself. For many, many years we as consumers have faced the repetition of numerous styles of gaming that all have similar functions, but all of them delivering an experience that doesn't seems to always capture the gamer because of its "more of the same" approach. Funcom has released a game called Mutant Year Zero, developed by The Bearded Ladies and priced at $34.99. So, while technically considered in the range of budget retail and not indie, Funcom had their work cut out for them to deliver a product that not only was entertaining, but worth the price tag as well. Did they accomplish this? Let's take a look inside and see what is offered.In Mutant Year Zero you have a post-apocalyptic world that is the aftermath of a tremendous global nuclear war. During this war, humanity has almost been completely obliterated, the surrounding environment, which is called the Zone, is a mixture of dilapidated areas of residential and corporate buildings, destroyed tunnels and multiple areas that are all impacted by the aftermath. From the destruction though comes a sliver of hope for humanity, as the last major city structure is built in the sky, called the Ark. Like the story about how Noah saved the animals, the Ark's purpose is to try and save humanity. To do that however, you need scrap materials so they can be collected and converted into useful items for people on the Ark. However, where there is hope and good intentions, there's also another flip side to the coin.
Down in the Zone, you'll come across Ghouls, which are humans who have survived the war but have been turned mad and are devout followers of the Ancients (what passes for humanity before the war). These Ghouls are under control by a company called Nova Sect who want to utilize the fabled powers of mutation that were discovered by the Ancients, and use that ability to power new weaponry to wipe out the Ark and everyone inside it. To prevent this from happening you'll be taking on the role of a Stalker, who was originally tasked with finding materials in the Zone to bring back to the Ark, but now has a more important mission. Right from the beginning you'll be introduced to Bormin and Dux (no not the Bloodsport Dux) who are two mutant Stalkers, whom will be your primary players. As you progress, you'll unlock more followers, each of which have their own special abilities and powers, but I'll get into that more here shortly. Eventually you'll have formed a team, and it's this team that needs to confront Nova Sect and find out more about the Ancients, and more importantly, how to save humanity.
As you traverse the Zone and get a feel for the interconnectivity of the areas, you'll also note that the characters have their own unique weapons in a fight. Dux for instance, has a silent crossbow, while Bormin uses some loud but devastating shotguns. I made the deliberate notion to point out what weapons are silent and which are not, because that will make a world of difference in your game. Let me explain why. Mutant Year Zero is a turn-based combat game, and should you arouse the suspicions and be caught by the ghouls and their machines, you'll draw the fire of every ghoul in the area that you're in, so learning how to be stealthy and quiet will exponentially increase your chances of survival. However, for the times that you have to go loud, make sure you drop your target as soon as possible and you cover your flank.
The gameplay of Mutant Year Zero is setup to be a grid system during combat. You can get close to enemies and then press 'X' to ambush them. This will essentially pause the game and freeze opponents in their tracks while you navigate to your position of choice before engaging the enemy. The game will also let you know if moving to a designated place will result in your character being detected, so you can get a feel for where you want to position your players. Now each character gets two turns, and it's up to you to decide how you want to spend those points. Reloading your weapon takes one of the turn points, as does walking, however, firing your weapon ends your turn, so you'll have to balance how you want to approach different scenarios and adapt accordingly.
If you have the walk selection highlighted, you can use the Left and Right Bumpers to switch between party members, but if you have your weapon selection highlighted, the Bumpers switch between different enemies. Depending on your position, you'll be able to get a percentage of what your weapon will hit, and obviously the closer to 100 then the more chance you'll have to hit the target. Now remember that this is based off of line of sight, so while a direct approach may be more efficient, you may have a better tactical advantage from a higher perch, so plan accordingly to your environment, your enemy position, the strength of your weapons, etc.
There is a lot to consider with regards to combat, and one aspect that I'm ever so thankful for is the auto save after combat. This is because Mutant Year Zero is almost pure tactical combat, and should your strategy fail, you can reload after your last combat encounter. So, let's say you have an area of 15 enemies, and about 6 to 8 of them are in places around the perimeter. Every time you take one of them out and do it silently, the rest of the enemies are not triggered AND you get an auto save. So should you decide to engage with the quietness and subtlety of an air siren, you can reload and the game will pick up right where you left off after making the last kill, which will allow you to rethink your strategy and hopefully work through it. I found that using silent weapons to dispatch the surrounding enemies of an area worked best, but when it came time to deal with the bulk of the forces, then grabbing yourself the biggest, loudest and most damaging weapons possible is going to be your best option. Sometimes you have to just bring the noise if you want to survive, and while a silenced pistol of damage 5 is good for low level enemies, a rail gun with a damage of 8 is far better.
Should you make it through combat alive, you'll start to level up your characters. The leveling system is done as a team, so one experience bar dictates all characters so there's no uneven leveling (even for members who aren't in your 3-person party). As you level up your mutants you'll gain points that you can spend on your character for passive skills, as well as minor and major mutations. These types of mutations require a cooldown to use, but not a cooldown in time, but in kills. So, for example, Skull Splitter, a minor mutation, may be able to grant you 100% critical chance, but you'll take a 25% hit in accuracy. This requires you to kill 3 enemies after you use it to reset the mutation for use. What this means is that, while some mutations may be worthwhile to use, I like to consider saving them for massive enemies like Tanks and other larger opponents.
Just as you have the ability to upgrade your character, you'll also have the ability to upgrade your weapons. This is done through scavenging for weapon parts and collecting loot drops from fallen enemies. While the main combat mechanics of the game take center stage, the parts in between the fighting bits revolve around you walking through the Zone searching for items such as scrap, weapon parts and even what is called Ancient Artifacts, such as a defibrillator or a telescope. The scrap allows you to buy items from the store in the Ark, and things can get expensive quickly, so make sure you stockpile your scrap and buy what you need when you need it (medpacks I'm looking at you). The Ancient Artifacts allows you to upgrade all your characters at the Ark with abilities such as an extra grenade slot, increase in hit percentage, 20% off the store so you can save more scrap, etc. These items are hidden away in the Zone, so you'll have to scavenge the area to find them.
The last little bit of upgrading on the Ark deals with your weapon upgrades. Here you'll be able to modify your weapon through 3 stages of power with each stage requires a set amount of weapon scrap. On top of the power level, you'll have the opportunity to equip items such as scopes that will grant weapons passive abilities such as increased critical chance, increased weapon range and more. The last little bit could be the most important, and that is your damage modifier. You'll come across numerous enemies within the Zone and it helps to have weapons that are equipped to deal with the particular types. For example, one damage modifier can grant you a 50% chance to burn your organic enemies, which is great when you start talking ghouls, but when you start battling robots, then not so much. For that you'll need shock weapons that will help disable them and can be a life saver. One gripe I had about this is that you can ONLY swap out items on your gear at the Ark, so if you find an item in the field, you won't be able to equip it until you get to the ark. A small flaw but can become annoying should you come across amazing pieces of gear and have to fast travel back to the Ark just to equip it.
Another little gripe involves the actual walking around and exploration of the Zone, as it is incredibly SLOW. Now I'm not asking for racing style speed, but I've seen snails move faster than the characters do. Maybe this has to do with making sure you don't inadvertently trigger enemies, but when you have large areas to explore, and it literally takes you minutes to walk from one exit to another because of the speed, the game loses some of its impact, and even though the dialog occurs while you're walking through the different areas of the Zone, it does very little to remove the monotony of slowly walking around and exploring a large area for scrap and items. To rectify this, you'll be able to fast travel to any point on the map (once you unlock it by travelling there on foot) which will save a tremendous amount of time, but at the same time, if you're missing some Ancient Artifact, then you'll have to go through each area anyways to look for them. So while fast travelling is a good thing, if you're wanting to collect scrap, upgrade your characters and more, then you're going to be forced into the long walks of boredom.
That's not to say that you'll be walking through an environment that looks horrible. In fact, the graphics of Mutant Year Zero are done very well with amazing lighting effects. The camera system is also sufficient and not over complicated or cumbersome. The character models are unique and detailed, but the real graphical power stems from the Zone itself. Another joy I found was that the music really fit the experience of the game in a manner that I was quite skeptical about. However, from the moment I started playing, the ambient audio and musical soundtrack were a treat from start to finish.
From an innovative way to incorporate on the fly tactical strategy into an action adventure game, to a simplistic yet robust upgrading system, Mutant Year Zero is one of the best experiences you can have on the Xbox platform. A few setbacks though can't diminish the tremendous amount of enjoyment I found trying one strategy, failing miserably, reloading the save, trying another strategy, failing miserably and repeating the process until I was successful. This feeling of accomplishment means that every battle of Mutant Year Zero means something, and thus a fantastic and challenging experience from start to end. Due to all this, it's easy to say that Mutant Year Zero is well worth the $34.99 price tag and should be on everyone's radar as a must have.
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
Ashen
When someone tells me a game is along the lines of Dark Souls, I instantly picture myself spending an exorbitant amount of time dying and respawning in a seemingly endless cycle until a checkpoint or goal is reached/obtained. I personally am incredibly poor at games like this, so when I had the chance to dive into Ashen, I thought it would be best to begin the game with an open mind; and I'm ever so thankful that I did. When I saw that the price tag was $39.99, I was optimistically cautious that what we could be looking at is an amazing sleeper of a hit. Let's get right into it and find out what we have here in Ashen.Ashen refers to a god-like entity of light. This light radiates from the Ashen and bestows upon the various kingdoms its radiance by which each culture adapts it to fit their needs. Ashen boils down to a generic 'save the light from the dark by killing the dark' experience that we've had before. I'm not going to spoil the plot because it's one you have to experience to enjoy. I will say though that you'll experience all of this in the opening segments, and be thrown right into the story where you'll learn about Ashen's core, the creation of bonds.
Ashen thrives upon you developing relationships with others that you meet. Individuals will help you along your way, but require a side quest in order to gain their favor. Throughout your questing you'll come across items that will fulfill side quests, and you can choose whether or not you wish to complete the quest and give the items to their designated people, or you can keep the item for yourself. Should you decide to relinquish your item, then they will provide you with various skills that you can utilize.
These bonds that you create are unique to every character you meet, so you will get to experience a number of diverse side quests that most of the time will boil down to just go somewhere, kill something, collect reward and repeat. As you complete your quests and grow your home base, Vagrant's Rest, you will find that more abilities will open up for your character in regard to crafting and upgrades. While you make your progress and tend to others, you will watch as your base begins to grow not just in population, but also in development. As you help others, it become startling how you see your base almost blossom in front of your eyes. Now remember, these quests are optional, but they do serve a critical purpose, and that is to teach you to work together.
Yes, you'll have an NPC character accompany you, however, that AI can be replaced by another human in a seamless drop in/out method. You'll rapidly become to realize that to access various areas of the map itself, you will be required to work as a team to traverse and explore the wilderness and caves. It must also be noted that if someone joins your game, they can go off on their own and completely leave your side as well. While this doesn't bode well to fostering good teamwork, remember that you will also be needed should the other person wishes to access areas that require cooperation. This harmonic balance is what will keep people working together and is a remarkable trait that is rarely found in gaming today.
Should you decide to go at Ashen solo, you will be granted your AI teammate, but their playstyle will forever be less than a human controlled character. There is a knock against the co-op though, as if you want to have a dedicated friend join up rather than a random player or an AI counterpart. To accomplish this, you must first go into settings, then after you adjust your settings, you then must enter a code which you have to give to your friend so they can link to your game and join you, then you are required to essentially stand in the same spot in the world. Should all of this work flawlessly, then your friend will be directly linked to your game. I don't know, but I thought a simple invite system that's found on almost every other game that allowed for co-op would be a lot more simplistic, because, should one step fail, then you have to do this all over again. Also, should you fast travel on the map or perish, then guess what you're going to be doing again? For a game so centered around developing bonds and cultivating friendships and teamwork, Ashen really puts a lot of confusing steps in place to do it.
Outside of the cumbersome steps needed to partner up with a friend, you'll quickly come to terms with the Right Stick and the B button, as you realize that a majority of the game involves combat, and the Right Stick allows you to lock onto an enemy, so you don't end up flailing your weapon around hitting nothing but air. Your B button is your infamous dodge move which will save your hide, provided you have enough stamina, and that is also another sad reality; that Ashen boils down to simple stamina management for its gameplay. Your Right Bumper gives you a light attack, Right Trigger gives you a hard attack, and each take away their own amount of stamina. Your dodging as well takes away stamina, and if you have to dodge twice you may not have enough left in the tank to engage your opponent right away. This technique of managing your dodging with your attacking, and stamina amount, will be of the upmost importance to master, especially when dealing with the game's bosses who can one shot you without a successful dodge.
After you perfect your mastery of the controls, you'll be able to enjoy the incredible lands of Ashen. Beautiful scenery blankets every unique area and adds an artistic flair to the realistic graphics we have come to know and expect. Caves and underground labyrinths feel enclosed and can be tricky to navigate, while the wide-open space of the world of Ashen can leave you vulnerable to unseen spear and arrow attacks from a distance, so I learned quickly to always be aware of your surrounding areas. I will say though, that one of the biggest surprises to me, by a mile, is the soundtrack. An acoustic wet dream of harmonies that play off the lands and your actions make every single moment of Ashen an incredible experience. After playing games since the early 80's, I would easily rate this within my top 10 gaming soundtracks of all time. While the tedious grinding of enemies after I expired would become mundane after doing it so many times, it allowed me to listen to more of the soundtrack, which was a perfect tonic to my depression over my failed gameplay.
There are some technical issues though that plagued Ashen. For instance, I would encounter some screen lag when multiple moving items were on the screen at one time. I also would experience game crashes should I spin the camera around too fast and for too long. I also encountered some more game crashes when I tried to do a trade with some of the NPC traders. Each one of these crashes involved me having to restart the game entirely. Thankfully though, all of my currency and items were still there when my character got back into the world. I must make note though, if you're a purist when it comes to achievements, brace yourselves because there are numerous 17-point achievements that you can obtain.
For a hack and slash game that adapts the traits of a Dark Souls, to focus on the formation and cultivation of bonds between characters, Ashen is a game that came out of nowhere to positively surprise me. Despite the technical glitches, the grinding and the dying, I found the game beautiful to behold, angelic to listen to, and a story that delivers a tremendous punch. A44 did a tremendous job developing a game that is worth every penny of the $39.99 asking price. It goes without saying that if you're a fan of adventure games, hack and slash games, or Souls type games, then Ashen needs to be on your must buy list.
Suggestions: do away with the 17 point achievements.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Darksiders III
One of the greatest sources of all story material relates to the eternal battle between Heaven and Hell, where Earth and humanity is caught in the middle. In the past, THQ (who is now THQ Nordic) has provided us such tales in the Darksiders series. With little to no advertisement, Darksiders descended upon the public, like the horseman that they are, and was so surprisingly good that it spawned its own cult following by being the literal definition of a sleeper hit. Dark times fell upon THQ and the company dissolved, and in doing so, caused uncertainty in the future of the Darksiders’ stories. While the stories were told for War and Death, there were two stories whose fate was now up in the air, until now.News came of Darksiders being picked up, and with THQ Nordic now being at the helm of the IP, and it seemed like everything was green lit to be moving forward with the tale, all while everyone was clamoring over their Red Dead Redemption 2's, Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc. THQ Nordic casually released Darksiders III, and it literally picks up right where we left off from the previous two titles. This time though, the horseman you play isn't War or Death, but this time you tell Fury's story.
Fury is the female horseman who is quite literally the most impatient and conceited horseman we have experienced to date. While War was tormented, and Death seemed arrogant, Fury wants it all and wants it now. Should anything delay that, and Fury will annihilate anything preventing that from occurring. While the council deliberates and investigates War's actions, Fury's job is to track down the Seven Deadly Sins who have broken loose from the Council's grasp and return them to the council so that order may be restored to the precious balance so eagerly sought.
The story is what primarily made Darksiders such an iconic tale. Describing the balance between Heaven and Hell with humanity locked in the middle, and thankfully this story keeps to the same grounds. Each sin is represented in a manner that suits each representation: Wrath is a juggernaut of vengeance and power, Sloth is a lazy overweight character that would rather sacrifice his minions to do its work than exert force of his own and Lust is an enchantress of desire that will make you obtain everything you ever wanted for a price. There is one character that thankfully makes their return to the game, the merchant Vulgrim; a humble merchant of trinkets, consumables and artifacts for Fury.
Now the same principal background of obtaining new powers throughout the story also applies as well to this latest Darksiders entry. While you play a rider of the apocalypse, you are without the necessary powers to complete your mission. As Fury is tested, and passes, she will obtain new powers. Think of these new powers almost as elemental enhancements. The flame enchantment will allow her to a propelled jump to reach new heights, the lightning enchantment will allow her to perform a glide move at the height of her double jump and can make use of wind vents to help propel her into the air and cross greater distances. These new elemental powers are mapped to your A, B, X, and Y buttons, and can be called upon instantly with just a simple button combination such as LB + A. As Fury also eliminates enemies, she will be able to call upon 2 additional forms of attack. One of them is based off the selected element she is currently using, which is activated with LB+RT, and the other one is her wrath form where she becomes an unrelenting powerful force of pure aggression but only does Arcane damage (you’ll hear more about Arcane damage later), and it only lasts for a short while.
It goes without saying that these new abilities mean one thing. Going back to the beginning and finding new areas to explore that were once unreachable for you. This sense of grinding has been at the forefront of Darksiders since its inception, however, it's taken to a new extreme level in this latest release. One of the most notable downfalls has to be with their lurcher currency and how it's lost upon death. Let me give you an example.
Say you're wandering around and slaughtering enemies left and right for over an hour, but then you get caught and you end up dying. Now not only will you spawn at the last Vulgrim location, but your lurcher (currency) count will reset to 0, and as such, EVERY ENEMY you killed will also respawn. So, what I found myself doing is going back and re-farming from the beginning over and over again. The tediousness of this is indescribable, however, when you get back to the same place you died, you'll find a massive blue lurcher element that you can hit with your whip and reclaim all your lost currency that is now added onto your new total. While very time consuming, very profitable in the end. However, you're going to be dying quite a bit in the beginning, so maybe save this till later.
The reason you're going to be dying a lot is that Fury, even for being a Horseman of the Apocalypse, is incredibly weak. I don't know why. The Charred Council that helps control the balance, and who created the Horsemen, made them fragile and powerless for whatever reason. You'll be falling in love very rapidly with the RB which is your dodge button. Should you time it right, not only will you dodge the attack and receive no damage, but you'll also gain a window to unleash an arcane attack that can cause severe damage (pending you upgrade your skill; more on that later) but also open up a window of vulnerability against your opponent where you can chain together more attacks. However, while getting accustomed to the RB and it's timing of the enemy's attacks, you'll suffer a lot of damage and die quite frequently. You've been warned.
The gameplay itself is decent, however, there are some issues that plague it. One of the issues I found most annoying dealt with the lack of a mini map. This took a long, long time to get acclimated to because with no map of any sort to guide you, you find yourself wandering around levels like that Pulp Fiction meme trying to figure out where to go next. Another issue with the gameplay is the whole lock on feature never felt right. You can use the LT to lock onto an enemy and then use the RS to cycle through enemies attacking you, so you can select which one to focus on. Sounds great, however in doing so you can lose focus of the other 4 enemies coming at you and dealing damage to you. While the focus is great for a 1v1 engagement, it becomes irrelevant and damn near suicidal if you decide to use it in a group. Other drawbacks include pressing in the Right Stick to engage in an over the shoulder targeting mode, which is ok, but you lose your peripheral vision, so it becomes more focused. Again, this is great if you need it to go 1 on 1, but if you use it in a group setting, you're cutting off at least half your vision which will certainly lead to death.
As I was progressing through Darksiders, I did notice that music and soundtrack sadly was quite forgettable. There was though, one section of the game and that is when you get to the maker's building that has some absolutely incredible music. I found myself actually pausing there for a while just to listen to it. In case you were wondering, the maker is where Fury goes to upgrade her weapons and her enhancements. Each enhancement carries with it two properties. So, for example, one enhancement would be 1: Rejuvenate health per minute and 2: Increase lurcher count spawned by destroying objects. Now you can only select 1 path to upgrade the enchantment, but when you do the 4th upgrade in your path you'll find that both paths combine at the end to create a balanced enchantment. While the lurcher may be good for currency, health is always a blessing, so it's always best to prepare for the long term. Now as Fury progresses and acquires new powers, so too does she acquire new weapons. Outside of her whip you’ll find she will have spears, some form of fire nunchaku and much more. All of which can be upgraded.
As the maker is used for upgrading your equipment, Vulgrim the merchant is used for upgrading your character. Using the lurchers you collect you can feed them to Vulgrim who, after enough have been acquired, will grant you an ability point which you can use to upgrade one of three classes: Health (how much damage you can take), Strength (how much damage you deal) and Arcane (how much damage you do when going into arcane mode and perfectly dodging attacks). I found that it was in my best interest to focus on building my character's health and strength, but as I approached the later levels, upgrading the arcane stat has been incredibly valuable.
I must take a moment now because I have to say that the graphics of Darksiders III is something that not only pays homage to the style that we have become accustomed to throughout the series, but has provided moments of incredible beauty. There was a moment where I explored and found my way into a cave that was only lit with soft blue bioluminescence pods which looked like a blanket of blue stars in the night sky. There were enemies there that were a greenish tint that glowed like a blacklight, and the whole area was drop dead gorgeous. Each area has its own distinctive feel to it which gives it a very unique feeling as you move from level to level, but it's more than just complete a level and move on, as you are essentially exploring a world. Think of it as an origami piece that you unfold and discover one crease at a time until you unfold everything and see the final picture. While frustrating at first, the concept is wonderfully executed. Sadly, when it comes to the graphics, there were numerous times when the frame rate did drop significantly and there were other graphical hiccups that didn't occur at the most opportune times, but in the overall scheme of things, they were few and far between.
There was something though that was missing from the classic Darksiders games of the past, and that were the puzzles. While they do exist in Darksiders III, they are few and far between and much more simplistic than what came before them. This shifts the focus to be more about combat than puzzle solving, which can be OK should you favor more action; however, the game is about restoring balance, and yet Darksiders III seems heavily out of balance. Instead of thinking how to get a multi-step puzzle completed, it usually boils down to hack your way to a point, do something relatively simplistic and repeat until the puzzle is solved.
Overall my experience of Darksiders III has been one of a rollercoaster, full of highs and lows, which is to be expected since that seems par for the course. I have to tip my cap though to everyone involved in bringing Darksiders III to life, and if you have played War and Death's story, then you will be more than excited to know that Fury's narrative is every bit as incredible as you have come to expect. Darksiders, when it was released, became the definitive example of a sleeper hit, and like the Phoenix that arises from the ashes, Darksiders III has been resurrected in a fashion that lays the ground work for a tremendous conclusion to the series should we get Darksiders IV and the final chapter of the horsemen and the apocalypse. If you're a fan of hack and slash adventure games with an incredible story, then this should be on your list of must have games to purchase.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Chronus Arc
When you say to me that you have a retro RPG game that involves time manipulation, my mind instantly puts you up against the legendary game Chrono Trigger. When you name your game Chronus Arc, that almost guarantees you to be under the largest magnification possible. KEMCO has done a great job in delivering classic RPG games with a retro feel before, but now with so many releases, is it becoming more of a cookie cutter approach rather than a unique individual story that delivers an iconic experience? With a price tag of $14.99, KEMCO has high aspirations with this game, but let's see if it's worth it, because in reality, we can't rewind bad decisions.Right off the bat I have to unfortunately knock this game. While a classic SNES JRPG styled game sounds amazing, the reality is that this game falls incredibly short on the one thing that it should excel at, and that's the story.
There are items called the Chronus fragments, and once every 10 years, the god Houra (creative naming...) essentially rewinds the time of existence, which in turn will repair broken items such as weapons and heirlooms. To do this you have to think of the past, as a copy that is temporarily overlaid into reality. While the foundation seems to have substance that would make Stephen Hawking excited, the delivery leaves it a watered-down experience at best.
You play the role of Loka, who is training under a sorcerer knight named Tech. You both set off and attempt to gather the Chronus fragments when all of a sudden you are ambushed, and before you know it, your master is gone and the Chronus fragments are missing. Now, here is where you think that the story is going to dive into some grand adventure, but unfortunately this is where I sadly crush your dreams by telling you that the experience is a little over 8 hours long and relatively meaningless.
Throughout the game's narrative, and what I'm calling a McAdventure, you are joined by some unoriginal characters that you develop absolutely no connection to for any reason. They join you for their own mysterious reasons that aren't well detailed, so their impact is relatively minimal to the overall narrative. So maybe the story isn't the best thing, but how is the gameplay? Classic JRPG's from the SNES days had great gameplay, but does Chronus Arc have it as well?
Short answer, no. Yes, the classic turn-based battle system returns in all its nostalgic glory; however, that's where the enjoyment ends, and the trudging begins. There is a total of four classes that you can choose from: cleric, sorcerer, warrior or assistant (yes that's an actual class), yhough later in the game you can unlock a special class, but should you feel compelled to achieve it, I'll let you enjoy uncovering it. Each class provides unique pros and cons to battle, but the real problem here stems from changing classes. Let's say you grind (I'll explain that later on) your characters up and learn some new abilities, but low and behold, when you switch your class you are reset back to level 1, but you do keep the skills and abilities you learned before, but your stats take a hit.
In order to do all of this though, you'll need to purchase a tome which costs a whopping 50 mana, which is the currency in Chronus Arc. You'll gain 1 mana for every 5 opponents killed, so grab some popcorn, because you'll be grinding for a VERY long time considering at most you can have 4 enemies on the screen per each individual battle. So, get ready to grind 250 enemies just to switch your class. But let's say you want to open up your character's own special class? That'll set you back 100 mana. This happens to go hand in hand with the game's internal quest system that forces you to find items which enemies drop in battle, so this is how the game justifies the long and drawn out grind of mediocrity. Oh, how I wish I was done now, but you need to know the whole truth.
So, you have your irrelevant characters and you're marching about doing pointless grinding for things that are relatively meaningless, and that's when it hits you: Chronus Arc's ridiculous brick wall of difficulty and XP. Chronus Arc starts you off with enemies that will naturally pose a challenge to your team, though you should be able to dispatch them with relative ease, but as you progress, the difficulty level takes a trajectory path that would have NASA cheer as it goes into orbit.
Me and my jolly band of misfits were walking around some woods, grinding enemies for quest completions by one-shotting enemies, and then we enter a cave about 2-character widths away when me and my team are instantly crushed in a single blow. The difficulty curve is beyond anything I've ever experienced in all my decades of gaming, and when compiled with a lackluster story, it really drains all the would-be life out of the game itself. Or so I thought.
The nail in the coffin belongs to the XP brick wall you'll face. As you grind by killing enemies, you'll naturally level up. As you level up, and you gain more material, you can obtain items that can give you up to 2x experience. However, the real issue comes when you hit level 30. This, for whatever reason, almost forces you into microtransactions just to proceed. Chronus Arc offers microtransactions to make elements and aspects of this game more manageable, and when you face the reality that not even a 3x experience boost means relatively anything, you start to feel like you got taken to the cleaners by the ShamWow guy; however, while you may be upset, there is actually a bright spot to Chronus Arc, and that would be the puzzles.
Chronus Arc fills its dungeons and caves with their version of puzzles. These puzzles are found in three basic forms including hitting switches, moving blocks/jars, or a combination of both. This is a fantastic break from the monotony of grinding enemies for materials or trying to learn whatever you can from the watered down back stories of your fellow team members. There is something that needs to be said though, and that is when you are manipulating a puzzle you HAVE TO, and let me repeat that, HAVE TO, work it out ahead of time in regards to how to reach the solution to the puzzle. The reason for this is that you can only push blocks and cannot pull them, so think of this is as basically managing a massive 1-way puzzle. Should you get stuck and need to reset, which will happen a lot, that's easy to do, but with proper planning you should find no difficulty with the puzzles.
Regrettably, Chronus Arc can easily be considered a cash grab by a company who believes in the quantity of games rather than the quality. Chronus Arc was first released in 2013, and unlike a good wine, it doesn't get better with age. It's unfortunate that an anemic story that had tremendous potential got overshadowed by numerous setbacks and problems which make the already short gameplay an even less entertaining experience. When you start factoring in the recycled audio that you'll hear constantly due to your need to 'grind', the desire to even finish the game feels like a waste of time.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
V-Rally 4
It's no secret that I'm in LOVE with rally racing, as I have followed the WRC for over 20 years like an addict. I regard it as some of, if not, THE most difficult driving in the world. While others take to tracks to pass each other on smooth tarmac, nothing will put hair on your chest faster than doing 90mph on a narrow gravel path where on one side you have a mountain face and the other side is a drop of a couple hundred feet. Recently I had a chance to review the latest V-Rally 4 game by developer Kylotonn and hoped that this would be a rally game that went toe to toe with such icons in the genre as DiRT. Given that the last V-Rally game was over 15 years ago, how does it stack up in today's world? Grab a helmet.Shifting into first, we see that V-Rally 4 is quite anemic when it comes to its game modes. You have the V-Rally mode which is regarded as your campaign mode. Your other options are quick race mode and multiplayer. For the sake of this review I'm going to primarily focus on the V-Rally mode. Your campaign is actually broken up into various styles, and while it may seem to possess a wild bounty of options, in reality there are only two basic styles of racing; against the clock or against opponents. Your basic rally race will consist of you taking your car through fictional courses (more on this later) and trying to beat the time set by your opponents.
The hill climb rally function is the same thing, except you're literally going up a seemingly massive mountain side road with tons of hairpins and steep cliff drop-offs. Kylotonn has included a mode that is called the Extreme Khana, which is heavily focused on taking your car and drifting it like crazy throughout developed centers. Now, if we shift our focus to the other racing style we have two practices, Buggy and Rally Cross. These both involve you on a shortened track competing in lap-based races where the only difference between the two is that one involves Buggy vehicles and the other does not.
So, it's safe to say that Kylotonn has done a great job trying to incorporate a fresh new take on how rally racing should go. This concept is also found within the races themselves. They have opted to do away with the traditional WRC courses that we have come to expect. Instead, they have created fresh new courses placed all over the globe that are designed to keep your grip on your controller tight for hours and your body leaning into every single turn. This is mainly due to the fact that the game's driving physics are not the best to be found.
You do have an option to adjust your handling of your car before a race, but you don't get to experience it to decide if your changes will benefit you in any way until you get into the actual race itself. For its defense, you can customize a ton of settings within your car from suspension, brakes, and more, and through the game's upgrade system (more on that later) you can improve your car's handling ability to some extent. Make no mistake, V-Rally 4 delivers a driving experience comparable to using the Force while driving a car, and with little to no hand holding or any form of driver assistant or rewind feature, other than a repositioning button (for when you go flying off the track). The learning curve for V-Rally 4's gameplay is about as steep as the cliff you're going to drive off of.
What this means is that you will crash... a lot. You will come in last... a lot. You will become frustrated beyond belief. However, if you stick with it, there will come a time when your frustrations give way to your newly developed driving style, and you'll start to see improvement, and this is how V-Rally 4 will keep you hooked. However, there is a problem as well, because when you're trying to drive, your only form of a map comes from your co-driver who is supposed to give you notes on the upcoming sections of the track. You have no mini map, so the notes become absolutely essential, and sometimes your co-driver either delays in their instruction or they will get an attitude and dump a bunch of instructions in your lap to make you not only remember them all, but also force you figure them out as you're driving along in this poorly controlled vehicle.
These types of issues are massive dings in the game, but to help V-Rally gain some points back there is more to the career than just pick a race and go. Now you must manage your own team from multiple points and perspectives. First off, you'll be hiring an agent to help you unlock other courses to compete in around the world. This is where you'll also notice that as you progress there will be races that require you to pay a fee to get into to a race event. As you get a better agent, their cost to you per week goes up as well. This is a trend you'll see with the rest of your employees.
I say employees because you'll also be tasked to hire engineers to develop new additions and performance upgrades to your vehicle. You are also required to hire a maintenance crew. As you navigate your rally stages, your vehicle will become damaged, so it will be up to you to repair the car at your own expense. The better the mechanics you have, the more money they cost you to repair your car, but the cost to repair your car goes down. So, think of it as a balance of finances. You'll spend a certain amount of your accumulated cash per week on your entire staff and also must manage your expenses for your upgrades and repair work. Think of this aspect like being your own boss, but without all the paperwork, W-2 forms and HR harassment videos.
Now, there is one thing that V-Rally does and does very well, and that is make the stages of each course look BEAUTIFUL. This game does look jaw droppingly gorgeous, and even though the tracks are fictional, the scenery is quite amazing. From the multicolored flower filled fields in Japan, to Monument Valley’s rock structures that erupt from the sandy grounds, this is V-Rally's strong point, and it shows it well. However, this also means that the audio is beyond reprehensible. First off, the noises of the engines are flat and unrealistic in their delivery and performance, but while that is bad, nothing compares to the horrible music they have in the actual game itself. Imagine one bad hip-hop track (and I mean like phenomenally bad) that is stuck on an endless loop cycle. I personally wish there was as much effort put into the audio of the game as there was applied to the visual aspect, but I'm not Kylotonn.
The last gripe I have with the game is the lack of cars. While yes, rally racing doesn't have a lot of manufacturers, the number of cars that you can choose from is incredibly thin. Several reasons could be considered for this to be the case, such as not being able to get actual cars to render and model to just being lazy. But when you can't have a classic Subaru Vs. Mitsubishi rally rivalry, I'm already going to be docking it a point.
This type of stuff seems to be my biggest frustration with this game. Every time it takes a step forward in its production value, it seems like something happens resulting in the game taking two steps backwards, and you're left feeling a sense of disappointment. Limited car selection, poor audio, challenging driving mechanics that that feel like a blind folded staffer was the model, really hit this game hard. There seems to be more focus on trying to make the tracks look pretty rather than make a great driving experience, and this is why I would pass on the $59.99 price tag. Saying that breaks my heart, but in reality, V-Rally 4 maybe shouldn't have come back yet?
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10
Moonfall Ultimate
There are games that take you back to days of simpler times; where the action was always enjoyable and the experience made you yearn for more. Games like Golden Axe may be like Sanskrit to those who think a PS2 is an antique, but these action/RPG side scrolling games provided countless gamers from around the world incredible amounts of enjoyment, so much so that they have etched themselves into gaming lore. Fishcow Studio is now trying to make their mark by releasing Moonfall Ultimate for the Xbox One, so let's see how many boxes we can check off and find out if Moonfall Ultimate deserves a rightful place at the top of this prestigious category.As we venture forth, it is worth noting that Moonfall Ultimate does NOT support online multiplayer, but does support local co-op, so if you have a friend (doubtful though) that wants to come over and take part in this hack and slash RPG adventure, then they are welcomed. I'm sorry, but I have to ding this game right off the bat for something like this. Having some form of lobby system or the ability to invite people to connect online is a trait found in other games of the same genre, so not including this feature seems a little apathetic.
In Moonfall Ultimate you get to pick to make your character one of three different classes:
1) Vanguard - Consider this your warrior/tank class. These characters can hit like a freight train and take a lot of damage, but that's about it. They do have some drawbacks though, as is to be expected.
2) Elementalist - Here are your magic wielders. These characters can sling powers of fire, ice, and more and can apply these magical traits to their own weapons as well. The downside? They can get damaged very easily, as in VERY easily. Range is going to be your friend.
3) Shadow - These characters are your trap laying assassins. They specialize in distractions that keep your enemies busy while you go in for the kill. While this is nice, they do require a lot of work to take enemies down so expect a very long fight.
Each one of these types of characters possess a skill tree that offer unique abilities that can either impact a single enemy or deliver an attack that affects an area. Points are earned through leveling up and can be assigned to the corresponding skills, provided that any prerequisite skill is already unlocked. The classes that are offered are poised to deliver a classic balanced experience, however, there are a few problems that lurk below the surface and that deals with the game play.
First, your character controls are incredibly poor. Using your stick to move your character, you get the feeling that they are in desperate need of decaf coffee, because the movements are ridiculously jarring. You will eventually become accustomed to the speed, but the learning curve is exponentially high and that is also thanks to the biggest problem, that being the unfair targeting system. Let me explain what I mean by that.
Enemies you will face can fire ranged attacks at you, and every shot they fire, even if they are above or below you on the screen, will directly fly right at your character. However, this Robin Hood like precision isn't bestowed upon your character at all, so your character will ultimately find the best method to hit someone is to run right in and swing your weapon. This reality though essentially makes the other classes other than Vanguard an almost waste of time. I strongly recommend that you tackle the game on easy difficulty until you can get the feel for the game mechanics, otherwise you're going to be learning the hard way why the Left Trigger block feature is going to be your best friend.
Now I've been talking about the gameplay mechanics a lot and they are fairly simplistic. Your skills are mapped to the face buttons such as X, Y, etc and your potions are the Right and Left Bumpers that identify with your health and mana gauges which are located in the top left corner. Your D-Pad acts as your interactive portal and will allow you to read scrolls, open chests, hit switches and so forth. Despite all of this, sadly the combat will almost always boil down to you swinging your weapon in close range combat.
There's another issue as well and that involves the storyline. It had potential to be tremendous, but sadly feels very underwhelming and pointless. It's your classic trope about several kingdoms are at peace but one, then this lonely kingdom harnesses the magical powers of a fallen space rock, causing all the other kingdoms make deals to use the technology, thus the Empire was born. Peace reigned for years, and then the king of the Empire died and that is when the other kingdoms started a civil war for dominance (think watered down Game of Thrones but without the hot women, well written plot, developed characters, etc. You get the picture).
Since going through this story can be relatively quick, you'll spend a lot of time trying to trudge through various side quests where you'll have to rescue someone or defeat some sub boss character, but thankfully you'll earn this shiny blue element gems which act as currency where you can trade them in for items, weapons and armor back at your camp. Think of these as necessary evils because the bulk of your experience and currency will be earned through them.
There is a bright spot though, and that is Moonfall Ultimate is a very beautiful game to look at. The artwork in each level looks like a piece of freshly painted backdrop from a master's canvas, and each character, including the enemies, are done in such detail that you'd be hard pressed to find another game in this genre that looks as good, if not better.
I wish I had better news readers, I really do, but regrettably Moonfall Ultimate is far from ultimate. It actually pains me to say this because I was looking forward to an incredible gaming experience, yet found nothing that came close. You would think that with such classic iconic titles of the past, and those that are still actively being utilized to this day (Diablo, I'm looking at you), that developing a solid gameplay action RPG game would almost be too easy to create.
Moonfall Ultimate had potential unlike very few other games had before it, but like an Elementalist whose out of mana, its quality went up in a puff of smoke. As I stated earlier, there are games that take you back to days of simpler times, yet sadly Moonfall Ultimate isn't one of them, where the action was always enjoyable and the experience made you yearn for more. For $12.49 you can purchase this or save a little more and get a high quality game such as Diablo 3. I think you know what the best route to take is going to be.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Hero Defense
I love tower defense games. I love the strategy that they bring to the gameplay that involves you having to manage your resources while trying to figure out, usually on the fly, the best methods to surviving the round and making it to the next. I like to think of tower defense games as those that constantly challenge the player through an ever-evolving adaptive combination of enemies and difficulty. Recently Headup Games has released a tower defense game called Hero Defense for the price of $29.99 ($23.99 on sale now) which offers a new twist that we never really have seen before; demon hunting. So, let's see if this game can survive to the end or if it gets overwhelmed and consumed by darkness, shall we?The premise behind Hero Defense is quite simple. There is a main character whose father just happens to be the world's most powerful vampire, and it's up to him and a bunch of other people you'll be introduced to along the way, to eliminate the vampire and save humanity; hooray! When you begin the game will take you through a very, and I mean VERY, diluted walkthrough to get you acclimated to the game and how it handles, and right off the bat there's going to be a problem. The camera.
It's not abnormal for players of RTS, Tower Defense, RPG's or any game for that matter, to want to control the camera. In Hero Defense that's not entirely possible. You're allowed to pan the camera around on a flat 2D plane, but there are no controls for rotate or zoom (if there are, the game has them so hidden they are almost a figment of the imagination). This can be a tremendous annoyance when you gather that each level has its own unique feel to it, and the rotation that automatically kicks in (sorry, but you can't stop it from happening) when you drag your cursor to the side of the screen with your Right Stick, becomes so twisted that you have no other option but to be contempt with a frozen angle. Given that the game is focused almost entirely around the camera system, this is a massive hit right from the beginning.
As you start off you'll acquire new heroes to join your quest, each of which have their own independent, but useless story, of which there is literally no importance. Almost every level has a shack or two that carries with them some survivors that apparently think riding out the storm of the world's most dangerous vampire is a cool thing to do, and one of the sub-goals is to keep these people safe as enemies wander down their path. If you keep them safe they will be added to your "angry mob" which, when activated using the 'X' button, will send a horde of citizens with pitchforks and torches to travel down the path and attack any enemies they find in their wake. Should you use them to confront a boss character, there's a good chance a lot, if not all of them, will perish, but they will do their duty to help your cause. These angry mobs are limited in use, as you can only get them by saving civilians in the levels.
While this concept adds a level of humor and safety, this doesn't do anything to help drive the narrative, and in fact, does quite the opposite by literally taking the game and breaking it down into color matching. Let me explain. When you gain new characters to your party you'll see that each of them carries with them their own color (Red, Blue, Orange, Pink, Purple). Each one of these heroes has their own weapon style as well.
Red is best suited for heavy damage to an individual target, but through proper character development (which I'll talk about later) you can get him to be a mob killing machine. Blue offers you the ability to slow down enemies and support other players nearby with buffs that increase attack range and power. Orange fires pumpkin bombs (think Green Goblin) that are designed to do significant area of effect attacks. Next up, Pink wields a baseball bat and jumps down into the line of enemies and literally goes berserk, able to (once fully upgraded) go down a line of opponents and decimate them all. Finally, Purple has these boomerang type bladed weapons that can hit from very long range and is setup to wipe out entire mobs over time. These colors though, are important for one specific reason.
Each one of these colors corresponds to a weakness for the varying enemies, which you can tell by their square in the lineup at the top of the screen. You simply have to start matching whatever color is going to benefit you most and placing it in a position to provide your squad the best effect possible while being supported by the other characters. This philosophy plays in tandem with the levels themselves, as they contain certain regions that allow you to install power-up shrines that can either be generic in their bonuses (anyone standing on the power-up gets double damage, double range, double attack speed, etc.) or they can be character specific where ONLY that one character can receive the bonus while the others cannot. You will have to decide carefully because each one of these upgrades costs you gems which involves another part of the game; the currency.
Hero Defense is setup to where you earn gold throughout each level for the enemies you defeat, and when you acquire enough gold you can take that to your town's bank and exchange it for gems. Gems will allow you to buy things such as upgrade your character's weapons, runes (I'll talk about shortly) and upgrading the forge. Gems also act as a currency for purchasing power-up shrines throughout the levels, but like I said, you must plan wisely. Let's say you wish to make one shrine on a level a double damage spot. So, you hit the Left Trigger to pause the game and press X to bring up your builder wheel. You can cycle through the different shrine locations with the Right and Left Bumpers, but let's say you want to put a double damage shrine on one area and it costs 5 gems. When you do it again, it'll be 10, next will be 20 and then 40, so BE CAREFUL because if you do that and let's say you want to switch it out for double range, well you'll have to spend more gems again if you wish to put the double damage back. Oh, and there's no way to reset the count unless you start a brand-new game (something I learned about a bit late the hard way).
Earlier I mentioned that you have a bank where you can go and exchange gold for gems. You also can spend gold to upgrade your bank where you can spend less gold on the gem packs you buy. Each building in your town can be upgraded just like the bank, however, the forge (where you do your weapon upgrades) is only upgradable via gems. Each building can reach level 15 which is it's max, however, your town hall is currently glitched and is actually broken to the point where you won't even unlock the achievement for upgrading your entire town. This is also disappointing given that upgrading your town hall also upgrades your angry mob and their strength as well. Honestly though, it didn't matter since I never went to it anyways. You'll find that your time will be spent between the Academy (where you go to upgrade your characters), Forge (where you go to upgrade your weapons), and the Bank (where you go to get gems) while the rest of the time you will be grinding and farming away.
You've read about my mentioning of the weapon upgrades at the forge, and there's a bit more to it than that. In the forge you will house different tiers of runes. They start off in the generic grey category and move onto green, blue, purple and finally orange. These runes offer your character various traits to their weapons such as increased range, speed, extra projectiles, etc. Your character weapons start off with 1 row on top, which you can fill in with runes, and you'll notice that each one of these runes can be inserted into a numbered slot, with the final slot holding an infinity symbol. This means that as your character levels up throughout the gameplay via the 'Y' button, they will unlock these new rune traits on their weapons, and once you reach level 5 the remaining character upgrades will keep the rune traits in the infinity slot.
While the other colored runes offer all these bonuses, the real treat is when you get the orange runes banging away because they deal tremendous bonuses. Recently I touched on the whole angry mob situation with the game, well, there's an orange rune that allows you to summon a free angry mob, and if you put that rune into the infinity slot, every time you level up your character past level 5, you'll summon a free angry mob without it costing you anything! Other orange runes offer you chances to poison your enemies with your attacks or even launch specific hero abilities that send out attacks all over the screen. For example, your character's crossbow will fire at a rapid, machine gun rate and start sending arrows all over the screen dealing massive damage to any and all enemies! These orange runes are scarce (unless you buy them in the Forge's 150 gem rune packs), so make sure you figure out what works best and how best to apply them.
Hero Defense also offers a wealth of in depth character customization. Just above I mentioned the Academy, where you can take your individual characters and have them apply the skill points that are earned after the end of every completed level. Each level nets you 2 points and each skill are divided up into 5 tiers which cost between 1 and 5 points to activate. Other skills down the tree will ONLY be active when you fill the meter with the corresponding skill before it. So for example, you may not be able to throw double projectiles until you spend enough skill points to activate the first 3 spots in your previous skill. Not to worry though if you over spend in areas that you don't want to because you can always reset your points without any penalty to you in any form. I personally really enjoyed that, as it allowed me to play with the character development without fear of being punished.
Hero Defense is presented in a lighthearted, almost comical way, but the graphics and sound really become lost in the action of the oncoming waves of enemies, and you get the feeling that more attention could be given to those areas. At least each character sounds unique, but when you have no reason to care about them, then there really isn't any point to it. There is now a graphical glitch that can be EXTREMELY annoying which involves the enemies and their health. The graphical glitch happens when your enemies spawn, let's say in the top right corner. You'll see a bunch of health meters appear in the lower left-hand corner that appear to be floating around and drawing closer to the enemies as they proceed down their path. Once the enemies pass a certain point on the screen the health meters seem to gravitate now towards the top of the screen, essentially maintaining a set distance that varies between level, but is never on top of any enemy.
Being such a huge fan of tower defense games, I was giddy like a teenage girl at a Michael Jackson concert at the chance to play Hero Defense, but after running into all these glitches and problems without anything adding to the merit or value of why I should care about the story of the game itself, it literally left me deflated. I love this game, I really do, and I feel now empty inside that such a game has so many issues (the camera system being the worst hands down) that prohibit that enjoyment. Starting out I was set to give this game an easy 90 to 95 score, but as I kept playing the score kept going down and down to the point where I should start looking for other games to play. All of this remind you, is priced at $29.99 regularly, but even now while it's on sale there's no way I can justify purchasing this game even if you're a fan of tower defense games like myself. That is the biggest heartbreak since Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt split up.
Suggestions: Allow for user controlled camera system. Fix important sections of the game (Town Hall). Improve graphical glitches. Allow for cost of shrines to be by level not overall. Make a story worth engaging in.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Fernz Gate
Recently I had an opportunity to review an RPG game that was such a refreshing step back into the nostalgic times, a time where turn based 16-bit RPG games provided hours, days and even weeks worth of enjoyable content that made the days blur together. Thankfully I had another chance to do this, as KEMCO has released Fernz Gate for the Xbox One, and it delivers on a tremendous amount of classic quality that makes you almost feel like you stepped into a time warp. So, let's not waste any more time and find out if this game is worth the $14.99 price tag.As we kick things off, it should be said that there is a very in-depth story to Fernz Gate. Maybe in-depth was a wrong choice of wording. Maybe instead, the words 'excessively deep' makes more sense. In the beginning of Fernz Gate you get to see the backstory of how the Overlord used his ability to steal mana from the people of the planet to take control and overthrow the Goddess of peace and love. Essentially this planet is a peaceful world where they don't take up arms in battle or war, and therefore, they are prime targets for evil to take advantage of. Needless to say, it's up to you and your growing band of heroes to fight through the demons to vanquish the Overlord and save the good people of the world.
To accomplish this, you play the role of Alex, who is a young man who mysteriously gets transported to this peaceful planet. It's here that Alex meets his first companion, Toril, a half-naked woman who uses razor sharp discs as her main weapon. One thing to note is that as you meet these people, there is a common thread that they are deliberately holding back so that your character can try to improve their stats. While noble in theory, I thought it lacked originality. I also said that 'excessively deep' would be a way to describe the story, which is because in between all the childish flirtations that we are accustomed to in Japanese games, the amount of unnecessary dialogue is absolutely tremendous. It gets to the point where you start feeling like God in Monty Python screaming "GET ON WITH IT" and it never happens. I'm not saying that the story itself is bad, just overly worded in a great many places.
As you will see, your world is broken up into various places to explore, each one providing you with a mini-map to help guide you where you need to be. It's fairly simplistic, but it helps when you're trying to think of where to enter a cave or how best to approach a wooded area. Each village offers you the chance to talk to its' residents and find out if there are any tasks for you to take part in. As you go through these, one thing stood out as entirely pointless and annoying, and that was the dialogue that was spoken between the characters.
One quest had me walk to an Inn about 20 feet away, talk to someone to get a book, and then walk back to the person 20 feet away to give it to them, and you could say they were a tad bit enthusiastic about this job I just did. That's when you realize that a lot of the missions you'll be taking part in will require you to do a lot of things for very lazy people. Not really the best way to spend your time, but in a peaceful world, there's not much to do that isn't peaceful to begin with.
You'll also find that as your characters become introduced into more and more supporting cast members, you'll see how each one has his/her/its own personality and attack style. This will become important, given that your party will actually be divided into both attacking and support characters. While you could technically go on the offense with all your characters, the ones designated for support will see a damage reduction, which essentially makes them worthless on the attack, but vital beyond measure in their support role. If you don't have a full party, that's OK, that is what the new buddy system is designed for. These buddies not only compliment the members of your current team, but will also level up and acquire new talents and abilities throughout their use.
This whole system regarding the team felt refreshing to me. Unlike certain RPG's that lock you in with characters, this new system allows you to customize and explore other options when it comes to combat. There is a downfall though, and that is you never really get the sensation that you'll need to care about any of them, thus giving them no real value to the story except for the fact that they will aid you in combat. There is another unexpected surprise though in Fernz Gate and that comes in the form of the Curios.
These devices have multiple uses and can be a great source for leveling up your characters quickly. Their first use is that they can control the frequency that you experience enemy encounters. So, when it feels like you've been walking for a long time and not hit anything, you now can set it up so that your battles occur more frequently. Their second function involves the types of enemies you face. You can increase the grouping of enemies, so you fight more of them, or you can use the gems you win in fights to summon box and jar enemies.
Box and Jar enemies are encounters that give you an opportunity to win amazing items and gear, so long as you survive long enough to defeat all the opponents. In the case of Jar enemies, when you strike them hard enough, you will typically spawn an enemy that pops up out of a jar. However, that enemy will hit you like a freight train, so be prepared to focus your efforts and eliminate it quickly. If you wish to destroy a jar in 1 hit, you will need to use a crowbar, and they will smash a jar in one-character turn. The Box enemies are the same except for the fact that they don't spawn enemies, but dramatically cut your damage, so while you may be used to dealing 20-40 damage early on per character, when you hit a Box enemy you'll do like 3-7 instead. Which you may feel is OK, except that each box has a tremendous amount of HP, so you'll be bashing away at it for quite a while. If you want to destroy a Box enemy in one-character move, you'll need to hit it with a hammer.
I should mention that while you're wailing away at these Box and Jar enemies, there will be other enemies that are on the screen that will attack you too, and should you target them and kill them, then the encounter is over and any Box and Jar enemies that you left alive will disappear, along with that their items they had for you. With each encounter costing 10 gems at first, you'll need to decide carefully just which ones you wish to go after, so you don't end up wasting your valuable currency.
The third use of the Curios is that they act as teleporting waypoints for your party. If you find yourself lost in a dungeon, or you don't want to walk all the way back to the beginning to get to the exit, you can use the Curios to teleport back to the opening of the area you were exploring. This way, if you want to grind an area for a long while and then teleport yourself out of there, you can, or if you want to just breeze through an area where you can limit your spawn rates and head on through easily. While you will encounter less enemies, you won't level up as quickly and, from what I've experienced, you'll have a harder time later on in the game.
All of these encounters come in a traditional turn-based gameplay that is complimented by some very solid retro sounding soundtracks. One aspect that was very pleasing to the ears was the lack of voiceover work. Outside of the occasional sound effect, you were treated to varying overworld music that sounds like it came straight out of the 1990's and was quite entertaining and enjoyable. This was also complimented by a tremendous work on the retro graphics that you find throughout every facet of Fernz Gate. From the trees and rocks of the world, to the character models marching in place, you get the sensation that the team behind this was focused on not creating a modern masterpiece, but creating a gaming experience that feels like it’s been lost to us for ages, and they do an incredible job with the details.
There is a learning curve when it comes to learning your abilities and how to incorporate mana use into your battles; however, once that is accomplished for one character and you understand it, the same principles apply to all characters, so any changes that may come along the way (recharge times, etc) can be easily managed so long as you pay attention. Another little gripe I have is that the entire world that you travel through isn't very big at all. While your quests will have you traveling to the same places repeatedly, you almost have to stack your side quests to minimize the trips you will have to take so you can save time.
Overall, I have to say that for $14.99, Fernz Gate delivers a quality retro RPG experience that shouldn't be missed by fans of the genre. While it may seem a bit shallow at first, Fernz Gate offers a wealth of bounty should you have the time to investigate its depths and acquire it. While you're doing that however, get ready for an fairly amazing experience that will take you straight back into the glory days of quality RPG gaming.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Team based games such as Left 4 Dead have been popular due to the simplicity of their goals. Developer Fatshark has been hard at work on the follow up to Vermintide, which is aptly named Vermintide 2. This team-based game attempts to focus on creating massive battles that require you to survive and conquer the levels with a group of characters in an online party. So, does Fatshark have a smash hit with Vermintide 2, or is the game more anemic with a feeble core? Choose your character and let’s begin.The plot, for those who have never played Vermintide, it is about a land called Ubersreik, where your band of characters fought back the forces of Skaven, who ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity that many thought would last for generations. They were wrong. The heroes (your group of characters) end up being captured (somehow), and as you are navigating towards your doom, you realize that the Skaven armies have a new alliance with a powerful force, The Northmen of Chaos. These armored men bring with them their own unique abilities and challenges to the ones already found in the Skaven forces and have teamed together to bring destruction to Ubersreik.
This open-ended premise is the foundation for the numerous levels found within Vermintide 2 and act as a canvas by which the game’s four acts unfold. Each act contains within it numerous levels (over 10 each) which can be individually played and unlocked through the game’s various modes. This trend of packing in as much content as possible is a common thread you’ll find permeating every facet of Vermintide 2, and it couldn’t be better. In fact, I’ll call it now, that Vermintide 2 has some of the most content packed into a game and when you talk budget prices, easily taking the crown hands down, for every character has different equipment that can be dismantled into resources and forged into head splitting weaponry, body incinerating spells and so much more. It’s these characteristics that you’ll not only improve, but adapt as you level up your individual heroes, but that’s pending you have an internet connection.
Vermintide 2 does require an online connection to play online, however, you can play offline, but none of your accrued stats, levels, and character development will NOT transfer over. You can take your online character information into the offline mode to play with AI characters, but any progress you make will not transfer over to the online game mode. I can’t think of any reason what so ever that this mode would be good to use, except for if you have no internet connection of any sort (which means that you would also have to have a physical copy of the disc because you’d have to have an internet connection if you wished to download it in the first place.) Aside from the AI teammates to assist you, you’ll also be unable to unlock any of the bonuses you get when you level up. Again, this mode is the stripped down, diluted version of what Vermintide 2 is supposed to be and, if I’m honest, feels quite pointless.
Anyways, back to the game. So, you have your character that you chose, and if you bring up the menu you will see just how incredibly deep Vermintide 2 actually is. I thought that the preview was good, but this final product absolutely blew my mind. For starters, there are multiple versions of every character, and every character comes with certain bonuses as well as preferred weaponry. While melee weapons are your primary choice, you’ll have to pay attention to your ammo for your projectile weaponry, otherwise you could be finding yourself up a creek when the **** hits the fan, and what a moment that is.
The overall design of the levels is fairly linear, so you won’t be allowed so much exploration that you find yourself looking around like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. You’ll navigate down a predetermined stretch of environment and then you’ll come to a combat sequence where you’ll have to fight numerous enemies. These range from regular grunts that provide little to no challenge for your melee weapon, to heavily armored demon knights that wield gigantic battle axes and take a long fight to bring down. Then you have your ranged enemies that can lob poisonous fields from afar that cause tremendous area damage, magical enemies that can summon and raise the dead, to those that even are armed with what could easily be considered a flame chain gun that ignites a green pillar of fire in rapid succession that will melt your very core. After fighting these enemies you’ll head through another section of the map and fight some more. You’ll do this all the way to the end when you fight the boss of the level, and when that happens you’ll be glad you have your team at your side, as they are tremendous beasts that take a VERY LONG time to whittle down their health.
Upon completion of a level you’ll gain a loot box (not to worry), and depending on how you do and what secrets you find within the level will determine what type of loot box you get and obviously, the quality of loot that you receive also depends on the type of loot box you earn at the end. These can be items that you can equip or to destroy for resources so you can forge other gear, etc. Then when you’re done, your lobby heads back to the central loading area where you or any member in your group can select what level to do next and vote on it in democratic fashion of course. This whole rinse and repeat action will be your methodology for Vermintide 2, so be prepared for a lot of repetition in your life. To combat this, Fatshark includes challenges that you can play that range in varying degree of difficulty and pay out the rewards that correspond to the difficulty of the challenges.
All of this gory beauty comes wrapped in a presentation that is smooth as silk to run in 4K. From the dynamic changes that each character receives through their leveling system, the character models themselves, to the unique environments, everything is done with a painstaking level of quality that is rarely found within AAA titles today that cost twice as much. Then you have the sound which lends itself to sweeping, epic musical scores that highlight the drama and confrontational points including the bosses. But the real gem of the audio relies on the banter and discussions that the characters have with each other within the levels. Each personality is unique, and if you played the original, then you’ll be happy to know that the characters stay true to their core.
Right now, Vermintide 2 is on the Xbox marketplace and will cost you $29.99, and based off everything I've played, it’s worth every penny. If you love games that you play as a team to overcome levels and slay seemingly endless amounts of enemies while grinding for loot and experience, then Vermintide 2 is an absolute must purchase. Vermintide 2 provides quality work on all fronts, and the best thing is that you can really tell that Fatshark has done a great amount of work developing this game throughout its various stages to its final release.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo Edition
Have you ever played a game that was trying to be a parody of another through near blatant theft, but in the process failed so miserably that you are left feeling more miserable than when you began playing? Welcome to Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo Edition: The Card Warriors. If this title seems a little familiar, it's adapted from the classic Street Fighter games. Developed by Headup Games, and priced at $6.39 on the Xbox Marketplace (at the time this review was submitted), this is a truly unique experience that sadly doesn't end well. Normally I go into talking about the game at this juncture, and point out different aspects of it and give merit where it might be due. Now however, I'm going to tell you why you should stay away from this game at all costs.
The opening sequence is a straight up adaptation of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo's opening. It involves a person with a deck of cards that is shooting them from one hand to another while the music and tension builds, and at the end, the "card warrior" throws the cards towards the screen in a charged up Hadouken fashion. The sad reality is that nothing I just explained to you ever happens, nor is anywhere to be found within the game. You start to wonder then, how do they do a tie in parody of Street Fighter 2 Turbo when the game itself is Blackjack? The answer is, they don't.
After the opening sequence you are treated to three menus where you can play single player combat (single player Blackjack), a challenge mode, and lastly a party mode. I'm going to give you a rundown of all three modes, so let's begin with the single player mode. This is where you will select from a variety of Blackjack players, none of whom have special powers. There's no real difference between the players, so pick whoever you want. After your selection you'll be shown a world map just like you would see in Street Fighter 2 Turbo, with the various country flags and a little airplane that travels from flag to flag. So far, it's sounding like an average homage, so let's keep moving forward.
You arrive at the Blackjack table, and based off your opponent, you will see various animations in the background. The table in Spain has a bull fight in the background, but the table in Columbia has people floating on rafts in a drug lords pool while cocaine residue and men with guns surround the table. These levels try to find the essence of what Street Fighter 2 has always had, but regrettably, fail on numerous accounts and in sometimes, incredible stereotypical fashion. These levels do absolutely nothing to improve the game or contribute anything at all. In Street Fighter 2 Turbo, the stages offered things such as breakable objects, or even interactive elements depending on the fighter chosen. Here though, the Right Bumper, which acts as your taunt button, is your only weapon, ever.
So, now you're at your opponents' table and it's time to fight, so you're thinking things like drink throwing, chip chucking or maybe tributes to Street Fighter such as hundred hand slap, fire balls, upper cuts or anything else found in ANY Street Fighter game, but you will be disappointed. Instead of beating your opponent senseless, your object is to have collected more money than your opponent at the end of 10 rounds (hands). Yes, that's correct, the game that is paying tribute to an iconic fighting game has no sort of contact of any kind. Instead of just playing against the opponent, you'll have to also contend with the dealer. A lot of people would say that dealers have unfair advantages being digitally programmed, but I'm of the mindset that I don't care if they are because there really isn't any point of playing this game to begin with. But let's soldier on, shall we?
Let's say you throw all your money in the first hand and lose; darn. When the fake Street Fighter announcer says "You Lose", you'll see a losing quote screen such as you would see in Street Fighter, and when the countdown begins for the continue, it appears ripped straight from the game itself. However, that is where the similarities end. So, for this example, let's say you hit continue and now you're back in the game and starting once again with $1000 in chips. Here is where I will show you how broken this game is. You bet the full $1000 again and this time you get two 10's which total twenty. The game offers you the ability to split your bet. Let me explain this.
When you have two of the same card in your hand, you can split your cards and get two new cards, one for each that you split. Now, if you had two 8's you could split them and get two more cards, one for each 8. The catch here is that in order to split your bet, you're required to bet the same amount again. So, let's say you bet $100 and you get two 8's. You split them, so you have to bet another $100 on the 2nd hand that you just created. So now that it's explained, back to our game.
In the example we bet $1000 which is all the money we have. We get two 10's and decide to split. Based off the example above, I would have to bet another $1000 for the hand that I just created. Problem is that I don't have the money, but the game doesn't care because it allows you to bet imaginary money. Yes, you can place a $1000 bet, and make back $3000 in winnings and take a total of $4000. I bet that you are asking, “you can win profit from money you don't have?” Yes, yes you can. Now let's say you do that but each hand you get a blackjack and your winnings increase by 1.5X per hand which starts to equal massive profits.
The other issue is that the single player mode is supposed to be where you combat your opponents at the card table; however, the game only gives you 10 hands. Yes, you are limited to ONLY 10 hands, and the object of the game is to have more money at the end than your opponent. There is no sort of fight or combative situation at all. In fact, this entirely takes the point out of dropping your opponent to $0 and therefore eliminates any and all reason for playing this game.
Let me give you another example. I started out and bet all my chips ($1000), I lost and had to continue, so I repeated the bet and lost, so I continued again. This time I bet the $1000 and won while my opponent only won $200. So, now I have $2000 and my opponent $1200.
My next bet I lower to $200 and keep it locked in for the duration while my opponent bets and loses hundreds of dollars, and then, when down to the last few hundred, the A.I. will gain a slight winning streak so as not to go broke. This method of conservation completely drains all the excitement that would come with fighting cards, but alas this method wins a majority of the games played, so if you're looking to snag those achievements for completing the game with certain characters, then think conservative once you have amassed your pile of chips. Now, you may be thinking that the sadness would be coming to an end relatively soon, and I'm sorry to disappoint you readers yet again.
What is the one thing that made games like Street Fighter an instant hit? That would be multiplayer, and in this game, it doesn't exist online. Yes, regrettably there is no online multiplayer, so if you want to partake in any sort of gaming action with friends, they better be over at your house to do so. In today's gaming age, why you wouldn't allow a social card game like Blackjack to have online multiplayer is truly a joke. So, to pay homage to a game that strived to connect people online to play together, developer Stage Clear Studios decided not to allow that to happen. This has to be the biggest downfall of the game itself.
Priced normally at $7.99, you get a game that normally centers around multiplayer experiences but offers none; that's supposed to follow proper gaming mechanics, but doesn't and claims to be an homage to one of the greatest fighting games in history, but it offers no combat. In short, Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo Edition is a game that suffers from an identity crisis and sadly fails on all fronts. What is the most disappointing to me about this is how all these problems could have been avoided had the developers taken a bit of time to figure out how to integrate these elements into the game and include online multiplayer connectivity. They say imitation is the best form of flattery; however, this offers nothing along those lines.
Suggestions: If you're going to pay homage to Street Fighter, please think about how you are going to incorporate combat into your game outside of giving you only 10 hands to do so. Also, remove the pointless emotion Right Bumper antics, as they do nothing, and instead incorporate various "individually tailored" attacks that should happen to the opponent when you beat them in a hand. Then also work on developing ONLINE MULTIPLAYER.
Overall Score: 3.0 / 10
Asdivine Hearts
Being regarded in gaming years as a dinosaur, I grew up on consoles now talked about in mythical tales. I was also introduced to a game called Final Fantasy, early in my gaming career, and it sparked a love for RPG games that hasn't wavered. I was captivated by the story mixed with action and what seemed to pass as hours were in reality days. It goes without saying that these types of older RPG games hold a tremendous significance to me. Developoer KEMCO has recently decided to release a game called Asdivine Hearts for the low cost of $14.99, and I'm excited to see if Asdivine Hearts can tick all the right boxes that come with great RPG experiences.The first box of course in this list has to involve the story. What is the point of investing hours upon hours of your life, only to end up hating what you are playing? While the story isn't the quality of some of those older RPG games of when I started to game, it is quite entertaining. The crux of the narrative is that there are essences of both light and shadow, and over the years the influence of the shadow deity has grown stronger, to the point where it unbalances the power between light and shadow, casting the light down to the world Asdivine. Now, the quest before you ultimately is balancing the powers before all the world is cast into darkness for eternity, and to accomplish this, you'll need a party.
You have your main three characters: a male, a female and a cat. Yes, a cat. As you progress, you'll gather two more party members. Each member has their own weapon and attack preference (physical attack vs. magic), and while the characters in your party do have their own unique mannerisms and behavioral traits, the story can seem rather predictable at times. While that doesn't necessarily make it bad, the overall progression of the story itself seems to be mismanaged. This is not a deal breaker as the story is still very enjoyable.
Next up in our checklist, we have gameplay. Now, back in the day, the lands were vast, the mountains were tall and sprites were short. The same methodology is applied to Asdivine Hearts in spades. You will venture across a map that is, unfortunately, relatively small by comparison to other games it competes against; however, there is almost a direct nostalgic feel by walking through the overworld.
You can bring up the map using the 'X' button, and various points of interest, such as caves and towns, will be highlighted for you. You'll be able to see your destination as there will be a flashing square on the map where you need to go. Instantly I was taken back so many memories as the design elements of the overworld look almost identical to what I've experienced all those years ago.
There is however, a few issues that I have with the gameplay of Asdivine Hearts. Yes, this is a turn based classic RPG experience; however, the controls feel hyper sensitive, so any movement you make with your character is dramatically over accentuated. This means simple things like walking around an Inn, or even just a room, are incredibly frustrating. While the walking in the overworld isn't bad, when you start including things like chairs, tables, pottery, and many other things, you can really feel a hindrance. While there are issues with the movement, that's not the only thing I have a problem with.
When your party is full of characters (which will happen relatively close to the beginning), you'll be able to unlock certain "formations" for your party to form when in battle. These formations allow your party to have various bonuses and drawbacks based on how you decide to align them within the 3x3 grid. The issue I have here is that while you are provided a small list of formations in the beginning, you learn more as you progress, but the benefits and drawbacks make only a few worthwhile, and the rest of them seem rather pointless, especially since you can't change them in a battle when you would need it the most.
To make sure your group is fit for battle, you'll want to press the 'Y' button to bring up the menu. Here you can select from a wide variety of options. The equip menu allows you to switch and select different weaponry and armor for each of your members. There's also an item menu where you can access any and all consumables that you may have found in your journey. There is also a very, very important menu, and it's imperative that you become familiar with it. It's called the Jewel menu, which houses your Rubix, where you can insert the jewels you find. Let me explain why the latter is so important.
the Rubix is part of the gameplay that you will have to manage. This is essentially the key to unlocking various skills and spells for your characters, and it also offers a wealth of upgrading that will lead you to farm for gems like crazy. The Rubix is another grid styled square; however, this square gets populated by various gems you pick up along the way and/or purchase. These gems have with them not only traits, but shapes as well, and it's up to you to decide what you want, but also how to arrange all of the shapes so they fit the Rubix. Originally the Rubix starts off as a small one but can grow to a massive 5x5 setup. The beauty of this is that anyone can learn any magic that fits into the Rubix.
For example, there was a female character in my party that knew some light magic (so that would grow naturally for her as I progressed through the game), I inserted a shadow magic jewel into her Rubix and now she is learning both light and shadow spells. Leveling them up only requires one thing, and that's for you to fight and finish side quests. Each battle earns you XP and SP, and the amounts are applied to your gems, and each new level grants you a new learned skill. The more you progress the longer it takes to unlock everything, but by the time you hit level 50 you should be good to go.
Gems can also be synthesized to create new, more powerful and potent forms of gems, but the synthesis system is very convoluted and not well developed, so may I suggest save first, do your synthesis until you understand it, then reload your previous save and do it correctly. Otherwise you may wind up wasting valuable gems.
Without question, this Rubix system is the very heart of the game itself, but in order to find these legendary items, you will have to farm so many enemies that KEMCO should give you a straw hat and a tractor with purchase of the game. This is because while there is gold in the game, which you can use to buy items such as weapons and aids, and there is another form of currency that is rarer, as it's only found in the arena as prizes, as well as random boulders that will appear in random battles found with cavernous areas. You could say that when encountering a boulder, you will want to make it a primary focus of your team. You may have to dispatch an enemy in front of it, but whatever you do, do not kill all the enemies before breaking the boulder or you will not get the opportunity to gather this rare currency. Oh, remember you read just a few lines ago about how much you'll be farming, yes? Well if you want to purchase the final Rubix which is the big 5x5 beast, it will cost you 100 of this rare currency, and when you get between 1-3+ coins per boulder, you may be better off in the arena grinding away?
As your party grows and progresses, so do the relationships found within your party. While you are made to feel that there are impacts that are made with your actions, you don't necessarily have any sort of impact until you get to what the game calls "free time", and it's here that you can interact with your fellow party members and try to raise your favor level with them. The game even allows you to give gifts that you may come across on your travels, and each gift will grant a favor boost for a time period. I do wish there were more importance and focus given to the interaction value with the other members of your party, but there is not.
Another box that is on the list for great RPG's are the graphics. Yes, I know this game isn't rendered with all the latest in 3D modeling and hyper realism, but it's not supposed to be. Instead of fully rendered realistic characters, you are taken back to the days of the 16-bit glory. Vibrant colors and dynamic designs permeate every graphical facet of this game, and the nostalgia factor wraps the game in a tremendous retro bow. Sticking with the whole retro vibe, what surprised me even more is how Asdivine Hearts utilizes a classic synth soundtrack and sound effects. It literally is like looking at a glimpse of the past, and if you listen closely, you may even hear a remixed version of a legendary RPG tune from the past.
Even though Asdivine Hearts does have some flaws, it goes without a shadow of a doubt that it delivers a classic nostalgic RPG experience that is severely lacking in today's world. When we get so caught up in getting games that are bigger and better than the ones before it, we lose ourselves to what joys and wonderful experiences were found in games that didn't push the envelope. Asdivine Hearts delivers one of the best nostalgic experiences you can find on the Xbox platform today, and it is only priced at $14.99 on the Xbox Store. I'll say this, if you're a fan of the classic RPG games of the 80's and 90's, then Asdivine Hearts is an absolute must have for your library. It goes without saying that this game manages to tick all the right boxes to make a classic RPG experience.
Suggestions: Had the story been a tad larger and more involved, the gameplay not as twitchy, and easier gem management, it would have been almost perfect.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Crew 2, The
Racing games have one goal in min: pure enjoyment through a direct adrenaline injection engine that pumps deep in your heart. Tires smoking, RPMs slamming into the red, the back end of the car sliding back and forth so furiously you think the car is trying out for the Olympic slalom event; are all facets of what make a regular driving game into an exhilarating driving game. Instead of track racing though, there's a growing trend for racing games set in realistic environments. It's been a long road traveled with many pitfalls and accomplishments, but what Ubisoft has done with the Crew 2 is nothing short of amazing. Buckle up because I'm about to tell you why The Crew 2 should have everyone at Playground Games, very, very worried.
As we launch from the lights, it must be noted that The Crew 2 is more of an arcade racer than simulation. You don't really need to worry about tire pressure, the correct racing line, or any of that. What you need to worry about is winning. It has to be said that The Crew 2 is set to go against the Forza Horizon games, and there are a bunch of similarities, but the differences could mean the deciding factor between finishing first and coming in dead last. I also must confess I was not a fan of the original Crew racing game and felt that not only did it lack substance, but it also was smaller than the ambitious marketing lines we were fed. This time around though, Ubisoft has gone to tremendous lengths to remedy that, but if I'm honest, it still has a long way to go.
The Crew 2 centers around you being the focus for what is called the LIVE events. Here you will go through four different disciplines to unlock all the expensive toys to play with. There is the street racing discipline that consists of actions such as drag racing, drifting, street racing and more. Then you have the off-road disciplines (which should be self-explanatory), all the way up to the professional racing discipline which consists of you taking to the skies in planes and hitting the water in some massive powerboat racing events.
All these events will earn you followers and in-game cash for you to purchase your next motorized toy. There is one drawback though, and that is your career is based ONLY on the number of fans that you have acquired, so you will be unable to go straight through any one type of discipline. I understand that Ubisoft developed it this way, so you are forced to experience all of the different styles, but doing this takes away from the freedom of choice that this game was founded upon, which makes it a bit hypocritical. You have the freedom to choose what we give you, not what is offered.
Now should you proceed through all the disciplines, you'll encounter what I'm calling the "boss race event", and each discipline has their own race with their own rewards. One reward is the Aston Martin Vulcan hypercar, and another is a Hovercraft, and so on. While I understand the whole ego behind these boss characters, I wish Ubisoft went a step further and gave them personalities that were as individual as their prizes. One boss came over the radio and said "You're not in the top 10 so you're a nobody. I don't talk to nobodies. See, this is me not talking to you." This head shaking stupidity is something the game can do without, but regrettably, you will find it all throughout the game itself.
Being that The Crew 2 is staged within the United States, you can take your rides and venture from the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles all the way to Miami or New York. This is the ambition that I touched about earlier. While it does take some time to venture from one location to another, I wish that Ubisoft actually did something like allow a realistic drive that took days, not minutes. I could see a company using a service like Google Maps to have the routes preloaded with you and your friends taking 5 days to a week to travel across country and see the lands. Instead though, we have something that can take less than 45 minutes. Now, I understand that games are made with resources, and to accomplish that would be an incredible strain on the game development itself, but Ubisoft has somehow almost perfected the ability to load a massive environment in a seamless transition.
Way back when I reviewed Ubisoft's game Steep, I was astounded at how they loaded this titanic mountain range that allowed smooth transitions between events and the ability to access every inch of the map at any one time. This trend has found its way into The Crew 2, and I couldn't be happier for that. I experimented with fast traveling to locations as well, and I'm very happy to say that the load times are faster in this game than in other AAA game, so you never really feel out of the action, which also includes the multiplayer.
Unfortunately, I have a small gripe about the multiplayer, that being that you can only have a small amount of people in your crew at any point in time. In other racing games you can have a long list if you wish, but in The Crew 2 you're restricted to 4 people or less. So, if you're in a party of 6 people and you all want to be in a crew together, you're s.o.l. and a couple of your friends are going to be left out.
As I stated earlier, The Crew 2 is an arcade racer, not a simulation racing game. This is oh so apparent when you are talking about the operating mechanics of any vehicle. Controlling slides that would tear a car apart as you drift around corners, jumping hundreds and hundreds of feet in the air in a boat without crushing it into oblivion, and being able to rapidly invert and fly in increased angles without tearing your plane apart all add to the extreme sensation (especially when you throw in the 'A' button for boost), but take away from the reality. However, in the end, it's about the sensationalism that The Crew 2 has nailed in spades. A few issues I do have to mention are the poor camera angles. While there are only a few choices to select from, the ones that are available don't allow you to truly explore and enjoy the environment around you, and let me say that this is quite a noteable setback, because the only way you can enjoy everything the environment has to offer is through the air and not on the roads.
The reason why I say this is a big deal is because The Crew 2 is absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. I'm running it on a top end Samsung 55" 4K TV and it literally is a work of art. The textures from the Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forrest and to the streets of New York City are done in such a painstakingly realistic approach that every inch of the map carries with it its own personality and identity, and if you can only view all this beauty from the air, then it detracts from the impact as you feel almost shunned for being in a car rather than a boat or a plane. The graphics play a major role as well, as the seasons change throughout the game. I say seasons because to say a freak snow storm isn't really applicable to the game, but wow does The Crew 2 react to weather.
Imagine driving along a highway and you're approaching a mountain pass. The day started off nice and sunny, but as you approach you witness a fog starting to move in that effects visibility. Your car still handles like a champ but what you can see is dramatically reduced. Instead of playing it safe, you throw caution to the wind, bury your foot in the gas pedal and head for the mountain. Now as you start to climb you watch the first few flakes of snow fall, and before you know it, the entire environment is blanketed in inches of snow. You think that it will pass momentarily, as you keep your foot hard pressed, watching as your tires carve your presence in the fallen snow. Engine screaming, snow flying all around you, and here comes an upcoming hairpin turn. Thinking you can drift around it you smash the 'X' button to start your handbrake turn in epic fashion as you wait for your YouTube moment of glory, only to find out that your tires have absolutely no grip, and you go sliding right off the mountain and begin the insurance paperwork as you start to invent your own flying car upon your descent.
Not only does The Crew 2 react dramatically to the weather, but your car does as well. If you're behind someone and are riding in their tracks you can gain more traction, as the snow has been cleared from the road by their tires; however, if you stray but an inch off the tracks, your driving experience becomes totally different. Oh, and did I mention all the traffic you will experience during this white-knuckle enjoyment? You may think twice about passing if you know that you're going to lose your traction and possibly go head to head with a box delivery truck as you slide wildly out of control. But like I said, while all this is going on it's going to look STUNNING. So, go on and crash and dare to live dangerously because any way you do it, The Crew 2 has you blanketed in incredible graphics.
The Crew 2 allows you to capture the beauty of the game by going into photo mode by hitting right on the d-pad. From here you can go through a recent timeline of your travels and freely move the camera about. Sadly though, The Crew 2 doesn't have as in-depth a system for photos as other games and doesn't provide the same effects either, but that doesn't mean what you take a picture of won't be gorgeous. Nothing like taking a couple of monster trucks in a half pipe and launching them into each other as a rainbow appears in the background to make you appreciate the beauty of The Crew 2. These pictures though do serve a purpose as you can unlock a photo album that grants you cash bonuses for completing certain tasks and taking a picture of it, but to do this you will have to unlock the off-road discipline first.
One aspect that personally holds a great deal of importance to my heart is painting. Having been painting cars since it was possible in another racing game, Ubisoft allows artists to dive into their creative mindset and play with 1000 layers of stickers, layers, and all sorts of graphics. Unfortunately, the artwork is suffering from the same anemic aspect that we find in the photo mode. The shapes are very limited in quantity and quality, and you're also going to miss any sort of gradient colors or patterns. While you can layer multiple shapes and graphics and adjust transparency, the workarounds still can't hold a flame to the painting mechanics found in other titles. One of the biggest drawbacks though is the constant connection issues that can really set you back when it comes to painting.
What I mean by that is I had spent over 3 hours tending to a paintjob on an Aston Martin and loved it. I was feeling hungry, so I left the paint as is with the layers on the bottom and everything. I went to the kitchen and made some food, and while this happened my controller turned off for inactivity. This caused the game to think that I wasn't around or going to play anymore so it reverted me back to the opening screen. I returned to realize that all my work that I had done on the car was erased. So, moral of the story, if you are going to leave any paint job for a few minutes, back out of the paint job so the game will internally save it, otherwise you'll be in the same anger pit I was when it happened.
There is one golden ticket that has The Crew 2 standing heads and shoulders above the rest, and that is involving the different types of vehicles found in the game. While other sandbox racing games that rhyme with Verizon have you drive around in just different types of automotive vehicles, The Crew 2 sends you off in planes and boats as well. You may be thinking that this is just a novelty, but you would be completely wrong. Thanks to the ingenious loading of all the vehicles in your disposal ahead of time, Ubisoft has allowed you to take to the skies or seas with the press of the Right Stick. Press it and you can see your other options for travel and move the stick to the vehicle you want, hold it for a few seconds and wham, you're now controlling your preferred mode of transportation. Let me give you an example.
Let's say you're tearing up the streets of Miami in your favorite exotic and you are about to hit a massive jump that will send you and your car hurdling through the air. You hit the jump and start to take flight, and while you're in the air you hit the Right Stick and select your plane. As your car is in the air you transform into your airplane and start traveling amongst the clouds. Turning to the Gulf of Mexico, you see the opening for the Mississippi River, and while in flight you press in your Right Stick again and select your boat. Then like a falling meteor you morph into your boat vehicle, free fall into the water, and start blasting your way up the mighty Mississippi. No other race game on any platform can do this. None. This type of freedom is the quintessential core of what these types of games should be about, and it goes without saying that Ubisoft has absolutely demolished any and all competitors in the arcade racing genre.
Sure, this type of freedom is incredible, but so are the upgrade features. With each vehicle comes a range of upgradable components. Each of these upgrades come in one of three ranges. Green components offer no additional benefit, blue components offer 1 additional benefit, and pink components offer 2 additional benefits. These benefits range from such things as increase boost replenishment while drifting to increased follower percentage and much, much more. Each of these components are also tailored to specific vehicles as well, so what you get for boats will differ from planes and cars. You can earn these upgrades by winning races or you can find them through hidden loot boxes.
The loot boxes are well off the beaten path, and when you are within range of one your mini-map will start to beep and pulse on the outside ring. As you get closer the beeps and pulses will get more frequent and soon you will have turned your car into a roaming metal detector. If you don't want to pick up the upgrade though by car, you can switch to your plane or boat and open up the box by holding the 'A' button, then the upgrade you get will apply to that particular style of vehicle. Be careful though, because depending on the type of car and class will result on what upgrades are shared between the other vehicles.
For example, if you have a street racing car that you have an upgrade for, any other street racing cars can also utilize that upgrade, but not a hypercar, or off-road car, etc. So, make sure you find what class of vehicle you want to upgrade before you start packing on the upgrades. I should also note that you can only hold so many upgrades, so make sure you destroy the older upgrades to make room for new ones, so you can continue to improve your vehicle.
While the graphics are close to masterpieces, The Crew 2 has tried to instill the same attention to detail when it comes to the sounds of the game as well. The soundtrack to The Crew 2 is undoubtedly large and provides with it a colossal list of tunes to listen to that cover a wide swath of audio elegance. Sadly though, not all of the tracks are enjoyable, and some are straight up headache inducing. To solve this, you have to do probably the most annoying thing in the game, and that's access your "tool box" by pressing the 'Y' button. Doing this will bring up a popup menu in the game where you then use the Right Stick to move up to the radio station and press the 'A' button to change the song till you find something you like to listen to, and then press the 'B' button to close the menu. And you're supposed to be able to do all of this while driving a car or boat or flying a plane? Right, that will end well. This is the most annoying aspect of The Crew 2 by a mile.
If Ubisoft allowed you to load a custom soundtrack that you could take from a Spotify playlist and didn't force you to detach yourself from the racing experience to switch music so you don't get a headache, then this would be a shining beacon of which other companies should take note of how to perform. But they didn't, so you have one of two choices. You can either listen to the ear bleeding noise or you can switch your music out which takes at least 5 seconds, and in doing so, taking you out of your driving experience for that amount of time. I can't begin to describe my level of hatred for the tool box, so going forward I hope that Ubisoft takes a long hard look at how to improve that feature and figure out a way to make things more streamlined and integrated.
I'll be the first to admit that I was not a fan of the original Crew racing game, but Ubisoft's team went to work and developed a racing game that is so addictive that it should be considered a controlled substance. Despite some flaws and hiccups along the way, The Crew 2 is poised to cement itself as the definitive arcade racing experience on any platform. As a person that has 10w30 pumping through my veins and a heart tied to a supercharger, The Crew 2 offers an unparalleled arcade racing experience that should be considered a must have purchase for anyone that loves an adrenaline rush brought upon by racing. Welcome to the best arcade racing game on the Xbox platform at this time, in my opinion, welcome to The Crew 2.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Sudden Strike 4: European Battlefields Edition
Tactics, strategy and thinking about the future engagements, these are the main qualities you need to play a proper RTS. These types of games are a visual chess game combined with resource monitoring, and for quite a while, there hasn't been too many that have been good, until now.Developed by Kite Games, and coming in just over half off retail price ($39.99), Sudden Strike 4: European Battlefields Edition takes aim at delivering an incredibly in-depth RTS military experience that is based off real historical World War II encounters. I have to admit right off the bat that I'm very particular when it comes to RTS games, because developing a game that is more about tactics than just mindless shooting is incredibly challenging.
Sudden Strike 4 begins by almost overwhelming you with so much content at your fingertips. Don't worry too much about configuring the settings because the menu system is fairly sparse compared to the in-game ones. Placing a big importance on the "value per dollar of entertainment provided", it's clear that Kite Games starts off with a massive boom. Broken into not just the regular campaign missions, but also the expansion packs and the multiplayer options are truly remarkable. $39.99 does buy you an incredible amount of content, but you know what they say, "quality over quantity". I mean, what good is the amount of content if you don't want to play any of it?
The main campaign is broken up into numerous real life campaigns that occurred in World War II, from the Germans, Russians, to even the Allies. The map you will explore has the various missions, spanning from Russia all the way to France, and everything in between. While it may be tempting to just jump right in and start destroying the countryside, I cannot stress enough how important it is to go through the tutorial.
Sudden Strike 4 has some issues that plague its own game mechanics and that should automatically start to send up some red flags. For starters, you can press 'A' on a unit you wish to control, or you can hold 'A' down and use your Right Stick to control a circle radius that will expand and contract down to pre-determined sizes. Sounds nice right? Especially if there are large numbers of different units you wish to control at once. There are a few problems here though.
For starters, the circle expands in almost a blink of an eye, so trying to fine tune what you do, and do not want to select, is literally one of the most annoying things possible in any game I've ever played. I'm having to select individual units and place them in other spots on the map ust so I can try grouping them together without selecting 10 other troops. While we are on the topic of troops, you will learn (as you progress through the campaign) the various benefits and drawbacks of each different unit. Infantry have the ability to arm anti-tank and aircraft weaponry, take and hold various checkpoints by being placed within buildings and sneak up on enemies by going through woods and grassy fields. The downside? They are like tissue paper to any tank round, so unless you somehow manage to withstand a 120mm tank shell being fired from less than 20 yards away, you're going to be heading the clouds.
Your tanks, or heavy armored divisions, are powerful machines of war that can level buildings and become a front-line weapon of mass destruction. These weapons have an incredibly long range when the hatch is open (but you risk losing your tank commander if he's shot) and can decimate almost anything in their path. The downside to them? If your enemy gets behind them and shoots, they won't stand for very long, worse yet, if you are dealt critical damage you'll be prevented them from moving at all. To get these behemoths to move again, you'll need to use a repair vehicle to get the tank back on track (see what I did there?). Should your repair vehicle get destroyed however, you're on your own now. While you're working on getting your ground game secured, you'll also have to think about your air game as well.
Regrettably, your air support isn't as big of an option as the ground game and you are limited to military air bases that will be located off screen. This is a tremendous disappointment because of the versatility and importance that the planes provided in World War II. Yes, I realize that you can literally do bombing runs and eliminate anything on the ground, but then again, the enemy will have flak guns that will ground you permanently unless you destroy them on the land. Each one of these units becomes dependent on one another and here is where another fault resides.
Each unit has multiple actions which can be selected by pressing the Right Trigger to bring up the ability wheel. Here you can order specific commands that are tailored to the individual unit. The problem here though is that if you select a large group of varied units, like I stated earlier, then you will lose the ability to utilize the unit's particular ability until you individually select a unit.
While I understand it would be hard for a computer to remember the pre-loaded abilities of the varying units and have them all for you at your fingertips, I understand that it's possible for that to actually happen, therefore I see no need for this problem, but yet it exists. It's not Sudden Strike 4's fault though. The issue with creating a good, strategic RTS game is that it's difficult to implement the control scheme which is naturally beneficial towards keyboard and mouse users. Trying to find ways to integrate varying menus and commands with far limited numbers of input is, I believe, one of single greatest challenges with creating a game like this on a console. Very few have constructed something of quality, and sadly Sudden Strike 4 isn't one of them.
This is thanks to the mechanics of the troops themselves. Let me give you an example. I was trying to take over an enemy supply outpost as the German army, but there seemed to be a lot of houses in the center. I had my entire army selected and was rolling across the field in a certain formation. I got to the outskirts of the town and sent in my troops very slowly, only exposing a little bit at a time. The tanks hit the walls of the city and bust right through with the stealth of a subway train derailment at top speed.
Now, to place your units in a formation, you have to hold down the 'B' button (which is the button you use to confirm actions, not the 'A' button like is found almost everywhere else, but I digress) and press the Right Stick in any direction to direct your troops to line up in formation and face the designated direction.
It was very hard to know when you have to get behind tanks to go after weak points or flank anti-tank weaponry. The problem, however, is if you press and hold down the 'B' button within a confined space like a town or any inhabited areas, your vehicles can suffer brain damage and start running into each other, and even trying to form simple formations can seem like a herculean task of which no solution is present. Along with the 2 IQ point AI, comes the issue with the actual tutorial.
Going through the tutorial will not prepare you for everything you are about to face, and thankfully to compensate for this the game itself will occasionally pop up helpful displays that will show you information that will help you on your way, but only partially, because the rest you will have to figure out on your own. The lack of hand holding is fine, but get ready to repeat missions over and over again. But that's not really a bad thing when you look this good.
Sudden Strike 4 looks good, and I mean really, really good for an RTS game. The varying mission layouts are stunning compared to other games in the genre. While the infantry personnel are beyond generic (almost to the point where they are cartoons), the vehicles are remarkably detailed, the lighting effects are brilliantly done and the effects themselves are stunning. No matter the mission, it's going to look incredible.
However, the same can't be said for the voice over talent. To say it's an overacting festival is an understatement, but sadly it's outshined by, in my opinion, a tremendous soundtrack and very nice audio effects (explosions, gunfire, planes, etc.). This part of the audio makes going through all the different campaigns to experience the story from every standpoint, a somewhat enjoyable experience.
On top of all of the numerous campaigns, Sudden Strike 4 also delivers bonus content such as the Dunkirk missions, and it even provides historical videos that you can watch. While Sudden Strike 4: European Battlefields Edition does suffer from some some drawbacks, the overall foundation is very strong and is wrapped up in a gorgeous visual wrapper. For $39.99, if you enjoy RTS genre games, then Sudden Strike 4: European Battlefields Edition has to be on your radar as a game you have to take a look at.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Yet Another Zombie Defense HD
Now when it comes to gaming today, you can spend a few dollars and find an experience that surprises you to the point of inspiration, while on the flip side of the coin, there are times when you spend large amounts of dollars on a game that leaves you jilted and depressed. Normally, when I review a game, I approach it from a value versus fun ratio, and while it may seem scientific, it allows me to approach it from a consumer point of view. Recently I reviewed another zombie killing game and this time... I get another zombie killing game to review. This one is aptly titled 'Yet Another Zombie Defense HD' and is developed by Awesome Games Studio. Priced at $4.99, or about the same price as a value meal at a fast food place, it doesn't hurt the wallet, so to speak. So, let's see if this game is worth the $5 bill they are charging, shall we?
There are three modes to tackle: Defense, Endless, and Deathmatch. While Endless is what you would expect in a traditional horde mode of wave after wave of enemies, and Deathmatch is something found in almost all shooters of some type, the bulk of the game will be played in the Defense mode where you and up to 3 other friends (online or locally) will construct some makeshift defenses to hold off the varying onslaught of zombies and demons when night eventually falls. As you kick off Defense mode, you'll have to select from one of four characters. These characters are pretty much stereotypical character models and don't affect anything story related since there isn't one.
After you pick your character you'll spawn by a lamppost, armed with a pistol that has unlimited ammo. From here you will face a small wave of zombies that will come at you from all sides, forcing you to use your pistol to drop them like a toilet seat. To do this you use the Right Stick to move your flashlight to point in the direction you’re going to fire, then you unload your weapon with Right Trigger. The Right and Left Bumpers switch between weapons, but I'll get into that more in a minute. Once the enemies are properly eliminated, your next goal will be to figure out how to wisely spend your newly found wealth. This is where your shop comes in handy.
Some items such as a chainsaw can cost around $500 or so, while a Tesla gun can run north of $20,000. But buying a weapon is only half the issue because now you must stock it with ammo, otherwise, what's the point of having a weapon you can't use? Ammo can cost $30 all the way up to $200 and more. While doing your best Neo from the Matrix impression, where you need lots of guns, one thing you can't forget is your makeshift base. As the nights progress the enemies get tougher. No longer will you have just undead mindless zombies to contend with, as demons from the depths of hell will rise up against you, and even the reaper itself will try to take your life.
To stave all of this off, and give you the best shot at survival, you'll have a chance to buy barriers and turrets. Barriers range from basic wooden ones to armored and even electrified ones. Of course, as you would expect, the price increases DRAMATICALLY between each cost. This also applies for the turrets, as there is an advanced one and a basic one. Each turret requires you to buy a firearm for it PLUS stock it with ammo (if you equip it with a shotgun and you use a shotgun on your character, then your gun turret will use YOUR ammo, so be ready).
As you kill enemies, they will drop items such as ammo for your weapons, mines, and even power-ups such as health, invisibility (which for some reason doesn't work as the enemies still attack me) and invincibility (this thankfully does work). The more items you collect from your fallen enemies the less you'll have to spend to replenish your supplies. Using a chainsaw as your primary weapon in the earlier stages is well advised so you can save some preliminary cash.
There is an issue that I have, but it is not with the game, but instead with the public who plays, let me explain why. Being that cash is by far the most valuable thing in the game, you have three choices where you can allow other people to buy whatever they want from the store and spend your money, or there can be a limit of your money and anything over that limit and they have to ask you (like asking your parents for more money to buy things) to use more, or they have to request that you buy the item so they can use it.
Being the kindhearted soul that I am, I trusted that people would have their own ideas as to how best to defend the base, so I originally let them all run wild with the cash. I figured, "Hey, it's their money too." And that worked out nice until this guy bought ALL SMG ammunition and drained my bank account. Then he leaves my game and I'm essentially screwed. I had no defenses, no nothing but a simple SMG and as much ammo as I could ever need. Granted, after that incident I quickly learned to hoard my money, but that got me thinking; why would you even think of offering other forms of cash management? There isn't much structure to the game other than shooting enemies, buying more guns and ammo and defenses and shoot more things after that. So why would you give the option for perfectly good strangers to come in and ruin your game? To this day I still can't figure it out.
As you progress you'll earn points to level up your character with things such as increased health (which you WILL need), increased movement speed (which again, you WILL need), pickup radius (which appeared broken even at max setting) and more things that really aren't important for any reason. Unfortunately, this eliminated any and all desire I had to level up my character.
What was the point in extra health when I can just barricade myself with some turrets and let the damage do the work for me? Work smarter, not harder, and that's why I'm struggling to find something worthwhile about the character development. Outside of something spectacular that I am somehow missing, you'd be better off playing Yet Another Zombie Defense HD on a train ride to work than on a console sitting at home.
Regrettably that is about as in-depth as this game gets, and if I'm honest, I was surprised at how shallow the game itself feels. They claim to have a 4K filter in the game, but that did very little to the visuals. You'll find that, as you play the game, there is very little enjoyment to be found, but Yet Another Zombie Defense HD relies squarely on one characteristic to help this game survive, and that is the replayability. With this game originally releasing on February 3, 2010, you can see that the years haven't been kind. With less content than a Chinese fortune cookie, and less entertaining as well, I'd personally save the $4.99 and spend it on something else, unless you just have to try the game, but you've been warned.
Overall Score: 5.5 / 10
Riddled Corpses EX
I'll say it: I love me some twin stick shooter action on Xbox. Over the years I think it's a genre that doesn't get a lot of attention, but after playing Riddled Corpses EX by COWCAT, I don't think that is going to be an issue anymore. Priced on sale for $10.79 (while the sale lasts) I have to say that this game took me by complete surprise. So much so that it almost caused me to be out of gaming commission, but more about that later. For now, though, let's dive into Riddled Corpses EX and you can see just why this game is worth every penny.On the surface this game appears to be a classic 8/16bit hybrid game visually. Apparently, the story behind it revolves around a mad scientist (why can't there ever be any "good" mad scientists?) who attempts an experiment, and low and behold it fails. Actually, it didn't just fail though, this disaster of an experiment actually manages to resurrect an ancient sleeping demon of power who has the ability to summon his army of undead and a monstrous horde. What are the odds?
It's up to you and your ever-growing team of fighters to band together and not only stop the zombie apocalypse, but save all humanity as well. While the story is fairly straight forward, the real hook comes from the gameplay which is so addictive it may as well be deemed a narcotic.
You start off by selecting characters to play as, and you check them out you will see how each one will carry with them a special ability. Well, all apart from the first character who is all around useless and doesn't have a special ability. You will see how your characters are rated with many, many stats, that supposedly mean many, many things, and range from very high power but slow shooting and moving rate, to being lightning fast but barely doing any damage.
You'll pass on the first character, and instead you'll find yourself selecting others that come with abilities such as magnetism, 2x gold, and so forth. Gold will become your lifeblood as it costs you 9999 gold to unlock characters, as well as any turrets and additional machine guns. Normally on a given run you can expect to get about 1500(ish) amount of gold (if you use a 2x gold character), so welcome to the grind. You will end up playing levels over and over and over again because of two reasons: 1) you'll be terrible because your character is so weak, and 2) Riddled Corpses EX is ridiculously challenging with enemies and projectiles flying at you in 60fps glory.
To solve this inevitable problem, you will start leveling up your characters (which also takes a TON gold) and upgrading your machine guns (which takes A LOT of gold) but, as I pointed out above, when your take of gold is so low you have no choice but to grind and grind and grind. I chose to use a character that offered 2x gold instead of magnetism, so while I had to walk to the gold instead of it automatically coming to me, I got twice the gold in the end. I think I played the 1st level well over 50 times just to try and gain some form of strength to tackle the 2nd stage. I was grinding away so much that my right thumb actually became swollen, but that was after 8 hours straight playing, because this game is so addictive. Once you level up your three powered characters to level 20 you will unlock the last character (for purchase of 9999 gold) who has all the abilities of the previous characters.
Now, the overworld layout is designed in a traditional Ghosts n' Goblins fashion, as it consists of six areas which range in difficulty by increasing the number of enemies and projectiles on the screen at the same time. Things can get overwhelming very quickly, so you can utilize special power-ups, such as a stopwatch by pressing the Right Bumper that freezes everything on the screen for a limited amount of time, or you can use a group of dynamite sticks with Left Bumper that effectively clears your screen of enemies. The B button is used to deploy your turret while your Left Stick is used to move your character and the Right is to fire your weapon. This simplicity is yet another reason for the addictive quality of the game. You don't have to be worried about button pushes at the correct moment the frame of animation stops or split-second timing that leads to hours of frustration. Just pick up the controller and start killing everything you see.
Each of the levels are unique in the enemies spawned but also the atmosphere. You start your adventure in a city themed environment but transition into deserts and even underground laboratories. The enemies don't really change until you get to the last two stages when the game literally seems like it gives up and just throws everything you've experienced before from the previous level, just 100 times more of them. That's not to say though that this game has committed some graphical injustice because it hasn't.
All the enemies and levels are done in a beautiful retro 8/16-bit hybrid mashup of classic styles and are accompanied by a fantastic synth soundtrack straight from the MIDI worlds of yesteryear, but with a modern twist. One nostalgic thing that I found in the settings was you can switch the music back to the original track without all the modern processing and it literally became a movie montage soundtrack to laying waste to everything on screen and it was glorious.
So, even though Riddled Corpses EX seems like a shallow game, the replay value is off the charts and not seen in some big AAA titles that we pay $60+ for today. COWCAT has created a game that is so addictive it should almost be considered a controlled substance and that, for such an indie title, is something almost never seen in the gaming industry. Taking such a simple premise and focusing on just what makes the genre so entertaining, and hour draining, is exactly what COWCAT have done. For $10.79 (limited time sale) you can't find better deals for entertainment in today's world, and even when the price goes up, it will still be worth it.
Suggestions: Some online multiplayer with shared loot would be nice.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Battlezone Gold Edition
Back in 1980 I wasn't even 5 yet, however, I was already getting into gaming. The Atari system was running wild and one of their best games available was Battlezone. Taking the digital frontier by storm, you were tasked with piloting a combat tank against a seemingly unstoppable AI force, in an effort to save humanity. Now, almost 40 years later (yes you read that correctly), Rebellion has dusted off this classic gem and has refitted the game, bringing Battlezone into the modern age. So how does this new Battlezone game contend with its new modern kicks? What tricks does Rebellion have up its sleeves to entice us to keep playing this game? Why in the name of everything that is holy is the game priced at $34.99? All these questions and more will be answered as you read on!The premise behind such glorified tank combat comes from the tried and true storyline where man invents AI, AI obviously turns evil (notice very few games ever have AI that isn't evil?) and begins to wipe out humanity which forces them underground. With the AI core resting deep in the heart of a volcano, it’s your task to make sure humans will see another day. It's up to you to pilot your tank and destroy the AI core. In order to accomplish this however you will need to fight your way through a literal army of enemy tanks, aircraft and turrets to deplete the power level of the AI army (which grows almost continuously) by destroying generators along the way (should you choose to do so). While the story is decent, it's not something that you need to concern yourself with because in Battlezone, the story is just there for an objective filler for you.
As you begin, you have your traditional fare of light, medium and heavy tanks at your disposal. Each one carries with it an advantage and disadvantage as well. Light tanks are quick but can be taken apart relatively easy while heavy tanks are, you guessed it, slow but hit like a runaway freight train. The same variety you have also applies to your enemies as well. You will have small little scout ships that can fire laser attacks that will damage you slightly, medium tanks that lob easily dodged cannon fire but take a few rounds to drop, and heavy tanks that can end your run with 2-3 shots top, also having shields you have to penetrate before blowing them up. This whole balancing system is central to the game and therefore critical that you rationalize the consequences of your choice.
While the number of tanks varies between 3 different weight classes, Rebellion has gone to great lengths to pack a tank's worth of upgrades and customizations within the game. For starters, you can customize the outside and cockpit with varying styles of camouflage, and while you start out with a lot, you'll quickly notice that there is so much more to unlock. While picking what your tank will look like, you can also look at your tank's stats will also notice that there is a long list of stats that you have the opportunity to upgrade. Speed, power, shields and ammo capacity can be upgraded, so it's in your best interest to kill everything that is shooting at you.
You get points for your upgrading system by completing missions and collecting resources from fallen enemies. While you may run out of ammo occasionally, you can collect dropped munitions resupplies from your foes which will refill all weapons you have on board. Don't be afraid though to spend some of your points on purchasing other lives. Sometimes the best offense is to have another tank ready to go should yours get destroyed. Without question, Rebellion has done a tremendous job packing in all the customization options at your disposal and is the very heart of Battlezone.
Earlier you read my writings about you having to destroy an AI core inside a volcano, and you're probably asking: "how do I get to a volcano?". Well the answer is you must navigate through a honeycomb map layout that is filled with side missions of multiple types, shield generators, enemy bases, supply outposts and even your nemesis. What is your nemesis? Well should you take your sweet time and allow the AI power to climb to a new level, a nemesis will be spawned. Think of these things like the ultimate tank killing machine that the AI spawns to end your life. These nemesis enemies should be avoided at all costs, but face one and you're in for one hell of a fight.
To soften up the AI core's defenses you will have to go after the corresponding shield generators. I almost forgot, while you're on your level you may see a white object indicator on your radar, so moving your tank near these white structures will provide you with different types of bonuses. You may see a point increase, lessen the enemy's defenses or even unlock new blueprints for some new firepower!
To move your tank towards these objectives and enemies, you have to use the Left Stick to move your tank forward, back, left and right, and the Right Stick to move your cannon up and down and rotate. By learning how to accurately maneuver the tank you choose, this will go a long way in preserving your life. The Left Trigger will act as a boost for your tank but, in doing so, will dramatically drain the shield of your tank. While the LT acts as a boost, the Right Trigger fires the weapon you selected with the X button. Should you have a weapon that needs a few seconds to lock on, then you must hold RT down until the targeting reticle goes green and then let go. Be aware of your surroundings though, you can lock on first, then dart behind a pillar to recover or hide for a few, and then pop out and launch your artillery at your target. When in combat you also need to be aware of combat tactics.
For example, should you notice your enemies shooting at you with lobbed fire or unguided rockets from a distance, then close the gap quickly and fire, fire, fire! This will have their rounds sail overhead while your shots hit and render the tank destroyed. Now on the flip side of the coin, if you have a heavy tank that will obliterate you up close, use your lock on weapons from a distance and don't stop firing while dodging the charged shots of a massive tank. Knowing how to adapt on a fluid and ever-changing battle will be vital in your survival.
While this can all seem complicated at first, the learning curve is fairly low so those who wish to jump right in can get a thrilling experience and quickly master the skills needed to win the game. Rebellion though did allow another nice bonus feature added into Battlezone, the ability to take on the game with up to 3 other players. So now you can have your own 4-person tank squad to go wrecking through the game which makes the game much easier to manage.
Remember, Battlezone used to be an Atari game back in 1980 and it involved black backgrounds with green outlined shapes that were supposed to pass as futuristic tanks. Now though, Battlezone is done in a 4K Classic Tron type feel (enemies are red, friendlies are blue) that looks stunning. Incredible digital frontiers that would have made Flynn himself tip his hat in admiration are your playgrounds throughout Battlezone. Coupled with .
Before I wrap this up, I want to take a moment to personally thank Rebellion for, what I think is, the best addition to their modern take on Battlezone, the original game. Yes folks, when you buy Battlezone you get not only this amazing and entertaining modern take on the classic, but also the classic itself. Having personally grown up with that Atari cartridge, it holds a special meaning to me. Having included it, as you have, has sent me on a personal journey of memories back when my father was alive, and I can't thank you enough.
For $34.99 you may be thinking that Battlezone is a bit overpriced, and you would be quite mistaken. When your customizable campaign length (short-medium-long) means you can have a campaign that takes you less than a few hours, or a campaign that spans actual days, Battlezone offers a lot of content and customization for everyone and that's the soul of this release, customization. From customizing your tank, to your campaign, to your multiplayer/single player experience, and so on, Battlezone offers you almost too many choices. However, that is the strength of the game and it works brilliantly. Battlezone is easily a must have purchase if you enjoy tank combat, arena combat, or are a fan of the classic Battlezone from 1980. While $34.99 is a steep price to pay for a remake of a 40-year-old game, Rebellion has made it worth every penny.
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
State of Decay 2
For decades now, we as a society have been entranced by monsters, but probably none have garnered such a special place in our hearts as zombies. Countless books, TV shows, and movies clearly demonstrate that we love us some zombie action. Utilizing the Unreal 4 engine, developer Undead Labs has attempted to deliver a zombie survival horror game that feels like it should have its own A&E timeslot. Priced at $29.99, State of Decay 2 has a lot to live up to, but thankfully has a tremendous amount of content to source from, so let's see just how dead is undead. Now as you read this, know that I'm writing this as my communities are ongoing as we speak, and I'll fill you in on how they are holding up as the retail launch hits.State of Decay 2 is setup in a manner that allows you to take control of a pair of people and each one has his/her own special abilities and traits. While some may specialize in mechanical work, others may be proficient in gardening, so who you choose to play as will ultimately help shape your experience. From there you will go through a tutorial where you will come to grips with the gameplay mechanics. This is quite simple as it's very similar to what we have experienced before (A for jump, B for dodge (hold crouch), X for attack and Y to interact/search). For a game of this nature, the overall feel of the controls varies between sluggish at times to oversensitive.
For example, if you're trying to dodge an attack and turn to strike your enemy, the controls feel like they hesitate, thus making the control feel sluggish. Now, let's say you want to refuel a car, you will have to position yourself in just the right spot, so you can fill it up. If you should stray, even a hair away in a different direction, you will either get an option to open the trunk of the car or ride in the back seat. This is when the game almost gives you too many choices and not enough room to make a decision accurately given the sluggish feeling. Once you get through the tutorial though, you're on your own. Just like popular TV zombie shows like The Walking Dead, State of Decay 2 forces you to make tough choices and ensure that not only do you survive, but that you do everything possible to rid the world of the blood plague by destroying what are called Plague Hearts. Sorry, but I won't spoil what it is or any details as they need to be experienced.
I just talked about making tough choices, and in one of my camps I thought I would do the noble thing and start bringing in everyone I could save as I thought there were strength in numbers. However, I was unaware as to the consequences of my choices till I realized the resource drain these members had on my outpost. State of Decay 2 essentially demands that you hunt through these massive sandbox levels for various resources such as food, medicine, ammo, construction materials and gas. These are the lifeblood resources that will either make or break you, and you can see a little display of a simple smiley face that can go from cheerful to hopeless and that will let you know something went went wrong.
So, for my first community I ended up not stockpiling enough resources as I just focused on people, and soon my food was in the negative, so even rationing it wouldn't work, and even with two level-2 gardens and two more food outposts, I still was running a negative food production. I chose to ignore this as I was interested in watching what the game did to my survivors. Well, I would get pop up messages that said that one of my camp members was starving, or that another member felt sick due to starvation. That is when I had a hard choice, I could go out and look for resources, or I could kick out people until I was back to a positive food production. Well, I didn't do either, as I let the people die from starvation and figured that the weak would die off while the strong held on to feast. While inhumane to the logical person, it worked. While people did mourn the passing of fellow members of the community, 20 min later the mourning ended and I was at a positive food production number and the morale was on the climb like nothing ever happened. Just goes to show you how fickle your community can be.
Outside of resources you also must maintain a relationship with the people. Other factions will ask for your help and you can decide to help them or not, but that will determine if they are friendly to you or hate you with upmost passion. I found that if you wait long enough, you can watch as the people in these other factions leave. While this prevents you from trading with them, it also prevents them from taking resources, so I was just fine with letting them go. I just talked about how fickle people can be in the game and my 2nd community had a guy who literally did nothing but complain about zombie infestations. Constantly on the radio about how no one respects him and that no one takes him seriously or cares about him, blah blah blah.
So, I say fine, I bring him along as a follower and select his quest to make him happy. I'm on my way walking and I clear out 2 other infestations, so I figured that would make him happy, nope. Instead, after the 2nd one was cleared out, he turns to me and says that he will go find others who really care about him and that I could go f*** off, and he abandoned my group. This is also a valuable time to tell you that if you equip items and weapons to your followers, and they leave you, then you will lose all those items forever.
Infestations are designated areas on your map where a congregation of zombies are present along with at least one screamer. A screamer is an armless zombie that doesn't walk fast, but it screams at such a high pitch that not only will it call in more zombies from nearby areas, but it can also resurrect fallen ones that haven't been executed. It goes without saying that these screamers are the primary targets and should be executed as quick as possible, but screamers aren't the only zombies to worry about. Bloaters are zombies that are naked overweight gas bags that run to as you and once close they explode in a poisonous cloud that can kill you. Should you hit one with your vehicle, stop the car immediately (B is handbrake) and get out as the car will fill with the gas and kill both you and your follower(s), should you have any. Feral zombies move lightning fast, hit like a brick and are savage on a primordial level. Put one of these down quick because if you're not careful, one of these can put you down in a matter of seconds. Last, but not least, is the Juggernaut. This colossus of a zombie is easily 8-9 feet high, about 500lbs and could be described as a pissed off freight train that won't stop until it breaks you in half. Even with a follower, I strongly recommend both of you hitting it with tremendous firepower and then swarm it from both sides with melee attacks until it drops.
To put things into perspective of just how powerful one of these beasts are, I was driving a military SUV at full speed and slammed head on into one and bounced off while the Juggernaut just said "ooof" and staggered a bit. I got another running start and the same thing happened only this time my SUV started to smoke because of the damage. That was precisely the same moment I heard a Feral zombie and it lunges at the driver’s side door and ends up ripping it off the car. What happened next? Ever see Monty Python and The Holy Grail? All that was missing were the coconuts.
To make sure you have all the equipment you need to fight off these gargantuan zombies you should make sure you have weapons that aren't broken. Just like managing your resources are important, so is making sure your weaponry won't let you down when you are out scavenging. Blades will dull over time and break, handguns will jam and not fire, but there is one trait to consider, the bolt action weapons. Guns such as bolt action rifles or revolvers will NOT, and I can't stress this enough, NOT break...ever. I found this out while one of my camps had my character trying to fight off a Juggernaut; not fun. This tidbit of knowledge will become invaluable as you progress, so please retain this tidbit of information. To fix and repair your broken and damaged items you will need to allocate one of your available spaces at your camp to a workbench. From there you will unlock the ability to repair items with the use of screw materials that you pick up throughout your searching.
As you progress and develop more of a reputation, you will earn star points that can be used in a multiple of ways. You can use these points that you earn to establish other outposts that provide things such as medical supplies, food, gas, ammunition and more which can be added to your base to bring in more resources. These can also be used to purchase new bases to move your growing community to that can provide room for expansion and growth. These reputation stars can also be utilized to call in favors on the radio such as support from online members to finding where certain resources are etc. These stars also can be used as currency when trading with other enclaves for various items they may have (pending they are friendly to you).
Now, you may think that with all these uses that you gain a ton of stars rapidly throughout your gameplay, but it's quite the opposite. For instance, in my 2nd community I am now sitting at 10 members which is WELL over my allotment for my home base, so I need to move; however, I managed to save up 1,000 points, so I can spend them on buying a water tower which will provide my base with water, but the largest encampment I've found so far is a mini-mall which can support 8 people (still 2 under my amount, but I can manage that) and that comes at the low cost of 3,500 points. While that is a lot when you only get +5 points for taking out a zombie or two, and +25 for taking down a Feral, Screamer, and/or Juggernaut, you will quickly come to the conclusion that doing quests will be the way to rapidly acquire the points you need.
This means you have to now manage your time as well, because your quest list is forever changing. When factions fall in and out of favor with you, so will their missions available to you and should they leave after being ignored for a while, then those missions are gone permanently and you're left with whatever you can find. This is where isolationism may or may not be the best thing for your group, so this will be a decision you will have to make on your own. I managed to find some of these camps by pressing the back button (next to the start button) whenever a request came in and I marked the targets. To reach these people I made sure I grabbed as many gas cans as I could carry, loaded them into the car along with repair kits (I learned from the Juggernaut), and I drove around, stopped at surveying points to unlock more of the map and went on a sort of "meet the neighbors" tour.
Now for a brief recap to sum things up as to what you will be required to manage:
1) Resources - Food, medicine, building supplies, ammo, gas.
2) Relationships - Foth with the members of your group and the community.
3) Time - People won't wait because they also must survive. Whether or not you're a part of that is up to you.
4) Storage - You can't carry everything all at once, so you will have to prioritize and come back for what you can't carry or pack in your vehicle.
Phew. State of Decay 2 does have a weak point that, in my opinion, kind of takes away from the majesty of the game, and that is the graphics. Sure, the developers use the Unreal 4 engine; however, the character models and environment are underwhelming and something that we can expect to see from an earlier generation Xbox game. I can understand that loading all those environmental assets takes a long time (thus long loading screens) at a higher resolution, so I'm guessing that this was a deliberate play to save on resources for the game management? Either way, the real winner for me though has to involve the sound effects and the music. While you hear the traditional guitar strumming and melodic atmospheric music, State of Decay 2 is made for a surround sound system.
For instance, when I slammed my vehicle into a Juggernaut and did nothing to it but piss it off, my damaged vehicle ran as fast as it's tires could carry it. However, there was smoke billowing out from under the wrecked hood, you heard the engine actually knocking and pinging like it was about to die. Then as I headed home one of the zombies attacked the vehicle and ripped my door off which caused a small fire to form under the hood because my car was getting destroyed. It's instances like this that highlight the attention to detail. I said sound effects were a treat, but not the voice acting, and that's because the voice acting is marginal at best and doesn't stand out even though the voices are unique. But go creeping through the woods at night with your tiny little flashlight and listen to all the zombies moaning and walking all around you and you'll see what I mean.
There are other little tweaks that sort of got to me as I was playing. For instance, when driving there seemed to be a constant thin horizontal line that would flash and flicker about halfway up the screen. While it did nothing but distract me, it was annoying as can be. Other quirks that set this game back were the raining zombies, yes raining zombies. When you set off driving sometimes you move faster than the game can process the nearby enemies, so they literally drop in from the sky like rain. I personally didn't mind so much until the game dropped a bloater very close that required me to drop it with some pistol fire, which then drew the attention of many other zombies in the area so my stealthy approach to scavenging just turned into a makeshift Rambo movie. I've chosen to guess this is because of the resource allocation limitations within the game itself.
Another gripe I have is the inability to pause the game. I never played the first version of State of Decay, but there apparently isn't any way to pause the game. I understand this is because you're loading yourself into a fluid environment that is constantly evolving, but with everything to manage, plus navigating to help others, having the ability to pause the game to go over what to do next would be helpful. To combat this I found that I didn't do any planning in the field and instead focused all my planning in the base. I do this because I've lost count how many times I've called up my map to see where I'm at and my resources are and was attacked by a zombie. This is one of many reasons it helps to bring a partner, especially if playing cooperatively with another person online, with you when you venture out.
While there are some aspects of State of Decay 2 that are subpar, it goes without saying that you get a phenomenal amount of content for only $29.99. I never got around to playing the original State of Decay, but I have to say this game has me hooked. While it can seem a bit overwhelming at times with everything to manage, there are games that cost twice as much and deliver half as much content. State of Decay 2 is now, in my honest opinion, the undisputed king of zombie survival horror games and the rest of the industry better take notice because Undead Labs didn't just raise the bar, they took it, caved in a zombie's head, then used the bar to lock the door and force the rest of the companies to fight for survival. While yes there are some faults to be found, the scales are overwhelmingly tipped in its favor. If you're a fan of The Walking Dead, zombies, survival horror games, open world action adventure games, then without question State of Decay 2 is a day one purchase.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse. Welcome dear reader to the review of Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs - Royal Edition for the Xbox platform. Developed by Pixelated Milk at a price of $24.99, Regalia is a crowdfunded JRPG that attempts to drain hours of your life and put a massive smile on your face while doing it. While JRPG games have been known for their long narratives, if the quality isn't good, then what is the point? So, should Regalia plant its flag in your Xbox's hard drive, or is the experience so horrible that it needs to be banished immediately from the kingdom of your games?As you set off on your journey, you'll discover that you play the role of Kay, of House Loren, who is one of three children to the King of Ascalia. The kingdom had known peace for many years, until a dark time came upon the lands. With the king's health failing, Kay is instructed to lay claim to his royal birthright (which means his spoiled and entitled lifestyle and mannerism had to change immediately).
With a tantrum befitting a toddler, Kay tries first to shun his duty, but his two sisters (Ellie and Gwn) help convince him that he is just the right person to step in and bring peace back to the lands. However, in doing this they come across a shady businessman named Mr. Crucey, whom is trying to collect on a rather large debt that was owed to him by the royal family, a debt that was amassed throughout the years. This is when we learn of a massive quirk in the game that I will explain later.
That is the foundation for Regalia; however, there is more to this game than what is on the surface. For starters, one of the major focuses is building and restoring the lands. You have multiple buildings to build and upgrade, but doing so will reward you as these tasks unlock new perks for your character. The world of Regalia is laid out in a map with many circles, and each circle outside of your buildings act as a dungeon, and inside the dungeon you have numerous points of interest that can be one of three different experiences:
1. Save point - you can save here multiple times throughout your dungeon exploration. A save point can bring fallen members of your party back to life by sleeping but this can ONLY BE DONE ONCE. This is where strategy falls into place and I'll touch on that more later.
2. Choose your own adventure - If you're reading this and think an original Xbox is an antique then you may not remember these children's books that set you off on a quest that gave you the choice of your response. This mode gives you a scenario and from it you can select your response, which will end up in some kind of consequence (good or bad). These can sometimes be a battle or humorous stories and more. These encounters can also net you some very nice gear if you are so lucky.
3. Combat - very self-explanatory. This is a combat scenario where you and your party start out on a grid layout and you fight adversaries. There are special conditions such as "be the first to cause damage" that you can do throughout that will increase the chance of your end battle item. However, this is a lot more complex than it seems. For starters, the combat system is incredibly complex and even though it's a turn-based system, you will find yourself getting crushed A LOT. Think of this as an evolved version of a more violent game of chess. Strategy is important and given that you will do A LOT of fighting, here is how a traditional battle would work.
First you position your characters on the field in the designated zone. From there your characters take a turn if they want to. Your character can move and/or attack in any order, so you can be creative in how you play each fight. The game is based upon the skills of the people within your party. Each skill has a turn cooldown rating where 0 means it can be used every turn; and each skill has an Authority Point cost. Authority Points are crystals that are earned at the beginning of each round, and you get 1 per round, so you must plan for how you wish to spend your skills throughout your battle. Do you save your gems and go for a massive spell, summoning a fire demon, or do you go with a more conservative multiple medium skill attack? Regalia is all about strategy.
When you begin you'll also notice that your characters have no shields and that is because shields are distributed in a couple ways. One of them is to use our hero Kay to grant shields when it's his turn, or if your character doesn't move at all for their turn, they will automatically generate a small amount of shield. Winning these battles grants you resources you will need to build and upgrade your kingdom, which in turn will increase your ability to grow in your relationships with the other characters in the game.
As you now realize, your game consists of you forming a party, and it's through this party that you can develop relationships and friendships with all of those involved. The benefit from this is that you gain tremendous perks from increasing the Relationship Points between characters. Now, you will also have to be on your toes, so to speak, because some characters won't like your actions or choices so pay close attention and you should be fine.
I must pause for a moment because I must let you know just how beautiful Regalia is. The graphics are full of vivid and dynamic colors. The overall art style lends itself to be a fantastic JRPG game. The character development is very well executed and matches the quality given to the story of Regalia. What surprised me as well was the level of standards that Pixelated Milk gave to the sound. There isn't much in terms of dialogue or sound effects, which makes the soul focus on the soundtrack. With nowhere to hide any mistakes or flaws with the sound design, Regalia's approach to music hits all the right notes for a stellar experience. While there are some tremendous aspects to Regalia, there is always another side of the coin.
Now, while the overwhelming amount of content is done brilliantly, there are some issues that I have with Regalia that tarnish the crown. For starters let me talk to you about the loading screens. They aren't very long, but EVERYWHERE you go there's a loading screen, so while it's a blessing that the loading times are short, after a short amount of playing you'll notice that these loading times rapidly add up. While this can be a nuisance, this doesn't compare to the time constraint you face when playing Regalia. Let me explain this in more detail.
Remember earlier I talked about the debt collector? Well, you are given a certain number of kingdom tasks to complete within a set amount of time. If you happen to fail in finishing the required number of tasks within the time limit, the debt collector comes back and realizes that you have failed, and your game is over. You could have the best weapons, and the most amazing armor, but you can still fail in your time management and your game is over. Why is this such a big deal?
Let's say in this example you're given 30 in game days to complete a total of 5 kingdom tasks. When you navigate to any circular area outside of your main castle, you spend 1 day. When your character spends time with another character, that costs 1 day. Now let's say you enter a dungeon and you see a total of 9 nodes. That dungeon costs 9 days (1 day per node). Let's say you leave midway through the dungeon for whatever reason and you'll be charged the full 9 days, then you must come back and complete it, resulting in even more days spent. It's this type of playstyle that ends up squelching any desire to explore and, if we're honest, there isn't much (if any) exploration to do. Essentially Regalia has been reduced to nothing more than an interactive day planner that has multiple interactive events. But the plus side is that these events are challenging, but yet thankfully enjoyable.
So why should you part with your hard-earned money? Regalia is a great example of crowd funded games developing something that is tremendously fun to play. While other indie games try to be fun, they all take a knee to Regalia. For $24.99 you get an experience that is well over 50+ hours of fun and with the large amount of content weaved into a dynamic story that provides incredible challenges. You'll even find a few nods of respect to other tremendous games. When you look at the other releases that are out there on the Xbox platform, Regalia is truly a king amongst them.
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala
While fierce competition continues to permeate multiple gaming genres, there's one company named Artifex Mundi that has quietly, yet definitively carved out their place as the premier and undeniable king of hidden object puzzle games. Known for the casual pace, beautiful graphics, and a focus on sound that is rarely heard from smaller titles, Artifex Mundi has released their final chapter of the Enigmatis series, promptly titled Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala. Priced at $6.99, Artifex Mundi tries to close the door on this gripping tale of shadows and sorcery, demons and angels, heaven and hell. So how does this conclusion end? Let's see if we can't find a hidden gem or two inside.For starters, when I turned on the game I was expecting some soothing music and a beautiful backdrop that acted as my main staging area, and I have to say I wasn't disappointed. There was this young person (whom I hadn't a clue who she was) just sitting there with her flute playing a melody that was captivating and yet harmonic to the soul. For a moment I actually felt like a snake caught in a charmer's sweet tune. Enigmatis 3 starts off with your ability to select your game in normal or hard mode. While doing this you'll see that there isn't one but two tales you can play through and each of them packed full of scenes and levels for you to search through, but you can't play the second one until the first is complete. This type of simplicity is what makes these games so enjoyable and that is shown throughout the entire game with how the game is setup to play.
Using Left and Right Stick, you get to maneuver your observation circle around various still scenes where you can interact with items using the A button, back out of scenes using the B button and examine items that can be expanded using the Y button in your inventory which can be opened by either Right or Left Trigger. Should you wish to use an item somewhere, that can be done via the X button. Now you shouldn't be concerned with ruining the game or locking yourself out of anything because this game, like its predecessors, is incredibly straight forward and will actually stop you from doing something that will prevent you from progressing so essentially there is literally no way you can ever do anything wrong, but it may take you a very long time to do things right.
Your D-pad acts in several ways. Up displays a hint for you (I didn't really ever need it), Right brings up your map and shows you all the places you can't go by placing a red X in the circle, and the areas that you have choices to make are marked with a "!" symbol. Down brings up your evidence menu and Left brings up your journal to show you what your current task(s) are.
This sense of simplicity is also found all throughout the story. In case you haven't played the other two before this, you play the role of a detective who has tracked a demonic preacher throughout the previous two games with the help of her partner. In order to uncover the trail that will lead you to the priest you will have to use your keen eyesight to uncover and discover a wealth of clues and items that will assist you along the way. Once on the right path, you will have to use your clues of evidence to put the pieces of this mystery together and try and figure out a solution. Along the way you will unearth many mysteries and questions, but remember, not everything is as it seems.
The graphics though are everything that it seems and more. Each scene is beautifully hand drawn and looks incredible on a 4k TV playing through an Xbox One X. From water to fire, grass to mountains, peaceful tranquility to hectic turmoil, every scene within the game looks stunning. There are though a few hiccups with the graphics. For starters, the character modeling when they talk is hilariously poor. I'm talking 1980's quality animation that hit the cutting room floor kind of bad. When you engage in someone who you see is talking to you, it appears as their mouth have only a few positions (open, closed, and crooked) and the game cycles through these static images as quickly as possible to try and simulate talking. While good in effort, it's poor in execution. I would actually have preferred to not have any voice acting and instead just text boxes that I could read and cycle through.
The sound though is where this game truly shines for me, as I loved the ambient atmospheric sounds throughout the various scenes. Each one is unique as the artwork that accompanies it and is a stunning companion to the experience. There are though some aspects that are not up to par. Earlier you read that I mentioned lackluster animation when it came to the people and their mouths, and sadly the same negative approach has to be taken to the voice acting as well. You get the feeling you're listening to C grade actors/actresses who want to be B grade, so they overemphasize almost everything to come off as better than they are. This is a massive negative tick but thankfully you won't have to talk to too many people throughout your adventure.
The final drawback though comes from the reality that Enigmatis 3 is not a long game at all. You can go through the game in about a day, and 2 if you wanted to get all the achievements, but despite all of this, it goes without saying that if you enjoyed the other hidden object puzzle games from Artifex Mundi, then Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala should be on your radar as a must have game. I can think of many ways to spend $6.99 and not get as much enjoyment as you would find in this game. So take a bow Artifex Mundi, in your curtain call for the Enigmatis story line, you have found a true gem for the gaming world.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Train Sim World: Founder's Edition
From the evolution of civilizations, to the dreams of young children around the world, trains have always captivated our imagination with their power and purpose. There are many forms of train usage; from transportation of cargo to the transportation of people, trains and their purposes have evolved as well. Recently, Dovetail Games has released Train Sim: World Founders Edition for the price point of $29.99, and its goal is simple, as it aims to bring you the wonderment and magic that these powerful machines can produce into the virtual world of console gaming. Let's hop aboard and dive deeper into what could possibly be the best train simulation on the planet.Simulation games have been done before, including a bunch of quality ones from Dovetail Games, so I was confident as to the level of quality I should expect. In terms of trains, people (including myself) can't help but think of the old steam trains where a couple people were in an the locomotive shoveling coal into a hot fire while watching the oil pressure and brakes. Modern trains are so much different, it's like you're stepping into a cockpit full of buttons, switches, levers, dials and all other kinds of interactive items. In this game you get the ability to control three different types of trains that range from mighty diesel engines to high speed modern beasts. Now, if this is beginning to feel a bit overwhelming, it's because it is.
Train Sim World: Founders Edition provides a beginning tutorial that will take you step by step into each train and give you a sense of how to operate it on a very basic level. Each train has its own cabin with its own layout and design, so you will have to get comfortable with more than just one style. Once you complete the tutorial, not only will you net yourself a 100-point achievement, but you'll be completely clueless as to how the rest of the game will operate. Outside of this beginning tutorial you have access to a Scenario and Services modes.
In Scenario Mode you are tasked with choosing your train adventure. Some scenarios range from 15 minutes while others be up to an hour, so be ready to devote some serious time when you pick your route. These different routes consist of stops and speed traps along the way, but sadly there are only 5 to choose from. The Services Mode is what you could consider to be a free roaming mode where you pick what train you want and the track, etc. It's here that you can also see an incredible amount of options for weather.
As you go through these two game modes, you'll rapidly realize that your training in the tutorial wasn't enough. While there are some pointers and hints to tell you what button or lever to push or pull or turn next, you only cover about 5% of all the dials, buttons and levers in the cabin. So, what the other ones do is something you must discover while you're sitting alone, in your cabin, watching life drift by you.
Why such a dreary description? That's because playing this game instilled in me a tremendous sense of solitude and loneliness. I would actually set down my controller at times and go to the kitchen to get a drink, or hit my PC to answer some emails, and when I came back the train would still be on its way to the station. It was an eye opener to me, because it was a perspective on a position that I never thought about. When you get locked into that virtual cabin it dawns on you that for hour after lonely hour you will sit and stare out of a window and control a throttle lever, all alone. However, if you prefer the tranquility of solitude then this aspect of the game will be a welcomed addition for you.
Now, this game strives to be lifelike, but it it comes up short in a few areas. First off would be the visuals. There is a tremendous amount of screen tearing whenever you move the camera angle, so essentially there is nothing but constant screen tearing throughout the entire game. Staying on the topic of the visuals, the character models are limited and repetitive, but not in an abundance that would make you feel like the area is populated, as out of 100 seats in the passenger cars, only 12 will be filled randomly throughout each one. There are other glitches with the graphics that detract from the experience too. For example, when you are a passenger and you move between cars, the first door opens relatively simply; however, the second door is imaginary as you can walk right through it.
Those aren't the only doors that you can fall through, as I found out when my character was exploring the cabin while the computer was driving. I got glitched out of a locked door and fell onto the tracks. The fall didn't kill my character, but I did have to run to the next station. Then when I did get to the station I could not jump on any ledge, so I had to backtrack a couple hundred yards and find a slope that I could walk towards and glitch upon so I could run to my train and try and keep my important schedule of stops.
That's when it hit me. This game is selling you artificial stress and responsibility. People play games to temporarily escape some of the realities of their daily life and this game gives them a synthetic version of reality. Coupled with a small NASA launch console to contend with that you don't know what does anything, constant screen tearing, and quite possibly one of the loneliest jobs in the world, you get a whole new respect for train operators. Just think, in a world where we, as a society, demand on-time service, now that wonderful stress and responsibility can be all yours, but you can turn the console off and walk away.
So, does Train Sim World: Founders Edition pull into the station of awesomeness or does it derail in spectacular fashion? A little of both actually, but one thing is for sure, and that is the question: "Should you buy this at $29.99?" Unfortunately I don't think so. That being said, this game has a distinct audience and it will find a few fans, but those that aren't into this kind of genre might just want to take the bus, instead of the train.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Way of the Passive Fist
Remember back in the day when you and your friends gathered around an arcade machine and took turns plunking your quarters into the limitless abyss of an arcade cabinet? You'd do this to buy just a little more play time so your character could maneuver around the screen and beat up more enemies? Well, if you’re reading this on a smartphone, or your idea of ancient gaming system is an original Xbox, then this may just come as a surprise to you.Back in the day, side scrolling action adventure games were an overwhelming genre that never relinquished their dominating hold of greatness. Everyone, and every IP, were getting caught into the mix, and soon we had mutants, barbarians and even the Simpsons and TMNT all chomping to get a piece of that 25 cent pie. Even though times have changed, the side scrolling action hasn’t. Priced at $14.99, developer Household Games Inc. has tried to reinvent the glory had by all those other success stories of the past with a game called Way of the Passive Fist.
First off, if you were expecting any story of any significant value in this game, you won't find that here. Your character’s name is the Wanderer, and given the their name, they are known for simply wandering. Where do they wander? Well, on a planet named Zircon V which used to be a vibrant and populous mining colony, but now for some reason, this planet’s dying star has turned the planet into a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is overrun by characters you think were cut from the movie Mad Max. This “story” (and I use that term very loosely) is fairly shallow. I know that’s not a nice thing to say, but there is very little to no redeeming factor to it. But that’s ok, because action games generally aren’t about plot-lines and stories, they’re about the ACTION! So let’s talk about your character’s weapons.
Oh, wait, he has none. I shouldn’t say that, he has actually two, the Y button is a 'basic' punch and RB is a super punch. Now, I should take a step back and explain a unique twist on the action game genre that the developer takes. Apparently the enemies are the main attackers and all your job is to do is to parry/dodge the attacks with the X button (parry) and B (dodge), and in doing so it drains the stamina meter above your enemies’ head. Once the enemy's stamina has been depleted, they will slouch over and you, then press the Y button to punch them and they disappear. What I’ve just explained is essentially what you can expect for gameplay, to simply parry and dodge throughout the entire game. Should you parry/dodge enough attacks in a row you’ll see a blue fiery ring around your character’s feet. This is when you can use your super punch.
I think I should mention a couple of points before we press on. First, your super punch CAN disappear should your combo reset for any reason, so when you get one make sure you use it so you don’t lose it. Second, let’s say you’re parrying attacks and you're already up to 12, your enemy comes in to attack, and you press the X button and your enemy slouches over, and then you accidentally press the X button again? Well, congratulations, your combo meter has officially reset, and should you have a super punch waiting to be used, you can kiss that goodbye as well. This officially makes the game ALL about button timing and literally NOTHING ELSE.
Throughout the game's 10 stages you’ll encounter a variety of enemies, and by variety I mean what appears to be a total of about 6-7 unique enemies, and the rest are just those that are 'skinned' a little differently, have a different weapon, etc. This to me seems like a 'cut-the-corners' kind of approach that shouldn’t have happened. While it could be an issue with money, time, or whatever, many may view it as is somewhat lazy development. You could have an enemy with a blue uniform on in one scene and in the next one they wear green and attack in a slightly different way. By different though I mean they punch you, but instead of 2 or 3 punches, you will get 4. Once you start to get a feel for the enemies and how they attack, you’ll quickly be able to adapt to the slight changes in the attack patterns.
Throughout the stages your character will level up and you’ll have access to checkpoints. Based off of how you decide to structure your play, you may need one, two, or all of these checkpoints, because heaven forbid you have to start all over from the start. There is an achievement for going through any stage and not activating a single checkpoint. Let me break that down to you. Should you decide to go through Stage 1 and not activate a single checkpoint, but get to the end of the chapter and get killed by the boss, you are sent all the way back to the beginning of the stage and you get to enjoy all the excitement all over again. This is yet another way that the fun and enjoyment of this game takes a big hit.
Now, all this fun I just described above is found throughout the story mode. Once you complete this, off you go to the arcade mode! Unfortunately, this mode is exactly what you’ve been going through in story mode but with limited lives and damage tweaks. It is nothing more, nothing less. Quite honestly, I can’t find a single reason that this mode should even exist since you can already tailor your story experience how you wish (within reason), but should you trudge through the story mode, Arcade mode is your prize.
There are other annoyances as well. The biggest one of what’s left has to be, hands down, the music. It’s quite awful. I may be a hyper picky critique of audio, but I had to turn the music off as it was so annoying it gave me a headache. What was supposed to be a throwback, a homage so to speak, to some of the classic arcade music of the day turned into a metal, electric synth/guitar riff that was stuck on a loop, and that loop sounded about as good as nails across a chalkboard.
Thankfully there is a ray of light for this game. The graphics do a wonderful job in bringing back the classic arcade style that we knew and loved decades ago. Even though the enemies are done in different colors and slightly different outfits, every minute of the game brought the classic feel of an 80's arcade cabinet right into my living room, and that is an experience that I missed tremendously and done very well indeed.
Oh, one more thing. There is though something that did catch my eye, and that are the game's achievements. They are the best part of the game itself. For example, if you play through ANY chapter twice in a row you get a 20-point achievement called Double Draggin’. Should you open up a container in a level and find the secret turtle soup healing item, you unlock the Turtles in Thyme achievement. These achievements pay respect to action games that came out decades before this, and that are still far superior.
So do I think $14.99 is a good price for Way of the Passive Fist? Regrettably, no. For $14.99 you get simplistic gameplay with an action mechanic that is poorly executed and rewards your persistence with the exact same thing all over again. At the end of the day, this game may find fans out there, but the overall experience is one that you should enter with extreme caution, give the weaknesses that brings down the game's overall fun factor.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Mercenary Kings: Reloaded Edition
Normally I’m quite fearful of a game that has its birth from a crowd funding platform such as Kickstarter. Numerous times the public is fed a rose colored fantasy only to be let down in one way or another. This time though, developer Tribute Games put forth a Kickstarter with a goal of only $75,000 and ended up grossing over $116,000, and the gauntlet, as they say, was officially thrown down. If you were a fan of Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World: The Game, then you should already have some hope as members of that team are the same ones that developed Mercenary Kings, and with an iconic source of reference such as Metal Slug, the challenge was accepted. Now, for $19.99 you can get this game, one that is coming up on being four years old. So the big question is: "It it worth spending $20 on a game that is somewhat old?"With regards to any sort of backstory, I’ll sum things up as such. There’s an evil force named CLAW (yes, I’m thinking of Inspector Gadget as well) who has committed evil deeds such as kidnapping scientists, annihilating armies of good soldiers and even kicking a puppy or two (that last one I just threw in there because it sounds pretty evil). All hope has been forsaken, and there doesn’t appear to any light at the end of the tunnel. You find yourself saved from the brink of death, and there’s only one thing on your mind, and that is retaliation against CLAW.
In order to do this you have to battle your way through 113 levels (yes, that’s not a typo) that span the vast military ranks and end at General. Throughout these ranks your missions are split between saving hostages, gathering supplies, taking out critical targets and more. Sadly, there isn’t much in regard to varying stages as you will find that most of the time you’ll be traversing the same landscape, but just going to different areas of the large maps. When you tack on the reality that you are under a time limit to complete each mission, which can range between 5 to 30 minutes, you quickly come to the conclusion that exploration and discovery isn’t necessarily the best thing for you.
This is because the game’s levels are setup in a manner that they will require some replaying. For example, let’s say you have a mission where you have to rescue a scientist who has done many science things and you only have 12 minutes to do it. It seems pretty straightforward, and on the surface you would be correct; however, each level consists of a super-secret-special objective that you will have to stumble upon considering, well, it’s a secret. Then there are the speed runs to contend with as well. Beating a level may be one thing, but beating it under a certain time will require skill and cunning and enough luck to eclipse the sun. So, harking back to that previous example, instead of 12 minutes to complete the level, if you want to go for the fastest time, then you’ll have to do it in, let’s say 6 minutes. Doing so will place a shiny gold star (yea!) next to the level, which does nothing and is essentially there for bragging rights.
To fly through these numerous levels quickly it will require you to manage your character’s inventory. This is because Mercenary Kings is about how much weight your virtual character can hold. Carry too much and your character will lumber along very slowly, but carry next to nothing and your character will zip around the screen so fast that a certain coyote will probably mistake you for something else, or maybe not. So let’s start off by talking about the things that add weight.
Everything, and I mean everything, you find in the game adds weight. So for starters, your character can be equipped with up to two bionic modifications that you can craft (with required materials) and each one of them not only carries with it a bonus, but some also come with a drawback. For instance, one mod will have enemies drop a lot of common materials when they die, but the drawback is that these some enemies won’t drop rare items as much. On top of this, these modifications take up weight on your character, so as they say in the movies, choose wisely. Now, let us move onto your backpack.
Your backpack carries weight as well, and depending on the items you put in it, will quickly become the source of a lot of issues for your character’s mobility. The developers claim that your backpack can carry a total of 4 items: your weapon, two miscellaneous items, and a transmitter (used for calling in supply drops, etc). All of these items, apart from your transmitter, take up weight. Items such as C4, health kits, hand grenades, and more, all take up weight, but not as much weight as your weapon.
In Mercenary Kings, your weapon is 100% customizable. This means you start off with a base (in the beginning you get a pistol), which can be a handgun, assault rifle, shotgun, sniper, a ray gun and much more. Each gun can then be outfitted with different barrels, clips, sights, stocks and other accessories. While some weapons can be made to look incredible, such as a magnum handgun with a mini-gun barrel, others can look hilarious, such as the toilet gun, which literally looks like a white porcelain toilet bowl. You will need to pay close attention to the weight of your weapon because when it gets combined with your backpack's contents, and any/all bionic modifications, your character can really be sluggish and that can make a big difference in a gun fight, unless you have your knife.
While having all these gun choices and combinations are fun and festive, do not underestimate the power of the dark side of your knife. Sorry, got caught up there for a moment. Anyhow, your knife has a special ability in that it can deflect bullets. When I got the option to customize my knife I went straight for the most damage I could find for the smallest weight increase. While I passed over a wooden sword because I didn’t feel it was dangerous enough because it was wooden, I stumbled across an amazing tool of slicing and dicing, a pizza cutter. Now I was unstoppable. Enemies fired round after round and I swatted them away like they were nothing. With my trusty pizza cutter of deflection and death, and my toilet gun, I was ready to tackle anything.
It should be noted that everything in this game requires materials to construct, so again, you will be forced to play through many of the levels over and over again to obtain them, but I found a little trick. There is a bionic modification that I touched on earlier where, if you equip it, enemies will always drop common materials, but you will also be jinxed and the percentage of enemies dropping rare items will be a lot lower. There is also another bionic mod that will allow enemies an increased chance to drop rare items, but you won’t get you as much cash. Equipping those two modifications at the same time allowed my character to rapidly stockpile a plethora of materials that I needed to make my equipment.
When you begin playing you’ll navigate through your central base, which acts as the main hub for your operations. It's here is where you will be able to outfit your character and select the various missions. Once selected, you are transported by a helicopter named “Choppy” to drop you off into your mission. Before you decide to take off though, I would strongly recommend that you tackle the hunting grounds on the right hand side of your base so you can become familiar with the controls as they are a tad bit clunky and can be cumbersome at times.
Basic controls like A for jump and B for rolling are one thing, and X is your firing button, but RB is for reloading because Y is for your knife. There were a few issues I had with the reloading input and that stems from the gun you decide to build. For example, when you reload there is a bar where there are clear spots on the sides, and in the middle there are some yellow bars that enclose a green section. Should you time your reload by pressing RB a second time in the green section, then all the ammo that gets replenished will be granted a damage bonus. It’s important to note that as you change your gun components, the reload bar will change as well. This can be dangerous when you consider you could dramatically shrink your “green” reload area, or even slow down the reload time (the mini-gun reload time, for example, is 9 seconds long).
Thankfully, all this classic platforming is wrapped up in beautiful retro graphics with classic 16-bit sounds. There is a lot of humor spread throughout the various characters, so I strongly advise to chat with the other NPC’s throughout the base. While you can take on these levels in multiplayer and co-op modes, there is nothing that is overly challenging that would require a need to do so.
As I played I was pleasantly surprised with the number of homage to some of the classic games of the past such as Zelda and even Metal Gear, so if you’re looking to take a walk down memory lane with a crap load of guns and explosives, then Mercenary Kings should be on your radar. For $19.99 you are getting an overwhelming amount of content that should keep you and your trigger happy friends amused for quite a while.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Raining Blobs
One of the earliest types of games around were puzzle games. Simple to program, simple to design, and yet they still managed to provide hours, and sometimes even decades, of entertainment. Out of this extremely long pedigree comes an indie game called Raining Blobs from developer Black Shell Games. Now, I'll let you in on a little secret; I'm a huge puzzle game fan. From Tetris to Puzzle Fighter, and all of the games in between, I find that their cerebral strain can be more entertaining to me than just blindly going around shooting and killing things. Priced at $9.99, I'm anxious to see just how well Black Shell Games did with this game.
When you start out, Raining Blobs takes you through a brief tutorial, which I skipped accidentally. This tutorial guides you as to how to make your matches, but more importantly, how to clear your colors. Since you may, or may not, do the error I did, here is how you operate the game. Using various buttons to rotate your 2 blob piece, you will find a section of the board and then drop said piece in that section (the best example I can think of is Dr. Mario). Now that you have your piece there you will start to build with similar colored blobs (or orbs, whatever...) and then you may see a piece that contains a star. Thinking at first that this is how you clear the color, you include it in the construction of your color, but upon placing it you realize that it doesn't go away. This is because now you need ANOTHER starred blob thingy to actually trigger the disappearance and score the orbs connected.
If it sounds like it's confusing, it's because it is. However, while the game mechanics are simplistic, how they are applied and managed is a totally different thing. This is thanks to Raining Blob's temporary surges in speed, and the fact that you're going to have to focus on not only what's coming next for your character, but your opponents as well. To help regulate the insanity, you will occasionally be dropped a blob that has a diamond attached to it. This piece of salvation will remove any color it touches, and while that's a good thing, I find it more useful to remove color pieces that aren't connected in a long network. This way when the obstructions are removed, the remaining similar colored blobs will connect forming an even more gigantic chain that will lead to incredibly high scores.
You can rack up high scores due to the fact that Raining Blobs treats you to a few game modes which aren't anything new or innovative, but you can play against the CPU or other humans if you so wish. Arcade mode sets the end level and tasks you to reach it, yet I never got close, though I'm sure with enough practice and time it could be accomplished. It is here is where I started to get a feel for the controls and how the game itself should be played.
Next is Tournament mode where I found another irrelevancy within the game, the characters themselves. Apparently, these retro anime styled girls seem to have a story or history to tell, yet none of it is worth reading or even caring about. There is one catch though, and that is these computer AI opponents are without a doubt, the most frustrating opponents I've encountered in quite some time.
In Tournament mode, when you make a match, you send other blobs to your opponent, and when their play area is full, you win. Sounds simple yes? Well, I was making matches after matches and sending blobs to my opponent who then ended up somehow miraculously converting them into a 50 blob chain that the computer then cleared, seemingly taking me out in one hit. This is also on the easiest difficult setting.
So naturally, I thought about turning up the difficulty. I haven't seen something get beat that hard since a Salvation Army drum. The computer would be making lightning fast moves that perplexed at first, then one pair of orbs would drop from above like a key and WHAM! Everything clears, massive combos are reached and my screen goes too full almost instantly. If you're going to try to up the difficulty, good luck.
Now, even though this will cause you to pull out whatever hair you have left, there is a mode called Puzzle that is actually quite cerebral. Instead of dealing with opponents who are incredibly difficult, this challenge pits you against the board, and it's your job to solve it with a single pair of blobs. With 100 puzzles to solve, this is where patience and thinking are better than wildly placing blobs everywhere you can think of.
While Raining Blobs tries to offer multiple game modes for variety, they try and keep your attention. To do this, Raining Blobs outfits the game with retro styled anime girls in skimpy outfits and places them in varying stages with pointless scenes and music that will leave you underwhelmed at every stage of the game. But that's the thing about Raining Blobs. It's not trying to be something it's not, and that's when the revelation of the game made sense to me.
Raining Blobs isn't trying to be some epic RPG game or some action packed shooter that's filled with beautiful content and a sweeping musical score. Instead, Raining Blobs is trying to be a throwback retro puzzle game on a modern platform that highlights some of the vintage puzzle atmospheres of the past. While I wish there were some tweaks, the overall style of the game itself is worth checking out, but not for $9.99. If the game ever gets to $4.99 on sale, and you like puzzle games (which don't have stupid odd point based achievements like some OTHER puzzle games have had) that involve anime girls in skimpy outfits getting blasted by blobs, then this is the game for you...blobmaster.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Deadbeat Heroes
One of the greatest challenges that any developer faces is how to keep gamers playing their game after the initial first impression has worn off. To do this, developers have many different options at their disposal, but one thing must remain true, whatever path they take, they must succeed. Now, enter the development team at Deadbeat Studios and their latest release, Deadbeat Heroes. Priced at $14.99, this little indie game's goal is to provide a comical point of view on super hero games that doesn't take itself too seriously. As you'll read throughout this review, that could be its saving grace.Throughout my reviews of indie games, I try to approach them in an objective manner and relate their value compared to the price charged to see if it's worth your money. Deadbeat Heroes provides an overly generic storyline that doesn't do much in terms of originality or innovation, or quality if I'm honest. Apparently London is under attack by a group of shaded out evil villains who seemingly control an army of incredibly stupid and worthless henchmen that will serve to be your punching bags throughout the game. You are recruited by Captain Justice who, right from the beginning, shows the lighthearted, but terrible, humor that you can expect to permeate this game.
As you will quickly realize though, what starts out as entertaining transform into grueling work that amounts to very little entertainment and quite a lot of frustration and irritation. After your brief humorous introduction to Captain Justice, and your super hero lair, you'll notice a bunch of super hero clichés such as batman's red phone and more. You'll then be tasked with going to the gym so you can become acquainted with your skills and abilities. Upon completion, you'll rapidly become used to the simplistic game mechanics which can become a blessing so you're not trying to hit 5 buttons at once while rotating both sticks to perform a move. The X button is your attack button and the A button is your jump. The Y button does a taunt if your super meter is low but can also be used to unleash a turbo move when said meter is full.
There isn't much to be confused with in terms of the gameplay controls, and on the very first mission you will be thankful for this. The reason for this is because Deadbeat Heroes focuses solely on obtaining the highest score possible for that level and making sure that you qualify for the minimum accepted score. To accomplish this, you will need to chain together combos, make sure that all your hits hit once, and that you do not get hit at all. Sounds easy when you have the ability to wall run, double jump, and perform dive attacks from the air, but if you falter though, you will be introduced to Deadbeat Heroes' biggest downfall, the score removal.
That's right folks, if the minimum required score to pass a level is a C, and you unfortunately score a D, then you don't pass and move on. No, instead you will be forced to replay the level until you do get a C or higher in your score. Heaven forbid though you should die, because that's when Deadbeat Heroes takes a nosedive. Each chapter is divided into numerous levels, and should you make it all the way to level 3 and perish, then not only will any progress for level 3 be wiped away, but level 2 as well thus forcing you to replay level 2 just to access level 3 again and then, hopefully, you can move onto the next level. This forces you to replay levels again and again, and should you run out of lives, you'll have to start over from level 1. And what exactly will you be repeating?
You will be repeating the same linear level design and action sequences you face on every single level. You start off by going into an enclosed area and beating up all the bad guys, then you move onto the next path to the next room that is filled with more bad guys to beat up and then guess what? You move onto the next enclosed room filled with even more bad guys to beat up. This tediousness is one of the reasons why completing a level actually holds significant value since repeating this already repetitious pattern is enough to have anyone looking for a new game to play. When your character can take only 3 hits before dying, you will quickly come to terms with the challenge that waits before you.
Now, I've been beating the crap out of this game, review wise, but is there anything that's actually redeemable from Deadbeat Heroes? Well, the graphics have a nice cartoonish, cel-shaded feel which is enjoyable to experience. The art style is cool, but that's pretty much all there is. I would talk some about the music and sound effects, but quite honestly, I don't want to beat a dead horse, as again, they are nothing special. When you progress further into the game you start to acquire teammates that act, essentially, as disposable lives, and therefore you get some reprieve when it comes to dying so long as at least one hero remains alive, so that is another positive.
For $14.99 I really don't feel comfortable recommending that you pick up Deadbeat Heroes. While the humor is mediocre at best, I haven't witnessed so much failing since the new Star Wars movie (and yes, that is my opinion of that too). Deadbeat Heroes offers little in terms of gameplay enjoyment, meaningful quest experiences, absent replayability, and offers a militaristic dictatorship hold over progress and failure where you end your gaming experience more angry than overjoyed. This game would be a considerable pick up if it were priced at $4.99, but at $14.99 I can't recommend subjecting yourself through the forced aggravation that Deadbeat Heroes brings to the table.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
ELEX
For me, and yes, this is my opinion, I think that one of the greatest genres in gaming has to be open world RPG's. If developed just right the right mix of a fantastic story, incredible graphics, and a musical score that steals your heart, then an open world RPG can become one of the best gaming experiences you can have on a console system. Now let's talk about Elex. Developed by Piranha Bytes, Elex's premise turned heads from the early stages of the game. They were set on developing a game that Action RPG fans would enjoy. So, has the dev-team managed to tick all the right boxes to become a fantastic, open world RPG experience, or has it been banished to the realm of mediocrity?
Throughout the beginning of the game, you're treated to a cinematic that explains the overall story. Think of this as a "previously on Elex" moment. You are on the planet Magalan and different factions have formed in the wake of a meteor strike. The first faction, the Albs, ingest Elex so that they are granted heightened powers and abilities at the expense of their emotions, which make them perfect killing machines. Clerics, the next faction, are known as Elex embracers who consider the material to be magical in power and use it to implement technology. The Berserkers are a faction who are on the opposite end of the advanced technology spectrum. Finally you have the Outlaws, a faction who are basically an over weaponized army that focuses on firepower and not Elex. The meteor strike has marked the discovery of Elex and has provided the planet with a new resource that all factions are now desperately fighting for control over.
In order to survive Elex (the game) you will need to complete quests, of which there is no shortage of, for each of the various factions. It almost seems like nothing would ever have gotten completed on the planet had you not been betrayed and left for dead, hmmmm. While the main quests will net you coin and XP, the bulk of Elex's adventure will fall within the realm of the side quests.
The side quests can be trivial quests all the way up to severely challenging. Not only will they provide you resources for completion, but more importantly, they will provide you with favor with the corresponding faction. This favor will help you as you begin to search out trainers to spend learning points on skills and abilities, but there's a problem here, and that they are outrageously priced, and once the first skill is learned, any subsequent skills will cost you a fortune. In other words, get ready to grind your hours away.
However, when dealing with these quests you'll be dealing with what I think is quite possibly Elex's biggest disappointment, the voice acting. To say it's bad is an understatment, as unfortunately it is really bad. Every single NPC you manage to talk to will have some form of digital apathy as there is hardly any emotional connection, and the what emotions that do show are overplayed to a massive stereotypical cliché that you will find yourself caring very little for these digital characters. In doing this though, Elex effectively drains all importance of the game away and leaves you with very little reason for exploring the rest of what it has to offer.
As you would expect, it will be up to you to decide what faction you want to play as, because the game will shape to your choices and lock you out of others. This aspect, if done right, will naturally generate incredible replay value thanks to incredible quality of support. Sadly, the execution of Elex's other elements pretty much result in making you want to finish even one play through tough to do and that's heartbreaking. Single player, open world RPG games can be incredible experiences. Fallout, for instance, or Elder Scrolls, provide numerous pathways that are enjoyable from all playthrough variants, but after playing Elex, you don't get that same sort of enjoyment. It's not because it was poorly developed, but because it felt more like a beta experience than a polished game ready for the public. Let me give you an example.
When the game starts off you find yourself betrayed by your fellow Albs and left for dead. The game starts you off on a quest to find out who betrayed you and why. You will encounter a Berserker who helps start you on your path. This is also where you're going to be exposed to the absolute beauty of the environment. While the character modeling is average at best, the environments are absolutely amazing. While it may be beautiful, it's also incredibly deadly. Stray from the path to explore and you'll wind up encountering enemies that will drop you in one single hit. While this will naturally change as your character levels up and advances, there will always seem to be a feeling that anytime you set off the beaten path, you better be cautious because within seconds you could die.
While the environment may be beautiful, sadly there are other areas of the graphics that aren't. As noted, character modeling and the facial expressions are absolutely dismal at best. When they talk you almost wish they wouldn't because of the poor animation. Sometimes when my character was talking it looked like they were drunk. Then you have the combat. You're going to be getting into a lot of it so it better be good right? Wrong. The attacks for your character are tied into RB and RT and both of them are horrible. This is thanks to another underdeveloped characteristic of Elex, the gameplay.
You'll find that horrible camera controls combined with a bad user interface, and then topped off with a sluggish movement control system, combine for a completely miserable experience. Some of the most challenging things you can do in Elex is control your own character's actions. Countless times you'll try to climb something, or talk to someone, or even attack something if you wish, and you'll find that you have better chance of using 'The Force'. You get the feeling that this is part of the game that, if had it had more development time, would have been incredible and that actually adds to the disappointment.
As I continued to play I had that "it all makes sense" moment. Elex needed more time to develop. Gamers have always heard the line from companies that "We need more time to polish the game," and Elex is a perfect example of what happens when there is no more time. It's like when you rush a game to meet a deadline and then the gaming public descends upon the developer like an army of Gordon Ramsays that are eager to tell them what they think of their raw game. The biggest disappointment that I have with Elex isn't the poor control system, or the colossally horrific voice acting, or the overpowered enemies, or the character modeling from the 1990's. No, my biggest disappointment is that all, and I mean ALL, of these issues could have been addressed and refined if given two things: more time and more money. I feel that Elex could have been one of the best open world RPG games we have seen in quite sometime had it had the time and funding to develop into something wonderful, not just passable.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus 
What do you do when your previous game delivers a tremendous impact equal to bombing runs over London during WWII? Well, in the case of MachineGames and Bethesda Softworks, you bring the noise, but this time more of it, and release Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. This is no small task considering the ramifications and themes that permeate throughout the game and the current unrest and division we see here in the United States. While creating a game is challenging enough, Wolfenstein II aims to create yet another entire experience that is unique. Recently, the discussion on single player gaming has been called into question and Wolfenstein II just shows why single player gaming, if done right, is an experience that just can't be beat.Should you play the first game? To answer your question, yes, you should play it as it is a game where the timeline of history is changed in WWII and the Nazis end up winning the war and taking over the United States of America. If, for some reason, you haven't played the first one, Wolfenstein II does a decent job showcasing a recap via one of those "last time on Wolfenstein" moments. During this sequence you're shown brief, and I do mean brief, images and clips that try and help you piece things together of what events led to your current situation. This is done because Wolfenstein II picks up almost the very moment after the cliffhanger ending of its predecessor. What this means for our hero Blazkowicz, is that General Engel is back and she has never stopped hunting you.
That's all I'm going to say about the story because it's one of pure mastery. This is thanks to many different factors. For one, the execution of the script by the talent is incredible. From the street savvy crews of the United States of America to the sadist actions and rantings of a pure psychopath, every main part of the story will leave you captivated.
However, the real meat is to experience the interactions that the NPC characters have with each other. Case in point, there is a level where you are in the Southern United States and you are trying to meet up with your contact. There is a small problem though, and that is that it takes place during a Nazi parade where some of the bystanders are members of the Ku Klux Klan. It is here and you overhear their uncensored discussion with each other and then with German officers. The dialogue is what people would classify as completely raw; however, it adds to the reality of what things would be like had things been different in WWII. I enjoyed going throughout the game's levels and witnessing the bizarre, and always entertaining, communication between the residents as they tell some fascinating stories.
This is the type of creation you need when developing an immersive storyline for a single player game. The dark rhetoric passages of the game's dialogue contribute to authenticity, but be forewarned, some of the topics may be disturbing to those who play. Topics such as child abuse, homophobia, incredibly intense scenes of extreme violence, racism and much more, are found in every moment of the main storyline progression. I'm actually quite thankful that Bethesda and MachineGames decided to make the game as authentic as it is.
Instead of cowering to the PC police, they throw a ton of hate material at you and say this is who is responsible for the situation in the game (Nazi's ruling of America), and in doing so they create a tremendous feeling of pride in your country. These are the same patriotic feelings we feel during certain occasions and instances such as 9/11. What this means to you dear gamer, is that in Wolfenstein II you can expect one of the most powerful stories you'll ever experience.
Of course in order to accomplish this you'll need to fight, and to do so requires a streamlined combat system that is typical in most first person shooters. What makes Wolfenstein II's system so great is that there literally isn't much there to work with. This is a blessing when you find yourself up to your neck in Nazi guards who are called in when an Officer trips and alarm and requests backup. Dual wielding your weapons can be extremely effective for the run and gun strategy instead of stealth, and can be activated or cancelled with one simple button press.
You can dual wield any weapon that isn't regarded as "heavy", but these non-heavy weapons have another benefit, as they all can be upgraded with upgrade kits that you can find hidden throughout the game's levels. There is a slight flaw here though in that the Right Bumper, if held down, will bring up a weapon selection HUD and using the Right Analog Stick will let you select what weapon you want. The problem here is that while you're saying 'time out' while you select your weapon, the enemy still is firing at you. This will lead to many untimely deaths and many restarts.
While upgrading your weapons gives you huge advantages, Wolfenstein II has internal challenges for your character to accomplish that will unlock perks and improve abilities that directly affect your character. Challenges such as kill X number of enemies by throwing a hatchet, or X amount of combat takedowns, or even X number of environmental kills. Completing these challenges will grant your character bonuses to his abilities and skills, and as you progress and keep increasing what mastery level these skills are, the bigger the bonus your character will receive. So sometimes it IS a good thing to have officers trip the alarm as you can boost your challenges quickly while you look around for all the collectibles.
And speaking of collectibles, there are A LOT of hidden items to find scattered amongst the game's levels. Each level is fairly linear in design, but the size of the levels is quite impressive, which also means you'll have to spend a lot of time searching if you want to find every single collectible. This is where one of my gripes of the game's design are. Wolfenstein II seems to take assets straight from games like Fallout and rehashes the design. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, it does feel a little cheap, sort of like the developers were cutting corners so they can focus on their character development.
I have to give MachineGames credit though, the character development and visual presentation of Wolfenstein II in 4K is incredible. I was playing this game on the Xbox One X with a 4K Samsung TV, and to say it's pretty is an understatement for the ages. The slightest nuances are highlighted in ways that other companies could only dream about producing. If you only care about graphics, then Wolfenstein II should already be on your must have list.
Sadly though, the same can't be said for the soundtrack and audio of the game. While the voice acting stands out as incredible, the overall ambience of the game leaves a lot to be desired. Throughout your adventure you keep hearing Blazkowicz giving an internal monologue of sorrow and depression, and this got on my nerves somewhat. There were slight bugs as well, such as sending a guard flying hundreds of feet into the air with a grenade while the destructible box beside him was untouched.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus brings gamers around the world and single player, first person shooter that delivers a fantastic storyline, beautiful graphics, and an experience that is hard to surpass on any platform. Bethesda and MachineGames have done a tremendous job in showcasing evil exists in the world, the fight that good people have to go through to prevent this evil from taking hold, and what happens when good people do absolutely nothing. This game is easily a contender for game of the year, with only a few shortcomings, and I expect to see Wolfenstein II make a serious case for why they deserve the crown.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War
One of my favorite tales to read has been Lord of the Rings. The development, and more importantly the execution, of such literary text inspires imagination all over the globe. Due to this unfathomable love found world wide, it goes without saying that Lord of the Rings is one of the most protected and sacred works in human history. Back in 2014, Monolith Productions crafted a tale found in their a game called Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which introduced two characters, Talion, a ranger who wanted to live in peace with his family, and Celebrimbor, who was the one responsible for making the One Ring. Tensions during the development of the game were understandably high as any sort of blemish would result in catastrophically negative press. Shadow of Mordor launched to incredible praise and it earned countless "Game of the Year" awards, so if that challenge was so monumental, then how does a company follow such quality work?Well, by releasing their latest tale of the Tolkien lore called Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. Monolith has taken it upon themselves to deliver another tale spawned of the legendary tales found at the other end of Tolkien's pen. While the artistic license may be offsetting to some, there is no doubt that Shadow of War delivers everything we loved about the previous release, with more development and production qualities than I've ever seen or thought possible. This is the entire crux of the game, and while I'll be touching on the highly volatile loot boxes later on, make no mistake that this story, set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, is one of the best stories I've experienced in a long, long time. Granted yes, we know already going into this that Talion doesn't beat Sauron (otherwise we wouldn't have The Lord of the Rings), so the best way to approach the story is with that understanding and see how the story unfolds.
We start to see some of the controversial story developments when Shelob, a massive spider from the movies and books, becomes a female that can interact with our main character. While she never assumes that form in any of the literature or movies, to say she doesn't have that ability to transform would be a colossal misconception. I personally thought that the application of a "human form" fit the character perfectly, as we got a chance to see how the web of events was spun (pun intended). This is just one of many incredible details that make the story of Shadow of War an incredible tale of love and loss. With regard to the story, I won't spoil it for you as this is a narrative that needs to be experienced firsthand, and it would be a crime to deny you that type of experience (I know I would be mad). The story is yet another one of the many new experiences you will have in Shadow of War, as we also find new lands to explore as well.
I will admit that some of the new areas aren't really involved with the lore of The Lord of the Rings, but while the first title seemed to focus on Mordor itself, the atmosphere changes with regards to Shadow of War's new areas. Tropical jungles full of lush foliage, massive cities of men that are under siege from an endless onslaught of Orcs, even murky swamplands, these are examples of the lands that await you throughout each level. Each area has been expanded into such large open world sandboxes that you can find yourself becoming lost in the midst of pure exploration. As in the first game, each area has towers that have been taken over by the Great Eye of Sauron, and it's up to you to reclaim the towers and lessen the grasp that the Dark Lord holds on the realms. Unlocking these towers also holds benefits as well, from fast travel points and more, they are useful.
Shadow of War will undoubtedly pit you against varying types of Orcs and Ogres; however, these grunts answer to captains,bodyguards, and war chiefs. While you may be fighting several dozens of these low level characters, it's not uncommon in the middle of the battle for a cut scene to commence that showcases a captain that has appeared in the fight and who wants to make a name for themselves by killing you in numerous gruesome ways. Each captain, bodyguard, and war chief has their own personality in which there is very little repetition in terms of individuality, so each experience feels incredibly unique, which is a massive challenge that Monolith Productions absolutely nailed perfectly.
Instead of randomly hoping that you can get the better of a captain or more, it helps by interrogating certain grunts who can provide information on the weaknesses you can exploit. These characters are marked, so it's fairly easy to distinguish them out of a horde of 20 or so characters. You have to be quick though because should you engage in combat, and not go directly for the intel, the Orc will start to run and your opportunity to gain that intel will vanish. Speaking of running....
The captains can run as well. For instance, if you are in a battle with a captain, the captain will flee if you use a pinning attack, and then it's a foot race to catch said captain before they vanish. Other tricks that captains, and other high end enemies hold, are the newly introduced "Death Defying" or "Tricky Escape" options. Should you be in a fight with a captain and bring it to its knees without killing it via an execution, you will receive one of three options. The first one will bring up a quick time event (QTE) where you press the correct button to send the captain to its grave, while the second option involves the captain getting back up in what is known as a "Death Defying" moment. The third option, which is the one that really irritates me, is where the captain will give a speech while downed then throw a smoke bomb and instantly disappear. All these fights utilize something that Monolith Productions has done a phenomenal job of implementing, and that is a fantastic control scheme.
Implementing such combat styles found in other games like the Batman Arkham series or the Assassin's Creed games, Monolith Productions was brilliant in utilizing a simplistic yet highly in depth control scheme that allows tremendous gameplay options with minimal button presses. When you're surrounded by tons of Orcs, and multiple captains, you'll be very thankful such a mechanic exists in the first place. This streamlined, yet efficient gameplay becomes such a benefit when you find yourself ambushed by a new captain, or by an old captain that you killed that was brought back to life (yes just because you kill a captain doesn't always mean they stay dead). Numerous times I was out exploring when I was instantly knocked to the ground from behind during an ambush attack and had to rely on the games combat mechanics to triumph over the captain.
These captains also adapt to your play style, so it's in your best interest to not only provide variety in your gameplay, but to put these captains down fast and without mercy. There is some benefit to getting killed by a captain though, as strange as this sounds. Should you meet your untimely demise at the end of an Orc sword or spear, the captain that killed you will be promoted, and now when you eliminate the newly promoted captain you will receive better gear. So, sometimes it may be in your best interest to accept the dark embrace of death if you wish to have better gear rewarded to you. While this may seem like a lot of fighting on your own, what would Shadow of War be without a little 'domination' that we saw from the first game?
That's right, in Shadow of War you can again dominate (control) grunts to fulfill many different tasks such as gather intel, set off alarms or traps, or even fight captains in an effort to promote the lowly grunt. This will come in handy when you're actually trying to destroy the various Orc controlled fortresses. As you can clearly see from the cover art of the game itself, your goal as you progress through the story is to build your army of subversive Orc captains and grunts. This unique system allows you to amass tremendous armies in an attempt to overtake the Overlord that resides within, and when you combine the use of beasts such as Drakes and Graugs (think Dragons and Rancor style beasts), Monolith Productions have given you all the ingredients to experience a truly epic event that we would expect to find in The Lord of the Rings lore.
Now, despite all this praise there are some irritants that reside within the game, but nothing that would be grounds for passing it by. There are some issues with the camera angle, and while you're fighting one enemy it's not uncommon for attacks to come from off the screen and hit your character. With this out of the way, which definitely not game breaking, let's talk about the loot boxes that yo can utilize in-game.
This feature has been picked apart by everyone under the sun, and in a negative light, but to me I don't regard the loot boxes as a negative thing since these are optional. Sure, it will take a long time to grind to get the same items you can purchase with real money without said grinding needed, but when you're playing a fantastic game like Shadow of War, that's not a bad thing at all. These boxes provide nothing of necessity that can't be obtained through just normal grinding, and they don't detract from the story, which is the cornerstone of Shadow of War's experience. I feel that the overwhelmingly negative focus of the loot boxes detracts from the sensational storytelling and incredible combat system. I would equate this to getting a Ferrari and then saying the car is worthless simply because the cup holder won't fit your drink.
As you progress through Shadow of War you will gain experience (XP), which you can use to develop Talion and his abilities. As is the case found in most single player adventure games, as you gain enough XP you will be able to improve your character's skills. In Shadow of War, each of these skills has three additional traits you can select from to turn Talion into a one-man army of death. You can only select one of the three extra traits though, so you should choose wisely.
As I progressed I found myself focusing on the remote poison grog skill. This allowed me to target a grog barrel with my bow and press the Y button to poison it from a distance. While this will take out whoever drinks from it, I upgraded the skill and selected the explosive trait, which meant that the Orc who drank from it would writhe in pain on the ground while poisoned and draw the attention of other Orcs who would come to check on him. These other Orcs would then be met with a massive poison cloud that came when the poisoned Orc exploded and spread the poison to any of the nearby Orcs. This tactic also works on captains as well, so if you find yourself with a whole bunch of enemies, and a whole bunch of grog barrels, find a high point, poison all the barrels, and wait and watch as you clear the entire encampment without engaging one enemy. I must admit, I got so caught up with going through the Nemesis system in the first area that I completed the area when my character was at level 15. Don't worry though as some skills won't be unlocked until you progress through the story.
While character progression is expected, this time around you can modify your gear as well. By completing item specific challenges you unlock upgrades for your weapons and gear. For example, you can use a quick throw to hit a poisoned enemy, and in doing so it will now grant you a percentage where critical strikes will poison an enemy. The challenges that upgrade your items go hand in hand with the new gem crafting system. Shadow of War provides three different colored gems: Red, Green, and White. By placing these gems into your gear sockets, you gain various perks such as life leech on hit, increased damage dealt, and XP boosts to name a few.
Shadow of War is yet another fantastic example of how to improve on something that was already incredible. Naturally the game looks gorgeous, with incredible details, character models, and environmental effects, and I can't wait to see what it looks like on the Xbox One X in 4K. The game allows you to pause, even in battle, and snap a screen shot using your free flying camera system, which is jaw droopingly beautiful. Graphics though aren't the only strong suit here as the audio is top notch. You will notice the tribal drums that beat for the Orcs, the horns of men blowing loudly into the air during war, and a symphonic score that sets the stage throughout every unique level in a way that is rarely seen on any medium to date.
Monolith Productions has an absolute sensational game in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, and while there will be some detractors, the story, and game as a whole, is a masterpiece of craftsmanship that would make J.R.R. Tolkien proud. It has quality development that takes everything fans know and love from the first game, and improves and expands on it making Shadow of War a game that could easily hold contention for "Game of the Year". It is a must have purchase for anyone that enjoys quality gameplay mechanics, beautiful visuals, stellar sound, and a story that holds its own in a lore that is highly protected by its fans all across the globe. In the world of The Lord of the Rings, Monolith Productions has become the one developer to 'rule them all'.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition
Over the years I've had the opportunity to observe the history of the Kickstarter platform as it pertains to gaming. While it is rare for a game to not reach its funding goal and be released, it is far rarer to find a Kickstarter game that delivers an experience so incredible that you become lost in a webbing of wonderment and enchantment. Rewind quickly to 2015, Obsidian Entertainment (who are known for titles such as Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, South Park Stick of Truth, and many more) set out to raise funding through Kickstarter for a game they wanted to make called Project Eternity, which became the Pillars of Eternity game we have today. They set themselves some lofty ideas and financial goals ($1.1 million); however, they never expected what would happen next. On October 16, 2012, just shy of 74,000 backers donated a whopping $3.98 million dollars and now the quest was on to deliver a truly incredible RPG experience, and in our opinion at XboxAddict they succeeded. Back in March 2015 Pillars of Eternity was launched, and since then additional content has been released on Windows, OS X, and Linux. Finally, Pillars of Eternity has recently been released on the Xbox One platform as a full retail game for a price of $49.99. So is it worth paying $10 less than full retail for game that is now about 2 1/2 years old?
If you're a fan of RPG games, then this title is worth its weight in gold. Games like this traditionally excel in the realm of mouse and keyboard control, and one of the biggest challenges is to figure out a graphical user interface that is both streamlined for efficiency and useful at the same time. In order to do attain this goal, the majority of the commands in Pillars of Eternity are spread amongst your LT and RT buttons. For instance, if you hold down the LT you can access your character leveling sections, inventory, any sort of quests you may have acquired along the way, and so much more. The inventory is setup so that each character has their own individual inventory system, but before you start thinking of making your teammates loot donkeys, you should know that if the person leaves your party for whatever reason, all the gear that is not only equipped on them, but also in their inventory, is now lost to you.
Pillars of Eternity is big on teamwork so when you have a group together you can use your LB and RB buttons to switch between characters, or you can press LB+RB together to select everyone in the group. Even though the game's mechanics transfer well to the console, Pillars of Eternity doesn't hold your hand. In fact, it provides very little guidance so you will spend a majority of the early parts of the game just getting familiar with the controls of both movement, character management, and combat.
When you find yourself in combat, which will happen a lot, you'll be thankful for the X button because it lets you pause the game at any time and issue individual orders, then once everything is worked out you can press the X button again to resume and watch the action unfold. In terms of character development, you get the same type of layout as seen before where new levels grant you brand new abilities to choose from and new powers to unlock. This is where you'll also spend your character points on various traits and doing so will also unlock new conversation options.
Given that you will now have access to new conversation options, this means you will also start to manage your reputation, as it will be affected by how you choose to handle situations. Even though this may seem a bit overwhelming at first, after the first few character levels you should start to get a feel for how the different areas of your character play off each other. Sadly though, this is an imperfect system as the sensitivity for what items you may be near may not be as responsive as other games. There were numerous times where I had to circle around just trying to loot one item. Despite the setbacks though, the control system is incredible.
Speaking of incredible, the attention to detail in terms of the story in the game amazing and masterfully written. Done in a classic text box, choose your own adventure, style of delivery, Pillars of Eternity sets you in the world of Eora and it's here that you will explore the wonders of the world. To compliment the well-developed story, Pillars of Eternity has a musical score that should not be ignored. A sonic needle in a noisy haystack of mediocrity, I found my ears becoming lost amidst the chords as I went through the various areas. While some tunes will serenade you with melodies of beautiful instruments, others will invoke a wide range of emotions such as fear, excitement, anxiety and more. Sure the voice acting can be quite good at times, but the musical score blanketed my ears with one sonic masterpiece after another.
The world of Eora is setup into varying stages of an over world map that allows you to select which region you're going to travel to. Sometimes you will have to take note of where you are in relation to your own surroundings so you remember what way to go for your objective. As you begin your adventure you will have to select from one of 11 classes, which range from barbarians and wizards to druids and ciphers. Each one of these bring with them their own strengths and weaknesses, so it goes without saying that finding the right corresponding accompanying characters can really make the difference between winning and losing.
After you go through your character development you'll have the choice to select abilities or spells which you can use right away. Take notice though, because some skills allow you to use them "x" amount of times during combat (meaning that after you are out of combat your skill amounts become refreshed) or you will only be able to use them "x" amount of times in between rests at campsites or inns. Planning on this should be high on your priority list so your party is fairly balanced.
The reason for the importance of the planning is because Pillars doesn't quite restrict you into realms you shouldn't go into. Nope, instead it lets you wander in like a lost child and in the process getting turned into paste. For instance, I was wandering around and I discovered a cave, nothing appeared out of the ordinary so I proceeded inside. I found some bodies lying around and as I went to loot them, a massive bear started charging out of nowhere and obliterated me in one shot. That's when I decided to gain some more levels before setting foot back in that cave.
If you die, like I did by that bear, on normal difficulty you get reset to the last auto save point, on the hardest difficulty your game is over completely. Now, had I'd known beforehand that death greeted me when I entered I wouldn't have ventured forth, but that is what Pillars of Eternity will do to you. It will present you with options, but it's up to you to decid what to do with said options.
There is however, one huge elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. Sadly, while all of this sounds fantastic, there's one overwhelmingly large negative that is going to be the bane of your existence, the loading times. On the console version I played the load times started out rather short; however, as I progressed and the game opened up, it was clear the game had problems trying to load everything as fast as possible. Loading times kept getting longer and longer and they were unavoidable at times, and in some cases they tripled the time it took to complete quests. Let me give you an example. Let's say you call up your map and select a town you want to travel to. Cue load times are around 45 seconds. Once completed it unveils a town of average size of which you can walk around. Now, let's say you find a building within the town that you want to enter. Cue another 45 second load screen. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this because eventually you'll have to leave the building and then travel to another area, and as you're aware, you're going to spend quite a lot of time loading. This can become quite painful when you take into account the number of actual areas you will be entering and exiting throughout the entire game and then tacking on the additional time per area.
Despite some bumps along the pathway, Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition is one of the deepest RPG games you can find now on the Xbox One platform. Strong character development mixes with a wonderful user interface to take you through an incredible story that, even though challenging at times, is absolutely fantastic. If you're a fan of RPG games then Pillars of Eternity has got to be on your must have list, and when you take into account the fact that you not only get the game itself, but also the two massive expansions, then you will easily draw out over 100 hours of gameplay for your $49.99, which makes Pillars of Eternity worth every penny. It truly is amazing what can happen when companies like Obsidian and the general public connect through a crowd funding portal like Kickstarter how a dev-team can produce a game that is nothing short of brilliant.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Project Cars 2
We have heard over the years from various game developers that they are "listening to the fan feedback" to improve their games. Well, most of the time that is a bold face lie given the same games can make the same mistakes repeatedly. However, that seems to not be the case at Slightly Mad Studios, as they have released their next installment in the Project Cars racing series, aptly titled Project Cars 2. The original game was a spectacular launching pad for the company, as it showed other racing game developers that a new kid was on the block and its time they took notice. Despite the flaws and shortcomings, Project Cars was a wake-up call. So, with the battle for racing supremacy well underway, how did Slightly Mad Studios listen to their fans? It's simple really, they have delivered one of, if not the best, simulation racing experience ever to be found on a console to date.First off, this is simulation racing at its most pure essence. This was paramount for Slightly Mad Studios to perfect given that it is the soul of the entire game, and if the handling was imperfect or the delivery of the racing physics were off, then every mode would be affected and therefore suffer. This is not your instant rewind type of racing. Project Cars 2 is your apex hunting experience, and your sniper rifle are the cars found within. It's a game where driving errors are tolerated, but not rewarded. You have the option of turning on driver assists, and after a few hours of slamming constantly into the tire walls and spinning wildly off track, I did exactly that. I cannot express my admiration enough towards the developers for their painstakingly tiresome work of making some of the best driving physics I've ever experienced. Driving with no assists is truly for the hardcore.
Your car's handling is dependent on numerous factors such as tire temperature, track temperature, track design, weather and car damage to name a few, and all of these factors are calculated in real time. As these variables change so does your racing experience. In the beginning your tires are going to be cold, so you can expect to endure some slipping and sliding until they become warm enough to stick.
One setting that I must admit helped me a lot was the racing engineer, and it's a feature that is pretty well implemented. Activating this setting will allow the game to monitor how you drive during races and will suggest to you the type of tuning modifications you should consider to help your racing style. The amount of processing that happens in real time is mindboggling intense, and when you include the fact that Slightly Mad Studios allows you to tweak the gameplay input, what you have before you is one of the most advanced driving mechanics available in a game, period.
Now, in the original Project Cars game the number of cars and tracks seemed very thin. While some could argue that having over 700 cars is pointless since you'll only be driving less than a handful of them, it still has to be said that Slightly Mad Studios has increased the number of both tracks and cars in this game. Boasting over 150 cars over 120 tracks spread across 60 venues, Project Cars 2 seems to be loaded with tons of firepower.
You'll get behind the wheel of a lot of the cars too as you progress through Project Cars 2's career mode. The selection is wide from Indy Cars, touring cars, street cars, rally cars, LMP cars and vintage cars, there is a lot of selection of 4-wheeled beasts. This time around the career mode is incredibly deep. You'll be able to start almost wherever you wish, but if you want to make it into the top tiers you have to earn it. I found that starting off in the beginning tiers helped get me used to the gameplay mechanics, and after that I was like a kid in a candy store.
The sessions are broken up into three events. There is a beginning session, where you get to go out onto the track and learn the course. After that comes the qualifying session, where your fastest lap will determine your starting position, finally culminating with the race itself. While these sessions ranged between 15 and 30 minutes, I found myself spending the time racing in the qualifying sessions just to get pole position on races. As you progress throughout the game, and drive the various cars, you will start to earn affinity with the specific car companies, opening up new racing options for you, which you'll find in the Manufacturer Drivers racing list. The depth to which you can handle your career is quite extensive, but ultimately your best goal is going to be striving for racing performance on and off-road.
You'll need to become one with your car because you're about to experience one of the most incredible weather systems ever created for a racing game. While doing an actual event such as the 24 hour of Le Mans, you will see a plethora of varying environmental shifts that showcase just how incredible the game truly is. Rain can come in varying forms from a slight mist to sheets of hurricane force rain blowing sideways across the track. Water will collect on the track in real time too, but the track will dry itself after the storm passes due to the heat and friction from the cars driving on the track. While having day and night systems is almost mandatory now, having a full evolving weather system that dynamically impacts the experience is just one more reason why Project Cars 2 is a fantastic simulation racer.
While career mode is extensive, there are other modes for you to enjoy, which also include a custom race mode that allows you to pick any track you want and make any day/night/weather combination as well. If you want desert conditions in the mountains, or snow in the Middle East, the race tracks are your playground. To put this over the top, Slightly Mad Studios developed a multiplayer system for Project Cars 2 that plays right into the racing simulation as well, with the online championships and dedicated race announcer to help immerse you even more behind the wheel. While this is a fantastic addition to the game, and goes a long way to help establish Project Cars 2 as a serious simulation racing contender, I can't help but to say one thing: Project Cars 2 is a masterpiece of automotive artwork.
The car modeling, both on the outside and the inside, are done with jaw dropping beauty, but that isn't all; all the little details of your car and its interaction with the track and weather environment is spectacular. For example, you'll see the sun in the sky and the clouds above but you'll also notice the heat waves that rise from a blistering hot track. In contrast, on a wet and rainy day you will see the spray of water as it gets channeled through your tire treads. These are just a few examples of how Project Cars 2 delivers a graphical performance that is second to none, and should you pick up an Xbox One X later this year you will be able to run Project Cars 2 and experience all its wonderment in 4k resolution at 60FPS natively.
While Project Cars 2 looks heavenly, I'm pleased to say that the sounds of the game are some of the best I've ever heard. Have you ever accidentally turned your wipers on during a dry day and hear the rubber squeal against your window? You can hear that in Project Cars 2. Have you ever missed an apex and wildly slid into the gravel sections? You can hear the individual stones being kicked around, and if you're behind the person who went off the course, you can hear even if a stone flies your way and hits your car. Audible elements such as engines roaring, tires screeching, your race manager clamoring in your ear and the rain hitting your car are pieces of the score of the game itself. Sure, the menu music and the musical score of the game is good, but the real mastery of audio comes in the fine details that go overlooked when you're trying to hit the corner at 80 Mph while trying not to get overtaken.
A true racing masterpiece, Project Cars 2 takes a lot of the negatives from the first game and actually improves upon them in such a drastic and dynamic way that the transition is as different as night and day. Slightly Mad Studios has set themselves a lofty goal of making Project Cars 2 the best simulation racing game available on the Xbox platform, and I think that they have succeeded triumphantly. In fact, Project Cars 2 doesn't set the bar to a new standard, it single handedly renders any other simulation racing game obsolete. Slightly Mad Studios developed a colossal racing game, and that everything about it became bigger and better and more dynamic, and that game is called Project Cars 2.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Don't Knock Twice
What if movie company made a horror movie that no one went to see? What if a game developer then decided to make a game that ties into the this movie, again, that no one went to see in the theaters. Would people want to play it? It's an interesting question and something that makes you go "hmmmmm". Well, this very situation is what we have here with Don't Knock Twice from Wales Interactive Ltd. Based on the horror movie with the same name, Don't Knock Twice sets out to be a psychological thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the entire game. However, we all know the abysmal history of games based on movies, so does that mean that Don't Knock Twice follows the same mantra? Well, how about we look inside and find out what this $9.99 indie game has to deliver, if anything.From the beginning the game, it goes without saying that if you didn't see the movie you will not have a single clue of what's going on in the game. There's no loading cinematic or any clue what so ever to give you some background, who your character is, or generally anything pertaining to the story at all. Stevie Wonder has a better chance of telling you the color of your eyes than you do in deciphering the story in Don't Knock Twice. They should have at least summed up the movie's events, given that this game is based on it. What's even worse is when you finally start putting the pieces together, it becomes so bad that you just don't care anymore.
Normally I try to be objective as I can be, but I have to ask: "What has happened to the horror genre?" I know this is going to hurt people's feelings, but I feel that horror was better decades ago in the old Hitchcock and classic Stephen King era. They were known to be more 'mentally and psychologically focused with their suspense, however, you can't keep rehashing the same generic tactics and expect people to wet themselves over the horror you've tried to create. This leads to serious issues with Don't Knock Twice's story; there isn't one. Well, I shouldn't really say that because there actually is one, however it's hard to determine which is shorter, a total solar eclipse experience or this story. This mediocrity is brought upon by many other factors outside of the plot.
First, your character has limited movement abilities and most of them are irrelevant for a vast majority of the time. Sadly though, you find yourself navigating linear pathways of doors and getting caught within a repetition of actions. Walk to the only door that will open, move forward into next area and scour everything, find the only open door from there, move forward and repeat over and over again. What is incredibly disappointing is how the fright and suspense try to build upon you throughout the game, yet it never really delivers, thus turning the game into one big hunt for collectibles.
Thankfully, these collectibles shimmer in the dark, which is helpful. Why you ask? Well, because whenever you tend to enter a new area you can streamline your time spent within the game by going to the collectible, picking it up, examining it, and then going forward through the now newly opened door to whatever lays in wait for you. The item is probably a magazine or something... probably.
Sometimes you'll find that before accessing these doors you will need to experience something before they open. Case in point, I was out in a courtyard and walked around the area for over fifteen minutes trying to examine everything to get the door to unlock. When nothing happened, I finally started to look everywhere, including areas that just didn't seem like they had no relevance in the first place, and when I looked up I saw lights flickering in a window of a room, then magically the door unlocked. This is the type of nonsense you can expect from this game. I hate to sound so discouraging, but man, stuff like this is frustrating in a game of this nature.
Now the graphics are decent, but nothing to note, as they managed to "get the job done" and you can see, and decipher, what is going on as you play. The high point for me was the audio because it was at least tolerable to listen to, as you could hear the ambient sounds such as a fire crackling, the rain hitting all around you when you are outside, and so much more. I guess in many ways the overall presentation manages to convey what you are looking at, and listening to , in terms of the game's on screen action, it's just that it does not do anything that really stands out in this area.
Don't Knock Twice doesn't offer much more that would constitute any sort of positive reinforcement for picking this up for any reason what so ever, which is sad, as a good 'scare game' is something that can be fun, as Halloween is approaching. Even at the admission price of $9.99, it's unfortunate that I would have to say you should avoid this game entirely. It suffers tremendously from numerous faults and setbacks that prohibit a truly horrific experience. Regrettably, the only positive that I can see is that the game does offer a lot of easy achievements to obtain, so if you want a "cheevo" boost then this might be for you. Games based on movies never tend to work well, and unfortunately Don't Knock Twice is yet another example of why titles like these should be avoided. Forget knocking twice, just don't knock at all and go play something else.
Overall Score: 4.0 / 10
Path of Exile
Here at XboxAddict, we try to consider each and every game as a value for your money spent. As a reviewer, I understand that gamers have to make tough choices from time to time, and the last thing they want experience is a game that set them back lots of cash, only to find out that it is nothing but a colossal disappointment. Well, the team at Grinding Gear Games has just thrown down the proverbial gauntlet by providing their game, called Path of Exile, which is an almost identical clone of Diablo, for free. Yes, you read that correctly, it is 100% free to play. So, let's quit with the pleasantries and dive right in to this action RPG masterpiece.If you are a gaming developer that wants to make a quality dungeon crawling action RPG game, then you have a plethora of quality content to sample from, but when you make something almost identical to one of the greatest dungeon crawlers of all time, Diablo, then you've already set yourself up for huge success. However, it takes more than just structure to make your game a hit. It takes the proper execution that will contribute to your hours, weeks, months, and yes, even years, to meld together into one massive time lapse of enjoyment. Now, there are a few dings and dents in the shiny armor of this game, but let's kick the review off with one of them so we can get it out of the way.
When you begin you will have your choice of 1 of 6 different character classes. Normally, when you are talking about an action RPG game, you try to find characters that fit your gameplay style, and in Path of Exile you not only have three characters that represent one of the core attributes of the game (strength, dexterity, intelligence), but you find three hybrid characters that share a balance of two of the main character properties, and not an overwhelming dominance of just one. There is also a secret character to unlock, but you'll have to play the game to find out who it is.
Each one of these characters, excluding the secret one, can evolve into one of 3 different classes. For instance, a Marauder, which is focused primarily on strength only, will have the option to evolve into either a Juggernaut, Berserker, or Chieftain class, each of which offers their own unique skills and benefits. This type of "end game" build is something to take into serious consideration given how you may like to play. One negative here though is that characters are name specific so you cannot make a character with a name someone else has already taken. This can lead to an extended time creating your character, as the game boasts a lot of players with many popular names already taken.
Each one of these characters supports what could easily be considered one of the largest, if not THE largest, skill trees ever seen in a game. A titanic web of various nodes that you can illuminate to grant you bonuses and skills lays before you. While you gain points for it by leveling up, you will also obtain points by completing side quests as well, so get ready for a lot of extra combat. These additional tasks are usually on your way to your main quest goals, so thankfully you'll be able to tackle some of these others to help your character level up organically. Sadly, you will not be able to fill the entire skill tree, so make sure that you think about your character and what build you want. You'll have to plan ahead, because to reallocate points is quite rare in the game. It's like the old phrase: measure twice and cut once. Think about your character and how you want to play the game and then see how the various parts of your skill tree assist and aid your character appropriately.
Once you're in the game and begin your journey, you'll notice that it is broken up into chapters, much like other games that are named Diablo. The story isn't much and the game does very little to hold your hand. The interface though is done well, with a character that can equip 2 slots for weapons, slots for a headpiece, chest piece, boots, gloves, belt, 2 rings and a pendant. Each one of these items can come with its own slot(s) too, allowing you to equip gems of varying color and skills. Outside of your initial weapon attack, these skills are going to be mapped to your A, B, X, and Y buttons, and you can stack a second set by utilizing the Right Trigger as the switch between pallets.
These skills are supported through not only the skill tree, but also with other gems. For instance, if you were to take a skill called Sunder, you could support it with gems such as "life on hit" which grants your character health whenever that skill strikes an enemy, so you can use that to supplement your health and mana potions which can be mapped to any of your D-Pad buttons. While this is deep, when you start to fathom the various classes of items and the fact that almost everything can be altered or changed, you can start to feel a bit overwhelmed by the game's size.
When you progress through the various acts and levels, you'll come across characters that offer you side quests to complete. These are essentially tasks that alter between a few variants. The quests grant you experience for your character and also begins to form a bond between your character and the various NPCs who offer them. Once you have done enough quests for these people, and you have built your relationship to level 3, you can start talking to these people about a hideout for your character, which can be like your own little getaway that you tailor to yourself.
As you are probably wondering, if this game is free then what costs money? That answer is: everything cosmetic. That is right folks, Path of Exile grants you the ability to spend obscene amounts of money to obtain skins and visual effects for everything from your boots and gloves to your weapon and even pets and hideout items. If you thought spending $60 on a Season Pass for a game was expensive, how about a cosmetic package for your character that costs $399? That isn't a typo, and I didn't forget to insert a period anywhere. While you can spend seemingly harmless amounts of real money, you don't have too, and that is a great gameplay feature, as it's 'not-pay-to-win', or in this case 'pay-to-excel-and-look-good'.
When all the in-game discoverable items were equipped, the spaces that were left open were numerous, which means you can go to great lengths to customize the appearance of your character into truly something memorable. I cannot stress how amazing the structure is setup. If you don't want to spend a single dime you don't have to; however, with the quality of the game at hand, spending money on these upgraded packs for your character is worth its weight in gold and goes to supporting a company that is giving you an incredible game for free.
I must admit though, there are some downfalls to this game. If you're playing a multiplayer game and someone else kills your enemy for you, you don't receive any experience. Your gems can level up thanks to the number of enemies killed, but your character won't gain any XP to level up. This issue also carries into the loot and how it's structured. In games like Diablo for instance, you get individualized loot and you can only share should you drop an item for someone else. In Path of Exile, it's a free for all. If you have someone who is just a straight up loot #*%@&, then expect to be fighting over gear for quite a while.
Another issue I have to mention is that, as of writing this review, if you want to sell/buy items on the trade board, you have to spend real money on the game. It seems like a cheap shot to make an entire feature of the game out of ones grasp unless you pay real money on a free game that already gave you so much. Granted, on the flip side, you could always go hunting for these types of items, but with the ability to gain more items of things you need for weapons and gear you want, then the barter system works wonders in a social setting. While the interaction itself leaves a lot of room for polish and fine tuning, the basic structure that is in place now can provide a good foundation to build upon.
The game itself is presented in the same top down camera style that you find in Diablo, and each of the areas is designed with its own unique atmosphere that seems to follow through several different iterations throughout the stages. This can be pretty disturbing, as you see some areas called prisons that have grates on the floors with arms and hands waving and clawing and grabbing at feet that cross their path. This coincides directly with the audio, because in the same level you get a Castlevania feel to the music that is only enhanced when you hear the screams coming from distant victims as their lives are being ended. On the contrary, when you first begin, you start out on the beaches and can hear the water and waves come crashing up on the shore and the birds chirping. Such dynamic contrasts make every area one amazing experience after another. Overall, the video and audio presentation is quite solid.
Without question, Path of Exile is a great, if not one of the greatest, values for dollar you can find on the Xbox platform at this very moment. Grinding Gear Games has demonstrated that you don't need to spend $60 and up on a game that is going to be shelved in a matter of weeks as you wait for more content to arrive. Despite a few hiccups, Path of Exiles is a pure joy to play, and with a quality microtransaction system in place (Editors Note: I know, who knew we'd say something like that), it's worth every single penny to play this game.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Eventide 2: Sorcerer's Mirror
Sometimes the best way to enjoy a game isn't to dive head first and on fire into a hail of gunfire and explosions, but rather to sit and enjoy the production value and relax. Artifex Mundi has been at the forefront of point and click adventure games on console and their latest release shows why they are one of the best in the business. Eventide 2: Sorcerer's Mirror is an adventure game that calls upon your ability to solve problems and possess a keen eye for detail. Priced at $9.99, Eventide 2 relies on the pedigree to push the sales, but is it worth paying that much for a simple point and click game? Well there's more to Eventide 2 than what we see on the surface. While the protagonist Mary makes her return from the first Eventide, this time however, her niece Jenny is kidnapped by a wizard named Tvardovsky in an attempt to bring his immortal quest for love to a final end. While the premise and foundation lends itself to a short but entertaining tale, the main inclusion of moral choices is this game's primary innovation. These moral decisions were designed not only to impact the way your game plays out, but also to impact the final ending for your game as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't.
This sadly is a knock against the game because there is no justification for going through and witnessing the various other selections for choices. It gets worse too, because with point and click games the main focus needs to be some form of sequence that, when combined together, puts together a story that is meaningful for the tasks you just completed, and it feels like Eventide 2 sacrificed a chance or opportunity to tell a grand story so that they could bring you the illussion of meaningful moral choices. This would have been great had the choices made a significant impact or added fuel to the fire that is replayability, but on both points that's a big negative.
Navigating through the story is like wandering through different pieces of scenic artwork. Each scene is done with an artistic flair that adds a unique beauty that normally would be overlooked within a point and click game. Each scene is divided up into interactive areas where you can explore further, and in doing so, not only witness more beautiful artwork, but also discover any secrets that Eventide 2 may hold in store for you. While you're spellbound by the beauty of the various scenes, your ears will be serenaded by the melodic tunes of a comforting soundtrack. No reason for high intensity drum hits or over the top synth riffs, but instead a blood pressure reducing sequence of melodies and ambient effects that is a perfect marriage to the visual artwork of Eventide 2.
To direct your character through these scenes you'll need to get used to the gameplay mechanics that ultimately boil down into spamming one button while directing your observation portal over the screen with your analog stick. There is an inventory menu that you can access, however there's no real reason to do so unless you're confirming any ingredients you may need. Thankfully you'll receive some direction should an item be combinable with other items, and the manner in which that happens is fairly straight forward which is a major plus. However, there is a slight knock as well against Eventide 2 when it comes to the controls, as sometimes your observation portal won't register a clicked on item, even when the item appears to be well within the circle. This is especially apparent on items that are larger than the circle and can be frustrating trying to get the game to register them as found.
Overall, for $9.99 Artifex Mundi has put together a point and click adventure game that relies on its strengths of presentation, and now also innovation, to entice your wallet to open up and relinquish some of your cash. Despite some drawbacks, such as issues with gameplay and little no replay value, there are some incredibly enjoyable aspects to be found within should you have the patience to find it. Rarely will we see puzzle games such as this done with such level of quality and detail, so if you have an extra $9.99 burning a hole in your pocket and you want a quality puzzle game, then look no further than Eventide 2.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Oh Sir: The Insult Simulator
We all know that one person, whether it be a friend or family member, it doesn't matter, he or she is that one person in our lives that has a sense of humor that is beyond what many would call entertaining and actually becomes more cerebral insult humor staged at the right times. Monty Python, to me, is a legendary comedic production full of hamsters who smell like a bucket of vomit and who enjoyed Batman vs. Superman and secretly adores wearing women's clothing. And this is the type of creativity you can expect from Vile Monarch's new game, Oh Sir! The Insult Simulator, that comes out crushing the wallet at a titanic $3. So, what can you expect for this low entry price? If you haven't watched any Monty Python you may be a bit reserved as to the humor found in this game, but before we get into that, let’s talk about the actual gameplay. When you start off you have a choice to learn how to insult, or you can insult someone online or go into a tournament. The tournament consists of a total of five different stages where each stage is a scenario that you will have to insult your way through, and the final stage of the tournament pits you up against the Almighty himself, God, in an epic showdown for the ages.
The challenge throughout the story is to get you used to forming sentences using correct grammar; however, the game doesn't allow for all the rules of the English language to be applied, so you will have to be careful and knowledgeable about what words can be applied given the rules they do indeed enact. They won't tell you the rules so you'll just have to figure them out as you go along.
Now, when you are forming the insults, not all insults have to be three pages in length in order to be effective. Let me explain. Take the insult: "Your mother smells like a lumberjack!" The insult itself is very short, but it contains bonus material for you to build on. Subjects such as "your mother" and "a lumberjack" are both content to build a combo. Ok, so that insult scores, let's say 8 points. Nothing game changing for sure; however, let's say the next round you sling the insult: "A lumberjack has a steaming romp with your mother!" This is a longer insult, despite the length, as it contains the two subjects you previously mentioned, and now this insult would be worth over 20 points. Let's say the third round comes and you make an insult: "Your mother was defeated by your sister and a lumberjack secretly adores an alien hamburger!" This insult is even longer and carries with it two subjects that already have a 2x combo attached to them, so this new insult would be worth well over 50 points.
Length isn't as always as important as content (who said size matters right), that is a key fact. This brings me to a point that threw this game off a bit for me. Instead of making a value point associated with each piece of the insult, the game claims that the developers have decided what points to award. It would have been handy to know ahead of time just how the grading goes in regards to the content of the insults themselves, but sadly that's a mystery that will be found next to the meaning of life (note: NEVER). However, the formation of these insults are fairly straight forward thanks to a simplistic gameplay mechanic built into the game.
You use the D-pad to select your part of the insult and a simple press of the A button to confirm it. When you're done forming your insult, press the B button to lock it in. On the bottom you're given 2 insults in your hand that you can use to play. If you don't like what you have you can press the X button once per round to sip your tea and get 2 new insults in your hand that you can play.
Sometimes simplicity is best and that can be found in the graphics of this game, which showcases your characters as 2D puppet-like figures in various comedic scenes that range from a pet store, a hunting accident, to even the gates of heaven. While the graphics are simplistic, one aspect I really enjoyed was the sound. I have to hand it to the developers because it's not easy trying to find someone to replace the iconic voice of Morgan Freeman, but yet when you hear it, you almost think it's him speaking. Overall, all the characters in this game have unique voices and that goes a long way to giving each of these characters their own style. I personally loved the nod to Lovecraft, who has this hypnotic tone in his voice, that I could see keeping people in a trance.
For $3 you can't really beat the cost of Oh Sir! The Insult Simulator. The developers have done a great job in something that originally took less than 3 days to make. This game is a must have if you're a fan of Monty Python, or love a game that brings about laughter and enjoyment, every time you play it. For less than a gallon of premium gas you can experience a game that will always be unique and always humorous. Just remember that an African swallow secretly adores your sister and enjoyed Batman V Superman and died for your sins. Or something like that.
Suggestions: Can I have a little peril?
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Aven Colony
I'm an avid fan of tactical sim-like games. I love trying to figure out strategies that not only set me up to beat the level and win the game, but also set me up to keep building and improving after I've moved on. Thankfully the team at Mothership Entertainment has released a game called Aven Colony, and while the $29.99 price tag may give you initial reason to pause, let me explain to you why this may be one of the best city-sim type games to come along in quite some time.The overall premise is the same as any building game you can find out there. Pay attention to your resources, manage your population, think long term development and continue this line of thinking throughout every single level you play, and simply alter it to fit whatever terrain you're faced with in the level. While it may seem incredibly simplistic on the surface, underneath is a remarkably deep system that, despite some of its drawbacks, can provide a deep gameplay experience that spans many, many hours per level. This is where those who enjoy any sort of city simulation game will get lost for days and weeks at a time, and here's why.
For starters, you're given the opportunity to either go into a free build or can jump right into a campaign. During free build you can pick your level and setup the game however you see fit, so it's pretty self-explanatory. As for the campaign, it will set you against numerous levels, each of which have their own unique challenges to complete and certain "end points" that, when accomplished, signal the end of the level.
A little gripe of mine is that that when you beat a level and you feel accomplished and want to exit out, there's no way to select another mission until you completely exit the campaign and then select new game. A small gripe, but very disorienting when you want to go back to the mission selection, but instead you have to go all the way back to the very beginning.
When you play you have to be mindful of many things that you would find in a sim of a similar nature. You need citizens to reside in your colony, all of whom will require a few things to maintain their happiness. For starters, they will need the basics such as clean air, water and food, but as you progress you'll need to focus on entertainment, safety and well-being.
While these types of things are basic, as you progress through the game you'll unlock different laws and governance options to have at your disposal. For instance, when your citizen decides to take a job they have the ability to transfer to other jobs should they like the other career better (or you increase the desire to work at a different place). You'll have an ability to govern by making a rule that once citizens have a job they cannot switch out. You can even instigate an immigration ban that can't be challenged. Heck, to help your citizens improve their happiness you can even allow for improved gaming at home so that when the citizens are unemployed they can still be happy. This will come at a cost of raising the overall power consumption of the entire colony, but you have to make the citizens happy...right?
The reason for this is that after you've hit a certain point in your campaign level, your colony will vote to see if they want you to continue governing them. If you're a real jerk, you can decree mandatory overtime, increased taxes on everything, and even set in food and water rationing. You probably won't be re-elected, but if you've ever wanted to see a mass exodus, well, that's one way to get it done.
I do have some issues with this system for a few reasons though. The largest problem though, by a mile, is that the civilians haven't got a clue of what they want. Case in point, I built a residential outpost and an immigration center so I could start accepting more people into the colony. I decided to put a Nannite Processor plant next to the outpost (like literally right next to it.) and the people were upset. However, it's the reason they are upset that had me shaking my head.
They had to walk too far to work it. The outpost literally shared a wall with this processor plant and they said it was too far to walk. How does this make sense? I recycled the Nannite Processor plant and moved it one square away. Yes, I said one. Not halfway across the level, but one single square. In between them I put a tunnel, and guess what? They became happier citizens who say that they love working there because it's so close. Really? This is the way it is constantly.
I once flooded my colony with fans and air regulators and brought the overall quality of air to over 95%, yet according to my citizens, they hated the air quality. I even surrounded a police station with numerous residential areas and they complained of crime. Ever hear of the phrase "you can't please everyone"? Well, Aven Colony is a physical interpretation of that exact statement.
As for the mechanics of the game, they are fairly simple, but parts are overly sensitive and can be of some annoyance. You use left and right on the D-Pad to control time. You can pause it or have it accelerate to 8x the regular speed, which means less building time, but you have to think quicker and act faster to accommodate the actions. Once you have the form and function down for Aven Colony you should be able to have a 4x speed going relatively smoothly and without problems. You use the Right Trigger to bring up the radial menu for building and use the Left Stick to open up whatever building option you want, and press A to select. You then use the same Left Stick + A button to select the exact thing you want to build. You'll come to find out that this process can feel a bit awkward because the Left Stick feels overly sensitive thus becoming very hard to control.
Your Left Trigger will open up menus for you that act as outlets for your colony management. You can use the overlay menu to see what aspects need to be addressed, or the trade menu to barter for goods and services, and when you get far enough along, the expedition menu can be accessed, which takes you into a whole new aspect of Aven Colony.
One of the things that makes Aven Colony so deep has to be the characteristic that a vast majority of the buildings have multiple uses. Wind turbine fans can consume more power but can act as a fan to blow toxic gas emissions away from your buildings. Water pumps can be set to produce water only at various levels (to manage power consumption), and even research facilities can be used to not only improve your ships on their expeditions, but can also unlock methods to produce Nannites without any ore or metal fragments.
Switching gears, the music was a hidden gem, in my opinion, that I didn't expect to find. I'm not saying it's one of my top game soundtracks, but I never turned it down. There was an ominous, minimal structure to the opening of the music, and as I progressed there's only one sound that got on my nerves, which is the notification tone.
Every time there's a notification of any kind there's a chirp and a notification that you can access via the Y button. Immigration ship docks, chirp. Trade ship docks, chirp. Lightning strike, chirp. Low water, chirp. New mission, chirp. Mission complete, chirp. You get the idea. I tried to dismiss it but there's no way to calibrate it so you don't hear chirp, chirp, chirp, constantly.
While the music is good and can also report that so are the graphics of Aven Colony. Each area feels unique and offers up its own individual strengths and weaknesses that will determine how you play the game. The buildings become larger and more advanced and the graphics on the map showcase it in great detail.
One thing that I did have a problem with was trying to follow my civilians around. One of the aspects of Aven Colony that I found interesting is the ability to go down to what they call "tunnel view" where you can watch your citizens move around and interact with each other and the buildings. While this sounds rather entertaining, there is a massive problem with it; you are supposed to be able to click on one while in this camera mode but I never actually got it to work. There are ways though, through your management menu; however, the task became more of a chore to go out of my way to do it. So, while it was a creative idea, it never was utilized very much.
Despite some of the hiccups mentioned above, it goes without saying that Aven Colony is one of the premier city simulation games that you can find on the Xbox platform, and for $29.99 it should be a must buy for anyone who enjoys these types of games. There is a colossal amount of stuff to do, and a user interface that aids in creating content and playing experiences that will forever make you smile. Take a bow Mothership Entertainment because Aven Colony is truly an amazing experience.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Serial Cleaner
Back in the 70's life was much simpler. There was church on Sunday, organized crime was prevelant, and there were those that "cleaned up the mess" so to speak. Things were simple, and that's how Curve Digital likes it in their latest release, Serial Cleaner for the Xbox One. Priced at $14.99, you can imagine that Serial Cleaner is going to have to put on one quality show to warrant a higher price tag for a geometric puzzle game. Is this retro looking 'clean up game' worth it though? I previously mentioned the word simple because that is what Serial Cleaner is. SIMPLE. Deceptively simple. As you would think, given the title of the game, you play the role of "The Cleaner" who lives with his family. He has a normal house in a normal suburban neighborhood and drives a red station wagon. Yep, you are definitely painted as the "normal kid"; however, all that changes once you get a phone call to 'clean' as we see the flip side of the coin. Each phone call represents a different job (level) that your cleaner skills is going to have to take care of. Now, to do that you will have to accomplish a few tasks.
First off, you have to dispose of numerous bodies that are scattered about the crime scene. Then, while you're doing that you will also have to look for various pieces of evidence, but you have to be careful, because when you remove a piece of evidence you will alert police who will be drawn to that area to search to see where the evidence is/has gone. While you're doing all of that you will also have to use your magical vacuum (seriously, like an ancient 1960's massive upright vacuum) to vacuum up a certain amount of blood (you are a cleaner after all). To make all of this worth your time, each job has a souvenir that you can collect and store in your trophy room at your home.
Here's the kicker though, you will have to do all of this while managing to avoid the 'cones of vision' that come from the patrolling police officers. To do this you have to hide in various outlets, and utilize the map to your advantage by triggering switches at correct times to shift the layout and design of the map in your favor. In order to see all these possible outlets and avenues you will have what is called 'cleaner vision' where you hold the LT and the map zooms out to give you an overview of the entire area.
In this view you will see where bodies are laying, the evidence is sitting, hiding spots, body disposal sites, and so much more. Sadly though, you cannot move while in this vision mode so it's best to plan your pathway well in advance, because should you get caught, the level will reset and all the bodies and evidence will be moved around thus taking your well thought out plan and tossing it right out the window. Once you have completed the tasks, which means you've cleaned the area, you hop in your station wagon and flee the scene.
Things seem simple enough though right? Nothing too challenging....well, you'd be wrong. As you start progressing through the levels the difficulty level ramps up. While the preliminary missions allow you to get you used to the fundamentals of the game itself, the real challenge is when Serial Cleaner expands the map size and increases the number of officers patrolling. I've lost count how many times I've had a great plan laid out I have executed it perfectly, but then on the last body, I hit a switch that activates one end, but opens another which draws the attention of a police officer who then comes and spots me, chases me down and I have to restart the level and my plan. This is incredibly frustrating, which is why I said Serial Cleaner is deceptively simple.
Now, if I'm honest, there isn't much in terms of replayability for Serial Cleaner, but to help that out Curve Digital has scattered numerous Easter eggs throughout the levels. If you take the time to explore the maps and levels there are hidden items that you come across that act as bonus missions you can play. These are are parodies of various movies such as Aliens and Star Wars. Personally, I think these levels alone are worth their own standalone game as the whole "hide and seek" aspect works wonders across a lot of iconic movies and genres.
I have to admit that I am not too particularly fond of the visual presentation of the game itself. I'm not a fan of the geometric layout and design, nor the music, but while I can play some different music through a different source, I can't do anything about the graphics. That's normally about the time when you start to realize the sad reality of Serial Cleaner. There's little replayability for a game that's based off one core aspect, and something like this unfortunately starts you off right behind the 8 ball. Couple this with mediocre music and a graphic style that is almost an insult to the 70's with its bland atmosphere, you understand that $14.99 seems to be too much to pay for a $4.99 game. Sadly, while not true organized crime, $14.99 for Serial Cleaner is feels like organized theft at this price.
Overall Score: 6.3 / 10
DeadCore
Puzzle platforming games don't seem to get the recognition that other genres get; however, there is undoubtedly tons of merit and value to be found should a game of this nature be executed properly. This was the belief that led developer Grip Games to release their latest puzzle platformer, DeadCore, on the Xbox One. Armed with guns that shoot, think of this game as the spawn of titles that have come before it, like Portal and Quake. There is one simple goal in DeadCore, make it to the top of the tower as quick as you can, and of course in one piece. It seems oh so simple right? However, is it worth the $7.99 price point to pick up a game that came out almost 4 years ago on PC? Let's hop to it and find out.When you start off there are a few things you'll notice right from the beginning. First off, the game looks beautiful in the visual department. An entire swirling celestial atmosphere that is enveloping this seemingly colossal structure. And all of eye candy is joined in harmony by a minimalistic, almost "Tron" type soundtrack that settles nerves but also stages a false narrative by misleading you into realms of comfort when none really exists.
At the beginning of the game you are given some options, but I would strongly recommend checking out the settings before diving right into the story, which shouldn't really be called "story" as you just need to complete room after room of puzzles. Nevertheless, once you hit that button for story mode, get ready for the ride of your life, virtually speaking.
When you start you'll find yourself tumbling in a free fall decent, and when you land (I'm guessing in a super hero way) you'll be taking your first steps towards many, many failures. The game doesn't do much in terms of hand holding, so your controls may feel a bit off at first. For example, the default jump button for a lot of games is what, the A button? Maybe the B button? In DeadCore the jump button is LT. Yup, the LT button is your jump button where you can also press it twice for a double jump move; however, this is where you'll also be introduced to one of, if not the biggest hiccups of DeadCore, the gameplay.
Earlier I mentioned have elements of the games Portal and Quake feel like they are incorporated, and that is because these games offer a gameplay control setup that is very "floaty" and focused on speed. This is the same style of movement that you will find in DeadCore, which makes the narrow, rotating platforms that that you have to jump to seem half a mile away, almost impossible to hit. I say almost because since you're going to die A LOT, you'll eventually have a run where your twitch muscle movements will pay off and you will solve the puzzle and proceed on to the next one.
DeadCore is a game where you literally live the iconic Top Gun line "You don't have time to think up there, if you think, you're dead." This is thanks to the fact that the game places its own devices in your path to stop you from completing the puzzles. These items include things like turrets and thruster jets that propel you in the direction they are pointing.
Now, you may be thinking that with floaty controls on narrow and tiny platforms and surfaces, placing things like this to add more challenge would make the game impossible, and in some cases you would be right; however, DeadCore grants you items to use, such as your new best friend your laser rifle to help you. This gun will shoot at opposing obstacles and temporarily turn them 'off', which will allow you crucial time to make the critical jumps to life saving freedom, and DeadCore is a game where you'll need every spare moment you can find. So, as you can clearly see, the game is trying to create a puzzle platformer that is simple on the outside, yet extremely challenging when you get into it and that got me thinking.
DeadCore could have been better had the gameplay been more precise. There were countless times where I hit a vertical platform and had no idea where to go, so I ended up looking downward so I could see the area that I had to land on. Other times I would do what would normally be a simple jump and it would seem like I hung in the air for multiple seconds waiting to just land so I could continue on.
While games like Portal and Quake managed to incorporate a highly sensitive and floaty gameplay mechanics, this open puzzle world of DeadCore doesn't fit within this scope that much, if at all. And then when you factor in the fact that countless times you will be required to perform split second actions, you start to get the sense that this game is designed to set you up to fail and fail, and fail some more. While some may think of this drawback as relatively minor, sadly it isn't and here's why.
When your game is dependent upon trying to tirelessly get one's jumping and reflexes to be pinpoint accurate, you have to have a mechanic system in place to allow for those actions to happen, and sadly that isn't found here. So, when your entire structure is already flawed in terms of how the user interacts with your game environment, then every moment you experience DeadCore will lead you to the same, controller smashing frustration. And while yes, it does offer a tremendous feeling of accomplishment when you complete a section, those moments are few and very far between, especially since you'll probably end up giving up well before then anyways.
The big question though: "Is DeadCore worth the $8 price tag?" In terms of value for dollar, not really. In terms of a challenging platforming puzzle game for fans of the genre, yes. DeadCore tries to draw its inspiration from other games; however, it lacks a solid gameplay structure, and therefore doesn't allow one to effectively interact with the game. You have to get the basics right before considering any extras and sadly DeadCore falls flat on its face here. While it may excel on a PC platform, trying to make the switch to consoles isn't always a successful transition as evidenced with DeadCore. Only die hard puzzle platform fans need apply here.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Air Guitar Warrior Gamepad Edition
For those that know me, you should know I loathe Kinect. I don't think there are many software applications that are a "must have", and in fact, I find the whole thing a tremendous amount of failed potential. Now, let's talk about Air Guitar Warrior: Gamepad Edition from Virtual Air Guitar Company (I mean honestly, what other company would make Air Guitar right?) Air Guitar Warrior: Gamepad Edition is priced at $14.99 and it was my job to take this one out for a spin to see if it's worth it. What did I find out? Quite a lot actually.For starters, the game is laid out with music albums on the screen and your job is to side scroll throughout the various songs, and press either the A or X button to fire various types of shots from your guitar. Now, all guitars have the same firing modes, but different shots, so you will need to become familiar with what works best for you. You will run out of ammo, but switching firing styles (press X instead of A) will allow your ammo to recharge thus enabling you to keep on shooting. However, there's a problem with this concept right off the beginning, as there is there's no real scoring system.
The game grades you on how many enemies you shoot down and that somehow gives you a percentage at the end, for some reason, and I don't know why because it's meaningless. With every enemy you kill you'll earn pieces of experience that will add up and level up your character, provided you actually play this long enough to care why. As you level up though you will unlock new abilities that will happen with new button press combinations, but other than that, as you progress you'll unlock new air guitars and this is pretty much the entire point of the game.
Everything I just said above could be the entire review right there. That's because there is so little to this game that you have nothing to hide behind or distract gamers with if there should be an aspect or two that doesn't seem to turn out the way you want it.
The graphics behind every song give a unique feel until you realize that there is a lot of repetition built into the game, and then you see that even in terms of environments and enemies that there isn't much variety. Your "ride" (if you want to call it that) will change from sharks with lasers, to a robotic T-Rex and even a unicorn, but when you watch the same aliens, skulls, etc. side scroll their way onto the screen as you blast them into oblivion, repeating over and over again, it will leave you with little enjoyment, and that's when it hit me about this game. It's going through a sort of identity crisis.
The Kinect version at least allowed you to partake in the enjoyment of physically strumming to fire, but in an odd state of reality, the enjoyment was lost when going to the gamepad version and actually reducing the way the game is played. I know this will probably send shock waves through the gaming community, but this is a unicorn moment, as the Kinect version of Air Guitar Warrior gives you more enjoyment than a non-Kinect version of the same game. The lack of enjoyment of the 'Gamepad Edition' continues to spread into the music which (when you're making a game where the focus is music) doesn't make much sense. And that's when the lightbulb clicked.
There's no replay factor. Like almost none at all. You have your character and you go through the game's tunes that feel more of a marketing ploy for an artist or band, and then you move onto the next song. Depending on if you don't die, you'll move onto the next track, and even though the levels get crazy towards the end, there is a microscopic amount of replayability. There are achievements such as kill X number of monsters with ______ guitar which will require you to grind over and over and over again, but that's when whatever enjoyment that could be found within this game is snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
Should you plunk down $14.99 plus tax on the 'Gamepad Edition'? In simple terms, I would say no. There is little to no replay value, mediocre music, and if you already own the Kinect version then you already have the best version available. On the plus side though, if you don't have a Kinect, then consider yourself blessed as you won't have to waste money on Air Guitar Warrior: Gamepad Edition.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
The Golf Club 2
Now, I should make this clear, I am probably the worst golfer on the planet. I've hit drives that have curled and gone behind me, so yeah, sadly you can't stand anywhere and be safe with me. Despite this though, I love golf. I love the endless pursuit of perfect muscle memory and sensory adaptation on the fly to project a small ball numerous football fields in length into a cup no bigger than your fist. In the past Microsoft had a game called Links which, in my opinion, was a fantastic golf game thanks to its attention to a more realistic approach. Sadly, that series is long gone and in its place we have games like the recently released The Golf Club 2, developed by HB Studios and published by Maximum Games, which aims to deliver a truly authentic golfing experience that is more on the side of simulation than arcade. Priced at $40, if the quality is there, The Golf Club 2 (TGC2) should make the big companies a little concerned. So, does TGC2 hit a hole in one, or does it reach the stroke limit and head to the clubhouse in shame?
I mentioned that TGC2 is more of a simulation than an arcade experience. Instead of arcade style golf games like EA's PGA Tour Series, where you can control the spin of the ball in mid-flight and you had landing zones and all other kinds of guidelines to help you (granted as the games progressed you could turn all that off), in TGC2 you get very, very little. This makes the entire game more realistic, but if the execution is subpar, then it really doesn't matter.
When you start off you're going to select which analog stick you wish to use for your swing, I personally chose LS because that's what I've always used. Now, the swing is measured in a few ways, and I'll use my LS choice in this example. You end up pulling back (down) and your golfer will start his/her backswing. At the top point of the backswing you will push the stick forward (up) and your golfer will proceed with their follow through. Now you just read that your swing is measured in a few ways and here they are.
Your backswing is measured by distance and tempo and can range from slow to perfect. Your follow through is also measured on the same guidelines, but both are also measured by how straight your motion on the backswing and follow through are. Should your thumb slide too far off to the side, your ball will sail wildly into deep rough causing you all kinds of trouble. Now, while we are talking about the swing mechanics, I have a few issues to point out.
The first one is that at times the game can suffer from graphical lag which can affect your input of your swing and your timing. This isn't good when you have a game based off of visual input. This can cause numerous shots where you wanted a lighter touch but end up crushing your approach shot to well off the green. This issue is especially annoying when you are putting. Dear Lord it can be horrible, as you think you can hit a soft 7 foot put, but you end up thrashing it 15-20 feet past the hole. The tutorial will help you get a rough feel for it, but thankfully there is a driving range, chipping area, and putting practice so you can go through various lies and shot types to get a sense of how the ball and club will react. I can't stress enough how important it is that you spend a lot of time here as you will need to get used to another aspect of your swing. The adjustments.
To help you a little bit, the game allows you to press the X button to change between normal shot, pitch, flop, punch, etc. However, that's only going to adjust the type of shot and the distance, for further adjustments you need to hold the LT. You can't alter the ball mid-flight like you can in other fantasy golf games, so by using the LT like this TGC2 offers you the ability to alter your shot. Upon pressing the LT, it opens up your shot modification menu and allows you adjust the loft (more or less) as well as your push or pull of the ball upon impact. This is tricky as your different angles will do different things to your ball.
For instance, let's say you have a club that hits 175 yards, and you decide to put maximum loft on the ball (which will naturally shorten the distance of the club), and just like in life you won't be able to see how much the increase in loft will affect your ball, so you'll have to do the famous try and try again until you understand about how much distance giving full loft takes away from your shot. These nuances will either make or break your round of virual golf, so expect to replay some courses many, many times as you now take into account wind, ball placement (does it rest on the side or angle of a hill or flat?) and other varying factors that will plague you throughout your rounds. It's as realistic as it can get for a console golf game.
Thankfully, you're going to be taking part in a short tutorial on the various types of shots, clubs, etc. Upon completion of this you can customize your character. There's much to adjust and customize as long as you have the virtual coin to do it. All of it is pure cosmetic so unless you want to go for the achievement of collecting over 100 items of clothing, hats, etc., you don't have to spend your coins here. The reason is you can also edit your current items and give them different colors, logos, and other distinct looks. After your stint customizing your player, it's time to get down to business. There are two main modes you'll choose from: play and career. Let's tackle the play mode first.
In the play mode you can select your course through a variety of course selection choices such as friend's favorites, your own favorites, to official courses and much, much more. Once you have selected the course you can edit gameplay it how you want such as tee locations and so on. Multiplayer is an option, but as of this time I hadn't played a round of it yet. Before you dive into a round you're given some options such as check out more courses by the creator, favorite this one, etc. However, there's one important option in the top right corner and that says "practice". Sometimes getting in a practice round so you know what you're about to get into is going to be beneficial so you're not blind out there. Each course also carries with it various challenges for select holes such as score under par on hole 7 with one putt or less. Completing these challenges will earn you coins and completing 200 challenges will earn you an achievement.
The other mode, your career mode, is where you can get your first taste of TGC2's offering called Societies. Your career society is different than your multiplayer one, however your career one is where you select varying amounts of events to construct an entire season. The more you level up your career society, the more events you can compete in within one season thus earning you more money, etc. There isn't to much to go on with regards to the seasons and leveling up your society clubhouse to hold more events because there really isn't a point outside of leveling up your golfer. You can also make your clubhouse more and more appealing at you go through the career mode. There are ghosts and rivals you can load into your game should you feel the need to have some form of direct competition, which includes the developers themselves, and it's safe to say that the latter know these courses very, very well.
One of the many aspects of golf has to be the scenery. The environment that includes these sweeping fairways, and ever lurking tall roughs, is incredible in TGC2, so good in fact that there are some graphics issues (one I already mentioned about the swing) where the environment will "pop" in elements such as trees and rocks, etc. that you didn't see before which causes moments of screen tearing. Another slight gripe would the loading times. In a golf game it seems like the most extensive item to load would be the surrounding environment, however, for some reason the times loading a tournament, and in between holes, is rather long and with no way to speed up the animation of your ball, sometimes you find yourself waiting... and waiting... and waiting. It might be something to do with the Unity graphics engine they are using, and I could only imagine what would happen with a better tools in this area.
Despite some graphic hiccups upon some good looking visuals, I'm sorry to say that the music, while tranquil and peaceful (as golf music should be) isn't memorable and the voice acting for the announcer leaves a lot to be desired as well. The clubs sound solid though, as each wood, iron, and specialty club sound different from one another, and hitting from different terrain (e.g. fairway, rough, sand trap, etc.) which is important in a game like this.
Now, I know it seems like I'm coming down on this game here and there, but despite some of the drawbacks, The Golf Club 2 is, right now, the elite golf experience on the Xbox platform. With EA having a tough time with their golf game, HB Studios simply crushed it with The Golf Club 2. It's going to seem frustrating, aggravating (especially putting), and at times it will test the durability of an Xbox Elite controller, but all of that stress, anguish, and turmoil melts away instantly when you unlock the achievement of getting a hole-in-one from over 250+ yards (I literally jumped up yelling and cheering when I hit it). Then it's back to normal and I ended up getting a bogey on the next hole. One thing is for certain, and that's The Golf Game 2 will take you on a ride of emotions. Is it worth $39.99 plus tax? Without a doubt it is.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Victor Vran: Overkill Edition
Normally when you consider a video game purchase you tend to gravitate to games that give you an incredible amount of value, including gameplay length. Games that end up ultimately draining weeks, months, and in some cases, years out of your life make sense, as you want to get the most value for dollar. Recently Haemimont Games released a two-year-old game called Victor Vran to the price tag of $40 USD. Now, normally I'd already see warning signs everywhere; however, this time is a bit different. Actually, it's a lot different and let me tell you why.Victor Vran is an action RPG game that is similar in scope to Diablo, an iconic dungeon crawler, loot focused bonanza of a game that draws you in and never lets you go. So, already you can get a sense for where I'm going with this. Victor Vran has utilized some of the greatest aspects and characteristics of Diablo and implemented it into its own gameplay, which automatically makes its' foundation one of the best you'll find in the genre. Normally you would just get the base game; however, this release of Victor Vran (Overkill Edition) is where you actually get two DLC content packs as well. While I would strongly, and I repeat, strongly recommend that you consider tackling these areas only after your character becomes a high level, you get a feeling that already you get a lot of content for your $40 + tax. But is it any good?
Without any hesitation, yes. It's phenomenal actually. If you're taking a break from Diablo, or want an incredibly well put together dungeon crawler, look no further. Let's start off first with the story. Actually, I'll give you the note card version. You play the role of a hunter named Victor Vran who is a little more than he seems to be. You find yourself drawn to the town of Zagoravia as you find yourself looking for your lost friend who was also a hunter. Throughout your quest for your friend you will find many twists and turns, and as you uncover the map you're also going to be introduced to something called "The Voice". Think of this as a witty, little devil on your shoulder, type voice that uses fantastic writing to deliver a performance that was one of the biggest surprises to me. With me being a Star Wars fan and hearing the voice say "Victor... I have to tell you something.... I. AM. YOUR. FATHER.......NOOOOOOOO" and I was in bliss. These types of moments are what give the little nuances of the game it's life.
Another time "The Voice" mocked me for finding a chest that had a regular item in it. It said "Oh congratulations Victor, you've found some trash. Let's see if you can find 4 more chests of trash, ok? I'll even throw in a pie if you do." So, I set off and while finding more chests I kept hearing about this pie, and then on the 4th out of five chests found, I'm told "My pie isn't a lie." and a smile crept over my face. Was the pie there? Was it a lie? Play the game and find out!
These nuances within the game really help Victor Vran establish its own identity. When playing a dungeon crawler you really only have to follow one simple rule: Do what Diablo does, then just alter it in some ways. It's quite simple that way and that's essentially what you have here. So, when you have such similarities, finding ways to accent the differences is ever more important (cue legal department phone call).
Now, the biggest challenge outside of the camera for a good dungeon crawler, or any game for that matter, has to be the user interface. For the longest time there have been very few quality dungeon crawlers on console as they have mainly been PC only, but now developers have found ways to implement the input choices found for the players and have mapped them onto a controller that allows the game to be played on consoles. To make this successful you MUST, and I repeat, MUST, have a way to make the controls feel symmetrical yet sequential. Let me explain. For instance, in Victor Vran you can operate two demon powers, and carry two items. Each demon power is mapped to the triggers, so LT fires one and the RT fires the second, and when it comes to items you have left and right on the D-Pad, so the symmetry creates a balanced gameplay that frees up the face buttons to designated attacks. I almost forgot, you're also able to carry and use two weapons. Using the RB you can switch between your primary and secondary weapon and use the corresponding X, Y, and B buttons for your new attacks.
I mentioned demon powers above and that's only one part of your character's outfit. In fact, Victor Vran makes it a point to focus partly on your character's outfit. Opposite of your health bar (again, symmetry) is your Overdrive meter. When this gets filled you can use your demon powers. Filling your Overdrive meter can happen a couple of ways. You can gain Overdrive by attacking and killing enemies (there's plenty of them around), or you can wear a suit where you're granted about 80 points of Overdrive per second, but your attacks no longer produce it. After thinking that if I were methodical and patient, I could progress through each section of the map and have a full Overdrive meter whenever I accessed a new area. With this in mind I chose to take a suit that filled it automatically. One other bonus here is that if you take the other style suit, and you fill the meter but don't use it, then after a while it will all go away. There are suits to modify your Overdrive, but those are considered Legendary outfits which leads me to my next section, loot.
There's a ton of it. Throughout your grinding you'll easily generate pages and pages of inventory that can be used for a couple different purposes. First off is the gold. Items you sell will bring you cash, it's not a new concept, but the second reason for hoarding all this loot is incredibly unique and that is the Transmutation.
Weapons, Demon Powers, and Skill Cards can all be part of the Transmutation, which is Victor Vran's way of giving you a choice of how you want to play the game. Transmutation is when you have a singular base slot that is modified or created using ingredient slots. Let's say you have four regular weapons that aren't really anything special. You can assign 3 of them as ingredients in their slots and leave the base blank. When you Transmute them you will get another common weapon, but with different stats and traits. If you do this for 3 rare (yellow) weapons, you will be guaranteed a yellow weapon, but also have a chance to land a Legendary weapon instead. Let's say you want to increase the damage of an uncommon (green) weapon, you would have to use the weapon you wanted to increase the damage of as the singular base, then put 3 uncommon or better weapons below as ingredients (they don't have to be the same weapons), and if you wanted to increase a weapon's ability you would have to use corresponding recipes with demon powers.
This is a prime example, and just a fraction of the sheer depth that Victor Vran offers to its players. Sure, you could just cash out and take the money, however with tremendous opportunities with Transmutation, don't be surprised if you find yourself with tons of pages of weapons as you combine and manipulate some incredibly powerful and amazing ones. One interesting note to consider, Legendary weapons level up when you do, so get ready for evolutionary weaponry!
Presentation wise, the graphics and the sound are befitting a dungeon crawler and provide not only individual characteristics, but a quality that you can see in every little detail. Now, I know I've been fawning over this game now but I do have to admit that there are a couple issues with the game, and one of the biggest involves the dreaded enemy, the camera.
It can get a bit disorienting when trying to combine the map system in tandem with the camera system, and most of the time you find yourself trying to focus more on which direction to go, than on playing the game during these moments. And should you happen to go under a bridge, or in some form of enclosed area, the camera magically retracts to literally a few feet above which then takes you out of your ability to see, well, anything really. The second issue involves the game slowing to a crawl at times and locking up on quite a few occasions. A simple restart seems to fix it; however, one experience I had where my character was going down the stairs, the game froze, and then when I restarted the game, I waited over 6 minutes, just to get to the "Press any button" screen you see at the very beginning. After I pressed any button I had to wait to get to the main screen and that wait time was over 8 minutes. I decided to delete the game and restart, and that didn't work. Next up, deleting my save file and the game and installing again from fresh, and include a hard reboot and BAM! It was back to business as usual, but I lost everything.
For dungeon crawling, action RPG games that offer immense depth, 4-player multiplayer, and a high replay factor that isn't found on many multiplayer games, for the price of $19.99 is hands down the best value for dollar game you can find on the console right now. If you really want a big bang for your buck though, for $39.99 you get the Overkill Edition which gives you two DLC packs that are loaded with even more content on top of everything found in the original game. While Victor Vran isn't Diablo, and there were a few hiccups now and then, the experience you will have won't be any less enjoyable, and when you mix in the online experience with your friends, you'll wonder where the last few days of your life went, and then discover that it was claimed by Victor Vran, and you loved every moment of it.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Tango Fiesta
Ah yes, the summer is here. Full of sunshine, blue skies, kids on the street, maybe a slurpee in hand, oh, and there is a pile of Xbox One indie games that are designed to do one thing, take your money from your wallet. Recently, publisher Merge Games released a game called Tango Fiesta, and while priced in the mid-range of indie pricing ($9.99), this game tries to give you value for your money by making the most simplistic shooter while allowing you to carry as much explosives as you can, all mixed together with lighthearted humor that shows that the game doesn't take itself so seriously. But with that in mind, does that mean you shouldn't consider the choice to throw your $10 at it? Let's dive in shall we?Ok, when I said simplistic, I was wrong. This game is colossally simplistic. Like so simplistic the tag line for this game could easily read Tango Fiesta: Just shoot everything. You have two choices in the game: Arcade or Story Mode. Arcade mode is just level after level of mindless killing while the game shows off an overwhelming number of explosions. Story mode is like Arcade mode, except you get a cheesy backstory that pertains to iconic action movies, but with a heavy dose of comedic satire. Tango Fiesta tries so hard to be a culmination of classic 80's and 90's action movies, ranging from Predator, Rambo and RoboCop, unfortunately it sadly doesn't do a good job in trying to pay homage to the source material. This is kind of unfortunate, as it seems like a missed chance here.
Whatever mode you pick you'll quickly grasp the concept that you have to kill everything. To do this you'll need to select from a group of characters such as Bionic Cop (RoboCop), John Strong (Arnold himself) and more. Each character offers different stats, but honestly Bionic Cop is the best as his stats are mostly maxed out except for speed. Tango Fiesta then takes your character and throws them into a random generated arena and lets you kill everything over and over again. This is thanks to a simplistic game mechanics that unfortunately suffer from incredible bugs.
First off, let's talk about the in-game movement. Using the left stick to move around is one thing; however, there are multiple items within the level itself that affect your movement and your battles. For example, let's say you're fighting a group of six enemies and between you and the group is a patch of grass. You try to shoot them and then you notice something strange. The grass stopped your bullet. Yes, your projectile was stopped by grass; however, your opponents' bullets go right through. Naturally this creates some disadvantage, but as you'll quickly notice, navigating the levels themselves are going to be the greatest obstacle you'll face.
With Tango Fiesta being a twin stick shooter, you would think that there would be an extensive range of fire with your controls, unfortunately you would be completely incorrect. In fact, the strict following of 8-axis fire is so severe that you'll find yourself deliberately trying to attack from either straight up or straight down, or from the direct left side or right side. There were even multiple times when I would try and throw a grenade, however, I noticed that the grenade would sometimes drop at my feet and explode, and there was no explanation for this.
Another knock on the gameplay has to come from the reloading method. See, if you hold down the right trigger and have your gun run out of ammo, you'll have to take your finger off the trigger while the game auto reloads and then place your finger back on to continue to fire. Since you have no knowledge of how close you are to an empty clip, you are almost thrown into situations blindly because your ammo counter is in microscopic text in the upper left corner. It's frustrating to say the least.
Now, normally I would talk about the graphics and sound, but I'm not going to. There's nothing to mention that is of any value to your time to read about. The tiny sprites try to over accentuate various aspects and characteristics of enemies and such, and the levels are generic in texture, tone and enjoyment. The sound is actually so bad that I turned it down except for one aspect of the game, the Gun Shop. Here you can unlock new weaponry for the right amount of in-game cash considering you fulfill the necessary requirements. The joy of this menu is that all the weaponry is presented to you in an Arnold impersonation voice and there is something about hearing "OOZI 9 Millimeter" in that voice that is eerily amusing.
While you can play Tango Fiesta as a single player game, sadly it only supports local 4-player co-op only. That's right folks, there may be millions of people on Xbox Live, but Tango Fiesta only allows for local co-op. I don't know why, I thought that we lived in a day and age where we wanted to connect to others outside of our couch? The only reason I can think of to justify the local play only is that back in the 80's that’s how we played our games. Had Tango Fiesta included online play with others, then it would have given it more hope and quite possibly sell better than it will as it stands now.
So, the big question is "Should you spend $9.99 plus tax on Tango Fiesta?" Well, gameplay mechanics are flawed, graphics and sound are passable at best, and there is a complete lack of online multiplayer; all of this makes not only the actual value low, but the replay value incredibly low as well. Given the sum of all of its' parts, there's no way I can recommend buying this game at that price. It's a shame because with such a wealth of content available to draw comedic inspiration from, Tango Fiesta just got terminated. If a sequel gets released though, and it fixes the issues of this game, I'll be back.
Overall Score: 4.5 / 10
RiME
We have all heard from people in the industry that gaming is an expression of art. Designers, artists and everyone involved collaborate on a digital canvas, producing their own piece of art. Tequila Works has taken this principle and have developed a new game called RiME. While some companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on making a game, Tequila Works has done something spectacularly well. What they've done is create a digital masterpiece of art. Let's take a look at what could make RiME a serious contender for game of the year.Yes, you read that right, RiME is absolutely amazing. It tells a loose narrative where you must piece a world back together by navigating the various realms, all in an effort to discover your true destiny and what darkness haunts the lands. The story is just a watered down place holder; however, right from the beginning you'll be hit with the titanic beauty that is RiME.
RiME is one of the most beautiful games you will ever see, as it uses the Unreal Engine technology to produce some the most vibrant and bold images ever to grace our screens. When you start you'll see how the game essentially lets you discover it for yourself. This tactic could be misleading, though as the beauty you will find is amazing as you take extra time to uncover various hidden pathways that reveal unique relics and special secrets.
Throughout the various levels you will see parts of the overall experience that reside in a very large and open framework. When broken down though they are really very linear. Now, one of the biggest points going for RiME is the ability to create something with such depth and creativity while utilizing incredibly simple controls. The X button interacts with items, A button jumps, Y button activates your 'shout' and B lets you roll in the direction you move. Such basic controls, yet when put against the backdrop of a platforming adventure like RiME, is a stroke of pure brilliance. The challenge actually comes by you trying to figure things out since there is no hand holding. This takes us to the soul of this game, the puzzles.
Throughout the various levels, if you will, you'll come across many puzzles. Figuring these puzzles out will require some thought, but overall they aren't too challenging. Since there really isn't a run feature you'll find that most of the puzzles will take time simply because you have to find a way to get to them to solve them. Sadly though, what this ultimately boils down to is going through linear pathways to solve a puzzle that will unlock a new path to take, where at the end a puzzle it will need to be solved, rinse and repeat. So trying to figure out the path isn't as challenging as you would expect, and there is exploration, however, it's almost a pseudo open world concept. Essentially what I'm saying is that I'm being picky because I can't explore more of the game, but to compensate for that shortcoming RiME packs in one last piece of pure beauty, the soundtrack.
Hands down RiME is in my top 5 game soundtracks of all time, period. The orchestral composition, and the instruments used, weave a tapestry of audible harmony that will envelop you and submerge you deeper into the experience of RiME's beauty. Hearing the orchestra build and crescendo into a climax of masterful proportions. Navigating tombs and underwater palaces while being serenaded by sonic bliss is an experience you'll wholly enjoy.
These are just some of the examples of mastery you will hear throughout RiME. Not just the music, but every single piece of audible material is created with more attention to detail than we find in a lot of major blockbuster games, and from start to finish it is its own masterpiece to experience. Now it goes without saying that RiME seems to tick all the right boxes for being game of the year material, however, if we look closer, there are a few areas that have to be addressed.
First is the framerate. RiME is beautiful, but it slows down quite badley more often than not and the framerate becomes so unbearable that it takes you out of the beauty of this fluid artistic experience. RiME does use the Unreal Engine, but somehow the dev-team couldn't fine tune the graphics to keep up with the pace, and when a game is actually very slow, you wonder just what is going on with Tequila Works.
Another major issue is the initial loading time. I understand it has to load a few GB of data, however you could probably go get something to eat and still come back and it would still be loading. I think "The Hundred Year War" finished quicker... well probably. So, you have to wait an ungodly long period of time to load up a game that is so beautiful it slows its framerate down to the point where it severely impacts the overall experience somewhat. Oh, and earlier when I said that every single piece of audible material is beautiful, If forgot about one sound. The Y button 'shout' actually gets on your nerves, which doesn't go well considering how often you have to use it.
This got me slightly depressed, confused, and more all at once. I thought to myself, who would see the framerate issues and say yes that's a good idea, and let's do that? Could no one, absolutely no one figure out a way to improve the framerate that, if I'm honest, aren't so demanding? We're not talking hyper realism here. I am hoping for a patch to fix the framerate as it will let this artistic masterpiece shine even more.
I have a confession to make, after reviewing games for 9 years, I've never given a game a 10. Never. I always thought that gaming perfection was unobtainable simply because there is always room for improvement. Had the issues noted above not plagued RiME, this game would have been my first 10, and that was a sobering moment of just how big of an impact these issues can be. When you're talking about simplicity and doing more with less, then you have to make sure that everything, and I mean everything, you give to the gaming community has to be the best. That being said though, RiME is a gaming masterpiece that should be experienced, even with the hiccups I speak of. Creative puzzles, beautiful environments, spellbinding soundscapes, and at $29.99, Rime is right now one of the games to beat in 2017.
Suggestions: Improve framerate and loading time issues.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Portal Knights
Imagine. if you would, if Minecraft, Lego, and Diablo all went out one night, got obliterated at a bar, and had a wild hotel night. Nine months later you would have Portal Knights by 505 games. Originally out via Steam, lucky console owners finally get to enjoy the game at a price point of $19.99 + tax. Now, you're probably wondering how in God's name all of this ties together, and I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. The question you should be asking though is: "Is Portal Knights a 3D sandbox RPG environment that will see unknown amounts of hours pass as they blur into days; or is it another clone of Minecraft trying to give you something similar but yet in the end, is still just a knockoff?"505 Games have released some incredibly fun games in the past such as Rocket League, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and Terraria to name a few, and now they have set their sights on delivering a quality 3D sandbox RPG game. Portal Knights tells an extremely loose tale of an evil that has divided numerous realms of varying characteristics and it is up to you to right the wrongs and vanquish the evil responsible.
Ok, now that the dramatic plot pitch is out of the way, that's about all you're going to have to go on when you play, so if you dive into this thinking you're going to experience some grand, meaningful adventure, you're going to be mistaken. If you go into this thinking you're going to play Lego characters set in multiple Minecraft styled realms, then you're going to be incredibly happy.
I reference Lego because as you start out you get to customize your character which looks like a hybrid Lego character with an oversized Lego styled head. Your character choices range from a Warrior (who specializes in melee attacks and has high strength), an Archer (a class who uses ranged weapons and bombs and focuses on dexterity), or a Mage (who is your magic wielder of the trio). Choose wisely because once you select your character the other options are locked out, including various items and weapons.
Once you've chosen your character it's time to customize them. I was surprised at the amount of depth to the character creation as there were numerous presets to form literally billions of combinations (yes, I said billions). If you like to spend time customizing your character, you'll lose a lot of hours here. Once completed you will get a choice to play either online or offline. If you play online, you can share in the fun with 4 people online, or two people local co-op if you decide not to go solo.
When you think you're done making choices, think again, because after you pick online or offline you get to choose between small worlds or large ones. To put things into perspective, a small world is incredibly compact and should be experienced first to get a feel for what you're about to get into. All the realms you experience will be randomly generated; however, your first level will take you through a small tutorial about quests, controls, and menus. For example, pressing LT on an enemy will give your character an enemy lock-on feature which can be annoying at times because the camera system isn't the best. Pressing LT again will disengage it and allow you to move the camera and focus on what you want. After that brief tutorial though, you're on your own. You'll quickly learn how to construct portals which will take you to other realms, and while in the menu one of the tabs is your overall map of the realms so you can see what you have joined and what can be coming up soon. This is also where the Minecraft feel is going to hit you like a freight train.
You'll come across simple 1x1 blocks as far as the eye can see and decorated with varying textures, different block types, and other interactive environmental objects like trees, grasses, gems, etc. that you can mine to create various items, potions, weapons, and more. To do this you will need to build a crafting station which will introduce you into the Portal Knights' crafting menu which is remarkably similar to Minecraft. However, unlike Minecraft, the focus of Portal Knights is to complete various quests that come with every realm. You're going to collect a lot of items you don't need to use, so be ready to dump a lot of items you don't need. Building chests will help increase your storage, but you will be fast travelling back to the realm you built it in to keep things organized. This is the biggest fundamental difference with Portal Knights as combat is the primary focus.
Now, when you begin you'll spend a lot of time leveling up, so the game itself will feel more of a chore than anything. Earning XP while helping other characters you meet within the different areas help level up your character and in turn give you skill points to use on various stats. When you hit milestone levels you'll be able to select various abilities such as sword proficiency and increased rate of healing so long as you stand still for 5 seconds or more.
This building really adds a depth that we see in some of the bigger action RPG games, and goes a long way to giving Portal Knights the credit it deserves. As you progress, not only will your character level up and grow, but you'll come across elements for upgraded weaponry which you will need when you go up against the bosses. This could be considered the central focus of their own world and they will beat you like you owe them money. This is when you're going to realize that in order to respawn you need gold, so make sure you have plenty on hand. You're also going to want to make sure you complete quests to gain new recipes for stronger items and better gear.
In terms of Portal Knights' graphics, I am a huge fan of the randomness as it takes me back to the Diablo days where every run would be different and that is exactly what you get here. The randomness ensures that each level is unique and has its own atmosphere. The characters you encounter throughout will speak in a minion-like gibberish and the colors throughout are nice and bold and go well with the overall art style.
The soundtrack is nice; however, it is incredibly repetitious, so while I wish there was more depth in the soundtrack, when you start going to different levels, you can feel that this was not on par with the rest of the game content. Let me be very clear though, I'm not saying the music is bad, I just wish there were more of it. It's hard though with all the randomness of the levels, I mean how do you ever do music as unique as the levels themselves?
So, is Portal Knights worth $19.99 + tax? Without a doubt, yes. There have been games that cost more than 3 times this but provide less engaging content. If you have a group of people joining in, then the fun just gets magnified by a factor of 10. 505 Games has delivered a content packed, quality action RPG with Portal Knights. It is a game that you can spend hundreds of hours playing and still have just as much fun as when you first set off. Sure, the game has issues, but the issues it has don't come close to outweighing the amount of joy found in the overall package.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Prey
Set the way back machine to 2006 and you'll come across an Xbox 360 game called Prey. It took its audience on a wild, psychological roller coaster ride, but it's execution resulted in a mixed reaction from the community, and for the longest time we heard whispers of a new Prey game in the works. As you can imagine, being over a decade since its initial offering there were many changes that took place over the course of the years, until now. Many moons have passed since Bethesda stepped in and acquired Prey, and the studio they tasked to bring it back to life was none other than Arkane Studios (the creators of Dishonored). After a while you get the sense that there was a chance for something special, but unfortunately so of this expectation was lost to the cosmos. In a typical setting that we have seen multiple times over (space), you play the role of Morgan Yu who's a scientist that specializes in the development of Neuromods. These are devices that literally pierce your eye to give you new and enhanced abilities. Yes, stick this multi-needled gun device up to your eye, and pull the trigger and you get powers. So that's a very dark way of upgrading your character... Bioshock at least had a tonic. All this research takes place on board an orbiting station called Talos I. You proceed throughout the rounds of a normal day when something happens and you're fully exposed to an almost venom like symbiote species called the Typhon. Your world goes to black and you then awaken to a strange voice guiding you, which you are told is actually you, but more specifically a program of you that you created in a different time to assist you should the need ever arise.
Kind of confusing? Prey does a great job deploying a psychological ground game that drives your actions throughout the entire game; however, instead of developing this into something deep, expansive and intellectually puzzling, Prey seems to blend itself into more of an action shooter game. Your main priority becomes exploring a few areas of Talos until you kill everything, search everything, and then move onto the next unlocked area, all the while killing everything you can find in between. This is a huge let down because even though there's an element of duality and sacrifice woven into the plot threads, there's not really a driving force to keep the narrative at the mentally twisted level it needs to be. While the plot is a good story, there was definitely a missed opportunity here. If I could ask Arkane Studios one question it would be: "Would you kindly write a sequel that really took our minds on a mentally psychotic ride?"
Earlier you heard me mention the inclusion of duality and that is the cornerstone of Prey's entire storyline. When the crux of the story opens up to you, Prey decides to force you to deal with a moral system of choices. These choices determine what kind of person your character will become, but sadly these aren't plentiful enough in the game to warrant any significant level of depth. In fact, the majority of the mission work you do will feel like a very mundane chore and when you see how Prey decides to take the pieces and put them together, you feel underwhelmed and that to me was incredibly disappointing. You have an opportunity to take an IP that is over 10 years old, and re-imagine it in a dark, twisted, Tim Burton style manor and yet you make it a Disney Halloween Special instead.
To help set the stage for this grand performance, Talos I is set to deliver on many levels. First, the environments themselves tend to be more uniformed and less unique (given that it's a space station after all), but there are breathtaking images to view all throughout the station's windows of various stars, moons and planets. On top of that, you'll witness firsthand how Talos I tries to put a futuristic twist on classic elegance. In Prey, Talos I is supposed to be a premier outpost and you'll see a lot of that when you venture throughout the various parts of the map. However, given all of that, at the end of the day you're still in an orbiting space station and everything is going to have a familiar, uniformed, presentation and that I feel is another blown opportunity.
Since this game bears similar, yet very strong characteristics of Bioshock, I've heard of Talos I being referenced to as the Space version of Rapture and I can see why. However, the atmosphere of Rapture played right in tune with the plot, but in Prey you feel that it's more of an afterthought, if that. Now, despite that setback, it has to be mentioned that the ambient and atmospheric sounds and soundtrack of Prey are incredible. Listening to them on my Klipsch home theater system, and through some new headphones I am reviewing, I fell in love with the small little intricate parts that came together. You get this feeling when conflict arises and the strings and horns crescendo up to a climatic peak. On the other side of the coin though, Prey would then lull you into comfort again only to strike when you weren't ready. This tactic works wonderfully a couple of times at most, but seems to be frequent throughout the game making things a bit predictable as you progress.
This progress also has to deal with the progress of your character, as you have worked on developing a way to enhance your abilities, hence the Neuromods. However, by studying the alien Typhon themselves you can gain access to alien enhanced abilities. Now you may be asking, "Can I become a hybrid alien human with extreme powers?" and the answer is "yes you can". But as we all know, everything has a price to pay. In this instance should you decide to upgrade your character, and include alien traits, human devices, such as turrets, will now start to see you as a threat and target you. Rest easy because you can hack them to make them not target you, but you have to get in close to do this. While we are on the topic of mods and enhancements, I cannot stress how important it is for you to plan your path of upgrades ahead of time. I say this because the cost to upgrade your skills to the 2nd and 3rd levels dramatically increases like my health insurance cost. Make sure you plan ahead because a 'Jack of All Traits' is a master of none.
Now to acquire these powers you will be required to scan your Typhon enemies with your Psychoscope. Scanning the enemies while in a scoped view will allow you to work towards unlocking Typhon abilities and powers. The two primary Typhon enemies you will come across are Mimics and Phantoms. Mimics are a small spider like symbiote that have one distinct characteristic that makes them a deadly adversary, and that is that Mimics can replicate any object. So, let's say you are in an office area for the first time and you look around and see nothing out of the ordinary. This is what Mimics want you to think because in reality you could be in a room with half a dozen of them and you would never know. In order to make the detection process simpler you will have to use the acquired Psychoscope to scan the area, but when you do that you're going to be burdened with a little bit of tunnel vision, but it's a small price to pay for scouting out something that can spring from any object and attack you rapidly and ferociously.
The second are the Phantoms and they are what you would regard as human Typhon experiments gone horribly wrong. These walking abominations are either evolved Mimics or members of the Talos I crew that have been turned. These Phantoms take an absolute beating and are hard to bring down as they move faster than Mimics and hit much, much harder. In fact, one of the best strategies is to use your GLOO gun to temporarily freeze an enemy and then unload on them with your wrench (I would suggest using a firearm, however, ammo isn't plentiful unless you want to spend the resources to make it), or better yet, let a friendly turret tear them to pieces while you keep them in suspended motion. I bring this to your attention because you're going to be hard pressed to keep your suit in a manageable state throughout all these fights so repair kits are few and far between.
Thankfully, to help you keep track and store everything you need, you can expand on your inventory system which works on a grid style storage layout where items take 1 square and weapons can take 2, 3 or more. I brought up the whole upgrading abilities a while back, and upgrading your storage is one of those abilities. Also, with the suit repair kits you'll find, you will come across weapon upgrade kits which work ok, except if you want to start bringing the noise to the enemies, you'll need to spend quite a lot of Neuromods. In regards to the space of your storage, always (and I can't stress this enough) pay attention for where there is a recycle station. Here is where you can dump your crumpled pieces of paper, banana skin peels, used cigars, etc. and turn them into resources that you need to make certain blueprint plans such as med kits, shotgun ammo, and so much more. You'll be doing a lot of backtracking throughout Prey, so I strongly suggest that as you pass through areas again that you pay a short visit to the recycle stations to help keep available space in your inventory.
Prey, despite all the faults and setbacks I have noted, is actually a quality game from start to finish. It has plenty of content that will keep you air locked in for hours on end, and given the faults, you'll be spending so much time exploring that you may not even regard them as faults at all. After 10 years the gaming world was ready for another Prey, and Arkane Studios was up for the challenge and they succeeded more than they failed. Prey does deliver a sound introduction to an IP that has seen a troubled development process, and yes even though there are some drawbacks, there is a tremendous foundation for an incredible future. Do I think Prey could be game of the year? No. Do I think Arkane Studios could make Prey into an amazing gaming series? Yes.
Suggestions: Please work on that story for the sequel.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom
Normally when people say to me "Kickstarter game", I admit I cringe a bit inside. When someone says "Kickstarter Indie action RPG game that will be coming to the Xbox One", I have my incredibly large salt shaker on standby. Developer Enigami set out to create such a game. This small developer took to the streets in an initial effort through Kickstarter to fund their game Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom. Priced at $29.99, this has me incredibly weary for multiple reasons. First, Enigami's goal was $100,000 and they managed to raise just shy of $140K. So, while not a tremendous overage, the big question remained was what type of game could Enigami come up with, with such incredibly limited funds. The answer to that shocked me completely.If you're an action RPG fan that enjoys a lighthearted story that doesn't take itself too seriously then you could have one of the biggest sleeper titles you'll ever play on the Xbox platform. I know, that's a big statement, but this game literally blew me away, even with a few technical issues. Right from the title screen I was listening to the music and it started to captivate me. You get the sense that it will be a truly grand adventure, and it is.
The story is the heart and soul of this game, so the main plot is for you to discover; however, this game boasts such a depth of content that it could seem overwhelming at first, but after quite a learning curve you'll start to get the hang of things very quickly. Cutscenes and transitions are handled in a semi-cartoonish comic book style that gives the presentation a unique feel. But there's so much more.
The story is not laid out in a sequential order. Your choices and actions decide how the game unfolds and what side quests you may or may not receive. On top of that, you will have to build a relationship with your companions and if some do not like your choices, or how you handle a situation, you can bet that there will be a strain put upon that friendship as a result. This really makes the game feel like it tells you, the gamer's, own story and it is sensational. I even tried to see what happened when making other choices as I reloaded an older, separate save file to see what would happen.
This feature builds upon your character's dialogue responses. While cartoonish in nature, both in the actual dialogue and the input, there is a sophistication to this that is rarely found in gaming today. I was amazed by the depth and that is because Shiness provides an incredible wealth of content. Mixing physical and magical sources, outside of equipping your gear, you'll have different abilities/spells to master and each one does a variant of a certain type of elemental attack. As you progress you will unlock new abilities which will lead to newer abilities such as fighting combos, because that is pretty much the majority of what you do in the game, you fight.
The areas of the worlds are called Meteoras and you will find yourself traversing around these large expanses completing not only the main quest, but side quests as well. Each one of these levels, actually the entire game itself, is done up in a beautiful cel-shaded style that looks amazing. Every small detail is accentuated with a bright, crisp feeling that makes individuality among the characters and environment feel fresh. This graphical presentation is only made better by the incredible soundtrack that follows. Simplistic melodies and dynamic sounds help weave a sonic pattern of mastery that not only surprised me, but delivers an adventure soundtrack that would rival other action RPG games, and in some cases surpass them.
Make no mistake, while you're taking in the beauty of the world, don't just pay attention to the various enemies but also the wildlife. I mention this because the wildlife plays a major role in your game. By quietly trying to sneak up behind them, you can press the X button when prompted to steal an item from them which you can then use at various traders to sell, or even bargain with them, to produce new disciplines to master or spells to learn.
When you start out on your adventure you'll notice that when you encounter an enemy you can click the RS to target them and scan them for information. When you get within range (provided your enemy hasn't seen you) you can land a sneak attack, which at first is either a punch or a kick (X for punch, A for kick). Your Y button is used for parrying incoming attacks and spells and it will rapidly become your best friend. The parry move poses a challenge and that challenge is timing. Get the parry right and you will stop the enemy attack in its tracks, while stunning the them and allowing you to take no damage. It also frees you up to start your onslaught. Should you fail though and you're going to get crushed with damage. My strongest suggestion is to master parrying as soon as you possibly can. Get used to timing the attacks, because once you master that, blocking almost becomes irrelevant. The B button will block attacks; however, you will still incur some damage. Using B with the LS will cause you to roll in any direction and that technique should be mastered after parrying.
Fights occur in makeshift energy rings that change colors to indicate various elemental shifts that can be used. Blue = water, Green = earth, etc. These fights occur 1 versus 1 with any supporting fighters on the outside of the ring. Defeat an opponent and their supporting enemy will drop in. During the fight the LB will change between characters, however the input seems rather slow and cumbersome and doesn't happen all the time when you want it to. The same goes for the input when using healing items, or any items in the game really. If you want to use a healing blue apple for instance, pressing the LT brings up the menu and pressing up on the d-pad will allow your character to consume one and thus heal themselves.
The gameplay mechanics do have a very high learning curve, but outside of hunting down wildlife (there's an achievement to hunt down one of every type of creature in the game), you're going to be fighting and questing and doing quests where you have to fight (make sense?). So, get ready for a healthy dose of rinse and repeat, especially when you realize that enemies respawn after you've left an area for so long.
Beyond the 'input' issue I found, there are some other issues that ware worth mentioning, and one of them has haunted countless games for decades; that is the camera system. While you are in control of it, there are times when you're in a fight and the camera will swing wildly into a rock effectively making you blind to the fight at hand. While the camera system works wonderfully when you're exploring, unfortunately it doesn't work that well all the time. Another issue are the special Hyper attacks that seem to be relatively useless. These are the biggest gamble attacks and when they instruct you to use them wisely, you better do exactly that because if you should fail (which will happen a lot), you will be 100% exposed without a hope and a prayer of defending an attack. The thing is, it almost seems as though if the target is standing still and doing nothing, and your Hyper attack seems to do exactly the same thing, nothing.
Now in order to have supporting characters you'll need to form a party. As you progress through the game you'll find that your party grows, and once you reach three people the game will unlock its challenges. These are small in game modifiers that consist of challenges like "finish a fight in under a minute" or "get an S ranking in a fight", etc. Should you accomplish each challenge then you can snag yourself some rare loot, which is broken up into three different categories: technique, clothes, and magic. Each provide different bonuses and skills/abilities to learn. This is just more of the parts that equal the sum of the game and equate to an incredible gameplay experience, so as long as you remember to manage it, it is truly a masterpiece. It accomplishes so much more than what anyone previously thought possible.
Coming from a Kickstarter and only surpassing their goal by $40k when other games spend over 1,000x on production and fail spectacularly, Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom is a remarkable game. It could very well be a top contender for indie game of the year, and at a price point of only $30 it seems to really be a bargain and a half. Not only has this restored some of my dissolved faith in Kickstarter video games, but in indie games as well. It goes to show that you don't need to spend millions of dollars to make a great game as developer Enigami managed to do it with $140K. If you're a fan of action RPG's that look and sound incredible while offering a colossal amount of content, even though there are a few hiccups now and then, stop reading this and go start downloading Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom now.
Suggestions: Careful with the camera system. Make sure that all aspects of combat function properly, this includes making sure boss fights don't continue to spam attacks that can't be parried.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Sexy Brutale, The
With puzzle games having been around for generations, murder mysteries have been a solid foundation since the classic board game Clue. Trying to piece together a psychological puzzle full of traps, methodology, and that hint of psychosis. Recently, developer Tequila Works released The Sexy Brutale and priced it at 1/3 of a standard retail game ($19.99 USD). To support that hefty price tag for an indie game, The Sexy Brutale is like the Masquerade ball from Phantom with a dash of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Groundhog Day all rolled into one. So without further ado let us don our masks and dive right in.Before we begin you should have a little foundation as to what makes this game what it is. You play the role of a guest at a mansion hosting s special event for a night. There is mask wearing, excessive gambling, high stakes gaming, and all other sorts of decadent entertainment. Every wish you could want, every desire fulfilled, but not all is right.
There is a catastrophe and you are saved by a red colored lava woman with glasses (yes, I said that right). You then find out that there are other guests who need saving, and not only will you have to be their saviour, but you will also have to figure out who or what is behind all the murder and mayhem within the mansion. Now, normally this would require you to search for clues, and in order to do that you'll have to manage the puzzle genre's most recent manipulative trait, time.
Puzzle games have tried to become complex to the point of mind numbing agony, that is until an innovation from years ago comes waltzing into the party, and that is time manipulation. In this game you will have to navigate throughout the mansion and use time manipulation to save the rest of the party guests by getting them to remove their masks. Such an example would be found right from the start where you have to search the nearby rooms for a blank bullet to load into a gun which is going to be used at a certain time to kill a patron of the party. Once you save a fellow guest you claim their mask, and with it a new power that will aid you in the subsequent future by granting you some new abilities which you will need to save the other guests.
Now, the reason I mention time is that you will find yourself rewinding many, and I mean many times. This sort of repetitive action can become incredibly mundane, but that isn't the only problem. See when you develop a game that doesn't have much in terms of developmental content, you really have to make sure that the content you do provide is sound and solid and that isn't the case here.
I cannot begin to tell you how frustrated I got with such a simple act as opening a door. First off the input is incredibly laggy, so there were times when I would stand in front of said door, press the A button multiple times and after the 4th or 5th time, the door would finally open. This is a huge setback for The Sexy Brutale given that gameplay issues like this are something you'll be contending with throughout the game.
That's not to say though that this game doesn't have some very bright points. First, the plot is fantastic in a dark humorous way. The graphics and sound help deliver a very Tim Burton feel to the execution by tying it into more of a 1920's presentation. The lighting effects are very well done and the character models seem to fit the nuances of The Sexy Brutale.
Normally in a puzzle game when you get something wrong it's game over; however, thanks to the manipulation of time, should your guest expire, just rewind time and try a different path. This is what really got to me because it became less of a puzzle game and more of an explore rooms, reset clock, explore scenes that can be activated, reset clock, and so on, and in doing so without negative impact on you or your settings. You literally can be like Cher and turn back time as much as you want which made solving the puzzles less academic and more trial and error.
Now when I say you'll be exploring I hope you're ready to wander a lot because this multi-level mansion is enormous and filled with numerous rooms and people that will try to attack you should they spot you. What I did enjoy in this area was how there were unique qualities of certain rooms that gave them their own personal feel.
After my stint in the mansion I can say, without hesitation, that Tequila Works has developed a classy indie game that is full of sophistication, charm, witty plot lines and a dark side that would make Edgar Allen Poe happy. While the drawbacks cause the game to suffer somewhat, the overall experience will bring a smile to your face. If you're a fan of puzzle games The Sexy Brutale should be on your radar.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
SkyKeepers
It goes without saying that 2D platforming games have been around for decades. Giving your character a pathway where you jump and attack has always been a staple characteristic that has relied upon a story to deliver the symbiotic punch of entertainment. Recently, Sword Twin Studios released such a game called SkyKeepers on the Xbox One that is priced at $14.99. While on the average price range for an indie game, SkyKeepers tries to deliver a platforming experience that mixes parts of an ancient culture with an action packed story. Time to answer the all-important question: "Is SkyKeepers worth $14.99 + tax?" I mentioned SkyKeepers delivers on an ancient culture, and it does. Starting as far back as thousands of years BC, the Austronesian tribal peoples developed centuries of art and culture, and by 400 AD they had started to call the islands of Hawaii home. This culture carried with it a mark of honor and respect and it's called the tatau. These magnificent works of art were worn on the body as signs of courage; however, the pain endured would be excruciating and when a tatau could take, in some instances, years to complete, this badge of honor was truly earned. Failure to finish the tatau process marked an individual with shame.
These sacred traditions are honored in the very beginning of SkyKeepers as the game opens up with the chief of the village Tangi going off on a hunt. His son wants to prove to his father that he is ready to become a man and receive his tatau. From this point on you control the son and SkyKeepers will take you on a simplistic walkthrough so you can get used to the controls.
During this 'introduction' you stumble upon your father Tangi who instructs you to run home. As you defy him, as all young kids do to their parents, he decides to put you through a test to determine if you are ready. Once the test is completed you'll head back to the village where you will tell the tattooist that you're ready. In order to get the ink needed you'll first need to harvest the leaves and the wood needed to acutally complete the tatau. Once all is done, a tragic experience occurs and the game instantly changes 180 degrees. It is here that the village falls into ruin and the story picks up years after that one fateful moment.
I'm deliberately omitting a section you'll experience in the beginning because if you do decide to spend the money to buy this game I don't want to ruin the any more of the plot for you. Ultimately, SkyKeepers boils down to chief Tangi coming to terms with what has happened and doing whatever he can to save his village, and if possible, himself as well.
You'll complete these tasks by venturing through different realms found in the game, and each realm has, within itself, multiple stages. Each stage is setup in your traditional block style mini map where white squares indicate pathways to other rooms. It is nothing innovative as we have seen elements of this structure type dating as far back as Metroid, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work wonderfully. While overly generic in terms of the structure of the levels themselves, each one is efficiently designed to provide a good challenge, and that is where I find some fault in the game.
Let's say you head out, like I did many, many times, and go through a level. In certain areas along the way you will find torches that you can light that act as checkpoints. Should you die before igniting one you will have to start over from the beginning. Now that normally would upset a lot of us, but thankfully the progress you make does save, sort of, and you can easily make your way back to where you originally expired. Should you not finish the level AFTER you hit a checkpoint, and do something like turn off the game or console, then you will have to start over from the beginning of the level with no progress saved at all.
As you progress through the levels you'll find that the gameplay mechanics are incredibly simplistic. The A button jumps, your X button attacks, and your Y button does a powered move that uses a meter that gets filled when you strike with the X button. Your B button does what is called a SkyWalk, which is a teleport shift of your character to certain access points on a level or even enemies themselves after you've hit your enemies with your X or Y attack. This incredibly generic gameplay works wonders for this style of platforming, because if you start to complicate and over think the gameplay mechanics then you will make it harder for your audience to enjoy the experience.
You will find that the combat element of the game resorts to a simplistic method of beat up enemies with the X button until you have enough for a special move with the Y button. Execute your special move and combine with the B button and you can dodge any type of incoming attack. Then it is rinse and repeat over and over again. The only issue I have here is that the combat gets ridiculously repetitive and instead of allowing you to move quickly from one area to another, the game essentially traps you into a room until you beat all the opponents, and then you can move on.
As you traverse the levels you'll acquire purple light orbs and shards, and it is by using these that you will rebuild the fallen village. It will take a lot of progress, but over time you'll be able to unlock new items and more. In order to do that though get ready for a titanic amount of hacking, slashing, and split second jumps that either mean heroic bravery or complete and total failure as a coward.
Given the simplicity, there really isn't much in the way of something that will really draw the audience into an experience that can sum up the whole game. Sadly, this also goes for the soundtrack which appears to just be a drum loop that you hear nonstop and it rarely ever changes. It got to the point where I just turned the volume down because I couldn't stand it anymore. I did however find the graphics to be very nice and a definite strong point to the game itself. I found that even though the concept never changed in terms of level design, each level and stage had its own unique feel.
So $14.99 buys you a game that has some issues in the areas of level design, soundtrack, repetitive combat, and an oversimplified gameplay system. But should you buy it? Absolutely and without question. If you enjoy a quality platformer then you will most-likely enjoy SkyKeepers. The frantic combat keeps you on the edge while the jumps and the gameplay will truly test you. While on the surface SkyKeepers may seem like a generic platformer, but Sword Twin Studios took the basic elements of great 2D platformers and adapted them to fit their narrative. So, while SkyKeepers may not be innovative, ground breaking or flawless, it's definitely a high quality 2D platformer for you to enjoy.
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10
Styx: Shards of Darkness
If you fancy a test of your nerves and creativity, then stealth games are a true test of your mettle. Such games rarely let you take a breath before you're thrown right into the next section of danger, all the while setting your nerves on edge with suspense. Recently, developer Cyanide released another entry to the popular smart mouthed, stealth series starring a Goblin named Styx, and this game is aptly titled Styx: Shards of Darkness. Now there are a bunch of boxes that need to be checked in order to claim that you have a quality stealth game on your hands, and the big question is does developer Cyanide tick all the right boxes?If you have never played a Styx game before you're in for a treat. Well that is if you like a stealth game that doesn't take itself too seriously in the plot development or execution. Styx, for those who may not have heard, is an assassin/thief Goblin who seems to have a substance abuse problem for a potion drink called Amber.
Styx is contracted out through various missions, and mission types, where there are not only multiple pathways to complete each mission, but multiple options as to how you can eliminate your adversaries. This type of direction already lends itself to creating a smooth stealth experience, but then you take into account the "attitude" of Styx and you have a real memorable character. Even when you die, and you will a lot, Styx has some form of derogatory quip about you, or he may mock a scene from an iconic movie. Either way this type of humor is felt throughout the entire game and helps provide some levity even when under tremendous pressure.
Pressure is what you'll encounter throughout the entire game. The backstory is that Styx has decided to take up residency in a town called Thoben. It's here that the human residents are engaged in an active conflict called "The Green Plague", which ultimately is a battle between humans and goblins trying to cohabitate with one another leading to many failed outcomes. This won't stop you from pillaging various homes and buildings and relieving those righteous humans of the very valuables they so cherish, including their lives. Remember though, should you take the life of someone else, you must be a crafty goblin and hide the body before they are discovered and your cover is officially blown. Now, there is a twist towards the end of the first level and after that you feel like a powder keg has been lit and every level you complete gets you one inch closer to the big boom at the end.
As mentioned earlier, Styx: Shards of Darkness provides multiple 3D platforming levels for which you can chose multiple directions to reach your objective. Now, the one key thing you absolutely must have in a game like this is proper gameplay mechanics. Since stealth games pride themselves on giving you scenarios that require precise timing and judgement, this reason alone is why it's so important.
Sadly, I didn't find that Styx's gameplay was that on point or precise in this area. Granted there wasn't much in terms of hand holding as the game itself unfolds before you as you're thrust into a level right away. There were also some issues with the cover system, and transitioning out of it, that were a little disorienting, and when executing something simple such as swinging on a rope, I found that the mechanics involving this action felt unpolished.
Other little quirks that felt unpolished were the combat system should you be discovered. Pressing the X button when you're sneaking up on an enemy allows you to do a quick kill, however it won't be silent. To make it silent, instead of pressing the X button you have to HOLD the X button down. Now, should you go for the quiet kill, you'll notice that the animation sequence lasts for a few seconds to make sure that if you decide to engage in a silent kill there aren't any other enemies nearby that could be on patrol and see you as you're going through this motion (which for some reason still generates noise, but apparently not noises your enemies can hear?). If you're caught you're going to either have to run away and hide or face your opponents in combat. You'll have to time your X button to parry the enemies' attack or you can expect to be cut down in no time.
To counter this reality, you're given options as to how to eliminate your opponents. Instead of taking on a group head on, why not push an explosive barrel off a ledge above or cut a chandelier's chain and watch it drop on them. Better yet, if you have a bunch of enemies eating at a table, why not try poisoning their food? This creativity allows Styx: Shards of Darkness to be played a multiple of different ways and gives variety which helps keep the game feeling fresh as you look for new ways to eviscerate your targets. While I did appreciate the ability to either kill someone outright using my blade or use a different creative outlet, these are just a couple of examples of what you can expect.
Even though the gameplay might be imperfect, there is still a lot going for Styx: Shards of Darkness. One of the biggest improvements you will see resides within the new skill trees that you can upgrade. Branches such as Stealth, Kill, Perception, Cloning and Alchemy will give Styx a much needed advantage over his adversaries. There's many reasons to love this new skill tree setup.
First, you're not set in any sort of direct linear path so you can cake different paths should you choose to do so. Second, you can see how the development really improves from the previous game. Take for instance your clone. Styx used to be able to create a clone that was solely used as a distraction. Now, Styx can manipulate the clone to cause havoc, or even leave it as a quick warp point should you find yourself in danger and need a rapid exit. This type of development and improvement is a welcomed addition to the game and goes a long way to creating a more enjoyable gaming experience.
You'll be happy to know that the graphics of Styx Shards of Darkness are finely detailed and look very nice, adding to experience when playing. Now granted the environments seem a little "cookie cutter" but they lend themselves to the fantasy time period and that goes for all the characters themselves. While you're traversing you'll also notice things like Styx's dagger sheathe glowing to give you a visual indication that you're hidden. It's this environment that will have you praising your Right Stick, as clicking it will give you an overview of your immediate surroundings as it highlights what is friend, foe, interactive items, and collectibles.
To help solidify the atmosphere of the game, you're given what I'd like to call a brooding soundtrack. This isn't some high energy retro synth onslaught, but a very melancholic sweeping soundscape that ties everything together in a tremendous package.
Styx: Shards of Darkness offers more improvements upon it's original than most other sequels you'll find in gaming today. This is due to the painstaking process of finding out what needed improving, how to improve it, then executing it properly. If you are a fan of games that thrive on creativity and stealth, then Styx: Shards of Darkness should be on your gaming radar. While there are a few issues that plague the game, the overall gaming experience is one of quality and craftsmanship. Earlier I asked if developer Cyanide ticked all the boxes that make up a quality stealth title, and the answer to that is yes.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Verdun
When you want to make a game it helps if there are things that you can turn to for inspiration, guidance and even some assistance from time to time. Now, take the FPS genre in a World War I setting and you have such a gargantuan amount of material to draw from, so much so that you would think that you would use this to help make one incredibly enjoyable and authentic game. You could think that in this case, but you would be wrong. Verdun, developed by M2H & BlackMill Games, is priced at $19.99 + tax, and this game tries to place you into the trench warfare found in WWI during the battle of Verdun. Now $20 is an incredibly high price point to ask, so the big question that has to be answered is, is it worth it?Unfortunately not. Normally I would save my opinions until the very end and layout a general overview that highlights the good and the bad points of the title, leaving you with my final opinions to base your own judgement upon. Not this time. No, this time I'm giving you the truth right up front because sadly this is going to become like war very quickly, and remember, war is hell. So, with that out of the way let me essentially point out the pitfalls that made this game have potential, but then ultimately leaves you feeling like you have just been virtually robbed blind.
For starters, the whole "training tutorial" is comprised of several slides depicting some very vague information. They pretty much cover the basis of trench warfare along with your "classes" and their progression system, but you will quickly see that this means absolutely nothing at all. They don't tell you much in terms of controlling your character, so I suggest you look at your options before jumping into the gameplay.
Each game is like a massive war fought over and over again. There are multiple squads of 4 with open slots, and you can only select your character by which empty slot available. You can be an NCO, rifleman, machine gunner or grenadier. If in a squad, rifleman, machine gunner and grenadier are all taken, you can only spawn in that squad as an NCO, so if you wanted to be something else then you're forced to pick a different squad. If no position you want is available, you're S.O.L. For this example of my nightmare I chose NCO. Now, there are two modes you can play, Online or Offline. I just jumped right into multiplayer to see what's what.
Right from the beginning I found that the graphics are something I would expect from the original Xbox system, laughably poor at best. The character modeling is elementary quality and the atmosphere and environment almost makes you wish they robbed other quality FPS games because you're starting to feel like the one whose money was stolen from. I can honestly say that there are no redeeming qualities in the graphics department what so ever.
The only highlight I found in any of the presentation is the military song that plays in the beginning of each level, yet that's because the sounds of Verdun are just as horrendous as the graphics. The weaponry sounds are unrealistic and the voice of the NCO signaling a charge made me cringe every time. This is what I experienced as soon as I jumped into my game so I thought, why don't I try going through my options and switch weapons, which was a mistake because as soon as I hit Y to switch weapons (which were my binoculars), I get shot and killed and was forced wait 30 seconds to spawn in again. 30 SECONDS.
I waited my lengthy 30 seconds and respawned in only to see on my screen an icon that looks like an upside down pyramid and it says "MOVE HERE", so I follow instructions and work my way to that point. On my way there I get a pop up message with a countdown clock that says "Get back in 'X' seconds or you will be killed for treason." At first I didn't listen to it and managed to get to the point that the game said to go to, the countdown clock wound down to 0 and I was instantly killed for treason.
Yes, I went and followed what the game told me to do and got killed. SO I WAIT ANOTHER 30 ****ING SECONDS ON RESPAWN. Sigh. OK, so I wait my 30 seconds while pondering the meaning of the existence of this game and I come to the conclusion that the warning message > in game move message. This brought my attention though to the mini map on the bottom left hand side.
Here you can see the dividing line that your soldiers fight over. If you can manage to hold the line, your team will advance, but they will also face tough opposition to take the next line, thus creating an ever shifting balance, and should, god forbid, you have an overwhelming force, you will be rewarded with penalties. Yes, the game will actually penalize you if you are on a team with more people than the other; more concerned with being fair than realistic. Do you think in real life that a squad of 10,000 troops would say "Oh we are only up against 1,000 enemy soldiers? Well then we should just kill off about 7,000 of our men and make it more of a fair fight." No, you would never hear of that because that notion beyond the comprehension of anyone with an IQ of 2, but that's what you have here.
So, now I'm back in the game and I switched out to my binoculars, which apparently fixate at only a specified range, and I can bring up an action menu with my Right Bumper that offers me two choices: move or artillery strike. I also see a small red icon that moves with my point of view and depending on the triggers pushed, will signal either a strike or a move order. The strike proved to be my most useful killing tool as just after I launched it I ended up getting killed (your field of view is dramatically narrowed to next to nothing in binocular view).
Again, I wait in the respawn of hell. Now I'm an even 3 kills and 3 deaths. I respawn again and proceed to try and kill someone with my pistol. I see an enemy soldier approaching and I decide to flank from his right side. I approach within feet from behind him, press the Left Trigger to bring up the sights and click the Left Stick to hold my breath. I say a prayer, pull the trigger, and hit absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. I unloaded 10 rounds and didn't kill the enemy at all. I didn't even see if any of my rounds hit him. The enemy turns around, fires once, kills me and I'M OFF TO RESPAWN AGAIN! Now my total k/d ratio stands at 3-4.
I respawn again and within 4 seconds I take another bullet to the knee and I have to respawn again. Mercifully the game ended so I decided to take my meager amount of xp earned and try to find other matches, but thanks to some incredibly bad server issues, I found myself being forced back into the same hellish nightmare I just escaped from. I forced myself for whatever sadistic reason, to continue playing the game and hopefully find some form entertainment or enjoyment that would allow me to at least see a very vague reason why someone would, in the name of all that is holy, charge $20 for it. I searched beyond the center of the universe for this answer and found nothing. That's when I thought I would cut my losses and try the offline mode.
This mode was just as frustrating. Are you kidding me? The AI team looked like they were sleeping during bootcamp in terms of military tactics. I saw one character literally run into a wall non-stop, then an enemy came over the wall in front of an AI soldier, and my soldier who was running into the wall did nothing. Not one thing. Then the enemy AI shot him once and killed him. That's when I started to think more about this and what it represents, and I got upset. I'm sorry, but this has to be insulting to the men and women, or their family members, that actually took part in WWI, or in any military engagement.
To see such a pathetic attempt to try and deliver an experience that honors the people who fought and died during that war and charge 1/3 the price of a full retail game is almost theft in my opinion, and the developers of this game need to be ashamed of themselves for such a disappointment.
I feel that after this tremendous disappointment, everyone who purchased this game deserves a refund. Men and women gave their lives in one of mankind's most pivotal moments in history and this crap is how these developers pay homage? And they charge $20 for it? The graphics are poor, the sound is unrealistic, the networking is pitiful, the controls are pathetic and yet you are asked to pay for this experience. Do yourself a favor, VerDON'T buy this game.
Overall Score: 3.0 / 10
WRC 6
For many of us, we use cars as tools in our lives. From making our daily commute to work, to running errands, we as humans spend an overwhelming amount of time in our cars. For the vast majority of drivers however, that's about as far as most of us take our relationship with cars. We see them as a tool and nothing more, however, what we may be unaware of is the amount of history and influence that the World Rally Championship has brought us. It's this level of importance and excitement that Kylotonn has tried to infuse into their latest entry into the world of Rally racing with WRC 6. So let's start our engine and see if we can make it to the end in one piece.For those that may not have played their rally games, Kylotonn is on a quest to deliver the premier Rally experience. For those who may not know what the World Rally Championship is, imagine taking a car like a Ford Focus, give it a turbocharged 300bhp power core, studded tires, a human GPS passenger and tell it to drive along this gravel pathway along the side of a mountain while reaching speeds of over 100mph, and do not crash. That's the type of racing you can expect from just one location though, and the beautiful thing about the WRC is that it travels all over the world, from dodging wild animals that may be crossing the road in Africa, to dodging solid snow drifts over 7 foot high in some of the Scandinavia rallies, everything is included.
Now each of these races is set up in stages and your primary goal is literally get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time. That time is then added to your time in the next stage and that total is added to the next race after that and so on. At the end of all the stages, the driver with the lowest time wins the Rally. So your primary goal is to beat the clock, and while that may sound simplistic, once you get to try and drive your car, you'll be rapidly singing a different tune. These cars almost glide over the ground in the hand of a master. While focusing on controlled slides, sweeping drifts, and tight hairpins, the car itself almost seems to be in a state of suspended animation, however like everything in life, when you start out you're going to be incredibly horrible. This is because the play control for WRC 6 is almost its very own hybrid style.
WRC 6 is not an arcade racer by any sense of the word, yet it's not a simulation either, so what we're left with is a game that is having a bit of an identity crisis. This saddens me because you can tell that Kylotonn has gone to great lengths just to deliver on the promises to take the feedback from the previous game to heart and come back with a release that should be the WRC experience we all wanted to have. One of the biggest gripes has to be the penalty system. See, when you go to view NASCAR as a fan you're partying it up under protection, however in World Rally Championship you're literally open and exposed and can get so close to vehicles you could high five the driver as they passed by. This type of experience is exhilarating to say the least, but this excitement also comes with danger as several spectators have been killed. Now how do you think a game like WRC 6 addresses your car, going 80mph into a crowd all because you forgot to slow down and apply your handbrake to make the corner?
They give you a 12 second time penalty. Yes, everything you do in the game that could result in you off the track for any reason will get you a penalty. Go slightly off the track and hold the X button to reset the car and it's a 2 second penalty. Should you go way off, the game will automatically reset your car and you will receive a penalty of 8-10 seconds. The only realistic penalty they offer is a 30 second one for puncturing a tire. This punishment delivery system will mean that you will be restarting races many, many times over, or settle for a 7-minute stage time. You'll find this out rapidly because WRC 6 throws you way into the deep end after it asks you the small questionnaire by putting you right into a rally stage, enabling you to figure out how the cars handle and how you should really think about handling the course. Before you go though you can watch as the person in front of you takes off which allows you to see what the course is like, but with over 3 minutes of viewing the ability to memorize every turn, dip, and obstacle is almost impossible. Despite this, I cannot stress enough, you will want to watch the car because of another gripe I have, your co-driver.
Driving in WRC has a driver, but also a co-driver whom reads out directions to you as you're thundering down the path at 70mph. These directions not only tell you what gear to be in, speed to take, but also what position and line to drive and so on. If you're new to Rally then the language will seem like some form of alien code. You'll hear things like "over crest, 3 tight left, don't cut into 4 narrows, caution rocks, into 5 tight right..." and again, all while you're flying down the track at 70mph. Now while this ticker of information comes flying at you along with all the rocks and trees and everything else, you'll find times where your co-driver says absolutely nothing for a few moments. It's like he suffers from a bout of sudden narcolepsy, so while you're trying to figure out how to drive the course, you almost have to use the Force when your co-driver decides to be quiet.
Now all of this you will experience before you get done with your first introduction to WRC 6. I strongly, and I mean borderline forceful, suggest you drive that introduction rally till you become one with the car and learn how the car handles and how you must approach the courses. After that education session, it's time to open up into the game of WRC 6. You'll have options to go into your main solo campaign, multiplayer, and some time attack challenges. In the solo campaign you'll find over 60 Rally stages that cover every combination of weather, visibility and type of terrain. As a special treat, WRC 6 also sports 11 Super Special Stages which Kylotonn claims to be a laser mapped 1-1 scale replicas. And you know what? They're right. I was stunned at this so I looked up the stages to verify, and my jaw hit the floor. As you progress you'll naturally be moving up in class and in cars which is good because not only do each of them handle and perform differently, they all look quite stunning as well.
This is because the graphics of WRC 6 really have moments where they shine. It's great to have an officially licensed FIA WRC game, so now you get all the real drivers which helps deliver an added punch of realism, and speaking of adding realism, the visual effects such as dust, fog, night time headlights, combined with physical damage to your actual car to encapsulate the entire visual package into one amazing experience. This is supported by the sounds of WRC 6 as well. You'll hear your exhaust "pop" during shifting, the rev of the engine, the tires straining to hold onto every inch of grip possible and even the gravel stones kicking up under your car ring true and through your speakers to help construct a violent, yet realistic sonic journey.
All this amazing Rally experience carries over into multiplayer and all the other race gametypes, including split screen, but you will notice some degrading graphics due to the halved screen size. Now sadly I cannot comment on any external wheel and pedal control system integration so I was unable to accurately test such feedback. I will say though when the dust settles, WRC 6 strives hard to dethrone another Rally game, and even though the effort is valiant, the issues that exist, especially pertaining to the gameplay, prevent it from overtaking it. However, if we see another improvement leap like what we have seen between WRC 5 and 6, I think we can start to see Kylotonn start knocking on the door of such companies such as Turn 10. If you're looking for a solid Rally racing experience, you can't do much better than WRC 6.
Suggestions: Tighten up the control system. Would love to see official WRC stages throughout the entire game.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands
For the longest time the Tom Clancy Ghost Recon series of games have been a source of both incredible enjoyment and tremendous frustration. This has always been part of the experience and while the more recent releases have shown an attempt to get things right, it always felt like something was missing. So, with Ghost Recon Wildlands, the latest game in the series, have Ubisoft finally worked out the finer details of how to improve upon this series, or have they published a game that would have Tom Clancy himself say it's fubar? Even with a few hiccups I think you may be quite surprised.If you have never played a Ghost Recon game before you should know that your character is in charge of an elite squad of some of the top military soldiers that the U.S. has to offer. You are outfitted with advanced technology and weaponry and whisked away too distant, real world settings, where there are always numerous quests too complete and tons of enemies to kill. Upon saving the world you usually find yourself with little left to do, except play multiplayer, which can become tiresome as it doesn't hold the grasp of a gamer like other FPS or 3rd person shooters. This however, isn't the case anymore. Thanks to games like The Division, Ubisoft has really grown in leaps and bounds in terms of sandbox development and now they have directly applied what they've learned to the Ghost Recon series, and that's only one reason why you should be very, very excited.
Ghost Recon Wildlands puts you in the country of Bolivia. It has become overrun with corruption by a drug cartel. This cartel has its hands in every aspect and facet of Bolivia's operations, from bribing politicians, military, police and more, to silencing through intimidation and death, anyone who may raise a voice in opposition. While the revolution against the cartels has almost been suffocated, there is still hope that one day the fighters of the revolution will be able to stand against the military might of the cartel, but what they don't know is that one day soon their prayers will be answered. This hope is what keeps the country's citizens going while they have become enslaved as the cartel exploits them to produce the new main cash crop, cocaine. With a USA asset so deep undercover that he became the 2nd in command, his execution at the hands of the cartel raises questions and pisses off the U.S. government. This loss triggers the Ghost Recon team to drop in with a couple of goals in mind:
1. To empower and free the civilians from the control of the cartel.
2. Totally destroy the cartel and its network of affiliates.
The premise for the game is one that we have seen before in other games; however, the execution is what makes this game unique. For starters, when you first start your single player experience, if you press what I'm calling the back button, you can bring up a menu system where you can toggle between map, skill point assignment, loadout, and more. If you go to your map and press the LT to zoom out you will get a sense of just how big the game environment truly is. The map is divided up into sections (provinces) and each section has a series of missions and a number of collectibles to obtain to fully complete it.
While the map may be divided into sections, in this game you can go where ever you want right from the beginning. When I started out I spent about 8 hours alone exploring and just having fun with side missions and quests before I started off with the main story quest. The freedom to play how you want is incredible, but before you go bounding through the woods and fields and over the mountain tops, you should be aware of your factions.
There are three factions in Ghost Recon Wildlands, the Revolutionaries, the Cartel, and Unidad. While the first two are self-explanatory, the Unidad are considered to be military and will hunt you with extreme weaponry and ferocity. They will also attack Cartel members should any start shooting, so when you have a mix of both Unidad and Cartel fighters sometimes picking a fight between the two can produce some incredible, outpost clearing, fun. Now, similar to the police in Grand Theft Auto, the more Unidad soldiers you kill, the higher the Unidad patrol rating climbs which brings out other Unidad toys such as helicopters and military vehicles for you worry about. By the time the patrol rating is maxed you will be under such insurmountable onslaught that you may find it best to just run for your life. So while you're off killing Cartel members and rescuing more Revolutionaries, always keep a look out for Unidad, and if you have to engage, do it quietly so as to remain hidden. This can be accomplished thanks to your gear, or more importantly your drone and teammates.
I can't not stress enough how important your drone and team are to your existence. I suggest you hit the start menu and go to the tutorial option where you will learn about pressing up on the D-pad to engage your drone and down on the D-pad to engage your binoculars, etc. Earlier you read that I mentioned a menu where you can allocate skill points, and in that menu you can upgrade many elements from your drone, your squad, your own person, your weapon, and more. In order to accomplish this, you have to first collect the needed number of skill points which you can find at various outpost and enemy stations, as well as when you level your character up. Once you have the necessary skill points, you have to focus on your resources.
The revolution needs resources in order to fuel and fund their operation against the Cartel, so it's up to you to secure the resources. These range from fuel, food, medical supplies, and even communication resources, and all of them are vital to leveling up your character. Don't worry, if you should fail a mission another chance will respawn after you leave the area. Now when you have collected enough resources and have enough skill points you can upgrade the various elements which increase in value as you climb through the ranks and along the skill tree. Starting out I worked to focus on increasing my drone's battery, range and night vision. Then I focused on gaining the max number of Sync Shot options which gave me the ability to take out up to 4 enemies at once (3 if you don't shoot at one yourself). Let me explain to you why that made my life so much easier.
For starters I have to point out that your team AI isn't the best in the world, in fact it borderlines on silly at times, except for the Sync Shot. You scout an area for enemy targets, then after you have marked them automatically via your drone or binoculars, or even by weapon zoom, you can then designate up to 3 targets (4 is you shoot one) that you can have your 3 stooges eliminate. Once all the targets you selected have been lined up, just hold the A button down and like the London Bridge they all fall down. This can make overtaking any compound, even a Unidad one, much easier, so long as you use patience and tactical recon to see where the "stragglers" are that can be picked off. Normally this consists of sniper towers first, and then other random enemies that are away from others. However, all this prep can be helped if you just take the compound at night when people are sleeping. Then you can just walk up to one, grab them right out of their bed and knock out them out, and you won't wake a soul. Remember, when taking a compound, or any other enemy installation, silence is golden.
To do all of this however, you have to get used to the play controls, which can be a bit touchy to get used to. The LS and RS control your movement and direction of sight, and because the game is so open you won't have many issues with trying to position the camera into a good vantage point. Swapping weapons with the Y button is easy, and double tapping the Y button will switch out to your pistol. I did find a few issues with the play control such as times when the movement does feel clunky instead of fluid or when you go to hold the X button to tag resources you find in the field; you HAVE to be facing one part of the resources in order for you to successfully tag them. You can't approach from the sides and expect to tag them and it's things like this latter annoyance that is one of several minor detail issues that detract from the game itself. We got a similar taste of these gameplay issues in the Division, and it seems like they continue to plague this game as well.
I do have to point out though that the game is visually beautiful. Sitting on top of a mountain while you overlook a village next to a body of water while the sun is setting is absolutely hypnotic. The varying terrain and its corresponding vegetation and foliage, and how you can interact with it, is amazing. For example, a hovering helicopter hovering above overgrown grass, or how the water reacts to a helicopter flying low, is remarkably life like. The effects are truly a spectacular sight, however, the music and soundtrack to this game leave a lot, and I mean a very lot to be desired. While the gun noises and other sound effects are done moderately well, there's no real soundtrack that leaves you wanting to hear more of it. In fact, wherever I go I end up shooting all the radios and turning off all radios in the vehicles because I just don't want to hear that noise. I did though turn on some Apocalypse Now tunes and piloted my boat during the sunset and that moment felt absolutely amazing, and not one bit of audio came from the game. That's very disappointing.
There are a few more issues that need to be touched upon and one of those is your AI. Earlier you read that I thought your three squad teammates were like the 3 stooges at times and when you increase the difficulty you have hyper sensitive enemy AI, but your squad gains absolutely nothing in terms of performance increase. Plus, another thing that I never understood is how your squad mates, who have been in the service for years and are the tops in their field, find a challenge when taking on some tattooed cocaine thug wearing a tank top, sunglasses and an carrying an AK-47. These are targets that should naturally be dropped while at great distances, yet your team can literally walk right by them and nothing will happen, but if you peak your head right out of a clump of bushes it's like you set off some territory wide explosion that draws every enemy to your position at once. Other issues include minor bugs like your squad members not getting into vehicles you're controlling, or having them running around like they are looking into the sky, and while not game breaking they make the overall product seem unpolished at times. Nothing though, will prepare you for multiplayer.
Now, multiplayer is supposed to be the backbone of this game. You can jump in and out of any public game you wish, or you can have up to 3 friends together in a group. Now for the good news first. When you have 3 quality friends who work as a team and communicate, then you're truly getting the best that Ghost Recon Wildlands has to offer. Now for the bad news, that wonderful experience will happen very little of the time, especially if you're trying to play a public co-op session.
When you have other people in your squad their individual actions and outcomes will affect you as well. Let's say you want to infiltrate a base and go after some objective, and someone in your party decides to drive a car right in the middle of the base with horn blaring, well thanks to that guy you now have an entire armed base drawing guns immediately. On the plus side, another good point about the multiplayer aspect is how if you have a mission already completed and you join someone who is working on that mission, you will still earn XP and rewards from the mission, but your character progression will be halted until you move onto a mission you haven't done yet.
Another drawback of multiplayer is that you don't share resources. If you're in one building and your teammate finds resources in another building right next to you, then you have to go into that building just to collect the resources. This is an impact because you have to wait for everyone to make sure they get their medals or resources before you continue on, or you'll leave them behind. This is a natural drawback you will find when are trying to play a tactful, squad based shooter as there are more bad apples than good, so you'll naturally be playing more single player which then takes away the multiplayer experience.
Another drawback of the multiplayer experience is that if you have only one other teammate, then the other 2 squad members that you did have vanish. There is no AI to fill in any empty multiplayer slot, so unless you have 3 other friends to play with, you're going to have a depleted squad.
There are other glitches such as your multiplayer friends going invisible on your screen, or having car framerates slow and glitch to an almost complete stop, and all of these add up to bring about some blows to the body armor of Ghost Recon Wildlands. You have about as much of a chance to have a bug free multiplayer session as Stevie Wonder has of passing a vision test.
Another gripe I have is that there really isn't anything innovative about Ghost Recon Wildlands. You go through the different areas of the map and while you're uncovering it, you unlock various side quests and main missions within that area which help discover collectibles. Once I had uncovered the map section (my choice of transportation is helicopter), I would complete all the missions and gather the collectibles and then go on to the next section and repeat the same process. This can get tedious as there's no real difference in terms of missions, but if you think about it, there really isn't any other choice. It's a natural limitation that is found in such a narrow scope that it's impossible to break from. So essentially it's a type of game experience that naturally forces itself upon you.
I've deliberately left out micro-transactions discussion because outside of having an unnatural hatred for them, I think that if a company wants to include more content that can alter the gameplay to the consumer, then either include it upfront or in a DLC pass. But in the spirit of moving forward, after all that I can honestly say that Ghost Recon Wildlands is one incredibly enjoyable experience.
Despite the noted flaws and imperfections that permeate some facets of this game, I can easily see this title draining many months and moons from one's life, and you'll be smiling most of the way. If Ubisoft can improve on the quality that is Ghost Recon Wildlands, the future looks incredibly bright. That being said, our focus is on the current game, and overall it is one that can be very enjoyable, and if you find the right online players to play with, the game can be even better. Tom Clancy fans owe themselves the time to check this game out, as it is good enough to satisfy a gamer's craving for action, stealth, and a very large world to explore.
Suggestions: Polish the game's technical issues.
Improve some of the gameplay.
What is there is a great starting point and an addictive one, fixing the noted points can only make this a better game.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Ride 2
They say imitation is the best form of flattery, and if that is true then Ride 2 from Milestone S.r.l. has given some tremendous flattery. Ride 2 recently released on the Xbox One, and while the original had enough issues to give the game a flat tire, Ride 2 attempts to stay on track by incorporating some of the best qualities found in other top tier racing games. Now, you may be thinking that there hasn't been a good bike game developed for a long time and you would be right. This is due to the physics of multiple items in a 3-dimensional plane of existence instead of just one. So what does Ride 2 offer?You just heard me mention about the challenges pertaining to creating a true motorcycle racing experience as opposed to a racing experience involving a car. This is primarily due to a few complex reasons. First off, the multiple breaking system used within the different corners offers varying degrees of control and function, and while some may claim it's similar to using the e-brake in a car it's not. While a car has a low center of gravity and a wide body to grip the road, a bike does not. This means that acceleration and control have to be fine-tuned using complex algorithms that have to take into account another problem, the rider. The rider IS (caps inserted for emphasis) the bike's center of gravity and it's not in a fixed position. If you want to do a proper motorcycle simulation you have to account for the way the bike will handle while shifting this center of gravity to different points on a bike which is something you don't have to worry about in a car. This is why I tend to think of a playing card. If you lay it flat on the table it has the same properties of a car, but turn it on its edge and that will give you a rough idea of a bike's properties.
This is why Ride 2 tries hard to incorporate the varying degrees of physics needed to make a quality virtual motorcycle racing experience. For the most part they succeed. With an ability to adjust the racing experience, you'll quickly come to experience everything I just mentioned should you be brave enough to switch the bike assists off and have to manage your own weight on the bike at all times. There is going to be a learning curve in regards how to handle a bike at high speeds and in cornering, and depending on how real of a simulation you wish to have, your chosen level will also determine how steep a learning curve you have ahead of you.
Case in point, I tried to do my entire first race in 1st gear, not on purpose of course. Yup, the light hit green and I floored it, which in turn caused my front end to lift, like ET going home, and within the first 50 feet I was already sliding along my backside and completely detached from my bike. I tried again and again, and admittedly it wasn't until my 5th retry or so that I figured out that the B button changed gears. That helped out tremendously....until I took my first corner.
This is when I realized that going 162 MPH into a sharp right hand turn was more of a fantasy I had in my head than something that was obtainable in this digital reality. I tried to lock my brakes but all that did was throw me like a lawn dart into a guardrail and over the side. It was here that I first discovered the magical LB button for rewind (just like you'll find in Forza) and after a while I finally got the hang of controlling the throttle response around corners and that's when things became very enjoyable, and less violent and abusive to my rider. And speaking of riders.
You get to create your rider from a small amount of pre-loaded variables. There isn't a great deal of customization and what is available is relatively pointless, so you'll essentially be here for only a few short minutes and then move onto your first race. You'll have the option right from the beginning to launch into the more linear campaign of single player style races, but there is also quick race, online racing and more. Being completely ignorant to the game's physics engine is where I decided to tackle the single player races first (this is where the story earlier above you just read of my colossal incompetence comes from) and it is also the same area I got to see just what Ride 2 brought to the table in terms of content along with quality.
For starters you'll see a plethora of options in terms of how many bikes are offered, how the races are structured, the customization limits applied to each bike, and so on. I selected my first bike and wanted to see what customization options it had so I pressed the X button and dove right into a "Forza-esque" upgrading system that I've seen for years. Intrigued by this I wanted to see how the tuning options related to a motorbike, and sure enough, in a similar fashion, I had the option to tune my front and rear brakes, suspension and more just in a similar fashion found in other games that rhyme with "Morza".
I had a limited number of bikes so I decided to go with some of the amateur races first (I had no choice since the other difficulties were locked until the previous races were completed). Each class contained about 6 races that varied from traditional 3-lap races to various mini games such as overtake 'X' number of riders for a gold medal. I went through the various pre-race options, and again I saw a heavy influence that was taken from other racing games. I was perplexed as to the amount of liberty taken at recreating various aspects and wanted to see how many more similarities there were, and I was shocked.
One of the biggest was the panning camera that you see cover a newly purchased bike. It almost follows an identical path to the camera system found in Forza games. This got me thinking though, why wouldn't you infuse similar elements into your game if you already know that what your basing it off of is an incredible racing simulation? Then the answer hit me, it's not about incorporating those elements into your game, but rather perfecting the content within the game itself that leads to the incorporation of such systems. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that just by incorporating elements from more successful games into your own game doesn't make it great. What makes it great is perfecting the content within the game itself. This can be easily seen in a games' graphics.
While Ride 2 tries to capture the Forza camera system, sadly the environments do not look nearly as impressive. To tell you the truth they feel tremendously dated. In one easy comparison, you'll instantly recognize Nurburgring in Germany. You note that a lot of the tracks are merely large tracks that are broken up into different sections, but all of it feels like it's something we could have seen back on the Xbox 360's early years. This is quite shocking since the install size of the game is over 31GB of space, the bike count is just over 170 and the load times are again quite lengthy. Just starting the game is quite long and in-between races you're looking and close to a minute of waiting. Unfortunately, this was not addressed in the almost 10GB patch that came with the game. Sound is not bat though, as you know you are racing a motorcycle, and you hear other ones, but that is all that caught my attention.
Despite the lackluster quality with some of its characteristics, Ride 2 still manages to provide a decent quality motorbike racing experience. With gameplay that is improved upon from the original, and many features taken from accomplished racing games and implemented within, you get the feeling that Ride 2 is a monumental step in the right direction for this series. If the original game was a reflection of this series' infancy stage, Ride 2 is easily where it starts to walk on it's own, and hopefully with Ride 3 we will see just what can happen when this game improves itself to the point where it can start to run.
Suggestions: Work on the following:
- shorter load times
- smarter AI
- better visuals
- deeper customization options
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Torment: Tides of Numenera 
When I was growing up I had a fondness for the types of books that were written in a 'choose your own adventure' style. I loved how it gave you a choice in how you wanted to experience the story and the freedom to feel like you were writing your own journey. Because of my youth at the time, I didn't know at these types of stories involved multiple story arcs and conclusions, but the whole aspect has been found in some of the most successful video games ever made. Torment: Tides of Numenera, which is developed by inXile Entertainment, is one such title. Now, you may be asking who are they and why should you care. I will provide you with all the answers you seek, and more, because this could easily be one of the best sleeper hits ever found on the Xbox One platform. Black Isle Studios developed a game way back in 1999 called Planescape: Torment, and what was brilliant about this game was that it relied heavily on story telling, but to make things smooth, Black Isle Studios did something absolutely brilliant, they modified the in-game engine found in Bioware's Baldur's Gate. This was a stroke of brilliance and it paid off. Now, many decades have passed and the successor to Planescape has finally been released and it's called Torment: Tides of Numenera. I have to touch on this because it's one story that has to be told and explains how it came to even exist.
Starting as a Kickstarter back in March of 2013, the game was originally supposed to launch in December of 2014, and it was delayed to February 28, 2017. While that number of years’ for a delay is impressive, Torment also set a record on Kickstarter as it was the highest funded video game of all time on the platform raking in a titanic 4 million dollars, meeting its original goal in only the first 6 hours of its inception on the Kickstarter platform. It was clear that the public wanted this game badly. Normally when we hear a game is being delayed we are fed the traditional corporate line about putting polish on it, or fine tuning this or that, but for a game like Torment, the sheer amount of content found within would take even the largest big name companies years to pull off, and when I say amount of content, I say that because this was one of the largest RPG's I've played in a long, long time.
When you first start off you'll have to decide what type of character you want to play as. You can play as a Glaive, Jack, or Nano. These are your traditional classes and after you've selected one you get to decide what type of abilities you have, and I must point out that Glaives are the only ones that can receive individualized weapon class training. While you can still use weapons in the other classes, the Glaives get the bonus to attack while the Nanos get the bonus to magic. The Jack class is stuck right in the middle and takes a little from both sides. This class is more focused on traps, and while ranged combat could be an option, they can easily hold their own toe to toe.
As you create your character you will also see three colored pools from which you can draw from to increase your abilities. These pools are Might/Strength, Speed, and Magic, and they are talents that you can draw from to make tasks easier. For example, if your character has to move a large object you can use some of your Might/Strength pool to make sure you move it without hurting your character. Using the LS, you move the slider to the right and you will see an increase in percentage chance for completing the task.
The trick here though is balance, because you will have to replenish your pools through the use of items or by resting, so be weary that while you may use your pools now, there may be instances lying around the corner that require the same pool. It's always good to save after you complete a task so that should you need to buy an item from a vendor to increase your depleted talent pools, you can do that, go back and then interact with that other task.
You also have skills to select from that you can increase your knowledge which in turn will grant your character bonuses for what you need to have done. For instance, spending some points on the ability to have a bonus added to your unlock skill will mean that chests, and other secrets, will be easier for you to open. Once you're done with your abilities and stats, your character is created and the story finally begins.
The history behind your character is rather convoluted. The focus of the story is your character, who is called a Castoff. There was once a man who was obsessed with leaving a legacy on the planet. To accomplish this feat this individual created a sort of biological shell shaped in the form of a person to which the individual could transfer his/her consciousness to the body so death would never claim them. This greed became self-indulging and growing, ever constant as this individual would stop at nothing to try and find ways to improve their biological vessel; however, this came at the expense of discarding husks (his former shell) as one would discard a useless tool. Over the lifetimes the individual came to be known as The Changing God.
While it was thought that these humanoid style chambers would just rot into nothingness, this was not the case as somehow the original consciousness grew and developed within the vessel. This constant drive to cheat the inevitable caused the awakening of an ancient evil called The Sorrow. This creature of evil and death is driven by one thing, and that is to maintain the balance between life and death. While this entity seeks out The Changing God, unfortunately it is also searching for all the biological husks that have been discarded over the many centuries, and this means you as well. This is a rough, and I do mean very rough, backbone of Torment's story. The reason it's so sparse is because from this small amount of information, it's up to you to continue and write the story you want to write. This is found right in the beginning of the game.
Remember when I mentioned the 'choose your own adventure' books? Well get ready to read because you will read many novels worth of text throughout Torment. Seriously, the amount of text you will read reminds me of classic RPG/adventure games where it was nothing but one text box after another. Now, you may be thinking I'm bringing this up in a negative light; however, it's one of the greatest strengths of Torment. The story work and pathway development are so strong that you really wish you could experience the entire game in one playthrough. This is because in Torment your actions not only permanently shape the interactions you may have with others in areas of the map, but your own companions as well. Some may like what you do and not, but while we have seen this type of quality in some triple 'A' RPG games, Torment takes this to a totally new level in multiple ways. Not only are your game experiences locked in, but so are your rewards and items as well.
Case in point, towards the very beginning you'll come across a group of treasure hunters or bandits, or whatever you want to call them. If you diffuse the interaction without any form of violence coming to bear, then you net 25 xp per person. However, if you fight and kill everyone, then you gain over 100 xp plus gained loot from the fallen bodies, all of which you can sell for cash.
One thing to note about confrontations, it's turn based. These moments allow your character to have a move action and a combat action per turn, and once they are done it moves onto the next character and so on. So sometimes being a pacifist, or talking your way out of things, could be bad for you and yet sometimes it can be very good.
Another example would be a small side quest I gained when I first got to the center of the first town. I saw a group of people standing around where I could see someone suffering. I talked to a person nearby who told me that they were part of a team and he escaped and that he had a "safe and foolproof" plan to get his captive friend freed. Now, hearing the details of the plan I countered his idea by letting him know I would talk to the crowd and get them unified. He thought that my option was a "hail mary" and he discarded had any potential for success. Sure enough I combed through the crowd and talked to the few available people and proceeded to provide them inspiration through my chat selection options, and after the last one was convinced, the crowd unified together and set the prisoner free.
Now, I could have gone the crazy plan route and had a totally different experience. This selective interaction is constant as the northern star and a major positive contribution to providing entertaining experiences that provide tremendous depth. All of this is observed in a three-quarter angled view that allows you to zoom in and out, and for the most part all looks quite beautiful. All the different areas have their own distinct feel and thankfully the game has the music and special effects to match, but that is all second chair to the story and plot delivery system.
All this beauty does come with a price. Granted the text is the primary aspect that you'll be dealing with in every area of the game, but every new region requires the game to load not only all the text, but all the possible story branches and decision events for that area at that time, and in turn connect it to the other areas that you may not be at yet or those that come from where your choices will make deep everlasting impacts on your gaming experience. Because of this the loading times are very long and while the game is mostly loading a seeming library's worth of text in every region, be prepared to do a lot of waiting and reading.
Other minor gripes include random freezes and crashes that occurred, but they were far and few between. I also found the movement control felt a bit sluggish while maneuvering my character around the map, but that's about it.
Torment: Tides of Numenera has a galactic size amount of content done in a method that allows players to write their own story, and while other games give an option or two, this game gives far more options. Sure, this may not have the HD graphic renderings that fans find on other big titles, but that doesn't mean that this experience falls short at all. Despite a few issues with the gameplay, loading times, and some random crashes, Torment Tides of Numenera provides one of the deepest and most entertaining RPG experiences you will find on the Xbox One. If you like turn based RPG games with more depth than a black hole in space, this game is a must have for you. What will your story say about you? Pick up a controller and find out.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
For Honor
When you get a major publisher like Ubisoft to put its might behind trying to perfect the ultimate "Rock, Paper, Scissor" experience, and you throw in the some of the biggest names in war, you get a rough idea of the foundation of For Honor. Recently released, For Honor is Ubisoft's attempt to innovate the hack and slash genre, because let's face it, that's all you do. Hack and Slash. So, is this simplistic button masher just another generic slasher with a pretty skin, or does For Honor provide depth that will entertain you for months on end and hone your blade work?Upon starting For Honor you're presented with numerous options for finding and creating games. However, none of this matters until you create your first character and choose which faction of three you want to fight for. You can then customize your shield, which is a simple layer system with limited available options for icons, but never the less, you can get pretty crazy with your choices, and I ended up personally spending a lengthy bit of time trying to get my emblems just right. I did note however that there are some items that can be unlocked through Ubisoft's Club, but when I saw that some were 50 Club points, I said forget that. I could understand maybe an armor design that would fit the Assassin's Creed world, or some other cosmetic change to your weaponry such as items like Excalibur, but only offering shield customization icons seems pretty weak, and charging you for them is even weaker. A small gripe, but none the less a gripe.
Having selected my character, the game automatically throws you right into the training sequence where I strongly recommend that you spend some time to learn the small intricacies of the game itself. The Left Trigger will be your best friend because that will not only help you focus on an enemy so you don't get overwhelmed, but it will also allow you to use the Right Stick to decide which angle you are going to block from. There are three possible zones to defend: Top, Left, and Right. This upside down triangle is going to be your saving grace as you will have to keep the Left Trigger held down, but move the Right Stick to the proper section to make sure you block the incoming attack. Failure to do so will ultimately result in your character taking damage, so make sure you practice blocking or go play something else, because you won't last long.
Just as the blocking is broken down into three sections for defense, those same sections apply to your offense as well. Utilizing the Right Bumper for light attacks and the Right Trigger for heavy attacks, you will quickly learn that the right time to strike is right after a successful block. The key though is that if you try to follow up a block with a heavy attack, make sure that the opponent doesn't interrupt the slow, heavy swing and land some more hits, so balancing your offense is also a paramount key to victory. The training continues to teach you proper techniques for breaking the block of your opponent by pressing X, and then following up with a throw by pressing X again, then you're sent out on your own to stake your claim against the warriors around the world, that is if you can find a stable server connection, but we'll get to that later.
From here you can choose to dive right into multiplayer, which will lead to your demise incredibly quickly, or you can go through the game's campaign. The premise of For Honor is military might and pure dominance for supremacy over the field of battle, so what better way than to experience it through the eyes of the different factions so you gain a perspective of the entire war instead of one narrow aspect. This will take you through about 18 levels and will task you to run through large, linear levels, clearing checkpoints, all the while hacking down everyone that isn't your same faction. Once you get to the end, there's always some dramatic scene that involves a fight to the death and then it's onto the next level, or chapter, in the story.
As you begin, the actions you complete within the campaign help level up your character and develop your skills by unlocking abilities that can help you in your gravest hours. To help expedite the process you can select various difficulties which all provide a corresponding XP boost; however, take note that the hardest difficulty is called Realistic, and it's called that for a reason. You can always replay missions on harder difficulties to earn more XP, but another thing that will help rapidly level up your character is the completion of side objectives, such as breakable items and scanned viewpoints. Now, throughout the missions there are breakable objects (because you have to have breakable pots in a war game right?) and when you break them you can uncover various items that will help your character overall, and then we have the viewpoints to observe.
The viewpoints really feel out of place as it requires you to be looking at a various random spots, such as up on a wall or down a hall in a side room by a door, and then you'll hear a voice describe the visual entry you just scanned. This is also a bit disorienting when you have armies charging you, flaming arrows flying past your head, and/or swords clashing all around you, yet here you are looking at the wall of a castle. Another gripe I will make about the gameplay is that the final execution window is microscopic in size. Once you land a final blow to your enemy that is a heavy attack, you will queue up an execution window where you have about a split second to hit either X or Y to execute. Doing this will replenish some of your lost health as well.
It goes without saying that the gameplay is ridiculously simplistic in terms of what to do and how to control it, but thankfully that gives you less to mess up and can lead to a more enjoyable gaming experience. Sometimes you don't need 40 buttons and 300 analog stick moves to have a good time gaming. By keeping the control and campaign simple Ubisoft allows you to essentially train repeatedly to prepare you for the heart and soul of For Honor, the multiplayer.
The multiplayer mode is comprised of many aspects you'll see throughout the campaign. For instance, Dominion will put you right at home with AI allies and it's just kill everything that's against your team while finishing some objectives till you amass about 1,000 points, then rinse and repeat. The Skirmish and Elimination modes both have issues, but Skirmish is a basically a 4v4 deathmatch, whereas Elimination essentially is last man standing. Now the common fault that they both share is that there's no way to individually single out one game mode over another. So basically when you pick Deathmatch, you have a 50/50 shot as to what game mode you get to play.
The other two modes of multiplayer focus solely on human opponents and are subsequently titled Duel and Brawl. In Duel, it's just what the title says; It's you versus one other person. The winner is the one left standing. This is where you want to go if you want to prove your worth. No teammate to blame, no evasion, just the outright skill versus skill of opponents, or what I like to call, the purest combat. Brawl is similar to Duel except that instead of 1v1, it's 2v2. This mode can get intense when you start to mix and match different character styles and different move sets. Without question you will find both your hardest challenges here as well as your greatest sense of victory and domination.
Another major victory has to come with the graphics of For Honor, because they are strikingly detailed. Every detail in the environments to those found in your character is brought to life in a way that does a sensational job immersing you into the life of the warrior. Alongside the stunning graphics is a dynamic soundtrack and voice overs that remind me a lot of the opening voice of The Lord of the Rings movies. It's little touches like this that can turn a regular hack and slash game into a truly grand adventure full of wonderment and excitement.
While all this incredible joy is being showered all over, now sadly comes the time when the hammer drops and some ugly truths are revealed. It comes with tremendous displeasure to announce that microtransactions are a huge part of For Honor. If you want to purchase a new character for instance, you'll need to have about 500 scrap (which is primarily found by destroying the breakable objects), and when scavenging for scrap this will take you an insane amount of time, so you pretty much have to engage in microtransactions just to get the character and design you want. I'm sorry, but this is something I strongly oppose and feel is a major weakness in the armor of this game. You would think that would be the worst of it, but sadly it's not.
The multiplayer aspect of For Honor involves peer-to-peer networking and not everyone is sitting on an open NAT with a 1GB fiber optic line. In fact, you'll find a vast amount of moderate and closed NAT types (how they ever enjoy multiplayer experiences is beyond me), and when that happens, the multiplayer of For Honor seems to develop tremendous lag and latency problems, which logically, will impact and have a negative effect on your gameplay experience. This is severely disappointing due to the simple fact that For Honor's heart and soul resides within the multiplayer, and if this suffers such a negative impact, I think it won't be surprising to see a community up and vanish from the game itself. So, if this issue isn't addressed, then For Honor's sustaining community will vanish and what is a social game without the social aspect?
Overall, For Honor does a great job trying to find a new way of telling a very old and very familiar story. It accomplishes so much that it does provide an entertaining way to push you through the repetition of a hack and slash game. However, when you least expect it, you get impaled right through the heart by a broken multiplayer experience where the fragments of microtransactions and more splinter through the game, and while the blow isn't fatal now, if the connection issues aren't addressed, it will be.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Doodle God: Ultimate Edition
Have you ever seen a sporting legend that stayed in their profession for longer than they should have? Someone unwilling to succumb to the truth that they are now in the twilight of their time and should gracefully step out of the spotlight and enjoy life, yet they soldier on. Doodle God does the same thing, except it's not sporting or an a legend. In fact, JoyBits is charging $9.99 for something that is so simplistic a monkey could play it, and that's probably because they would be the only ones to pay $9.99 for this game. Listen, I know I'm supposed to have an open mind for all games, but Doodle God is 7 years old. Let me repeat that: Doodle God is 7 years old. $10 for a 7-year-old game? Hmm... That got me thinking...What in the world was JoyBits thinking? OK, for starters the game itself is about you doing one thing over and over again, which is combining two items to make more items, so on and so forth. You play a version of God who must develop and populate a planet that is in front of you. Apparently you're armed with the elements of earth, wind, fire and water. From here you literally have to open one option on the left side, and one on the right side. From there you use the Left Stick and the Right Stick to select the two various items you want to combine. If you fail, and you will countless times, then the game will simply give you an error buzz, and you continue on. If successful though, you will see an uneventful animation of the two tiles colliding and producing a new and different tile. From this new tile, you get to recombine it with everything else ALL OVER AGAIN, to see if you can make one more tile.
That's it. That's essentially all you do, matching tile after tile in boring repetition to the point where I actually caught myself drifting off to sleep, because when you take all the bells and whistles outta this game, it literally boils down to selecting one menu on the left and side, then open every single menu on the right hand side, and go through the combination process of every tile in every single menu on the right hand side. The process is so monotonous that the game tries to give you side quests and missions to do such as "make ice" or "make a mushroom", and quests like "rescue a princess from a dragon." That last quest I mention requires you to start with a limited amount of menu selections, where you must do MORE combining to fill out the rest of your squares, thus raising your completion percentage at the top left corner, and once it reaches 100% then you're complete with the mission.
To break up the tediousness of doing nothing but combining, the game breaks it up by giving you more options to do nothing more but, you guessed it, combining. Now normally I'd go off and tell you more about the control scheme and what does what, but there's literally no point in doing so as the rest of the buttons are incredibly redundant and pointless. Case in point, there's the X button to give you a hint. That's fantastic. Or you can just start making every combination possible and you'll essentially make all the hints worthless, but there is a dedicated button should you require that unnecessary hint. Using the Left and Right Triggers open menus on both sides, and you'll press the A button a lot. Remember the old Xbox videos showing that the controllers are tested in a facility and they show the buttons being pressed over and over again in rapid succession? That's you when you're playing this $10 game.
The graphics do look decent on the Xbox One, but that's not saying much for a mobile game that's nearly a decade old. Of course it's going to look better, but sadly it doesn't do anything to help cure the boredom of endless mind numbing combining. There is music in the game, but I'm unsure why. All you'll hear is the haunting sound of the error "buzzer" when you miss a combination. There is an adult setting for the game, the reason being is that apparently during the text that you read there's cursing and other "adult" ideas such as making vodka.
I have to sadly dive back into the whole combining nature and tell you that in the first stage of your development there are just shy of 250 elements you must make through combinations. Let that number sink in, then think of all the menus and all the options, all the button presses, and all the errors with an accompanying sound. When you get finished with that there's new modes, and guess what you get to do there? Yet even MORE combining.
In my opinion, this game shouldn't be called Doodle God, it should be called "match boxes together in a mildly mentally challenged state of mind until you either get so bored you quit the game, fall asleep, or just go do something else that's more productive". I think that wouldn't quite fit in the title area though so I guess Doodle God it is then.
I'm sorry, normally I'd carry on about a game whether or not it's good or bad, but I think it's pretty obvious at this point. If this game is a penny over $4.99 it feels like theft, pure and simple, so imagine how we feel about the $10 price point. If you're that hard up for literally one of the most repetitive matching games you'll ever experience feel free to pick it up, but when you feel that overwhelming sadness for having wasted $10 on something that now is the cause of your severe case of the boredoms, don't say I didn't warn you.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Sniper Elite 4
Throughout the years, the Sniper Elite games have taken leaps and bounds in terms of progression as they have tried to deliver the most realistic sniping experiences you will ever play on a console. Having originally only played the first game, I felt that premise was good; however, the execution I found to be substantially lacking. Now though, throughout multiple years and multiple evolutions, Sniper Elite 4 has launched, and like a fine wine, this series has only gotten better with age. In fact, I can say right now that this is going to be one of the predominant sniper experiences that you can find on the Xbox One console at this moment. Now without further ado, let's take a peek inside Sniper Elite 4.Right from the opening menu you're faced with a few options to get your sniper experience going. These range from single player campaign, multiplayer, co-operative, and shooting range. Wanting to see how the bullet physics evolved I first loaded up the shooting range. Here you can take a variety of rifles out to the range and see which one feels best for you. When you enter the range (as is the case with every mode in Sniper Elite 4) you will have the choice to select the difficulty. This difficulty determines just how the game itself will react with your sniping. Bullet physics mean almost everything in this game, but as I was starting out, I selected normal which included bullet physics (which does include drop) and more.
As soon as everything loaded up I could see a dramatic improvement in the graphics and I started to head to the armory. It was here I went through the different rifles and noted the pros and cons of each. Once I selected my rifle I headed across to the firing range where I had the chance to hit both stationary targets and moving ones from a distance of 10 meters to over 150. Now there are somethings I have to mention up front.
First, if you have an Elite controller, you will want to cancel out the trigger lock for both triggers and I'll tell you why; Sniper Elite 4 combines a 3 stage aiming system where the first stage is just firing from the hip and is very inaccurate except at very close range. The second stage is a shoulder fire and this is what we've come to expect from a 3rd person shooter, and then finally you have your zoomed in scope aiming where you are able to pick off individual organs of your enemies. Now, should you have your trigger lock engaged you will never be able to go into the final aiming system, so you'll be limiting yourself to either hip fire or shoulder fire.
During my time in the shooting range I spent a few moments getting acclimated to switching between the 2nd and 3rd stages of aiming and I noticed that the game seems to hesitate just a hair when switching between the two which gives you a sense that the game is "locking in" the point of view you wish to use. But just getting used to the aiming modes and bullet physics is only part of the education, as there's one last major factor you have to learn to manage, and that's your breathing.
On the bottom right hand side of your screen you'll see a meter filled by a blue line which represents your stamina or "breath." When you are looking through your aiming sights you will see that this meter shifts to become a large meter on the left hand side of the screen. You can press in the Left Stick to hold your breath which will bring up a bullet targeting reticle which will tell you when you pull the trigger and the bullet will go there.
Now, as you continue to hold your breath, the meter will grow and the bullet targeting will substantially get smaller to indicate a more accurate shot. This mode is only temporary because as the meter increases to the top, it will change from blue to flashing red. thus reset all together and you will have to wait for the 'cooldown' period before you can engage in a precise shot.
This meter doesn't just deplete upon holding your breath, but it also depletes upon your character sprinting, but thankfully freezes at current levels while climbing or hanging from a ledge. This means that should you be sprinting away to a higher vantage point, upon your arrival you could find yourself out of breath and having to wait a few moments before you can start to acquire your targets.
I left the shooting range and decided to check out the other modes. Now given that this was an early review copy I could not find others to participate in any multiplayer or co-operative games; however, after going through the various menus I was impressed to see such a solid structure for both platforms of gameplay. In co-operative missions you can do things like spotter/sniper co-op or even tackle the main campaign missions together which could lead to some absolutely amazing sniping crossfire action. You have the option in both gameplay modes to er find a game in action or create your own through a private lobby system.
Multiplayer includes various modes such as Team Deathmatch and more, and both gameplay modes allow you to customize the settings such as level, difficulty and more. Even though I was unable to experience these modes due to the game simply not being out yet, I got the sensation that there has been tremendous focus to ensure the stability and entertainment in these modes is maintained for all players.
With the inability to find both multiplayer and co-operative modes I switched my focus over to the main campaign of Sniper Elite 4. Taking place during Hitler's rise to power and the territorial onslaught that the Germans had with their allies, the Italians, it's up to you to try and help your own allied nations overcome the growing terror threat and reclaim strategic positions in the regions to help liberate the neighboring lands and crush the opposition.
While the premise is historical, it does boil down to one simple thing, a massive sandbox full of enemies to kill and objectives too complete. After the first mission you are given what I'm calling a loading area where you will find various allies who, when you talk with them, will give you optional side quests to achieve during your mission. Then once you have acquired all your intel from available sources, you will proceed to one area of the map to start your mission.
Once you arrive in your mission area, if you press the back button you will see an overview of the entire map itself. In my gameplay time, I would plan my points of attack, and quite often I would find myself advancing to a certain point on the map where I would back track (sometimes all the way back to the beginning) and consult my map on how to traverse down a secondary pathway that would lead me to where I came from, but from a different vantage point which allowed me to seemingly create a pinch from both sides.
It must be pointed out that the enemy AI in this game isn't the brightest, but what they lack in overall intelligence, they more than make up for in numbers. However, they are substantially intelligent though compared to other shooters. For example, in one mission I tried to take out someone's liver and I missed, so this person dropped to the ground but wasn't dead. Another soldier found him, picked him up over his shoulder, and walked him back to what he thought was a safe area, where he set the enemy down and knelt down and patched him up, resulting in my downed target up and walking around.
So granted yes, there is a heavy dose of fantasy (last time I checked a sniper rifle round to the chest back in those days was pretty fatal), but you'll find that the number one thing that will give you away is sound. Your sound can give you away, but it can also be your friend if you figure out how to use it to your advantage. To do this I armed myself with my trusty rock, whistle, and combat knife. You'll see why I chose to bring a knife to a gunfight.
During the last mission I played I killed over 132 enemies, 117 of those were from knife kills. The way I did this was sound management and playing off some of the stupidity of the AI. The mission placed me within a small town so there were lots of buildings, and the town was adjacent to a neighboring church. Upon starting the mission, I pressed in my Right Stick, which brought up my binoculars (you'll be doing that A LOT of this), and using the Right Trigger I marked my enemies on my HUD and mini map on the bottom right.
Now I could go in guns blazing and leave a wake of bodies, blood and bullets, but I wanted to experiment and see if it was possible to go through a level, such as this, firing as few shots as possible. To do this I had to stick to crouching in bushes to not be seen (which was pretty hilarious when I had an RPG strapped to my back that was sticking out about 3-4 feet above the top of the bushes that no one seemed to notice). From there I would equip my rock and while hidden in the bushes, I would angle my throw to direct only one enemy at a time to get closer to me. Once they were within range I would switch out to my whistle and call them over to the bush (honestly if I were hearing a bush whistle I'd empty a clip into the bush before I went in there, but that's just me), where I would pounce and do an instant melee kill on the enemy and the body would automatically hide in the bushes. Step one complete.
The enemy AI will say something along the lines of "There's someone missing", and for some reason they knew that this fellow soldier went missing in this one bush that I happen to be hiding in (don't ask me how they knew because I have no idea). This is where things get interesting because you will either have one lone soldier coming, or, because the soldier looking frantic will draw other soldiers near him to follow along), a small squad of soldiers (the max I ever had around me was about 8 at once) will come along. If it's a lone soldier, all you do is wait in the bushes and when they approach, use your knife and pile up the bodies in the bush.
It is here where I would use some strategy. By now a section of the patrol unit was missing and this alerts the guards in the surrounding areas and they will go to where the last known location was. But I like my bush (giggity). So, I would see a small group of about 4 enemies headed my direction. This is where I switch out to my trusty rock and throw one away from me in a perpendicular direction.
Now all 4 enemies hear the sound to their side and turn and shift focus in that direction. All 4 enemies then take off in pursuit towards that area. During this time, I press in the Left Bumper and bring up my weapon radial where I select a delayed S-mine, and it's here that I hold down the Right Bumper to rig the body with this booby trap as I pick up the body and set him away from my bush.
The 4 enemies haven't found anyone so they start to spread out, but I want them together so I arm my trusty rock and this time I throw it back to where they were originally. Now they all run back to where the sound was but this time in the road they see a body of their fallen soldier. Alarmed by this all 4 start running towards the trap laced body. Now normally upon reaching the body, the first soldier would normally get caught in the blast and maybe the second, however, since I selected a delayed version of my mine, it allowed the few short seconds to allow the other 3 soldiers to catch up only to be caught in the blast. So I've already killed 6 enemies with one mine and two knife attacks, and no shots fired.
There are other ways you can adapt your gameplay to the situation. For instance, later on in that same level I managed, through a lot of walking and observation, to find a back entrance into a compound. Standing upright and running by the ladder going up into the compound I had triggered a total of 5 enemies alerted (running upright = lots of noise), so they sent one unlucky guy to come down the ladder and check out the noise. Hiding back from the ladder I called the guy over and used my knife to take him down. From here I applied the booby trap method described earlier and managed to get three out of the remaining four soldiers.
The 4th soldier got scared and flew back up the ladder and took a defensive position focusing on the ladder itself. During this time, I decided to plant a mine at the bottom of the ladder and use my whistle to draw him in and sure enough, like a moth to a flame, as soon as his boots hit the ground he was a stain on the wall.
This type of environment manipulation plays a critical role in Sniper Elite 4 and will serve a vital role in keeping your presence very low. There are numerous types of soldiers such as regular infantry, snipers, radio beacon transmitters, officers and more, and each of them carry with them not only details about them, but possible items and weaponry as well. You can find this information out through the binoculars. When you tag an item or an enemy with the left trigger, if you leave it in focus you will start to compile information on that target. This is incredibly useful since, for example, if a soldier who uses a radio beacon sees any disturbance, or you, then they will call in for reinforcements and that's when your day goes from bad to worse, because those can consist of Panzer tanks and other military vehicles that aren't so fun to play with. Sniper Elite 4 is far more of a strategic gameplay experience than a mindless shooter.
So, we've established that this game is incredibly fun and an intense experience, however there are a few drawbacks that take a shot or two at the game itself. First have to be the graphics. Sniper Elite 4 is a beautiful game with incredible water and lighting effects, and physics that can be incredibly fun. Trucks for instance have about 3 timed explosion tiers: the first one which destroys the truck, then the engine explodes, then the cargo. One time I killed an enemy soldier by blowing up the truck and when his fellow soldier came to check on him the second explosion hit which caused the door to fire off and instantly kill the second infantryman.
However, if you find yourself rapidly trying to change your vantage point, or even run for that matter, you'll find tremendous amount of screen tearing and it's very disorienting. You almost find yourself deliberately playing the game at a slower pace that you would want just to prevent that from happening and it seems to hinder the fluidity of the game's combat. Now, this is a huge issue since acquiring targets requires you to adapt to your environment and conditions in combat and if you're being disoriented because the screen is tearing, then that's a pretty major flaw.
Another flaw comes in the gameplay. With only a few quick-select slots, but a massive selection available from the radial menu, you find that the quick-selection slots are pretty worthless since the game pauses during your radial selection. I know that the game is trying to make you prioritize what you want at your fingertips and how snipers only carry essential items; however, when you force a balance between items, traps, and weapons, you quickly realize that all of these items are essential yet there's no way to select a different set of "quick select" options, so back again you go to the radial menu. This again creates a disorienting pause effect in the gameplay, and while I used it at times to tactfully plan my next few moves, I felt again that this was a massive setback to the fluidity of the game. This is why I stuck with my rock and whistle and controlled the environment.
There are some other light RPG elements though found within the game that adds to the game's enjoyment. For instance, when you hit various levels of experience you can unlock various perks for your sniper, such as decreased fall damage, increased heart rate recovery and more. Plus, every weapon also comes with its own set upgrades that require some certain criteria to be met before it's unlocked. In my case I used my rifle and its criteria were:
- 1. - Total Kill Distance = 10Km. (Completing this upgraded my rifle's damage)
- 2. - 25 Environmental Explosion Kills. (Completing this upgraded my rifle's stability)
- 3. - 10 Liver Shots. (Completing this upgraded my rifle's zoom)
- 4. - Mastery: 25 Double Kills (This can only be completed once the first 3 criteria are completed. Upon completion you're awarded a mastery skin for your weapon and a nice achievement for mastering one weapon.)
Sniper Elite 4 has come a long way from its first initial iteration and the evolution between games is night and day. This current release has the largest maps you will ever find in a Sniper Elite game. The combat is done in an incredibly balancd Fight Vs. Flight manner, and despite the flaws in the graphics and some gameplay issues, the game is an incredibly enjoyable experience from start to finish. Every mission in the campaign has tons of collectibles to find so you'll be enjoying the exploration as you traverse all types of terrain at all points of day and night. While multiplayer wasn't available at the time, if it's execution is carried out with the same detailed precision as the game, then expect that to be a major source of hour draining fun. It goes without saying that Sniper Elite 4 set its mark high on delivering a fairly incredible experience, and despite the few faults, it has hit that mark dead center.
Suggestions: Please fix the screen tearing and provide some increase quick selection options for the user.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Pixel Heroes: Byte & Magic
Have you ever found yourself playing a game that was so addictive that you found yourself getting absorbed by the repetition? Well if you haven't, then meet Pixel Heroes: Byte and Magic from Headup Games. This game first came out back in October of 2014, and normally that would start to send up red flags as I tend to consider games like these to be cash grabs due to price points, age of their content, and more. This game though, priced at $9.99, has a crafty way to snag that crisp $10 bill from your wallet and we will get into that latter, but first, the game.Right from the beginning you are enveloped by pixelated retro graphics that harken back before a time when those who would consider a PSone an antique were born. Now, I know that a lot of games have tried to embrace a retro vibe; however, quite a lot have gotten it wrong and I think it's because they used it for a scapegoat in development. Headup Games on the other hand actually flaunts it in your face and makes sure you realize that of course it's an easy scapegoat. There were times when my character got hit and they would comment, "even my blood is blocky!"
Before you adventure begins Pixel Heroes starts you off in a bar where you can tell the type of game you're about to get into as you read the humor in the character chat bubbles. It's here in the bar that the game will center its hub so to speak. This centralized area is where you can recruit up to three individual characters. Pixel Heroes relies on the whole "rock beats scissors" motive with certain elements and elemental weapons working well against specific types and so on.
Right from the beginning you'll be choosing your characters, which range from classes such as dwarves, knights and barbarians to herbalists (yes those kinds of herbs), witches, clerics, and more. Some will have high strength with physical attacks but weak with magic and vice versa. These are all tactics we are used to seeing in games; however, take note of strengths and weaknesses because you'll be back at the bar picking three more heroes again... and again... and again...
This is thanks to Pixel Heroes' uncanny ability to not only deliver a quality humorous experience, but the ability to openly mock and impersonate other people, movies, etc. as you wander through the paths to and from various dungeons. For instance, I was greeted by a black pixelated person wearing a black trench coat and black sunglasses who called himself Orpheous and offered me a choice to take a red pill, a blue pill, both, or I could ignore him.
Various choices you make will be either beneficial or detrimental to your party, and sometimes combat is the best choice because while you may risk taking damage, you'll also gain experience which you can use to level up, plus you can gain some gear while you're doing it. Should you ignore these events though, you'll head straight to your dungeon and start the 8 rooms that can either be a battle or test of character, and this is why I mentioned balance was so important.
You will come across chests in-game. These chests require certain levels of certain stats to open, so while one chest may require a high level of strength, another may require a high level of faith, and so on. Should your character fail in this task they will receive damage in the form of a trap that could essentially halve your full health instantly.
You may think that you're going to be ok because you have health potions, but I cannot stress enough how you need to save as many of these as you can early on because normally the only way to gain more is through combat. This is why I found a need to almost always run with a healer, as their skills will grant the ability needed to keep people alive without the need of a potion.
Now, back to the bar. So, you have your chosen three characters and the rest of the patrons at the bar leave and get all pissed off at you for not hiring them for whatever reason. After they depart in walks a pixelated crazy person wearing a sign that says the "End is Nigh!". This person foretells the doom lingering on the horizon, and after hearing his tale off your go into the village. Before you leave though, check out the band in the bar, simply called The Band.
This is where you accept your various quests. You can only select one quest at a time and the quest will take you to one of the dungeons on the map. The quests come from villagers with exclamation marks over their heads and are sold by the floating exclamation marks company who won't sell you any, but everyone else is fair game. Once you talk to a villager you'll get some sob tale of a book missing, or a ring that was lost, etc, and now you have to prepare yourself for the task ahead.
You start with 800 gold and when you see that 200 gold buys one low health potion, you quickly realize you're dead broke. There is a temple in the village where you can buy potions and resurrect your fallen heroes for a price should you need. Once your hero dies, they are dead and gone until either revived at the temple for cash or your entire party is wiped out and you're sent back to the bar to start over.
This quirky method of enforcing repetition through humor is something that dramatically helps stave off the mundane actions you will be repeating for as long as you play this. The gameplay is interesting as all heroes have weapons they can use, but they also have unique abilities which can either deal tremendous damage or aid your characters in a special way. Even the whole balance aspect can be found here, let me explain.
Let's say you get yourself a cleric, or other magic user, that has the ability to dispel any status effects (absolutely critical); however, you can gain these same immunities by equipping gear that makes you impervious to it. Do you use a character slot for a character to use that ability, or do you take your chances and try to gain equipment that will make you immune, thus allowing you to free up a character slot for something else? These are the balancing acts that will keep you going insane, but also enjoying every moment of the ride. When you do get into a fight, you'll notice it's strictly turn based. Not only is it turn based, but your 2nd turn can't involve the same character, so Pixel Heroes forces you to utilize at least two characters. Oh, and those abilities I told you about earlier, there's a cooldown period (in turns) in between uses, so use sparingly and as a last resort.
One gripe I do have is that the inventory is so small that you will quickly, and I mean very quickly, find yourself out of room, thus forcing you to trash a bunch of your gear. Because unlike Fallout 4, you can't move onto the next room if you are carrying any fraction of weight over 20. I wish there were merchants before bosses that allowed you to sell your unwanted items, but rest assured you'll be hating the inventory capacity almost after your 1st dungeon.
There are a lot of RPG elements built into this little indie game, but as I wasn't sure what to expect, and in the end I wound up actually enjoying this game quite a bit. I loved the roadside interactions and felt that the comical atmosphere made the game more enjoyable, and in the end that's one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, we play games in the first place, because we want to enjoy them. Sure, there are some faults with this game, it's a few years old, and the $10 price point may seem steep for the content you're getting. If you really enjoy retro styled pixelated games that cram RPG elements and humor into a mesmerizing mix that will result in you spending hours in trying to get everything just right, then this game is for you.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Siegecraft Commander
With all the different genres of gaming that exist in the world today, one of my favorite is tower defense games. I'm secretly addicted to the strategy aspect of trying to overcome your foe through mental preparation rather than an outright assault. Recently, Blowfish Studios released Siegecraft Commander for $19.99 and it offers a new spin on tower defense. They have combined the elements of that genre with an overall real-time strategy (RTS) core. So has Blowfish Studios created a RTS game worthy of its' price? I'm not so sure it has, let me tell you why.To start things off, you have your choice of what game mode you want to play in the form of campaign and multiplayer, and that is it. When you choose campaign you can pick what side you want to play as. There are lizard type creatures or overpompous knights to choose from; however, none of the selections will net you any substantial benefit over the other, and neither provides any worthwhile content to care about. In essence you choose from two pointless sides in a meaningless struggle that is based on poor humor and bad writing, rather than perfecting a gameplay experience that is entertaining. For this instance of description though, I'll choose the overpompous knights.
The campaign itself is laid out like a book where each level tells its own interactive story in its own chapter of the book. While this idea is a novel one that fits the atmosphere of the game, you'll rapidly find that the levels serve to be your tutorial guide, but more than that, you'll find that the repetition of the campaign will get incredibly boring and tedious very, very quickly.
Without any sort of dynamic plot, or any substance to help drive a comedic storyline, there isn't much of anything to keep you playing the campaign outside of the numerous 100 point achievements that can be gained. Sure, you have a total of two stories to play through (one for each race), but with each one providing the same lackluster experience, you really can't fathom why you would want to subject yourself to that much mundane gameplay with so little meaningful experiences.
The object of Siegecraft Commander is simple, you build towers and construct forces in an effort to overrun and destroy your opponents’ towers and destroy the enemy Keep. While you build your towers you have the enemy AI working against you, so for all the progress you make in the level, the enemy AI will rebuild and send their forces after your towers. In our case, with the overpompous knights, I found myself throwing out Outposts like crazy.
I should clarify something first before moving on though. To construct a building, you first start with your own Keep, press the A button on it and it will bring up a radial wheel where you select what tower you wish to build. Structures like an Armory, which can lead to building airships, or a Garrison, which provides you the opportunity to build barracks to produce troops, are two such things you can build. Then there are also defenses that you can build such as mortars that can attack incoming enemy defenses, or a ballista that can shoot down oncoming enemy airships. While it's good to have these protections, they will re-arm themselves after a cooldown of about 30 seconds, so should they fire once and the enemy forces keep coming, it's up to you to defend your towers.
To do this, you must first become familiar with how to build, and that is a different topic all together. To build these objects after you select them, you will see a green crossbow above your Keep, from here you will draw back with your analog stick and then fire your crossbow. Then you will see a cannonball fire from the tower and with it you will see it drag a string of walls behind it. This is how your objects get built and how your walls connect all your objects together.
One downfall is that it's easy to block off your troops from an area if you're not careful. Thanks to the walls, any sort of land troops will have to be directed around them, which can create not only a lengthy game, since they move at a snail's pace, but it can really draw out. This excessive building of towers will eventually lead to the game grinding to a massive halt given that it's apparent that Siegecraft Commander can't handle a lot of consecutive towers on the map at one time. And speaking of the map...
On the map you will find points scattered throughout that contain either blue or yellow magic crystals. As stated earlier, you can follow a natural progression of the towers and everything they unlock; however, to unlock everything you will have to take control over both yellow and blue crystal points in order to produce everything you need, especially in the realm of magic. Magic can be costly to obtain but it can offer tremendous benefits in both cooldown times and magical shields and spells that not only provide protection for your towers, but also turn the tide of battle by attacking your enemy's towers with magic.
While all of this seems in depth, the whole building process itself is a total letdown and near disaster. Should you block your troops in, you cannot destroy your towers on your own, so you'll have to wait for the enemy to destroy them before the troops can be of any use.
While the multiplayer aspect of the game can allow for up to 4 people online, there never really seems to be a point to doing so. With all of that being said though, the game does have a decent visual look going for it. I'm not talking a phenomenal artistic rendition, but it's far better than some other indie games that have been released on the Xbox One. The sound on the other hand is insignificant to the point where I found myself actually generating overly stereotypical voices just to try and add some form of real humor and enjoyment to the game. That lasted for the first few levels and then I got bored trying to keep up with all the mediocrity and I stopped all together.
With everything taken into account, $19.99 feels like highway robbery for Siegecraft Commander. I know I normally break into some form of summary, but I had to just had to say this right off the get-go. The play controls are oversensitive, the building mechanics are poor at best, the game delivers no incentive to play past the first level, and it slows to a crawl should you build too many towers. I am honestly sorry to more negative than positive, but this is sadly our reality. If you're into RTS games then please wait till this is either free with the Games with Gold program, or wait till it's $4.99 if you absolutely have to have this game. Die hard Tower Defense fans need only apply here.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Shantae: Half-Genie Hero
Very few developers can make a platform game worth playing. While the overall design may seem simplistic, the real challenge is fine tuning all of the game's intricate aspects. Earlier this year WayForward released their game Shantae and the Pirate's Curse and now they're back. They have recently released Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, on the Xbox One, for the price of $19.99. Their previous release was met with great praise. So, has WayForward delivered another enjoyable platformer, or have any dreams of a quality game sunk before we take flight? For those who haven't played the previous game, the series involves the adventures of a Half-Genie female who was hired to protect a town. In this adventure you are awoken, in a sort of dream realm, where you encounter a mysterious spirit who vaguely informs you of grave danger ahead, and only you have the power to prevent the future catastrophe from happening. Then it's gone, just as quickly as it appeared, and you find your character waking in her bed and trying to decide if what she experienced was real or not.
Heading into the town (in the game silly) you'll get a sense of the game's control and notice how simplistic, yet precise, some of the inputs are. Your character, Shantae, still has her infamous hair whip, and of course the dancing does return. Shantae uses her belly dancing skills for multiple reasons, such as transforming into various animals, each one providing special moves and abilities, and using magical spells designed to help her throughout each level. This time around though, there are a total of 12 different dances to learn, so with only seven stages you will find yourself replaying them over and over again should you wish to unlock everything Shantae: Half-Genie Hero has in store for you.
WayForward has managed to combine several elements of classic franchises into a method of platforming that provides countless hours of entertainment. This is thanks in no small part to the story. Normally you would think such repetition would be boring, and most of the time I'd agree with you, but Shantae: Half-Genie manages to add levity to the situation in multiple ways.
The humor injected into the storyline that prides itself in frivolity and whimsy instead of being dark, brooding and dramatic is one way the game adds this levity I speak of. Sure, there will be some serious elements, but overall the story is meant to be enjoyed with a smile on your face, and that is what you'll have. For example, in game you'll find yourself fighting Risky Boots and her pirates as she attacks you with her "Part Omni-Organic, Partially Titanic, Ocean-Optional Tinkerslug" or as Shantae calls it: POOP TOOT! Risky undoubtedly hates that name and thus a battle ensues. These types of comical moments can also be found throughout the levels themselves and go a long way to helping numb the boredom found replaying a level numerous times. Before I continue though, I have to address something about this game.
It looks beautiful. From the character modeling, the 2.5D painted backgrounds to the special effects and the animation, almost everything pertaining to the visual look of Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is a sight to behold. You almost get the feeling that you're playing a retro game, yet through the perspective of a modern day HD console platform, and you are in a sense. All the classic platformers that have staked their claim to greatness have done so by trying to deliver a visual experience to match the game you're playing, and this game does just that through HD.
The visuals are complimented by a varied soundtrack that actually quite surprised me, but sadly it wasn't quite memorable as the iconic platformers of old. Keep in mind though, I didn't say how the soundtrack surprised me. Sure, each individual land provides its own unique music, however none of it is very memorable to the point where you'd see...ahem, hear yourself humming the tune. It's more of a hodge-podge of electric synths and guitars fitted with a more Persian/Arabian personality.
There's a lot to like about Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, a humorous storyline, beautiful graphics, and gameplay control that is solid as a rock. Without a doubt, this game checks many of the boxes that make up a phenomenal platformer, but while it checks many of them, it doesn't check them all. For instance, there are familiar faces that you'll encounter throughout your journey, but there aren't as many new experiences as I had hoped there would be. When you also take into account that there is a fairly limited amount of levels and that you'll spend more time replaying levels to unlock everything, and some may believe that WayForward seems to come up a bit short when it comes to packing content into this game (Super Mario Bros had 8 main levels). That being said, this game is truly amazing though. To see how something that was born from crowd funding that has blossomed into a fantastic platformer series is pretty neat. Would I spend $19.99 to buy Shantae: Half-Genie Hero? Despite the faults, yes I would, and so should you.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Steel Rain X
Having been born in the late 70's I've had the pleasure of growing up throughout the different variants of gaming for over 30 years. There is one genre though that seems to stay as constant as the North Star, and that would be the side scrolling shooter games. Back in the day we had classics like R-Type that showed us what an alien onslaught looked like and how to upgrade our ship to do incredible things. These types of games were the foundation of what we know today. Developer Polarity Flow has released Steel Rain X on the Xbox One for the price of $9.99, and my biggest question to this would be does it do enough to revitalize the genre to warrant its' price tag? The story of Steel Rain X is one we have seen countless times before. Humanity has collapsed and we must seek to the stars to ensure our survival. Along the journey, multiple frigates come into contact with an alien species named the Xenox (not to be confused with the copy company Xerox). Hopeful of peaceful contact, humans were caught off guard and out of the three Frigates that were dispatched only one survived the attack by the Xenox. This lone Frigate escaped to an isolated planet where scientists manage to find a way to adapt and utilize the enemy weaponry for human use. From here this weapon became an adaptable starship, and at the same time, humanity's last hope for survival. While this may sound intense for a story, the way it's laid out before you in the game itself is rather disappointingm but the plus side though is that these types of games never focus on their stories at all and instead focus on screen filling action, which I'm happy to say is the case here, despite a few hiccups along the way.
The controls take some getting used to. The Left Stick moves your ship around while the X, Y, and B buttons all correspond to your ship's firing formation, which are aptly named A, B, C. Your Right and Left Bumper, along with Left Trigger, all utilize power-ups that you collect throughout the mission or purchase from the store. Each firing mode offers its own identity in terms of firing pattern, strength, armor piercing abilities, and more. Throughout the missions, as you collect the various color upgrades, your ship and it's corresponding firing pattern will grow and intensify. Once you have the firing positions down though, you'll quickly find various colors will become your preferred choice.
Now that we've established that there will be a learning curve with the controls, let's talk about the learning curve with the real soul of Steel Rain X, the RPG elements. Imagine incorporating an element that would be reminiscent of Sim City in a side scrolling shoot 'em up game and that's what you have here. Once you beat the 3 stages on a planet you can send down a probe to colonize it (for a small fee of course). When the probe lands you will see the space open up to you and this is the land from which you will have to work with. Once colonized, you must first build housing for your civilians and then you will need power, so you will end up building a power plant. Once you have these two amenities you can start to look into developing other buildings such as a science lab, trade depot, manufacturing plant, and so much more. Through here you'll have to manage power consumption, resource development, and research progress.
There are a few tips I learned after playing for a while and that is start by focusing on building trade depots and science buildings. The reason for this is that Steel Rain X has a massive 3 column upgrade system that takes time to upgrade each node, and the more science buildings you have, the less time each upgrade takes. I managed to get one of the top tier nodes from 2 hours and 30 minutes down to just 12 minutes. But there is a problem that I found in the game, and that is the fact that the countdown timer is not accurate. Every second in the game is equivalent of 2 seconds in real life, so if you read that it takes 9 min to upgrade a node, expect 18 minutes of real time instead. There are a few other issues with the construction as well. Sometimes I would have 8/12 civilians assigned to a task, I'd build a trade depot which costs me 2 civilians, so now I'm at 10/12 assigned. I would destroy the trade depot and I would still show 10/12 assigned and some options that require more civilians were blanked out. This happened on more than one occasion and it appears that the game has a hard time even managing its own resources.
Another gripe that came into both the researching and the building menu is the pin point blue dot that is used as your selecting tool. This small dot is about the size of a point of a pen, really, it is, and it moves around the screen INCREDIBLY slow, so once you've found your dot, moving it to where you want is a chore on its own. The same goes for the research screen, however the background and the majority of the colors in this screen are the exact same color as this minuscule blue dot, so finding it is next to impossible, and once you find it, maneuvering the dot to select what you want to research is a straight up pain. I wish I could say that this is the end of it, but it's not. Not by a mile.
There are other options to pursue such as upgrades that you can purchase with coins, or building prototypes to help improve your ships, and even trading resources to buy Xenox materials for advanced weaponry. You can naturally setup your own self-sustaining system through proper building, but any and all upgrades will come only when you level up your cores, and even then you're forced into the research trees to gain access to the top tier upgrades. My issue here is trading. When you start trading you can select how much material you want; however, you cannot pick just 1 for whatever reason. You press right on the D-Pad and the numbers start to skyrocket almost instantly. I think the lowest I could ever select was 2, so plan on taking a very long time to try and fine tune just how much you want to trade. I found this process very tedious and worthless when I started to form camps that were self-sustaining.
After going through the various menus I dove into the campaign missions since my only other options were Arcade and Survival. It was here that I saw that the graphics of Steel Rain X weren’t groundbreaking beautiful, but they definitely weren’t a total disaster. Most of the time I found myself too caught up in dodging screen filling enemy fire to concentrate on the mediocre backgrounds or the decent model for the enemy ships and their variants. The sound though was nothing but a synth heavy techno blast of looped sounds that drove me up the wall. Listen, I get that they were looking for energy, but this was just way too much. I ended up turning the music down completely. It's a shame but sadly the graphics and sound don't do much to help this game along.
One aspect that I found well done was the difficulty slider that ranged from 1-10 which dramatically changed the entire feel and experience of Steel Rain X, and then if that weren't enough, the game offers up a Hardcore mode for that extra "oomph" when it comes to throwing everything but the kitchen sink at you. There were other touches as well that stood out, such as the ability to select either the main story missions, orbital patrol missions, side missions, your upgrades and more, all from the mission screen. This was a blessing because I didn't have to start switching in and out of many different menus and the mission screen acted as an almost secondary hub to the hangar.
A mixed bag of both good and bad, Steel Rain X tries to bring a new evolution into the world of shoot 'em up side scrolling games with its take on the RPG elements. Sadly, while the idea was well conceived, the execution could have been better. That being said, would I pay $9.99 for this? Of course I would. Like a kitten that is "not so cute" at birth, Steel Rain X is one of those games that you know is faulty and flawed, but it provides so much enjoyment that you can't help continue playing with it. For the price it's a fairly good value for money, and if you like shoot 'em up games then this title is most likely calling your name.
Overall Score: 7.4 / 10
Sky Force Anniversary
Growing up in arcades when I was younger, my quarters loved to find the machines that were classic top down scrolling shooters. I would waste hours upon hours shooting for top scores (editors note: pun intended), stacking quarters on the side for next game, etc. I had a chance to relive those glorious moments of my yesteryear with Sky Force Anniversary, out now on the Xbox One. Originally released in 2004 by Infinite Dreams, Sky Force has seen numerous releases on numerous platforms throughout the years it has existed, and then in 2014 Sky Force Anniversary launched, and it too has seen release on various platforms.. Now almost 3 years later, this top down shooter comes to the Xbox One for the low price of $9.99. So after a decade, is there enough polish on this release to warrant a purchase?
Over the many, many years of gaming, top down shooters have always been sort of a nostalgic trip down memory lane, and when certain releases come out that are done incredibly well, they are herald as a resurrected force for many childhood memories. When Sky Force launched it received much praise for its quality work, and thankfully we see this here today as well with the "Anniversary" edition.
Sky Force Anniversary essentially boils down to you fighting a bad guy in a very big plane, but to get to him you'll need to tackle 9 levels of increasing intensity first. These games have really never been much about story and plot lines, but rather focused on screen filling action, a tense white knuckle grip on the joysticks, and the repeated smashing of the fire button. Thankfully Sky Force Anniversary does just that in spades. This is in part to the control layout which is very easy to pick up and play.
There is an opening sequence that will get you acclimated to Sky Force Anniversary's controls and mayhem. The Left Stick controls your ship while the Right Trigger fires your weaponry, and so on. This means that you don't have to split your focus between a screen filled with laser fire and a series of confusing and complicated menus. From there you'll see that the first level helps get you adjusted to the unending repetition that you will find throughout the rest of the game. Sky Force Anniversary is built around the premise that you shoot everything you can, then scroll forward and do it some more. You keep this simplistic pattern going until you come across an end boss, or the end area of the level, then you rinse and repeat. While some would say that this would be incredibly boring, I'd almost say that I agree with you; however, you soon realize that Sky Force Anniversary will hook you like a drug. Let me explain why.
See, most companies have issues creating a game that offers replayability, especially in this genre. This is why a lot of successful shooters are focused only on multiplayer, because you have to find a way to keep gamers playing even after they beat the main game. Sky Force Anniversary's hook is that it somewhat forces you to collect stars throughout your levels which act as your currency to spend on upgrading your ship. This means you can replay missions over and over again if they yield a high star output and you can then start building and crafting your ship and its upgrades into an incredible force of power. This feature plays right into the game's own trophy system where each level rewards you for certain things, like rescuing all the people in a level, destroying 100% of the enemies in a level, or even avoiding any damage in a level. While tasks that seem menial at first will quickly become very challenging should you decide not to upgrade your ship. However, in the middle of this, there is an issue or two to be dealt with.
One of the big issues with the upgrade system is the system itself. Let me give you an example. Let's say you want to put side guns on your craft (everyone loves more guns). Well that's great but it will set you back 900 stars to put them on. Then if you want to upgrade them you have to start paying in incremental increases of stars. The first upgrade will set you back 90, then 135, then 180, and so on, and by the time you get that stat maxed out, you will have sunk numerous hours just doing the same thing in tremendous repetition. When you factor all the upgrades themselves, and their initial start cost, and then upgrade cost, Sky Force Anniversary will have you hooked for weeks if you want to upgrade everything. But even though you'll be grinding harder than Miley Cyrus, you'll at least be having and enjoyable experience. This is thanks to the whole "Anniversary" touch.
As we've come to expect in today's world, when a company throws around the words like "Anniversary" you get the sensation that things might be improved upon. We saw inklings of this when games like Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary released, and Sky Force Anniversary is no different. There is a tremendous amount of visual improvement to where Sky Force is quite visually stunning. Even though there are only 9 levels, each one is done with a beautiful coat of paint and overhaul. This treatment also continues to every facet of the game, from the aircraft to weapon effects, all of which deserves high praise, for it truly is tremendous work. To accompany this graphical accomplishment Sky Force Anniversary sports an energetic, blood pumping, electronic, retro synth heavy soundtrack that will pulse throughout every mission and help keep the intensity driving.
For $9.99 there's no question that Sky Force Anniversary is a highly welcomed game on the Xbox platform. Infinite Dreams has done a great job providing quality entertainment that will literally make any extra time you thought you had disappear. Although I wish there were more variety within the game, overall Sky Force Anniversary is a must have game if you enjoy these classic top down shooters and it is a one of the better investments you can make for $9.99 on the Xbox One.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Furi
You awaken to find yourself locked in a prison and doomed to be tortured for all eternity. You struggle to break free only to realize that in order to gain your freedom you must press onward until you finally escape. This is the vague opening to Furi, an title developed by The Game Bakers. Priced at $19.99(USD), this indie game seems like a mix of Tron, Afro Samurai, and El Shaddai all rolled up into one intense and explosive boss fight after another. So can this indie title slash a hole in your wallet, or are there better places where you can spend your $20? You should know that Furi is setup like a multi-staged boss fight. Similar to the very core that we've seen even from old movies such as The Game of Death, Furi begins with you imprisoned for some unknown reason and all you observe is your jailer reveling in their joy of torturing you repeatedly. You feel that all hope is lost when all of s sudden, out of nowhere comes a character dressed like they are straight out of an Alice in Wonderland movie on bad acid trip. Somehow he seems to free you, effortlessly, and also arms you with a sword that, when wielded in your hands, becomes a charged blade of pure energy. As you stagger slowly to your feet your told that you have to go and kill your Jailer, and that's when the game unfolds before you.
You learn that the prison you currently inhabit is but one of 12 prisons that have been put in place to prevent your escape. With that in mind, I should warn you that you should be prepare yourself to die, a lot. Furi is nothing more than a simplistic hack and slash game that has been stripped to its core to provide an incredibly frustrating experience, yet it is an incredibly rewarding one all at the same time. Each boss battle is setup in an identical manner. While the attacks vary in style, force, and other areas, the similarities equate to a simple test of your ability to press the right buttons at the right time. Oh, but it's not so simple. As you progress you'll rapidly become in love with your dodge ability, and if you want to have any chance at success you will have to learn how to parry, almost constantly.
Thanks to a very simplistic control scheme, Furi becomes more of a reflex exercise. You'll start out by walking incredibly slow between each encounter and during this time if you press the A button you will auto walk. This can cut down on the tediousness of each stroll as you can literally just set the controller down for your brief moment of Zen, but there are some instances where walking on your own can be a benefit. Granted it will take what seems like eternity to move at a snail's pace, but there are achievements that can be earned and an essentially meaningless dialogue to be heard, but once you've walked your way to the arena, it's time to fight.
Each boss fight begins with your character, and the opposing boss, having a health bar, and below this health bar you'll see small squares which I simply regard as lives. The rules are simple; attack the boss until their health bar is depleted and they will lose one of their 'life' squares. Once all the lives are gone the battle is over. Things seem simple on the outside, however, when you dive deeper into the game you'll see an exponential learning curve that will constantly alter and adapt to your current boss fight. What I mean by this is that your opponent at the time will change up attacks and expand their arsenal, so you must also adapt on the fly. For example, should you lose a life, you will start with full health on the boss stage you were just in, so if you die on the boss' 3rd life stage, then that's where you start again with both of you having full health. Given how many times your character will die; you'll be thankful for this.
Despite all the simplicity of the game, Furi looks beautiful. As I mentioned earlier, Furi looks like a hybrid of Tron, Afro Samurai, and El Shaddai all wrapped into one beautiful package. Each level is very well is done in its own unique beautiful way including those times when you find yourself making meaningful progress between fights. During these moments you'll also be treated to an electronic, energetic score that helps keep the energy up, where it needs to be, but yet it is not so overpowering or in your face. Granted the voice acting is far from entertaining, but the overall feel of both graphics and sound are true experiences in their own right.
So after all this, is Furi worth the $19.99 price tag? Sadly, I'm going to say no. When you break it down you're paying $19.99 to go on 12 boss fights and that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. 12 fights for 20 bucks. When you couple that with a tremendously lackluster story, some of the slowest walking in gaming history, and the sheer shallowness of Furi itself, I'd say a better price would be $14.99 tops, or a must buy at $9.99. If you're looking for a game that will give you ample frustration mixed with tremendous excitement, then Furi could be on your list. Don't get me wrong, Furi is a beautiful game to behold that can be a frustrating one to play, and it is a satisfying one to master, but the price of admission seems a bit too high for what you get as a whole package.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Steep
Picture yourself riding in a helicopter through the Alps up to the summit of The Matterhorn. As you disembark from the helicopter you feel, and hear, the crunch of the fresh powdery snow beneath your boots. Your helicopter disperses and there you are, alone on the top of the mountain listening to the wind howl you feel your adrenaline start to pump. Off in the horizon you see the sun start to creep above the horizon and you watch as the mountains in the Alps twinkle like diamonds as their snow catches the sun's rays for the first time. You check your wingsuit one last time, say a quiet prayer, take a deep breath, and then you jump into the expansive world of Steep.This is the world that Ubisoft Annecy have painstakingly worked to create, and like the mountain range itself, upon first look it can be a bit overwhelming. Sectioned off in a specific part of the Alps, Steep combines some of the most iconic mountains such as Mont Blanc, The Matterhorn, and more into one titanic snow filled sandbox. Priced at $59.99(USD), Steep prides itself on giving you full control over the mountain while delivering one exhilarating experience after another. However, Steep also aims to deliver an incredible simulation experience instead of an over the top arcade adventure. So, is Steep the winter wonderland playground you've always dreamed about or does fall like an avalanche speeding down the side of a mountain?
If you're expecting some form of story within Steep then you're going to be sadly disappointed. Steep is broken up into numerous events scattered throughout the mountain range, but first you must go through the tutorial which can be incredibly vague at times making you become part snowboarder and part Sherlock Holmes when it comes to figuring out what to do next. Events take place over four categories, which are snowboarding, skiing, wing suiting, and paragliding. Each of these events come with varying difficulties as well as tasks that you must complete to achieve either bronze, silver, or gold medals. There are some randomly scattered story missions that don't really pertain to any locked in plot structure; they almost feel like they are called "story" just to say that there are story elements within the game.
One thing you'll discover as you navigate through the tutorial is the simple fact that mission selection is one of the most complex and annoying tasks you will find in any game to date. To access the mountain overview you have to hold the B button down which will result in a spatial view of the Alps. Here you trudge through using a small disc selection tool that allows you to navigate all over the mountains and select items from your own trail to events and more. Again, this sounds good until you go through it and realize that it's aggravatingly slow and cumbersome. You would think that there would be a button you could press to bring up a list of available events that you've uncovered and that you could sort them by event type, difficulty and more, but you'd be wrong. Instead you start to almost feel like Ray Charles trying to navigate the mountains just to find one simple run to click on. I could easily see this being perfect for those who use a mouse on a PC, but on the Xbox One controller this is an incredible pain that will stay with you throughout your entire Steep experience.
Once you have a small understanding of how the mission system works you'll need to find more runs within the mountain range. In order to find various other locations on the mountain to unlock you must press LB to bring up your binoculars and then spend a ridiculous amount of time looking along the mountain range until you hear a chime and see a series of dark grey stripes which indicate a new event zone. Once you have found a location you have to zoom it into focus with your binoculars and pray that you're close enough to unlock it, but if not, then you'll have to find a way to get close enough. I found that an easy way to do this was, while you're in binocular mode, press the RS and create a user generated point of interest. I learned to do this after I found a zone but was too far away and I decided to paraglide towards it, but ended up forgetting where it was when I landed. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself so let's get back to the tutorial.
The tutorial is also a prime way to get you used to Steep's simulation and physics engines, which at times will make you want to smash your virtual snowboard in two, or cut your own lines on your paraglider. This is thanks to the g-forces that the game tries to judge and simulate on your rider, which sounds good in theory, but it fails miserably in execution. Numerous times I would be riding down the mountain and go over a small jump and my character would crash from the simulated g-force. There were even times when I went over a small patch of mountain that was smooth but not snow covered and instantly my g-force meter went off the charts and my character seemed to get hit with MAX G's as he seemingly collapsed and crashed down the mountain. Now, I can understand something like that should I be boarding down a mountain side at full speed and slam right into a tree, but a little textured patch shouldn't cause the same impact. I can comprehend why someone would think programming a g-force detection system would be a good idea, but I can also discern why something like this needs to be perfected in order to be of any use.
Steep does allow you to try to pull of some tricks; however, the physics engine is unpredictable at best and at its' worst it is name swearing bad. Everything seems tranquil and simplistic on the surface, but when you get into the depths of the controls you're in for a totally different ride. For example, if you want to jump you're required to hold down the RT to crouch and prepare for a jump, then when you hit a designated distance from the lip of the jump you're supposed to release the RT and your character, in theory, will take off from the powder and launch skyward into the air. This is singlehandedly the biggest problem with Steep, as the the area you need to release RT varies between jumps and there's no setting to select where you could have such zones included as part of your HUD. This would have solved a lot of problems, but since it's not included you essentially have to play a guessing game that ends in one of three ways. Either you miraculously hit your jump and soar through the air majestically, you time your jump early and go right into the jump itself crashing away, or the 3rd result is that you time your jump late and end up not jumping at all and just sort of fall over the ramp and crash into the mountain below.
Should you somehow make it into the air on a jump you can do tricks with the LS by pressing it left, right, up, or down. You will start to rotate or flip, but you have to make sure you time your release of the LS otherwise you'll go crashing into the snow below. Should you feel risky and decide to add a grab into the jump, just hit your LT or RT while in the air and you should grab the board, but as would be expected, you need to time your release otherwise, you guessed it, you crash. So, now that I've established the fact that jumping and doing tricks are about as easy to do as walking on water, and that the g-force meter is not well implemented, you can see the trend here. If you fail at almost anything you do then you'll end up a rolling ball of snow. Not really a shining beacon of enjoyment considering this is the game's primary function.
Steep is somewhat salvaged though thanks to the replay function it incorporates. Should you careen to your death you can just retry over and over and over again. Another bonus of this feature is that it's instant, so there isn't any loading that has to take place over and over again. I can honestly say that if it weren't for this feature I'd given up a long, long time ago. Get ready to repeat and retry more than you ever thought you could because even when you think you have the learning curve mastered Steep will always find a way to keep you on your toes and remind you that the mountain always wins.
Ubisoft Annecy has included seamless drop in and drop out multiplayer and surprisingly it works well. It works so flawlessly that during one play session I hit the replay function only to discover that at the beginning of my run someone else was standing literally on my head. While this is a nice concept, and I'm glad that it's included, I find that enjoying the mountains alone is perfect for me. And when I say enjoying the mountains that's because Steep is simply beautiful to look at and behold.
From standing on top of a mountain you can change the time of day with the d-pad, and every visual element is done with a masterful precision to detail. The lighting and snow effects are on a level never before experienced, and you can tell that this is where the bulk of the performance went to, and I'm actually thankful that they did this. Pulling up and stopping while on a snowboard and watching the powder spray and the small packets of snow trickle down from your landing area that carve out their own paths is incredibly life like.
Unfortunately the same can't be said for the soundtrack. Right from the opening screen the sound effects gives Steep an aura of majesty. It hits you that you're about to go one on one with a mountain that has claimed countless lives, so be ready. This ambience is incredible and then it all goes downhill when you hear the tunes that have been selected to play in-game. While the ambient soundscapes provide a wonderful backdrop, hearing the same tune repeated over again when you hit the replay function on any of the events drove me up the wall so much so that I ended turning the sound off.
Steep is a beautiful package that unfortunately, once opened, gives you more hassle and trouble than you may imagine. If you're thinking of trying to get gold medals on every challenge I wish you the best of luck because you're going to need it. While not most of the gameplay itself is far from perfect, Steep is the genesis of extreme snow experiences from Ubisoft Annecy. A revamped g-force system, tweaked physics engine, improved handling and better UI are some of the major things that hamper the gameplay experience. If they can make changes and improvements in these areas it could really bring Steep to a quality similar to those found in other simulation sports games. It's clear though that Ubisoft Annecy has potential to deliver an amazing gameplay experience, so I'm hopeful that we see more improvements from Steep in the future.
Suggestions:
1. Revamp the g-force system.
2. Tweak your physics engine.
3. Improve the handling.
4. Please make a better UI.
5. Look into ironing out minor glitches and bugs.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Dwarves, The
Action RPG games, if done right, can provide countless hours of joy and entertainment. THQ Nordic has tossed its hat into this ring with their latest attempt called The Dwarves. Priced at just under $40 plus tax, The Dwarves walks a fine line between overpriced budget beater and something that feels like it needs a bit more time to iron out the kinks and make the game better. I thought to myself, "Oh we got Dwarves, Elves, and Orcs, so this should be at least decent given all the quality source material to use as inspiration." And then I played the game and realized that sometimes, even with a multi-billion dollar, award winning blueprint to inspire you, like the Dwarves themselves, that THQ Nordic struggled to deliver as I'd hoped. Let me explain.Dwarves starts out as a classic Orc versus Dwarf battle for passage through the gates of Girdlegard. It's during this first battle that you come to grips with the game's control, and I'm sorry to say it isn't that impressive. On the bottom left of the screen you will see not only your health, but your power meter as well. This is the meter which you draw upon to activate your abilities. You'll learn quickly since there really is no tutorial that your X button will become your best friend. I almost married mine. The X button allows you to pause the game to input your commands, so right away you can see some real time strategy elements playing throughout the game. Then you have to use the D-pad to select your ability and it's here that you'll notice a required number of points that your skill deducts from your power meter. But the simplicity continues.
For example, your standard command input will go as follows. You use the Left Stick to navigate to your enemy, then when you are up close you press X to pause the time, then select which ability you want to use on the D-pad. You'll then press the A button to accept your command choice and press X to resume time in the game and watch your actions unfold. The B button acts as your cancel button should you need it, but one thing to consider is that friendly fire is on. So when you hit your leap ability to jump deep into the nest of Orcs, just remember should any fellow allies be within your landing, you will cause damage to them as well. There's no option for turning this off but thankfully your health can naturally regenerate over time, so long as you're not getting hit. The control scheme doesn't have an attack button because the Dwarves will automatically attack their enemies if they are within range, which is disorienting considering you almost have to stand still if you wish to deal any damage at all to your opponents.
With your regular melee attacks dealing only so much damage, Dwarves focuses on your ability to manage your power meter through your use of your abilities. These abilities can consist of a mighty swing of the Axe that clears the line of foes in front of you by knocking them back, or jumping into the fray by landing with a thud that causes damage to everyone in the surrounding area and knocks them down as well. These abilities all take a certain amount of power from your meter and thankfully you can recharge the meter by causing damage, killing an opponent, or just simply wait while it charges back up. When you start to gather your party together you can also use the Left and Right Bumpers to switch in between your other members and cue up any abilities they may have. Your Right Trigger and Stick control the camera and zoom of the game, but that's something I'll touch on here in a moment.
Now that you’re up to speed on the control mechanics, I have to say that it's unfortunate that the plot leaves a lot to be desired. The Alfar, who are essentially evil Elves, have teamed up with the Orcs and they forcibly assault the gates of Girdlegard, and after ages and ages of the door holding fast, it's opened. Now the Orc armies rage war over the various lands and their inhabitants. You play the role of Tungdil, who is a Dwarf but was raised up by humans. During this upbringing you were taught how to read and write, so even though you may be married to a forge, Tungdil loves to learn about everything. Early on you are sent out on a quest and throughout your journeys you come into contact with around 50 distinct characters. Over time you can build up your own team of up to 12 companions which will make fighting the ceaseless hordes of Orcs that much easier, however, being that this is based off the series of books by a German author named Markus Heitz, you get the sensation that the story seems rather drawn out.
The reason I say this is because when you play The Dwarves, you will easily notice how colossal the map truly is. All the areas to explore and places to travel will open up their secrets over time but you'll spend most of the time moving from point to point making choices. This is why I STRONGLY recommend you save a LOT. Sometimes choices you make may or may not have unintended consequences. Saving also helps should you encounter a battle you can't seem to pass and you need to reload and chose a different path choice. The game does Auto Save, however, not often enough and if you're not careful you could lose a lot of progress.
Now even though the map may be enormous, the visual representation of the lands and the characters themselves are done surprisingly well. That is until you decide to move the camera or the characters and the screen will start to tear. What really struck me by surprise was how the loading screens in the beginning few stages experienced a screen tear that had a yellow streak going from the top right corner to the bottom left corner (the loading screen is also rather lengthy I may add). Aside from the numerous screen tears, when the game switches into a cutscene you see some wonderfully detailed figures, however, the graphics engine can't handle it and it starts to almost look like stop motion animation than smooth and textured CG. I found in terms of the audio that I was pleasantly surprised with the music as the soundtrack seemed to catch my ear then hold my attention throughout the game itself. I also found myself enjoying the voice acting and while there were moments that felt overplayed, the overall voice acting was a solid win for this game.
Having devoted lots of hours into this game I can say that The Dwarves provides a lot of content, but not a lot of meaningful content. It is definitely a game that will drain hours upon hours of your life away, but I felt that the more I played it, the less I actually wanted to. The story never fully grasped me. When I think about it, I spent about 70% of my time moving between points on a map, about 20% of my time watching loading screens, 8% of the time exploring and fighting, and about 2% of the time I was watching cutscenes. At the end of the day I wish The Dwarves would have improved the story, fixed some of the visual mishaps, and improved the loading issues, because I was hoping I could score this higher, but given some of the hiccups with the game I think you can find better gaming out there for the price of this one. Only die-hard fans of the genre need apply.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Darksiders: Warmastered Edition
Since the birth of man there have been tales of Heaven and Hell and the battle that is supposedly waiting to commence. The now defunct publisher THQ originally started their tale of this conflict with the game series Darksiders. Released almost seven years ago, Darksiders was a game that took people by surprise and it became a sleeper hit that rapidly developed a large cult following. Even though it wasn't marketed with the same steamrolling style as Battlefield, Call of Duty, Mass Effect, Halo, or any other triple A games, an overwhelming majority of those who played it will say they absolutely loved it given it's original story and main protagonist. Former publisher THQ had a hit on their hands.Now, after a tumultuous past few years, with the closing of THQ and the formation of THQ Nordic, we have seen the reintroduction of the Darksiders series on the Xbox One. Oddly enough the sequel, Darksiders II, was released before the original, but hopefully the added capital gained during this time will mean more amazing things for the future of this I.P. Being that I didn't do the original review I must confess that this will be my viewpoint in this writing. Clocking in at $19.99 THQ Nordic has already hit a massive goal and I'll get to that in a minute, but for now, on to the review.
For those who have never played Darksiders before it tells the tale of the fragile truce between Heaven and Hell and the Charred Council who preserve the balance and peace between realms. During this time a 3rd kingdom emerged, which was the kingdom of man. Eager to gain an advantage in the celestial struggle, both sides fight with humanity stuck in the middle to suffer. This is when the Charred Council stepped in and sealed a truce between the realms and solidified it with 7 seals, and if these seals were eventually broken they would summon forth the call of the riders of the apocalypse who would descend upon the Kingdom of Man and judge both Heaven and Hell accordingly.
That is the premise to Darksiders, and in this original installment you get to play as War. He is one of the four summoned riders of the apocalypse, but there is a problem. According to the Charred Council the seventh seal hasn't been broken and War has apparently acted on his own as he was sent to the Kingdom of Man. To atone for his sin War must lay siege to the 'Destroyer' who has already started attacking humanity. How could a rider be summoned if the seals weren’t broken? Why would a call come forth if the balance was still kept? Who would try to manipulate the riders of the apocalypse and for what reason? These are but some of the questions that will be answered in the story, which is why it should never be spoiled for fresh eyes. Trust me, you'll thank me later.
One of the reasons that Darksiders became such a hit is the gameplay mechanics. Using a straightforward but simplistic layout, Darksiders manages to bring a solid feel to the game experience. Sure, you have your basic hack and slash attacks, but the ability to switch from auto-locking onto an enemy to independently targeting the field in front of you, allowing you to freestyle hack at anything that moves near you, can all be done seamlessly with very little jarring between transitions, making abilities easy to use through your sub-menus. These powers not only require something called wrath to utilize, but look absolutely devastating, but I'll touch on that in a moment. The gameplay is enhanced by some light RPG elements where you can upgrade your move set, weapon damage, health, wrath, etc. Despite having to get used to the camera all over again, these elements combine to make Darksiders an enjoyable experience from beginning to end.
Now, Darksiders plays well, but one aspect that will stand out simply because of its quality is the voice acting. War comes off as a stoic judge of righteousness who will always get to the point in a conversation. However, throughout the game you will encounter demons and angels that help bring this whole story to life in a way that was absolutely incredible given the game is almost seven years old. Speaking of the audio, War's demon companion is voiced by the legend Mark Hamill who does his iconic Joker voice and it fits the demon, and his mannerisms, brilliantly. Now, this game wears the title Darksiders Warmastered Edition and that is because THQ Nordic has released Darksiders with one massive overhaul, which is in the graphics.
Running now at 1080p 60fps this classic adventure masterpiece simply looks stunning. While the original was wonderful, this is a remaster that can be seen as setting the standard for how upgrading graphics should be done. New textures seem to blanket this game and the character modeling artwork really shines through in the higher resolution. One thing that did sort of strike me as odd though is that while the characters and overall graphics got a major steroid injection, the buildings found throughout the game seem unchanged, and it is almost like they don't fit or belong in this 'remastered' Darksiders world. While this minor detail is a setback, the new special effects found in using War's powers more than compensates for it.
Earlier on I said that THQ Nordic already hit a massive goal. Releasing a game that is almost seven years old, with the only major work being a graphic overhaul, the price had better properly reflect this fact, and for the Darksiders: Warmastered Edition it does. Worried that some other companies have released less and charged more, THQ Nordic have priced this gem at a sweet spot to solidify it as a must have. Yes, I know there is absolutely no extra content of any kind, and that only the visuals have received a facelift while the audio and gameplay feel untouched. The thing is though, THQ Nordic probably stared at the original game and thought if it works so well why should we mess with it? Undoubtedly, this Darksiders remastered game is most likely the best $19.99 you can spend on the Xbox One at this moment as you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of a game that is solid all around.
Suggestions: A complete overhaul of all audio elements would be nice, but it is not particularly necessary.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Watch Dogs 2
I'll say it, I loved the original Watch Dogs game. I know that this may start throwing some of you into an internet rage, but tough, it is what it is. Now Ubisoft has come out with its sequel, Watch Dogs 2, and not only has the location switched up, but so has the main character along with almost everything else. Now how can you change almost everything and expect to produce something of quality again? Does this new sequel pull off the "lulz" or should this be one to avoid? As I just mentioned, I liked the original Watch Dogs game. I thought the story that was played out had merits of meaning and substance and centralized around a plot that had a beginning, middle, and end. In Watch Dogs 2 I don't get that same feeling. Gone are the meaningful nuances throughout the plot and instead replaced with a generic "I'm angry at the world" style hacktivism. Instead of something that would be fit for an intellectual audience it feels more like a student protest group gone wrong than a dedicated character trying to advance a goal through his objectives. This detachment from what we've expected from the original is light-hearted in tone, which is actually quite depressing considering the magnitude of the results your character tries to achieve.
Basically in a nut shell the ctOS 2.0 system is up and running and San Francisco is the next breeding ground for data mining citizens to influence their lives. We've seen similar actions just during this past election with Google and Facebook and their users. Google, at one point, completely omitted a candidate from a search and when you look at their parent company Alphabet, as their CEO wanted to be a big player in a major political campaign. You can easily see how Watch Dogs 2 takes cues from events that are occurring in real life, which does make for a fantastic pool of inspiration to draw from, but I never once got the sensation that I was in perilous danger. This is in part because no longer are you working as a lone entity, but you’re now part of a group. Now, you're a part of DedSec.
This is what took me a long time to try and adjust to. When you begin you bear witness to your group, or "crew", of fellow hacktivists, these dainty snowflakes are your typical cliché of upset, emotionally charged, young adolescents that would rather protest the destruction of a type of flower than get a meaningful education. This really set me back because I thought Aiden from the original Watch Dogs was a character of meaning and substance, and I didn't get that feeling of Marcus Holloway (your new main character). I don't think it was his light-hearted attitude that did it, but the fact that your group spends more time trying to offer ways of causing civil disruption and disobedience than actually trying to solve a problem. Let me give you an example.
Watch Dogs 2 would have you believe that exposing the personal files of a bank's CEO would be a justified action given what they saw as the exploitation of the bank's customer base through fees and rates. Of course it's their opinion. However, while everyone has a laugh and thinks everything is great now that these infants exposed a CEO, there's nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in terms of offering up a solution to what now becomes a massive problem for its citizens. This is when it dawned on me that this group is only a messenger. A group that is designed to deliver information to the masses that they may or may not be privy to. This is good, however, for a system like this to be effective at all there needs to be a contingency plan in place to take effect if and when it needs to be put into motion. I think little things like this tend to take away from Watch Dogs 2 and really does the game a great injustice.
The gameplay mechanics have been revamped and feel a bit more complex, which tends to make things a bit tricky when trying to maneuver through a crowded metropolitan city like San Francisco to just trying to find someone to hack. The cover system remains; however, the computer AI still feels as dumb as a rock. There were times when I would knock out an enemy and his fellow guard (standing about 15 feet away) wouldn't see anything. There is one new aspect though that stands out though, and that is your skill trees. This new leveling system is based on followers, because apparently gaining followers (for whatever reason) is one of the most important things in the game. Gaining followers will allow you to gain skill points and allow you to outfit Marcus with new gear and better abilities such as calling off a police helicopter or setting a rival gang out to help you clear a building to (my personal favorite), and even upgrading both your remote controlled drones. In order to gain followers and acquire the skill points you have to complete main and side missions which are found all throughout the streets of San Francisco.
This is a good thing because Watch Dogs 2 is a very pretty game. Such things as running a speed boat at full throttle under the Golden Gate Bridge while the sun was setting and casting a nice warm glow off the water demonstrates how Watch Dogs 2 is an impressive looking sandbox to play in. I wish though I could say the same for the soundtrack though. There are a lot of games that I've had the pleasure of listening to, however Watch Dogs 2 isn't one of them. In fact, I found the music so obnoxious that I actually turned the music volume down and I found myself enjoying the game more that way. These depressions though keep stacking up and that's when we come to one of the biggest setbacks of the game itself. There's currently no working multiplayer.
Yes, I know you thought there would be and you thought you and your friends could just jump into San Francisco and take over, but you're wrong. Ubisoft has decided to pull the plug on the whole multiplayer aspect for now due to the immense amount of problems and issues that arose from it at launch. I'm sorry but that takes away from a majority of the value. There's even an update that is supposed to take place 2016/11/19 and it offers a few fixes, namely the glitch where you would be able to see a female NPC's genitals, but no mention at all about restoring online play. As of 2016/11/22 Ubisoft says they are rolling out partial multiplayer (e.g. in-game Multiplayer App to join and hack into other players worlds), but as of the time of this writing we have not seen this implemented yet.
I was hopeful for Watch Dogs 2, and I know a lot of you will enjoy it tremendously; however, to this reviewer it feels like a cheap GTA knock off that adds in some juvenile characters with little to no emotional value and no multiplayer (as of yet). That doesn't mean that what is there is isn't somewhat enjoyable, because it is. While the game controls are a bit more complex, they still feel responsive, and while the plot and missions are almost meaningless, the fact that they take you through a beautiful city is worth every minute spent. Despite this mixed bag I can say that I foresee many, many hours trying to unlock everything Watch Dogs 2 is hiding behind its digital firewall because that is what you will want to do to get the most out of the game.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Xenoraid
For those who read this and think a PlayStation 2 is an antique gaming platform, bear with me one moment. One of the highlights I remember growing up, in what people know as "The Arcade Days", were the hours upon hours playing classic top down shooters. From the days of Galaga to now, these 2D scrolling shooters have been a warm blanket in the gaming genre. Not trying to be complex with a meaningful story, nor trying to be anything more than just enjoyable. Now developer 10tons has released a game called Xenoraid. Does this top down shooter hit its mark? Let's find out.Earth has always wondered if they were alone in the universe, pondering the question if anyone or anything is out there. Well, in Xenoraid we finally get our answer. In true 'Independence Day' movie fashion, aliens begin to invade the Earth's space. We try to communicate with them (because that always works in the movies right?), only to find out that these aren't peaceful aliens, or stupid Star Wars Phantom Menace Trade Federation aliens, but they are rather the Samuel L. Jackson hostile anger management type. I've just now made the plot of the game more entertaining than it actually is; you're welcome. The game is set within a series of stages and each stage has up to 10 individual levels. You complete missions and earn coins for completion and can use this 'currency' to upgrade your ships, but there's a bit more to it than that.
You get a total of 4 different fighters to control which are mapped out and assigned to your four face buttons A, B, X, Y. The gameplay mechanics are incredibly simplistic as the Left Stick moves your ship and the Right Trigger fires your primary weapon, with the Left Trigger firing your secondary weapon. The beauty of this is that you are able to select and configure your loadouts how you want to, should you have the coins to purchase it. Upgrades to your primary and secondary weaponry, along with other ships, means you should be ready to spend a lot of coin (see what I did there). But if you think repairing your ships costs a lot of coins it’s not nearly as much as it costs to replenish a defeated ship.
From the beginning you're given a small amount of coins which you can either spend on your ships in terms of individual upgrades and purchases, or you can save them for bigger and better things. You won't have full access to all available perks at the beginning as you will have to unlock them as you complete missions.
The whole entire upgrade system is the reward hook and we all took the bait. It's the reason that you will want to continue the missions no matter how repetitive they may become. See, in most top down shooters the object of the game is to not get hurt, but in Xenoraid the object is to switch out ships to help dodge incoming fire. Have your guns overheated and the screen is filling with enemies quickly? Don't dodge their fire until you can shoot, swap out your fighters and continue the assault. Sadly, though there are issues here, being the control system, and even though it's very simplistic, is very, very soft. There are improvements you can buy to help with this over time, but for the most part it almost feels like you're using 'The Force'. Since you can only fire straight no matter what, you'll start to quickly adore the ship swap feature.
While the sluggish play control is a big setback I should also mention that the campaign cannot be completed in single player mode, but only local co-op. This is a major blow because incorporating an online multiplayer aspect would be incredibly beneficial as it would allow more people to play together thus increasing sales. Not incorporating an online multiplayer system effectively limits your audience. And that isn't just in the single player mode, but the survival mission mode as well. This mode is your only other option for gameplay and is essentially a Horde-like Mode, but in a 2D vertical scrolling shooting game. You're timed as to how many enemies you destroy, time spent alive, and other metrics; however, like the single player, co-op in this mode is local only. Those two things really set this game back a light-year.
Since this 2D vertical scrolling shooter isn't trying to be incredibly realistic, or even highly polished, it's graphics offer what I'll call a rustic charm that was found in these types of games throughout the years and decades before. It's certainly not going to win any artistic awards but at the same time it will provide much nostalgia for those that remember those "The Arcade Days". The soundtrack though is period perfect. That high intensity electronic music almost makes you wish you had quarters to put on the screen to indicate you got next game.
If you're a fan of the 2D vertical scrolling shooting games then Xenoraid will undoubtedly be a must buy for you. Priced now at under $10 this game should be on your radar. Yes, there are some hiccups along the way, such as no story, soft play control, and no online multiplayer connectivity, but the customization and build structure of the game lends itself to hours of enjoyment and fun.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Titanfall 2
Throughout the years EA has strived to publish games that give their audience an incredible gaming experience. Originally launched in 2014, Titanfall set standards that now most top tier first person shooters take inspiration from. With the first release becoming known as an innovative staple in the gaming community, how can Respawn and EA top this? By releasing Titanfall 2 and delivering yet another incredible gaming experience. They always say that if you learn from the mistakes you made then you will grow and develop as a person. So has Respawn learned from its mistakes of the original? I would have to say yes.The first Titanfall was a purely multiplayer experience and sported a campaign that was essentially more multiplayer maps. It made the game feel as if it was only half finished. This time around Respawn has put a proper campaign into Titanfall 2, and even though it's short lived, the fact that it even exists at all is one instance where Respawn listened to its loudest critics, the gamers. It may not be perfect, but Respawn's primary goal seems to have shifted to include something that most gamers tended to overlook, that being depth. In the original Titanfall there was no emotional attachment to your Titan. You shot and killed people and bots over and over until your Titan was ready to be called in. When it dropped you used it till it was destroyed and then the process repeated. In Titanfall 2 one of the main goals has been to give you that sense of comradery. A bond that you form with your Titan that turns it into something more than a user controlled killing machine, but a friend and companion that just happens to be the size of a small house and packed with enough armaments to put a small crater in the planet.
Titanfall 2's plot begins with your character, Frontier Militia Rifleman Jack Cooper. This soldier has always had a dream of becoming a legendary Titan pilot with his own Titan by his side, so naturally he worked hard to put himself in a position to train for the very role he's always dreamed about (or he could have simply manipulated the system to promote his own selfish goals, but I'll be positive here). Jack finally gets a chance to do a pilot simulation with his instructor and it's here that you learn the subtleties of Titanfall 2's gameplay mechanics. Originally praised for having a gameplay that was as smooth as silk, Respawn went back to work and said how can we make it better. They decided to allow a bit more controller customization and even include an option to allow user controlled inputs from an Xbox Elite controller (another reason of many to own one). All the mechanics you know are back, and this time it feels like the controls have been tweaked a bit to near perfection. Wall running, that naturally happens when you run...at a wall, feels like it takes longer for your character to drop naturally and this is thanks to the increased in speed while in this motion.
You can now cover more ground faster while traversing from wall to wall, and this makes taking on a Titan while you're on foot more of a fair fight. The ability to jump between buildings and gain and decrease your height all while running at a rapid pace means that pilots now have a distinct advantage when playing. Sure, they may not have cool weaponry that's the size of an 18 wheeler, but board a Titan and drop a couple satchel charges and boom, what Titan? You learn all of these skills while in training; however, just as you're about to finally call in your very own Titan, your pilot training simulation ends and you're thrusted back into reality's cold grasp as your squad is mobilized for an offensive fight on a planet called Typhon which has fallen under attack. This is where you get a convoluted story where you don't realize why this planet is being attacked or why you're once again fighting the IMC (Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation). However, once you arrive you realize that things have turned south and have done so in a big way.
Realizing that your team is under attack and that it appears to be an ambush, you barely survive only to watch a critical moment happen that then changes the game permanently. Watching your mentor of the pilot program die right before your eyes, you bear witness as he transfers control of his Titan BT-7274 to you, and now you are officially a Titanfall Pilot. Throughout the game you and your Titan will converse and it's up to you to select what option you want reply with. I have to admit, I wanted to see what all the experiences were so there were numerous times where I restarted the checkpoint just to select the other dialogue outcomes. I was quite surprised at how well this was written and delivered. You can really see a development of a relationship forming throughout the entire campaign, and while some of it is cold and factual, some of it is quite humorous. This whole sequence of events adds so much more depth to what was originally offered in terms of a campaign compared to the original Titanfall, and while there may be moments that leave you asking why and how, the delivery of such a campaign is one that should be well received with the gaming world.
It's rare to see a company actually listen to its customers, but Respawn did, and they also listened to other critiques as well. For instance, gamers thought that the multiplayer experience (which accounted for the entire game) of the original Titanfall actually decreased in enjoyment as there was very little, if anything, to keep going for that actually meant anything. Respawn has hit back with tons of new customizations, and the beautiful thing about this is that you get to experience all of them and try them out in the single player campaign. Yes, your Titan in the single player campaign can wield a massive sword that would make Cloud from Final Fantasy VII jealous. This type of customization means that when you go into your multiplayer experience you will have already tried out numerous loadouts and found one that works for you. The same also goes for your pilot's weapons, as you will have access to a wide, and I do mean wide, variety of weaponry for you to wield. Weapons such as your standard assault rifles and SMGs, to sniper rifles that fire 2 shots at a time, and even varying types of grenades, all of which will allow you find what works best for you while you prep for multiplayer.
Once you start to develop a familiarity with the loadout and weapon systems you'll start to gravitate to a few, and it's from there that you can start to develop your pilot and Titan for multiplayer. It's a multiplayer system that, in my opinion, is damn near perfect in a game. Realizing the statement "if it's not broken don't fix it", Respawn took to task a way of improving something that was great and have created something that will have a lasting impact on multiplayer games in the future. Some of the new items that help improve the multiplayer are tools like the grappling hook, which you can fire at buildings, or even Titans, to latch on and pull yourself towards. You may be saying "why would I want to get pulled towards an enemy Titan?", well because it gives you a chance to syphon off a power core of your enemy, drop a charge or two, jump off, grapple back to your Titan, and in midair detonating the charges while instantly transferring into your Titan where the health you have gotten from the enemy power core is immediately applied and you, then can continue to decimate enemy Titans.
This is just one of the ways you can incorporate your new tech toys in multiplayer, but one aspect that struck me as a bit odd is that the Titan customizable loadouts are now gone, and that feels like a step backwards to me. This really perplexes me; however, in its place you get to choose from 6 different Titans, but be warned that not all Titans are available at the beginning and you will have to play and grind your experience and credits to not only purchase new perks, accessories, and abilities, but also new Titans as well. You'll notice that each one of the six will carry with it not only their own unique style of weaponry, but also a unique core ability that can vary between Northstar, which allows you to hover in the air while raining a barrage of missile warheads at your opponents, to Ion, which has this massive Iron Man type chest blast of energy that decimates all. These unique cores are what keep Titanfall 2's multiplayer feeling more balanced than ever.
Speaking of multiplayer, you'll find game modes that you already know such as Last Titan Standing (5 person teams go head to head and the last Titan that is left alive wins), free-for-all (12 players in a confined area and they battle it out with Titans available, what could go wrong?), Attrition (basic 6 on 6 fight to the end), Capture the Flag (capture enemy flag and return it to base), pilot vs. pilot (which is an 8 on 8 fight that disables the ability to call in and use Titans), and Amped hardpoint (similar to games of conquest where you capture and hold an area, and once obtained it takes longer for the enemy to reclaim it for themselves). There is a new mode which called Bounty Hunt. In this mode you're tasked with not just shooting and killing every enemy you see, but fulfilling tasks and objectives that you have to earn cash for your team. Once you have acquired cash it's then up to you to get it to a stash where you can deposit it. Be careful though because should you get killed while in combat then you're going to lose some of that money.
These gameplay modes more than equate to a solid multiplayer experience that seems to never get old or tiring and that’s in part to the graphics which are absolutely stunning. Even though I have a 4K TV and play it on a day one launch Xbox One console, the game looks beautiful. All the detail that goes into the varying environments showcase the painstaking time Respawn took to make this game not only play masterfully, but look breathtaking. Spending the time exploring each level was wonderful and trying to find new ways to adapt to the level itself was a breath of fresh air. This is complimented by audio that makes you feel every trigger pull, every explosion, and without question, every single incoming Titanfall. The ambient noise helps establish each unique area and when you hear soldiers around you, and having a surround sound system really surpasses all expectations, especially once my Dolby Atmos system is finally finished, as I can't wait to experience something like this. Imagine having the sound field above you from an incoming Titanfall descend upon you and end with a colossal thud as a new crater has been formed from landing.
I actually have to look very hard to find something wrong with Titanfall 2 to knock it, and that's a wonderful thing. Normally gamers are force fed projects that developers produce without paying any attention to their audience, but not Respawn. Titanfall 2 is a near perfect example of what a quality developer can produce when it listens to the feedback of the community, as it delivers a stunning marriage of near perfect gameplay, near perfect multiplayer, and a story that is well...near perfect. I am very confident saying that Titanfall 2 is one of the best games you can play in 2016, period.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Death God University
As indie games go, I try to review them from a 'value-per-dollar' perspective. Some shock me with their low price point and high replay value thanks to their quality. Still, quite a few others fall on the other side of that coin, offering up sub-par to horrifying experiences for a price that would be considered by all to be near theft. Developer DSK Green Ice Games recently released Death God University for the Xbox One and it's priced at $9.99. With a title like that, a game can't be all that bad right, or can it?Death God University takes place where your character enrolls in, you guessed it, Death God University, where his main goal is to become a Death God Apprentice. He wakes up, puts a huge number of weapons in his backpack, and off to school he goes where he is greeted by the headmaster, the Devil. After surrendering his armament you take control of this character who must go to the classrooms to start his education.
In order get through school your character must complete the mission tasks that your Death God University instructors assign you, including such things as killing high profile people by making it look like they had an "accident". Other missions include stopping a man named Cannibal (who asks you if the lambs have stopped screaming) from selling "strange meat" in his food kiosk, to preventing Miley from literally twerking the planet to death (you confront her in a construction yard with a wrecking ball... seriously). The missions are clever play on words, but sadly all of them require you to do the same exact thing, go to each unlocked area and interact with the highlighted blue item(s) and then combine it with items in your inventory, play a mini game or two, and proceed to the mission ending.
Overall, I found that these missions grew boring fast, and even though there is some clever parody work at play here, there isn't enough uniqueness to keep one's attention, let alone enjoyment. You start to feel that it almost becomes a game where the developers try to blatantly show you how witty they can be instead of trying to create an enjoyable gaming experience. It's actually quite sad when you realize that there is more creativity in the mini games than in the ways to complete the missions themselves, and you start to feel that should be the other way around.
Death God University is broken up into several sections; however, your character is locked out of the areas that serve no use to him in completing his mission, so again you're restricted as to where you can and can't go. Then when you get to your designated area, you can interact ONLY with items that have a neon blue glow, but that is only after you wait over a minute for the level to load.
Once your level loads you'll be able to interact with maps (which allow you to select a different area to load and experience more long load times) or anything that would be deemed a mission item. You can talk to the random NPC's but 99% of the time they offer up worthless information. When you try to obtain mission items you have to be careful not to have people see you do so because theft is bad, and if you are seen the game will deduct from your final grade. This is the crux of the whole game.
When you have 4 areas to explore, don't forget that you're already looking at over 4 minutes of load times. Sound fun yet? It's peculiar why the load times are so long given that each environment isn't that large and the graphics aren't going to blow you away with incredible detail or quality, as Death God University feels like a world of deranged Vinyl POP characters brought to life. I did enjoy some of the musical score, but the sound effects were horrendous. The footsteps while your character 'ninja-runs' for no reason drove me almost literally insane. Outside of the occasional grunt or Halleluiah chant there's no voice acting, and based off the sound effects I'm glad that's the case. And it's not like the gameplay is extensive or complex by any sense of the word.
Your right analog stick controls your camera, while left moves your character, the A button interacts with objects and NPCs, X button brings up your crafting menu where you select your items, and you hit Y to craft. To say that the mechanics are simplified for Death God University is a tremendous understatement. There were times though that I did get stuck while trying to maneuver myself to my target without being detected from others, so while I was happy that I got the object, I had to quit out and restart which meant more incredibly long loading times. You can just hear the excitement coming from my words as I typed that, right?
After going through this game I can't justify spending the $9.99 + tax on it. I could even see this game being a struggle to buy at $4.99. Death God University offers up a weak story filled with repetitive missions that require repetitive actions that require very little problem or skill solving abilities. The game does offer up a somewhat enjoyable music score, but it's horrendous sound effects and graphics have a last generation feel to them. I wish I could tell you that this game was an enjoyable romp through some demented story land, but my enjoyment of Death God University flat lined and it's hard to recommend it to you.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Mark McMorris Infinite Air
I have to admit, I'm a closet snowboard fan. I've never snowboarded in my life, yet since the days of 1080 on the Nintendo 64 I've been hooked. I loved virtually riding from massive jump to massive jump while threading between trees and watching the powder kick up. Recently HB Studios released Mark McMorris Infinite Air, and if you're wondering why the name HB Studios sounds familiar, it's because they created The Golf Club. Priced at $49.99, HB Studios has traded the links for a mountain, so let's see if this game is up to the challenge.Starting off, Mark McMorris Infinite Air throws you right onto the mountain with a snowboard on your feet and away you go. Having never played this game, or even understood what controls do what, I found myself smashing buttons constantly and crashing nonstop. After some frustrating minutes had passed I pressed start, and low and behold I found a tutorial section and it seemed that all my prayers were answered. Or so I thought.
Given that this game claims to have their tricks based in the world of physics, I found that the tutorial is incredibly frustrating due to the steep learning curve. Some of the basic moves are ok, but when you're talking split second timing and multiple button presses do the same thing, you can really find yourself on the wrong end of a boulder or tree, fast. Having gone through the tutorial, I rapidly became aware to the fact that this is not an arcade style SSX game, but rather it leans towards a more simulation experience. Twists, spins, and grabs were fairly easy to learn, but once you started to try and attempt flips you soon found yourself swearing up a storm. The reason for that is thanks to Mark McMorris Infinite Air's physics and timing the game plays more like Skate due to leaning on more of a realistic feel.
Normally when you're playing an arcade style snowboard game there is usually a crouch or jump button that you leave pressed to not only gain speed but you release it whenever you want to gain full height. Not here. Any amount of time after 1 second will instantly deplete your available power for jumping, which means if you think you're going to hold down LT or RT, or both (buttons you use in tandem with the Right Stick) for an elongated period of time and get full height, you're mistaken. Think of it like a car's power curve. There is a certain apex of power that you must hit in order to achieve maximum speed or horsepower. The way I practiced this absolute vital piece of gameplay was to simply find a flat piece of land and just start jumping. I wasn't moving, I was just jumping and trying to practice how long I had to hold the triggers down to get maximum height.
Once you have attempted to get the mechanics down, it's time to dive into the game itself. The Circuits is this title's campaign section and it is split into six varying "tiers", and each one of them is broken up into four different events with each event having five objectives to complete to unlock new gear for your rider. You'll start with some pretty basic objectives, such as gain so many points, or land a trick worth so many points, etc., and throughout the events you'll experience the many different styles of Mark McMorris Infinite Air. But once you arrive at the end, you'll be racing against another pro, and should you win you unlock the new professional rider, and obviously at the end of it all you'll have Mark McMorris himself to challenge.
Now, I want to shift your focus to what I consider the highlight of Mark McMorris Infinite Air, and that is the World Editor feature. Think of this like a massive open world sandbox where you create your very own mountain to play on. This game packs a ton of features and items to place, and the cool thing is that you can edit this all from the air as you fly a helicopter around to make sure that your mountain is just how you want it. On top of sculpting your unique mountain like an artist, you also have in depth control over the objects within your world. Rotating, scaling, manipulating the tilt and height, and snapping them to the mountain to literally create every single angle you want to be in your world. This is without a doubt the best feature, and mode, in the game itself, and there are some AAA titles that don't offer this much creativity in their world editors. When you've got every flake and angle the way you want it, publish it and let riders all over the world explore and have fun on your own creation.
Now when you have a game that is supposed to be centralized on a scenic environment, Mark McMorris Infinite Air tries hard to deliver such an experience. The environments look very serene, and one thing that stood out a great deal were the lighting effects. Transitioning between heavy forests, where the light slips through the cracks, to a massive jump out in the middle of nowhere while the sun beams down hard as soon as you clear, is just some of the ways the dynamic lighting really makes the graphics shine. Now I did experience some frame rate issues when playing, but nothing that would be considered game breaking. And what about the audio you ask? I'm just going to come out and say it, that I'm not a fan at all of the soundtrack; however what I am a fan of are the sound effects and the ambient sounds of nature that you hear while you're riding. They added to the experience of cutting through the snow. I ended up turning the music off and just enjoying the mountain as it was.
Is Mark McMorris a quality snowboard game? Yes and no. I say yes because it's a dramatic step in the right direction, but I say no because the execution in some instances could use much more polish. It goes without saying though that Mark McMorris Infinite Air by HB Studios offers an incredible amount of replay value through its World Editor, but outside of that you will most likely struggle to find the same type of enjoyment in the other areas of this game.
Overall Score: 6.8 / 10
Reus
Having the almighty power of both creation and destruction in your hands has always been a sure fire recipe to bring about entertaining gameplay for days on end. Back in 2013 Abbey Games released a game called Reus, and now in the twilight of 2016, we finally see its release on the Xbox One. Since the 1980's we have craved the power and have spent days, weeks, and months creating expansive and detailed projects. Now though Abbey Games is asking you to pay $24.99, so is this indie game worth the big price point? Let's see.On the surface it seems simplistic. Using the four different giants (Water, Earth, Forest, Swamp), it's up to you to create multiple habitable places where your civilization could grow and flourish by simple resource management. As you start spend more time playing, you realize that Reus has far more depth than you initially expected. You'll get a taste of this throughout the training missions, which I highly recommend, but then it'll be up to you to play through your "Eras" which can be timed, or you can even go into a free play style where its sole focus is on creativity which I used to help figure out some of the finer details which will become important. Your initial games are going to be for about 30 minutes a stretch, however, as you progress you'll be able to branch into both 60 and 120 minute Eras that will enable you to unlock more abilities, transmutations, and see more of Reus.
See, when you create your habitable areas you'll need to essentially become a resource manager. You will have to balance certain qualities such as food, technology, wealth, greed, happiness, and more. Thankfully you are able to pause the game and still issue commands to your giants, because of course, you have no control over your people. While each giant possesses their unique abilities, the method in which they interact with abilities from other giants is where REUS' real soul rests. For instance, let's say you have your forest giant plant some blueberries, then you have your ocean giant enhance the blueberries; they then become strawberries. Strawberries produce more food, but offer a bonus of +8 food if you place blueberries next to it. This process is called transmutation and it can be applied to every single resource in REUS which helps when your citizens start building projects that require certain amounts of a particular type of resource.
Now like in all civilizations, once you have wealth and extreme resources, your inhabitants become greedy, and depending on how big of a difference there is between available and used resources, your village could rise up and attack other villages you create to gain their sought after resources, thus wiping out the other village. Now you can stop this if you want, or you can let this play out, the choice is entirely yours. Just remember that your citizens know what your actions are, and while you have to manage their greed along with resources, you also don't want them focusing their anger on you for any reason. Villages will expand over time due to their happiness, which in turn will allow you to create more resources. Now if you wanted to, you can focus on using every single type of giant at once, but I found it much more convenient to hone in on one type of giant and use what abilities I have of the other giants to support its growth.
This way I became accustomed to how certain resources played off each other and how different transmutations in key locations can exponentially increase the amount of resources at your disposal. In fact, I would strongly also advise to play Reus with a pad and paper so that you can keep track of the 20 different minerals you can mine, 40 plants to harvest, and 40 animals to hunt. Each have their own symbiosis and transmutation, and trying to keep all of that information while managing your population is truly a daunting task. Now you heard me mention about completing the training missions, and the reason I highly suggest that is because REUS does very little to explain to you the controller layout along with how to select items, transmute them, etc.
Using the Right Stick to zoom in and out and rotate the planet while using the D-Pad to select various abilities and giants is just part of a complex gameplay management system that has you focusing on various side panels, such as the attributes on the right, and your people's stats on the left. That's not to say that REUS is a bad looking game by any means. Done up in a 2D side scrolling wheeled surface, the ease of navigation is thankfully smooth, which is critical when you start talking about developing areas for habitat. The colorful yet distinct artwork looks beautiful, and even the resources are as individual as the giants themselves, and when combined with a lighthearted soundtrack, Reus becomes a very enjoyable game for many, many hours.
Now as a fan of achievements I'm more than happy to report that going for some of these larger achievements is not only going to take me a lot of time, but be an incredible amount of fun. Reus offers gamers an incredibly deceptive and uniquely in-depth god strategy experience. However, Reus is a bit of a stretch for its $25 price tag, but easily worth $19.99 all day long, so keep an eye out for a sale. If you're a fan of a game that actually gets significantly harder the more experienced you become, then Reus is for you.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Necropolis
When you think of games that test your patience to the point where you can envision a controller flying through your television, games like Dark Souls instantly come to mind. Developer Harebrained Schemes plays upon the very mechanics of that title, one that literally pissed off gamers, yet at the same time made devout followers of those who adored it, and released a game called Necropolis. However, these developers decided to take things to a whole new level with Necropolis, but did they cross the infamous line in the sand? You decide.Right from the beginning you're going to find that Necropolis is simple, like smash your head into a wall kind of simple. Get from point A to point B, kill everything in sight, and do not die. Let me repeat that that last point: do not die. Harebrained Schemes decided that Necropolis will have the same dungeon crawling adventure style that millions love. However, they were not done there because they thought it would be fun to incorporate similar death mechanics that you can find in Dark Souls. As you progress through each level you can find better weapons, items, and gear, but should you die you will start all the way back at the beginning of the entire game and lose everything.
This really helps to decrease the replay value for one simple reason, as almost everything in this game is either hidden from you or not explained at all. Case in point, take the story. There barely is one. Apparently you have to make it from the top of the pyramid that you're in to the bottom or center, and the game never really explains anything as to why or how. Thankfully you at least get a wall image that depicts the control scheme at the beginning, but the rest of the time the dialogue that transpires is more poor comedy and nonsense than anything useful. You almost start to wonder why developers would do such a thing.
Necropolis is a multiplayer game at heart but it can be played solo. Having an Xbox One Elite controller falling apart in my hands while I was playing, I have come to the conclusion that should you decide to play through it solo, some form of therapy is in order because you are setting yourself up for massive disappointment after massive disappointment,here's why; You have to balance the use of the brilliant lock on mechanism because normally the game will send room after room of enemies after you, and when you're locked on, you won't see attackers coming from behind. Then you'll have to balance your stamina, and everything takes stamina such as dodging, rolling, jumping, swinging your sword, and using your secondary weapon. All of these extras expend your stamina which you'll have to figure out because the game never explains that to you either. Oh, but there's more.
Nothing in terms of codex and secrets are explained either. You can navigate through the game and find a codex but you have absolutely no idea what it does or how it helps you in any way. And for some strange reason Necropolis actually finds all of this sadistic humor funny as it taunts and mocks you throughout the game. Not only does it do all of this, but when you go to reload after dying, normally you would see some form of in-game information that would give you some clue as to how to pass or handle certain areas but nope, not here. Instead you get snarky comments that pass off as intelligent, but in reality it's meaningless banter.
It goes without saying that playing in a group is almost a requirement if you feel that any progression is going to be made, but the dungeon randomization does seem to do the trick for solo play. However, you can rapidly find that the desire to replay the pyramid over and over again diminishes greatly thanks to the randomizer being pretty shallow. I did enjoy game's visual style though. I really felt a minimalistic sense on display here and the notches of color that are selectively shown really give Necropolis an almost back from the dead kind of feeling. The soundtrack though was like the plot; next to invisible.
Make no mistake, Necropolis is a very hard game, and should you be playing solo, it is a game that is shockingly and absolutely brutally hard as it tries it's best to keep you in the dungeon for all eternity. On top of this, being priced at $30 makes Necropolis a really hard sell simply because other games that have pioneered the type of gameplay mechanics found within have already been out, are cheaper, and more exciting to play. When you essentially blindfold your gaming audience and expect them to trudge through the game's levels, I struggle to think of a reason to plunk down the price of admission. If you're a fanatic for games like the Dark Souls series, then you may find your sadistic kicks in Necropolis, otherwise your money is better spent elsewhere.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide
What would happen if a game developer took a fantasy world setting full of magic, steel, and gunpowder, and pitted several classes of characters sending them forth to exterminate the Skaven who threaten to destroy everything in existence? This is the type of question that developer Fatshark answered with their release Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide. Priced at $39.99 Fatshark has attempted to bring the PC hit to consoles and deliver a quality gaming experience. Have they done it? Let's find out.Long ago it was prophesied that The End Times would bring about an apocalyptic series of events that would ultimately lead to the complete and total destruction of the Warhammer world. Think of this as another extinction level event of which nothing will be the same again (e.g. Marvel Civil War). However, in the face of such unending demise, a band of 5 warriors have bonded together in a last ditch effort to thwart the evil from becoming so and to rewrite history. Although this sounds like a great narrative, the plot lines and execution of the story is incredibly shallow. I do understand that it's not the type of game that would involve an immense depth to a plot, but if you're ultimately looking for a trigger testing hack and slash game, look no further. With such a wealth of information at hand for reference and/or inspiration, it's a shame that such a game just seems to focus on hacking and slashing everything and going from point A to a linear point B.
I cannot, in good conscience, go any further without discussing how blatant Fatshark has been in mirroring the game essence of Left 4 Dead. Vermintide almost literally seems to have copied every point from Left 4 Dead and just put a Warhammer skin on it. For starters, the whole co-op party system where the party leader can select between missions. And of course there is also 'their' version of a horde mode. Once in the selected level you'll be tasked to take your group from point A to point B yet you're not given a map because the levels are so linear you cannot get lost. The only exploration that exists is navigating through select homes and back alleys that you can search while you are making your way towards your task's end. But before you do any of this you have to select your character, and in Vermintide there are 5 different ones to select from.
The Waywatcher would be regarded as a wood elf who utilizes bows, daggers and swords. Your Bright Wizard is just that, a wizard, who can unleash fire from her staff, but is governed by her use of her magic which can unfortunately consume her, thus killing her. Next you have your Soldier class who is about as generic as they come and is proficient in the use of shotguns, swords, hammers, etc. Then the shortest hero to select from is your Dwarf Ranger, who is essentially Gimli from Lord of the Rings. He's a short dwarf with a shield who can run rampant on foes with his crossbow, hammer, and of course, an axe. Rounding off the character list you have your Witch Hunter. This character sports pistols and rapiers in battle, but they can also wield crossbows and larger melee weapons such as hammers. Completing missions with these characters will allow you to level them up and unlock new character development slots to bring your hero to a whole new level.
The tutorial is good to get your feet wet in terms of the control scheme. Controls are relatively simplistic given the variants of moves that come from a PC landscape, but yet they do not seem to quite feel as familiar as other first person shooter layouts. The Left Trigger is used for blocking and the Right for attacking. The Y button switches between ranged attacks and your melee weapon. The A button is assigned for jumping (barely gets your character off the ground), and X allows you to interact with objects. Finally, the d-pad is used for quick selection of potions, etc. Earlier I wrote that this was a trigger tester because after long hours of gameplay you will not only have a much stronger right index finger, but you'll find out how tough your controller triggers actually are.
This Left 4 Dead clone does hold some improvements as the game is broken up into several missions (a total of 16 in fact) that not only increase in difficulty, but also include 3 bonus missions to play as well. Naturally, at the end of each mission you're not only awarded XP to help level your character up, but you also get the opportunity to try for gear which can consist of weapons or trinkets which you can either wear or combine within a forge/shrine to produce better quality items. This helps increase the replay factor, which is good considering all you ever do is hack and kill everything over and over again.
Now as mentioned earlier, Vermintide is a co-op experience, however, if you don't have any friends online, or any that want to play this game, you can still select to host an open game where gamers can join your match, allowing you to have up to 3 AI bots or any combination of both. We all know that AI companionship in video games is not reliable at all, and while that's true for Vermintide, there's more problems lurking in the darkness. One of the problems is since you absolutely have to connect to Vermintide's online servers to play, should there be any interruption, either on your end or theirs, you won't be able to play anything.
Other connection issues arise as well. If you're in someone else's game and they decide that they no longer want to play and leave their game, you're instantly booted, not back to your own individual Inn, but to the game's main title screen. So essentially, once you join a host's game your connection to the servers becomes solely dependent upon them. In keeping with the whole connection theme, unless you're in a party chat, there is very little in-game communication. This seems weird as you're supposed to be playing a co-op game but it doesn't allow you to communicate with one another easily.
In terms of the visuals, it's a mixed bag. The cutscenes are done with great detail and you can see that a lot of work went into producing the world in which you play in; however, there are some shading issues and graphic abnormalities that are random but not unnoticed during actual gameplay. The sound effects and soundtrack to this game is honestly not the game's strongest point. The lackluster music and generic sound effects leave a lot to be desired, and the voice acting is tolerable, so when assessed as a whole the sound just gets it done in this game.
Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide, although not perfect as it has some issues, still manages to bring about a fresh and deeper evolution of the Left 4 Dead gameplay formula making for a somewhat enjoyable gaming experience. There is still content that is available on PC that isn't available yet on the Xbox One, but from the starting block it seems that developer Fatshark has done a pretty good job not just bringing a PC game to the consoles, but also in bringing some relative fun to gamers with this new game.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Mafia III
Open world games (sandbox) have long been a staple of successful video games. The Mafia franchise, which falls within the sandbox video game genre, has always taken a far more mature approach to its narrative found, and the most recent entry into the series, Mafia 3, is no different. In fact, developer Hangar 13 tells you up front, with a warning spanning the entire screen, that what you're about to hear, play, and experience contains nudity, vulgar language, dramatic violence, and hate speech. They do this out of respect for those who lived through such hate and anger in a form of tribute to their times. Let's see though just how good Hangar 13 did as we head back in time to the late 1960's.Mafia 3's greatest strength has to be its story. Set in a deep southern town called New Bordeaux, it is Hangar 13's attempt at a theoretical New Orleans, complete with all the character that you would expect given that the Vietnam War has just ended and segregation of people is present, and all of the emotions and consequences of such are in the minds of the populous. Here is a tale involving Lincoln Clay, the character who you control. He is an African American who originally enlisted in the Army and was sent over to Vietnam, but due to his excellent performance he was promoted into a Special Forces division. After coming back, you, as Lincoln, find that your father has crossed a mob boss and that certain gangs are trying to take over specific territories within New Bordeaux, and in the end you discover that they are all led by one deceitful "Son of a Bitch".
This entire tale is more than just your classic cliché of vigilante justice, as it is a direct element of racism and the mentality of a society as a whole. Examples of this include the crimes you commit. If you commit a crime in some upscale estate area, then expect the police to charge at you hard to nail you for a crime; however, do it in the slums or the swamp and you could literally get away with murder.
I enjoyed how the delivery of the story is setup to be like some form of documentary. Each mission seemed to carry with it a new mini-movie which was the documentary unfolding, and the use of media form that time era was a stroke of brilliance to tie it all into the time period the game takes place in. After the cutscenes the mission starts and you're on your way. Now, the ultimate goal of Mafia 3 is to reclaim the city and you have to start going through the criminal empire from the ground up.
There will be times when you shoot to kill, but other times it pays to have friends that are ambitious. Remember the phrase: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"? Once you're on the path to reclaiming the city you will have to make choices in terms of support. Reclaiming these areas and showing support will allow you to unlock perks that can essentially help turn Lincoln into a bigger, more lethal killing machine. You will start to balance your time in between the areas that you reclaim because if you don't the gangs in the area will actually rise up against you. Not only does this change what perks are available for you to get when you progress, but it will also effect the ending you get in the game, which is a wonderful treat given the mostly linear storylines we experience today.
Mafia 3's gameplay is very straight forward. If you've played any 3rd person action game in the past, oh 20 years or so, then you're well familiar with the style. The A button leads you in and out of cover (sometimes though there were instances where I would "pop" out of cover for no reason), the left bumper switches weapons, left trigger aims, the right trigger fires, etc. So, there really isn't any kind of learning curve when it comes to learning the controls behind the game. This is a refreshing aspect, but throughout the game you will witness an ungodly amount of repetition within not only the gameplay, but the combat and mission structure as well. Once the city is totally opened up to you it is a time when Mafia 3 offers its best, but it's also when you realize that it may not be all it's cracked up to be.
For starters there's no fast travel, anywhere. If you have a mission that takes you across town and you complete it in less than a minute, congratulations, you can now haul your butt back across town so you can fetch your next quest. Even though the driving mechanics are enjoyable, and are more of an arcade style, it feels incredibly dull at times. Another gripe has to do with the visuals. While the cutscenes are fantastic the same cannot be said for the rest of the game. Sure it's authentic; however, numerous times my game's color would shift and change, and the open world modeling is definitely nothing like other top tier sandbox games such as Grand Theft Auto (come on, you know the comparison would happen). Physics also seem to take a break from time to time. For example, as I was driving my car I tapped the bumper of the car in front of me and I took to the skies with flight. I then ended up crashing down and my car was destroyed.
While there may be tons of bugs within Mafia 3, the soundtrack is pure gold. Set in the 1960's era, the entire soundtrack consists of iconic songs from back in that time period. Jimmy Hendricks, The Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and more belt over the radio station, and that's when I had a revelation about this game. Lately some games have tried hard to give gamers more radio stations to listen to, and in the process give you more of a music choice, but what some of them fail to do is provide quality music. Case in point, listening to the soundtrack of the new Forza Horizon 3 makes me want to try to become my own Vincent Van Gogh, but Mafia 3's soundtrack makes me want to crack open a beer and crank up the volume.
Mafia 3 sets out to step into the ring and compete for your dollar just as hard as every other 3rd person sandbox game; however, while the story and its delivery is superb, there are a bunch of glitches that have yet to be patched that bring this title down a peg or two. With improved visuals, Mafia 3 could start to contend with bigger games from companies like Rockstar, but until that happens, combined with improved polish and testing for bugs, it just doesn't seem to be the case. I think that this is what disappointed me the most. I felt like what I was playing could be a top contender for a game of the year, but then as I got deeper into it I realized that there are too many nagging issues holding it back from that level.
Overall Score: 7.1 / 10
Bioshock: The Collection
Years ago gamers were swept away to an underwater city called Rapture in a game called Bioshock. It was here that player started their campaign to find out more about this psychological thriller, and in fact, there was so much demand that a second and third game were made. When these games first launched they took the world by storm. They combined beautiful graphics with a story that, although not directly connected, strived to deliver the same mental twists that gamers came to crave from the Bioshock brand. Recently 2K Games released Bioshock: The Collection at a full retail price $59.99. Now we all know that sometimes it's better to not try to mess with what already is an icon, but do they get it right? If you haven't played any of the Bioshock games, then let me just start out by saying I don't care where you've been, just go out and buy this game. The plot of all the three games combined starts out strong, but towards the end tends to lack the punch that we experienced in the first game, but I refuse to spoil any of the story and strongly encourage you to experience this game with fresh eyes. You'll thank me later, trust me. What seems to be the whole stand out aspect of this collection is that now these three games render at 1080p and 60FPS, though the occasional dip in the framerate felt disorienting.
It felt smooth as silk stepping back into Rapture, and heading back to the steampunk city called "Columbia", like coming home after being away for numerous years. I was also surprised at how well the controls held up as it still provided a solid control layout that played right into the plasmid power vs. ammunition battle. Quick selecting with your bumper buttons, firing weapons with your triggers and smooth targeting motion/acquisition are qualities found in top FPS games, and you will find all of that, and more, within each game in this collection.
I do have to note that there is a large missing component with the content actually contained within this collection. Bioshock was such a success that the public damn near cried out for multiplayer, and the squeaky gear got the oil. Bioshock 2 included multiplayer gameplay that, for the time, was revolutionary for the series. However, in this latest release, even though the graphics have been upgraded, and many aspects of the series is included in the collection, there is no multiplayer at all, so half of the game itself is gone without explanation. So instead of three complete games it's more like two and a half. There is one thing for all you achievement hunters to take note though, there are over 4000 achievement points to be had packed within this collection. Now, for more good news, and that's all thanks to the fact that all the single player DLC from all the games is available to go right from the beginning.
There are new collectibles to find as well while you spend your days in the depths of the sea or the clouds in the sky. You'll find golden movie reels, and when collected you will be able to view some behind the scenes footage that discusses the creation of the game and all the aspects and story within it. If it's your first time playing the series I strongly advise against watching these until you have played through the entire story of all three titles as there are tons of spoiler information throughout. This is not the case however for the Bioshock Museum. Here you can view how art and modeling changes between versions of a character were made before fans were delivered the final product. All these insights help shed some light on the evolution of what we know as Bioshock.
It goes without saying that Bioshock: The Collection brings back all the wonder and amazement we found all those years ago, and it does so in wonderfully rendered 1080p and 60FPS for a high majority of the time. While Bioshock 2 is missing it's multiplayer, the collection as a whole provides all the single player DLC and over 4000 Achievement Points to help take the sting away. Bioshock: The Collection takes what we remembered about our time in Rapture, and the city in the sky "Columbia", and tugs on the heartstrings of our emotional attachment that started with the Big Daddy and the Little Sisters, and plays our soul like a Stradivarius. After all these years Bioshock: The Collection still provides one fantastic gaming moment after another. Now would you kindly go out and buy this game?
Suggestions: Please include the multiplayer for Bioshock 2, and please update and patch the drop in framerate drops that players will come across now and then.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Awesomenauts Assemble!
Years ago the Xbox 360 gaming world was treated to a fantastic 2D MOBA style platformer called Awesomenauts. The release was regarded with high praise around the world and now we have its pseudo sequel, Awesomenauts Assemble! I say pseudo sequel because this $9.99 gem doesn't have to do much, compared to the original, to make it stand out as a must have title on everyone's radar. So you might be wondering then, if it's just a modern console reboot of a great classic game, should I buy it? For those not familiar with Awesomenauts Assemble!, it harkens you back to the days of your youth, assuming of course your youth was spent back in the 1980's and was full of over the top cartoons, stylish action shows, and a never ending feeling of awesomeness. You'll play as one of 26 outlaws, each with their own upgradable expansions and play style, and your sole function in this virtual life is to destroy your opponent's Solar tank. Solar, in the Awesomenauts' world, is their form of currency and it's what you use to upgrade your character, buying new methods of destruction, and so much more. So, while the story and plot is so thin it's almost translucent, the over the top action and style of the game prevent anything form effecting it negatively.
When you start out you'll notice that there are several game modes to select from. Each of these modes can incorporate up to 6 people, or AI bots should you desire, and they range from quick match and custom matches as well as training, that latter being where you can test out every single one of the 26 outlaws to see which one works best for your style of gameplay. I say your style because a lot of the characters are grouped into certain skill sets which give them distinct gameplay characteristics, making every one feel unique. Some will be weighted down with heavy armor and be your traditional tanks that draw the fire and damage allowing others the opportunity to strike, while some will be support and 'area of effect' fighters who attack sections instead of individuals. There is a wealth of diversity, so it would benefit you immensely to take a browse over the different fighters and see what works out best for you.
Awesomenauts Assemble! has done a fantastic job incorporating RPG elements within the game. Earlier I touched on a notion that you'll have to purchase new abilities through the store, and in order to do this you'll need Solar and experience. The way you obtain this is by going on a killing spree and taking out as much as you can, and in doing so you will gain Solar and XP to help upgrade your outlaw. It's also a good idea to take note of where the health orbs are because in the middle of battle, when both sides are injured, they can mean the difference between victory and defeat. That's because the action is so fast paced that you'll have to keep on your toes if you want to survive the upper and lower levels of the turret supported map. Speaking of maps...
Each one of them spawn helpful meaningless robots which not only attack opponents, but will act as shields if you stay behind them, letting them absorb the damage. This tactic is vital in trying to take out enemy turrets and bases. I did have an issue here though as the level selection consisted of only six levels. While each of them are done in a beautiful side scrolling nostalgic throwback style, I was hoping for a little more in this re-boot, but that doesn't mean what is provided is bad by any means. Each level and character is designed with distinct vibrant look that stands out boldly against the beautiful backgrounds. The other small gripe I have is that Awesomenauts Assemble! doesn't provide any other game modes other than destroy your opponents. With no variety in type, and on what level it's played upon, a sense of repetition when you start to play for long sessions doesn't seem to go away.
Combat is what the primary focus of Awesomenauts and it is what will be the driving force behind the RPG elements for each character. Each of the face buttons represents a possible action for your character and you can unlock more by not only leveling up your outlaw, but by spending Solar on them to buy new talents. To help you not feel so overwhelmed, purchasing options are fairly streamlined all throughout, so you never have to feel like you don't know what you're doing. To perfect your combat I strongly suggest training with the game's bots for a few matches so you can get the feel for the RPG balancing and the upgrade system. Once you have the feel for the game down, then try your hand at the online competition and start wrecking.
Awesomenauts Assemble! is a re-boot of a quality classic Xbox 360 Live Arcade game, and for $9.99 you should consider adding this to your digital library. It provides countless hours of addictive experiences wrapped up in a massive never ending explosion of fun and enjoyment. Although there are only six levels they are dynamic settings that allow you to still get an enjoyable experience in a game like this that is not often found on any console. Thankfully the developers offered up some balancing and other beneficial updates to the title that put the cherry on top of the cake making this one of the more smart purchases you can make on the Xbox One today.
Suggestions: More levels and game types please.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Pure Chess
Throughout my life one game that always holds a special place in my heart is Chess. I love the strategy aspect where both sides are equal and it comes down to ingenuity, tactics, and skill, instead of things like how much ammo you have. Chess is one of the oldest games on the planet and has long been herald as the game of kings. Now though, developer VooFoo Studios has released Pure Chess through the Xbox One in an attempt to capture a strong foothold in the chess gaming genre. At $12.49 + tax, is it worth paying this much for a game that originally came out on the PS3 back in April 2012? That's a big stretch.Having praised VooFoo for their work in their Pure Pool game, it goes without saying that the development of this game shows incredible attention to detail and even a level of presentation never seen before. As you begin you will have numerous options, and for those who don't know what an em passant is or how to move your players, I suggest going through the built in training session where you will cover basic, intermediate, and advanced chess techniques. This will help get you comfortable with the pieces and the board, and should start to help you unlock some basic strategy.
Once you have this under your belt you're then presented with a multitude of options. One of them is a sequential mode for solving checkmates, however, every mode increases the number of moves and difficulty. For instance, you may be starting out by solving for mate in 1 move but then at the end, your mode will have you solving for mate in 5 moves where you have to start figuring out what your opponent will move and start thinking "moves ahead" to properly plan your attack. Each mode packs 20 challenges, so you're looking at 100 total challenges to solve which is quite a daunting task, but will go to great lengths to help you prepare for more experienced gameplay.
Pure Chess also offers up multiple tournaments that you can play in. These tournaments range from beginner to master and should be attempted in that order unless you feel like being made to feel like an idiot by the computer. The difficulty levels is where Pure Chess really shines. Providing not only a predesigned difficulty level through the tournament structure, but also allowing such difficulty customization for the single play system is absolutely brilliant. For the single player system, you get to go against either a computer AI or human should one be sitting beside you. Here you can select who plays on what color, the move timer, show highlighted moves, and so much more. This allows you to a lot of freedom in customizing your Pure Chess experience, but not even close to the customization of the pieces.
If you're not familiar with VooFoo games, they are known for their incredible visual representations as well as stunning music, and I'm overjoyed to say that you find both in this version. Yes, for a game that is now over 4 years old, it still shines like a beauty on the Xbox One. When you purchase the game you'll get multiple packs for piece designs, and the overwhelming majority of them are stunning to look at. Now you'll have a default view which provides you a nice layout angle of the board and its pieces, but you also have other views by pressing the Right Bumper and then using the Left Stick to select the individual piece, while using Right Stick to move the camera around in a full 360-degree field, also allowing you to use a zoom feature with the triggers. This adds a lot of depth to the graphical quality and is a very nice touch. From this mode if you press the Right Bumper again, you'll snap to a pure overhead view of the board, and pressing it again it will cycle itself back to the normal default view.
However, there are some issues when it comes to the pieces themselves within the pack. There are some very difficult ones to clearly see and distinguish, such as the clear crystal, as they are divided into a red crystal and a clear crystal. Playing as a red crystal (black) it's incredibly easy to lose track of where your opponent's clear pieces are, thus overlooking it and opening yourself up for a world of hurt. Another small gripe would be the lack of venues to play in, as there are only 3 to select from, and there are no extra venues included in any of the add-on packs included in the purchase.
Working in tandem with these stunning graphics is a soundtrack that literally surprised me and has rapidly become one of my all-time favorites. Giving you multiple genres of music to select from, my Klipsch system serenaded me with beautiful Jazz music that's full of wonderful piano, to a nature relaxation tune that made my blood pressure drop an easy 20 points. It's so good that I've even turned the game on and just left it on. Turned off the TV and went about my day and had this phenomenal music playing everywhere. If you think the graphics are good, the sound is even better.
There are some issues though with the multiplayer and that comes in the form of not forcing a move on your opponent. Normally when you play an opponent you have a set amount of time you can take before you have to move or forfeit. This aspect seems to be extinct from the game, so you can quite literally start a game, and your opponent could never move at all. This forces you to either sit there and wait until they decide to move, or quit and play something else which results in a loss for you and a win for your opponent. Now way back in the day, chess games that were played with others over long distances were done through correspondence where you would send a letter off with a move, and then you would get one in return. Sadly, what this means is that you could have a game that literally never ends because you can take as long as you want so you could take decades if you so desired. A way to resolve this would be to split the multiplayer up into a timed match and a lengthier correspondence match. Hopefully this will be addressed because it takes away from a great core of what could be an amazing game.
Now based off of all this, can we say that Pure Chess delivers an incredible chess experience? Without question. From the customization options, the stunning visual representations, and a soundtrack that is an audio dream, Pure Chess brings you an experience like never before. While the venues are extremely limited, nothing compares to the multiplayer issues that remove the move clock without any option to include it. That effectively eliminates one entire mode completely, and since Chess is mostly a multiplayer game, that's a major drawback. You would think after all this time VooFoo would have addressed it and corrected the issue, but apparently didn't manage to since its initial release 4 years ago. Because of this large oversight of essentially half the game, wait until this game gets around the $4.99 and pick it up.
Suggestions: Fix the multiplayer and this would have been a far higher rating.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
PAC-MAN Championship Edition 2
There are very few gaming icons that have survived so many generations with varying re-imaginings as Pac-Man. From the days of the classic quarter munching coin-op, Pac-Man has gone through many different shifts, not just in board layout but in dimensions as well. Bandai Namco has recently released the latest Pac-Man game called, coincidentally, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, which is a sequel to, you guessed it, Pac-Man Championship Edition. This latest release is priced at $12.99 + tax and I'm sure will be pack full of bigger and ummm... better things. The game has a few modes of play including Training (which I strongly insist to the point where it's almost a borderline demand), Score Attack, and Adventure mode. The training mode will get you used to the sheer speed and enemy physics that you will come across. This helps you get used to every aspect from bomb jumping, to ghost waking, to chain forming, and so on. Here you will also learn about "nudging" a ghost.
In almost all other variants of Pac-Man if you hit a ghost, you die. In Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 you can hit a ghost and they will bounce off of you and you can then move and avoid said ghost. Hit it again though and it will bounce you two away from each other; however, hit it a 3rd time in rapid succession and the ghost will fly up and off the board and land back down both enlarged and pissed off. Then it's a game of cat and mouse as you run like Neo from the Matrix to try and buy some time before the ghost calms down and you can "nudge" it again.
While you may think that 'ghost-bumping' seems out of place, you're right it is; however, when you are running short on time sometimes it is best to get a ghost mad at you so that as they fly off the board allowing you to slide underneath and then continue to eat pellets. Speaking of eating pellets, you don't need to be greedy. In previous games you had to eat all the pellets in order to move onto the next stage, but not here. At the bottom center of the screen you will see a handy meter, and as you eat more dots, the meter will rise until it gets to the end and spawns either a fruit, a power pellet, etc. Once eaten you will proceed to the next level and start the bar filling process all over again.
There's even a technique called a bomb jump where your Pac-Man can jump all the way back to the original starting point, which is coincidentally where the fruit or power-up spawns to end the level. While you have a limited number of these bomb jumps, you can always gain more, so it comes down to a fine balancing act. I usually found myself using the earlier stages to try and build up my bomb jump amount, doing so by eating all the dots on the level, and then the fruit, without dying.
One of the final aspects you'll train in are the boss battles. Here you will have a massive ghost that spawns behind you in your funky 2.5D future-retro hybrid stage and you have to clear so many stages within the time allotted in order to have Pac-Man break through and form many other 'Pac-Men' which you can use to take out the boss by breaking it down bit by bit. It's kind of gruesome if you think about it for a Pac-Man game, but it's also strangely satisfying. Now once you have the basics figured out and you can take to Score Attack.
Here you will start to notice a massive grid where your score on each level determines your letter grade, and obviously the higher the better. There are many techniques that you can use to make your score climb, one of them being quite simple; eating every pellet. Your multiplier grows and grows until you reach 500 points per pellet eaten. This is when your score literally starts to skyrocket. Another way to gain massive score bonuses is to create a chain of ghosts, and then at the end of the stage eat a power pellet and hunt down them down. Hit the first ghost and you’ll devour every following ghost in this trail. Combine this with the bonuses you get for lives retained, or bomb jumps not used, and your score will soar into the heavens.
Overall it’s simplistic and nothing too challenging so I like to call this mode 'advanced training' because you are graded after every performance, and Adventure mode has a requirement score needed in Score Attack. Once you hit Adventure mode though you'll be able to guide Pac-Man through six defined sets where each set consists of ten levels, and once you reach the final stage you have to face a boss battle.
All of this dot chomping goodness comes wrapped in a neon heavy dressing of transparency set in hyper speed. This increase in speed will have you looking far ahead and almost mapping a path in front of you so you can plan your route carefully. The mix of a hybrid future and retro is serenaded by an amped up techno mix that is rapidly becomes somewhat annoying despite its best efforts to help immerse you deeper into this new Pac-Man experience.
When it's all said and done, and the last pellet has been eaten, sadly I can't justify the $12.99 + tax for this game, even though it's not a bad game. Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 tries to be bigger and bolder then the first, but it just doesn't seem to provide the same type of quality execution. That's disappointing because I love how different companies interpret Pac-Man and I know this could have been done a whole lot better, especially since I enjoyed the first one so much.
Suggestions: A cheaper price of admission would make this game more tempting for people to buy.
Overall Score: 7.6 / 10
Claire: Extended Cut
It's been said many times before but it's true, survival horror games are a dying genre (see what I did there?). You can see many examples where plot and character development are switched out for increased gore and over the top killing sequences, which many people now see as the staple for a horror game. Hailstorm Games recently released their own survival horror game called Claire: Extended Cut on the Xbox One. Now let's grab our flashlights and see if it is worth the $14.99 + tax price.The game focuses around your main character, aptly named Claire. This emotionally distraught young woman seems to be battling her own emotional and internal demons while caring for her sick mother at a hospital. Right from the beginning, the story takes a twisted turn and immediately you think you're in for a wild psychological thrill ride that you'll never want to see end.
Seeing as you're taking care of your mother in a hospital, that is where you spend the majority of your time. Shortly after, everything goes upside down you'll be accompanied by your trusty dog Anubis, and it's up to you to venture through the possessed and slightly demonic hospital as Claire tries to unravel her past through her dreams. Along the way you will come across various strangers, each of which require a choice to be made as to how you can help them. Be forewarned though, each action carries with it a consequence, so choose wisely.
Unfortunately, the game seems to hit a point that leaves you full of questions with very little answers. This is one of the things that got under my skin because if we're honest, when we get really frightened it's because we have invested ourselves into the story. When you don't have that emotional connection to the audience, why even tell the story then? This is just one of several flaws that really set this game back in my eyes, and it's a shame because demonic hospitals are a horror cliché that, if done right, can be incredibly scary. Sadly, though this game wasn't done right.
This is in part due to the gameplay. While it's customizable as it allows you to select varying pre-loaded controls that are already mapped out, that doesn't stop the fact that the big problem with the gameplay is the guidance, or lack thereof. Claire: Extended Cut is laid out in a 2D map with a 2D side scrolling display, and that sounds fairly simplistic and straightforward; however, when you take into account that doors and passage ways are hard to decipher, you will find yourself constantly bringing up your map trying to figure out not only what direction you're going, but where you're trying get to next. This really detaches you from the game, breaking any sort of hold that it tried to have in the first place. Earlier you read about those strangers that you have to decide on how you help, and to do that sometimes you'll have to use items in your inventory which you can see are almost ripped straight from Resident Evil. While some items can be used to help others, they can also heal you and keep your sanity in check, so you'll need to make some hard decisions.
In the midst of all the terror within Claire: Extended Cut, the developers have decided to put puzzles within the game. These are presented with very little to no guidance, or clues as to how to solve them, but thankfully they weren't too difficult, and seeing as how Claire seems to be running from unkillable shadow monsters, time is literally the most important thing you have. Another gripe is the game is not that clear as to how to equip your flashlight or even just change its batteries. Since the game only tells you this one time only, you get the feeling that something so simple would have provided a great deal of assistance, especially coming from the basic lighter.
Even though Claire: Extended Cut is a pixelated 2D game, the graphics aren't that bad. If you enjoy a retro feel to the multitude of different areas within a hospital, then this game is right up your alley. Sadly though the soundtrack leaves a lot to be desired, but the sound effects really helped pull the game's sound through. When you are close to an enemy you'll hear your dog growl, your heartbeat pound, and the music will swell (which is what you would expect from any horror media); however, the music is what gets the big thumbs down. They could have stripped the soundtrack down to literally just ambient background noise and let your mind run wild with the various noises and it would have been far superior to what is there now. Thanks to the execution of the sound I'm actually quite thankful that there is no voice acting, just text input.
Should you plunk down $14.99 + tax for Claire: Extended Cut? Unfortunately dear readers, the answer is no. Claire: Extended Cut sadly takes an iconic horror setting and tries hard, but it fails to deliver a quality survival horror experience. Sure, there are some good points, but the negatives far outweigh any good you can find. This is truly a saddening because the potential was there, but the execution was not. A few slight improvements, should there be a sequel, would make a world of difference in making a sub-par survival horror game turn into a pants-wetting fright fest.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Dogos
There is a dying genre of gaming in the world today. Shoot 'em up (shump) games are far and few between, and quality shump games are even rarer. Developer OPQUAM have decided to step into the ring with Dogos, a top down shump style game for the low, low price of $11.99 + tax. Promising exciting and innovative gameplay, the real questions to be asked are: "Does it really provide that gameplay?" and "Is it worth the cost?" Dogos starts you off on planet Earth where aliens named Dogos (who knew right?) have attacked, and thanks to apparently very quick setup times, they have fortified a total of 14 hybrid levels to challenge your shooting skills. Throughout the meaningless story you'll learn more about the Dogos, and your pilot, but if we're being honest here, that won't matter because you'll be too busy fixated on the actual levels themselves. Developer OPQUAM has decided to venture away from the whole "on rails" experience, as normally in a shump game your ship in set to naturally fly through a series of pre-loaded levels where it's impossible to do any sort of exploration. Well, not here.
Instead you're going to switch between a forced top down view where your sole focus is to essentially hang on for dear life and never stop firing. This mode is designed to transport you through long narrow passageways that would be normally mundane to fly through at increased speed, and they not only pay homage to the on the rails aspect, but they also save time and prevent Dogos from becoming boring. Once you manage to get through, Dogos abandons the whole "on rails" concept to focus on open level sandbox exploration where you have free control to fly forward, back, left, right, or wherever you want to go. Along with this you have free camera control movement as well, so the levels are a sort of hybrid mix of the two different game types.
The problem I had was with this was that Dogos always seemed to have a slight hiccup while the camera was shifting between the two modes, and should I be going from open world to rails, the game would immediately propel my craft faster than I would normally go. Sometimes when combined with the hiccup in the transfer my ship, I would go crashing head-on into the side of a canyon. Speaking of ships though...
They're more traditional here. You get two of them and each have their own distinct balances of weapons, shields, speed, etc., so it's not like you have a plethora of choices to see what works best for you. Each ship has varying armaments which include a single primary weapon that you fire with RT, and a ground weapon that you fire with LT. Both of these weapons can unlock more variants as you progress through the game and you can unlock weapons such as screen filling laser spreads and cluster bombs.
One issue that plagued me was a seemingly impossible way of hitting ground targets. My laser fire would knock out anything in the sky, but trying to hit a small moving tank with a missile was like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Since this hit detection is so poorly executed you will find yourself literally bashing the crap out of your LT, which not only will result in finger fatigue, but your left index finger will become super-humanly strong compared to your others.
On top of this weaponry you get special attacks as well that can consist of homing missiles, laser cannon, and so much more. To fire these, you have to first obtain them by collecting ammo for them from fallen enemies, then just press LB and watch as all the enemies on the screen become under attack. Very straightforward, which is good. I just wish I could say the same for the graphics and the music though, but they aren't up to par.
The top down segments almost feel like wasted time as they throw you through a winding narrow corridor where they litter the path with enemies and traps to kill you, only to have you emerge into a massive battle where you have missiles, tank rounds, and more coming at you like a massive tidal wave of enemy ammunition. Personally I'd rather see these sections shortened or removed to focus more on the sandbox exploration, because when you're flying through the corridor sections you can't enjoy the graphics around you the same way you can when you're exploring. The sound though is dreadful. I wasn't expecting any sort of sonic marvel, but the soundtrack is a high energy piece that gets drilled into your skull thanks to its repetition. I currently enjoy the game more if I turn my sound off, and that to me is never a good sign.
Dogos tries to do quite a lot, but in doing so it is sadly underwhelming in a lot of categories. It's like the old saying, a Jack of all trades is a Master of none, and that is what Dogos is a prime example of. Had there been more of a focus on the open sandbox exploration, and certainly better hit detection on the ground weaponry, Dogos could have been a lot better than it is.
Overall Score: 6.9 / 10
Witness, The
If we set the way back machine to 2008, we bear witness to Jonathan Blow and his creation called Braid; A puzzle solving game that involved time manipulation. Braid was a sensational hit, not just in the puzzle genre, but games in general. Now fast forward about 7 years ahead and we are privileged to have his next release called the Witness from developer Thekla Inc. Using similar puzzle layouts that we used to find in iconic puzzle games like Myst, The Witness offers the gamer a plethora of emotions ranging from euphoric excitement, to heart stopping rage, and a spectacular example of how less can actually be a whole lot more. Priced at $39.99 + tax, the Witness better deliver for that price. Does it? Grab your thinking caps and let's get exploring.You have to understand something about the Witness, and that is the whole "story" concept is fundamentally different in almost every aspect than what we as gamers are used to. It's a far more cerebral experience and doesn't rely common plotlines like the world is ending, or mankind is on the brink of annihilation, etc. Instead you are given philosophical and theological quotes found on tiny (and I do mean tiny) voice recorders that are from famous historic people. These are found usually as you progress through the various puzzles, but while some will provide clues such as "crossing invisible lines", others will just flat out confuse. Even from the beginning you don't know who you are, where you are, how you got there, why you are there, and what you have to do next.
Instead you get a series of puzzles that, looking back on it, are some of the easiest to figure out in the game itself. Once you complete these then you will be able to solve a puzzle that will open a door to your new sandbox. This island that you're on is fully open to you and filled with puzzle after puzzle after puzzle. You also don't have to complete the entire series of puzzles either, as you can walk away from a puzzle to go find and explore more so don't feel frustrated if you can't solve a puzzle just yet, because through your exploration you'll come to understand the reasoning and logic behind some of the puzzles. Plus you just may learn the varying languages you need to solve them. I'm not talking languages such as French, Japanese, etc., but more of a symbolic language with varying colors and outlined patterns that provide you some form of insight as to just what you need to do.
This is key because I have lost count how many times I was left furious to the point of testing the breaking point of an elite controller, only then to figure out the language, and once again I feel like a dunce. That is The Witness' biggest and worst point all wrapped up into one. When you approach a puzzle in a series you will get the feel for how the puzzle operates within the first couple ones, however they do progress in difficulty, and sometimes will leave you so frustrated that it's best to just walk away and clear your mind. However, if you are struggling to complete a puzzle, and manage to do it, you're left feeling like you're one of the smartest people ever to walk the planet. That's until you go after your next puzzle and your euphoria is replaced by fury inspiring rage all over again. This emotional swing is surprising given the fact that the game's control system is one button.
Let me give you an example of the type of steps you'll need to go through to solve 1 out of over 500 puzzles. Picture a 6x5 grid of squares that require you to guide a light beam from an initial spawn point and move it in a certain pattern to solve it. Here are some of the 26 steps you need to do to solve just this one single puzzle out of a total of 5 puzzles:
Starting from the farthest left starting point move:
LEFT
UP
LEFT
DOWN
LEFT (x2)
UP
RIGHT
UP
RIGHT (x2)
DOWN
RIGHT
UP
LEFT (x2)
DOWN
LEFT
UP
LEFT (x2)
and UP
When you originally approach one of these numerous puzzles you will have absolutely no idea what you are supposed to do or how to solve this. It’s here that you have to take notice of some form of environmental clue or factor that will allow you to solve not only this puzzle, but the remaining ones in the series. Now the game does have subtle ways of teaching you the languages of the various puzzles, so if you are having difficulty, sometime venturing to another area or solving a different puzzle will help you decipher the clues to learning the key to the previous one, allowing you to then go back and apply your new knowledge to the one that had you stumped before.
Outside of the grey matter stress test, it goes without saying that The Witness is also a beautiful game. There are varying sections of your playground island, each of which is designed differently and provides dynamic contrasts between each area, all of which are done in a very cel shaded-like style, full of bright colors and a multitude of shades. There are deserts, forests, castles, and more all waiting to be explored. Just walking around and exploring you will quickly start taking screen captures left and right because it's genuinely gorgeous, but you'll also notice that there is next to nothing in terms of a soundtrack which starts to develop an increasing feeling of exclusion.
The Witness is one of the most emotional roller coasters you will find in gaming today, and on top of that, it's one of the most cerebral and intellectually challenging games you will probably ever play. Completing this game will require the comprehensive ability to decipher keys which in turn will teach you solutions, and you will need to combine all of this together with the ability to adapt on the fly because every single puzzle is different.
Would I pay $39.99 + tax for this game? Regrettably no. Sadly, the game does do a good job at giving you a lesson in isolationism, and while that is unique, the game itself doesn't feel like one flowing cohesive experience with any sort of point. If this game was priced at $24.99 or below though, it would be a must buy every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas
When you have a game that is rapidly approaching its 3rd birthday (November 14, 2013) and was originally an iOS game, naturally you're not going to be expecting much in terms of quality. Now, when you also see that it's $14.99 on a current-gen console, you start questioning your own sanity. Xbox One owners get to dive into the adventure called Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas from Cornfox & Bros., but the big question that we have to ask ourselves: is Oceanhorn worth essentially $15 + tax when it's an iOS game that is almost 3 years old? Normally I'd wait longer in my review to touch on anything to do with the sound; however, this game absolutely surprised me with the quality of the audio. I wondered why this was, and then his name popped up on the screen: Nobuo Uematsu. For those who don't know this name, I would regard him as one of the most influential musical composers in video game history. With a career that spans decades, Mr. Uematsu's work ranks in comparison to Beethoven. A master of music, you can hear his work right from the beginning. Every area carries with it a certain musical feeling that ranges from lighthearted and almost childlike fun, to a brooding and ominous soundtrack that is more foreboding. I can honestly say that when I first turned the game on I just set the controller down and listened for a while. Hearing the soundtrack combined with the crashing of the waves made the game unbelievably calming, which is deceptive given the story. If anything, the music alone is reason to buy this game.
The story is sadly nowhere near up to the quality of the music, but that does mean it's not any good. It's a story about survival of numerous races in an attempt to maintain peace, in a time where dark corruption has spawned numerous monsters bent on using dark power to destroy everything. Only one monster now remains, and that monster is Oceanhorn. Your father, knowing the danger that this one monster can cause, set out on a quest to destroy it, but never came back. Through your quest you will acquire magical skills and powerful weaponry, as well as meet interesting and somewhat mysterious people as you sail to various islands and try to figure out what Oceanhorn is, as well as the location and outcome of your father. While the story reads like a Hollywood suspense blockbuster, it is fairly generic, but that's not essentially a bad thing, and let me tell you why.
Oceanhorn has been strongly compared to numerous entries in the Zelda game series. In fact, some have gone so far as to say Oceanhorn is literally a carbon copy of some of them and that nothing feels unique to it since it seems to have diminished the amount of content in what you can do compared to a Zelda game. You hear phrases like "Legend of Ocean" and "Windhorn Waker", and that got me thinking; OK, first off I have to say that if there was ANY game that you would want to take inspiration from, it's a Zelda game. If you want a quality adventure game, there honestly isn't better source material out there. If one of my biggest gripes is that I'm too much like a Zelda game, I think that should be a huge compliment. I've lost count in how many times there have been modern adventure games that cost far more than this to make and they were a gargantuan failure. So, I guess I would say thank you to all those who would call this a Zelda clone.
Oceanhorn does a lot to make itself a quality gaming experience. One of the ways it goes about this is through the control system. Using the X button to swing your sword, and Right Trigger to raise your shield, your character is almost ready to go right from the very first level. As you progress you unlock spells that you can use with the Y button, and the A button is used as a dash/interact button. It goes without saying that Oceanhorn packs very simple gameplay mechanics which helps make this game very easy to just pick up, play, and enjoy. I did have some control issues in various areas that involved the mini map (which is essentially worthless), but overall the gameplay was definitely solid.
Using a very "Zelda-ish" feel for the graphics was a big stretch in artistic liberty, but in the end the results are pretty good. The islands themselves have unique qualities about them, which does well in helping to identify their own individual identity within the game. When you also take into account the individual music for each island, home, cave, and dungeon, you get the feeling that Oceanhorn is making a strong case for standing upon its own two feet.
Normally I'm not a fan of a 3-year-old mobile game that decides to release on the Xbox One, but I am a fan of Oceanhorn. The streamlined controls allow for fluid gameplay, the graphics pay fantastic homage to legendary source material, and the soundtrack is hands down in my top 5 Xbox Soundtracks of all time. In fact, one of the reasons for the score being lower then it could be is that I feel the songs are not long enough. I miss those sweeping soundscapes of harmonics and melodies, and while they are there, they're just too short. Yes, the story isn't that intriguing as some may want, but it's not that bad, and there is a sequel in development, and if this is their foundation to build upon I foresee nothing but some of the best quality gaming coming from Cornfox & Bros. I would venture to say that Ocearnhorn: Master of Uncharted Seas is without a doubt worth the $14.99 + tax, so go forth, purchase, download, and enjoy a solid gaming experience.
Suggestions: Other than focus on improving the story delivery and increasing the amount of activity you can do in the world, I would love to do a review of the soundtrack should one exist. Honestly readers, the soundtrack is a masterpiece.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Armello
When I was younger it seemed like anything we played with had our imaginations running wild. I remember the days fantasizing over majestic spells and epic battles in a strategic play that unfolded in our minds that we placed before us in reality. Priced at $19.99, Armello aims to deliver a virtual board game experience with heavy RPG elements in an environment home to many different animal factions. Yes, I said animal factions. Now, I understand that $19.99 is a lot to plunk down on a game that originally came out last year on PC, so is it worth that price today or is it showing signs of aging?Starting things off, the storyline unfolds through the many different factions that are found in this game. Think of it like a story you would tell a person where you included the aspects and ideals of all the various races. Your kingdom is ruled by a Mad King who does nothing as a dark force called 'The Rot' starts to creep amongst the lands as it poisons and destroys all it touches. Throughout this story you will uncover side quests that will help grant your character different bonuses and treasures that can aid you, or even help turn a battle in your favor instantly. These side quests give you two options: you can either choose a safe ending, where you gain some bonuses, or you can select a riskier ending and hope to play the odds and win the bonus. Should you fail in the latter your character suffers damage and ends up losing their rewards.
In terms of content available, there is a ton of it for the single player, but the multiplayer aspect is absolutely brilliantly developed and a welcome breath of fresh air. Experiencing the different animal classes and their bonuses will allow you to play the game in a multitude of ways, which works wonders when trying to craft your individual strategy. You'll have to learn a lot if you want to overthrow the King and save the land. So how do you go about doing that? Essentially you navigate the different tiles while paying attention to their individual bonuses and hindrances that they provide, and then fight in combat when necessary; but there's so much more.
Armello focuses on cards. Everything is a card. Your followers are cards, your inventory items are cards, and most of these cost coins to use. You can earn coins and various followers can assist you with items that can be equipped and put in your inventory, which range from weapons and armor, to fake orders that you can use to divert enemies from your path. These cards differentiate in expense to use and the benefits to your character, and usually the higher the cost the bigger the benefit. Your character is assigned a certain number of AP (action points) which you can use to move, or play a card or two, leaving the choice in strategy entirely up to you. Once your round is done, holding the B button will end your turn.
When you talk about the frequent combat you will notice that your character will roll dice, and depending on your character's animal race, you will get a certain number of dice. Each race of animal has their own distinct bonus and there are even cards that can affect the number of dice you have and/or your opponents have as well, so keep that in mind for a tough fight. Each side represents a certain action, and after each side rolls their dice the action plays out, winner takes the position on the board. Armello does a great job with a tutorial system of various challenges along the same map, but from different animal factions so you can get a feel for the skills you'll need to master moving forward. I cannot stress enough how important it is to go through this, paying attention and observing the controls in the options menu as well. It goes without saying that Armello is easy to pick up and play, but tough to master.
The control system may sound complex and confusing, but the visuals and sound are done beautifully. The shifts from day to night and then to morning are done by creating a pallet of colors that not only are vibrant, but unique as well. While the majority of the game is dealt through text boxes, the board itself looks beautiful. The animations for interactions with others is also very smooth. In regards to the audio, particularly the music, wow did it ever surprise me. For many of the of the indie games that I review, I'm left with my ears bleeding and begging for me to stop, but that isn't the case here and I'm very thankful for it. Everything from the opening screen to the overworld environment, and even the battle sound effects, are done with great attention to detail and proper development which is a big plus in my book.
I can see why developer League of Geeks priced this game at $19.99, and after all that praise, I'm sure you're expecting me to say rush out and buy it, and I am. $19.99 may seem a bit too steep for a game style like this; however, given the overall presentation, and the gameplay that is contained in this indie title, the money you spend will be for a really good digital interactive board game, which is something you don't see too often.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Turing Test, The
Can a computer ever hold a conversation with a human being and pass along useful information? How does a computer value the information they are exposed to versus how a a human does, and what is their perception of value? These are just a few questions that are the foundation for Bulkhead Interactive's latest game, The Turing Test. In a sort of 2001 A Space Odyssey meets Portal, The Turing Test sets you on a psychological path of intrigue and self-examination. Grab your spacesuit, because our adventure starts now.The Turing Project starts out introducing Ava, who is apparently waking from cryostasis sleep aboard a space station that is orbiting Europa, which is one of the many moons of Jupiter. You're awoken because the crew that has traveled to the surface is encountering an emergency and they are in need of support and you are the one they can call upon. When you wake you're greeted by TOM, who is the game's advanced computer system. Think of TOM like the computer HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Throughout your adventure TOM and Ava's conversations tend to dwell on philosophical points of interest as well as choices of morality and life. I won't say any more about the plot because it's one to be experienced, and you as a gamer should not have the experience ruined.
The Turing Test is first and foremost a puzzle game. Various switches and power orbs must be manipulated in order to advance from room to room and progress the story. It's pretty straight forward, which is a benefit to the player. The controls consist of the LT and RT to grab and release orbs, via your repair tool, and the X button is used to grab and manipulate selectable objects, such as power conduit boxes and other items throughout the base. Finally, the Left Stick is used to walk while the Right Stick controls the camera. There isn't any training in terms of a walkthrough, but there isn't much in terms of controls that would lead one to be perplexed by what to do next, because that's the puzzles job.
Just like any other games of a similar nature, the object is to go from one room to another solving puzzles along the way. That is where a lot of the joy is found. There will be times when you are so perplexed by a puzzle that you think it's impossible, but if you calm yourself and think logically, then the answer may not be as hidden as you thought it to be. One thing I will make note of is that line of sight is critically important to solve many of the puzzles. Another tip that I learned is that the conduit boxes are actually more important than the regular orbs. The reason for this is that your repair tool can hold up to 3 orbs at a time and you can carry one box, so at any given time you can manage up to 4 different items at once. This is very handy and as you progress through the game you will see why the boxes are more important than the orbs.
Being that this is a game set in outer space you would think that the graphics of the game would be incredible, and for the most part you would be right. There is little to experience outside of the constant puzzle after puzzle between every room, but what is available is done very well. Going through the crew quarters and reading the journals left behind and seeing the pictures of children waiting at home, or a faithful golden retriever, helps establish a bond that enables you to sense something is broken in some way and it's up to you to figure out why and help. While the game looks very good, what really stands out in the area of the presentation is the sound.
The start screen itself just blew me away with its tranquil melodies and piano work. I honestly sat there for over 15 minutes just listening to the music on the start screen where I could actually feel my blood pressure dropping at least 15 points. It's incredibly calming and the wondrous thing about the music is that the same quality carries with you throughout the entire game. This is one of, if not the best, quality of the game, but it's not just the music that gets thumbs up. The voice acting is some of the best I've heard in a very long time and not something you would expect from a game that is 1/3 the cost of regular retail.
There are just a few drawbacks to this quality gaming experience that should be mentioned. For starters, the load times in between chapters are quite long. Being that the game doesn't have very many chapters this not only takes you out of the adventure somewhat, but it also highlights the fact that it's a short game on its own. I also discovered that in Chapter 1, whenever you complete a puzzle you go through a hallway full of scanners which are relatively pointless, then you're smoothly transitioned into the next puzzle room. After Chapter 1 though that all stops as you hit a blue loading wall where your character freezes, and a blue loading screen is superimposed on top of what you can see, and this happens after every single room, so any sort of fluidity is not only set back but sometimes removed completely. Not the best way to go considering the game is short and you experience this numerous times.
Priced at $20, The Turing Test is so much more than just a puzzle game, a platforming game, or anything like that. It's a voyage into the morality and the complex nature of the human psyche and its development, construction, and more importantly management of true artificial intelligence. This game is worth every penny, even with a few bumps in the road. If you're a fan of puzzles, and appreciate a fantastic story laid out in beautiful graphic detail that is complimented by a soundtrack and soundscape that is of the top tier quality, then The Turing Test is an absolute must buy for you.
Suggestions: Being able to purchase the soundtrack separately please?
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy
Continuing the growing trend of previously released PC games being ported onto the Xbox One and sold for a premium price seems to have no end in sight. Recently Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy came to release on Xbox One over a year after it was released on PC. Priced at a whopping $24.95, the developer, Slitherine, is determined to have you paying almost half of full retail price for this turn based space strategy game. Now the only question is, should you? Let's find out.Before I go forward, I have to severely stress that you should take some time and go through the tutorial, and even though it doesn't do a great job teaching you because of trying to map everything in the PC UI to a console controller with limited inputs, it will be a godsend to you down the road. I would also recommend playing early missions over again so you can get the feel for the game itself. Since the game will not let you go back to earlier missions, what I did was quit out before I had won the mission so that way I would get another chance to help overcome this incredibly steep learning curve. Anyways, now that the public service announcement is made, back to the game.
I have to make a note first hand that this game is way deeper than any casual gamer may first assume. You're given a 3D plane as your mission sandbox with each adventure. From there, the lackluster story has you performing menial tasks and very light combat so you can start to get a feel for the "WeGo" battle mechanics that are in place. It's more than your traditional RTS, and in fact, it's quite innovative and does a phenomenal job in helping to overcome the fact that the story is better left unsaid, because as you play through it, there isn't much in terms of meaningful development to keep the gamers hooked. But there is very in depth combat. Let me give you an example. At the beginning of the missions you map out your ships that you're going to bring with you which include everything from smaller corvette style ships, to mammoth battleships.
The preliminary ships that you get to manage in the beginning are your little raider ships which accompany a corvette. While the raider class ships focus on utilizing maneuverability and front firing lasers, the corvette manages to incorporate long range targeting missiles, that when impacted, will cause damage to any surrounding ships, so watch out. Then as you progress you will naturally unlock bigger ships such as frigates which are equipped with a stun beam on the front to disorient oncoming enemies, but a lifesaving disruptor that will detonate any enemy missile that gets within range so that it doesn't impact your fleet. Remember, LIFE SAVING.
Lastly you'll work your way to the heavy hitters, the battleship and dreadnought. I'm talking the titanic ships that not only pack the largest and most incredibly devastating firepower, but can also transport small fleets of ships that can be used as a secondary weapon or defensive system. Each ship not only carries with it a certain value for reinforcements, but also has its own independent weapons system, shield management system, navigation system, and more. Once you have your fleet assembled and kitted out, it's time to head into battle. As your fleet arrives your combat mission begins, and it's up to you to fulfill the mission objectives which usually involve you killing every enemy in this 3D sandbox. Now you'll thrust yourself deep into the real job of this game; system management. This is where the bulk of your game activity comes from.
You'll start your missions by plotting your ship's navigation routes. You'll see a wide arc in front of your ship which indicates where your ship can travel. Now instead of just left, right, and forward, you have control within an almost pure 180-degree field, and on top of all that, you have the ability to traverse up or down different planes within the 3D space. So now you have selected where your fleet will move within your turn, you can go to your weapon systems on each individual starship and configure how you want them to fire; either through a more randomized auto fire (which you can customize the nature of this action), or a more powerful concentrated fire (be careful though because some ships can't hit an enemy that flies behind them). Now with your flight plan made and your weapon systems are selected, its time to press the Y button which brings up the menu and you select GO to commence your turn. You'll watch your ships fly towards your targets as they in turn fly towards you. That's when the battle begins and your management tasks grow even deeper.
Another aspect you can also control is how you manage your ship's energy. Do you throw more into your weapons and draw that extra needed power from the engines so your ship doesn't travel as far per turn but hits harder? Or do you pour more power into shields and take the energy from your weapon systems or engines? Speaking of shields, you'll also have to manage your numerous sides of shields as well. Instead of just one all-encompassing shield that you have to manage, you have front, rear, and side shields to manage, and should your left shield drop to 0, then your ship is naturally weak on that side. to remedy this, you'll either have to repair it by launching a repair bot that will fix your ship at the cost of immobilizing it for a turn or two, or you can divert individual power from other shielded areas to resupply power to your now demolished shield. Now this is a small example of the sheer depth that you have to manage every turn and with every ship. Once you've navigated your way through your 3D sandbox and killed all your targets, you'll get a mission complete and rewarded based off your performance. Then it's onto the next sad chapter in the mediocre story.
One of the many things that was improved and tweaked for the console release are the graphics, and thank the good lord that they were because this game has some beauty in it. While there are other games that provide better interstellar graphics and environments, Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy does a great job in delivering some very beautiful celestial visuals. The soundtrack to this game though was a bit watered down for my taste. While it's good in the fact that my ears weren't bleeding, it wasn't memorable in any way. That's surprising to me because you would think that a game set in space would provide some form of atmospheric harmonics that help set the mood and the tone, but I didn't see that to be the case here.
Star Hammer: The Vanguard Prophecy has a very, very deep learning curve, a gargantuan management system that has to be attended to in great detail with every turn, and a story that doesn't deliver an experience that makes you feel connected. I thought long and hard whether or not it justified its cost to gamers, and came to the conclusion that it didn't simply because of its high price point. I wish its price was set at $14.99, because that would be the perfect value for the content within. While the system and mechanics that are implemented are innovative, you get the feeling like there is so much packed into the game that your controller is about to burst and your console rupture trying to figure it out.
Overall Score: 7.6 / 10
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
When Eidos Montreal set out to create the Deus Ex world, it's fair to say that they never knew just how big it could, or would, eventually become. Their last entry was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which laid the ground work for their latest release Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Human Revolution received high marks and much acclaim, but the big question is: "Does the sequel, Mankind Divided, live up to or exceed its predecessor?" In our opinion the short answer would basically be yes, but there's so much to talk about, so let's jump right in!For those who haven't played Deus Ex: Human Revolution, let me help set the stage so that the current game isn't so confusing. You played as Adam Jensen who was a cop, and along with his ex, worked for an human augmentation company called Sarif Industries. Sarif Industries was attacked, and during this attack Adam was left for dead. Looking back on that decision I'm sure the enemy regretted it because Sarif spared no expense in turning Adam into a walking augmented tank capable of exceptional feats of strength, agility, cunning, and so much more. The story was a weave of backstabbing and betrayal, accruing to a point that was a defining moment in mankind's history; however, Adam was again left for dead and there were more questions raised than were answered, which opened the door for the current title, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
In the years following the "incident" (seriously you need to play Human Revolution), mankind was torn apart. Decisions were made as different political and military factions were being created, while general citizens were caught in the crossfire. Starting out in Prague, you will see the effects of the divisive nature of politics in today's world, as Mankind Divided shows us a very similar nature of distrust and over-zealousness when it comes to discrimination, abuse, and neglect of the people who chose to become augmented. In fact, the game goes so far as to show you just how this outcome has effected everyone in their own way.
For example, one scene that sits in my memory is one where you'll watch as an augmented person in a refugee internment camp as he sits up against a wall with his head down. Look closely and you will notice in their hand is a pocket secretary that reads some heartfelt sentiments to this person's mother. This person admits that they should have listened to her and that their life has been torn in shambles since they decided to become augmented, and that the pain and sorrow that has been building and growing has reached a point where he wishes she was there to hold him and tell him that he was forgiven. The reply from his mother was equally as touching as she said to her son that all was forgiven and that she would give anything to have her son back with her and that he should never give up hope, for there is always hope. Then you realize that he took his own life.
It's moments like this that we rarely get to see in many genres. The emotional attachments that are made through the decisions and the outcome, and results, are those that spurn the mentality of the environment. These touches are absolutely brilliant on behalf of Eidos Montreal and truly help define the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided experience. Adam Jensen is back, and this time he's got questions that need answers. But just like in Human Revolution, every time you think you have an answer, more questions appear. This is why the story of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is truly exceptional and has to be experienced for yourself. Of course there will be times when you're going to say "called it!" or "I could see that coming."; however, it's what you don't see that makes the story truly exceptional.
Navigating through this world is solely up to you, no matter how you wish to play. Personally I chose to go through Deus Ex: Mankind Divided in a non-lethal play style, the way I played Human Revolution. Sure, you can take customizable sniper rifles, shotguns, assault rifles, battle rifles, and more into battle, shoot and kill everything that moves, and press on from checkpoint to checkpoint; however, the real challenge is trying to avoid killing a single person, which includes bosses (good luck with that). For instance, I tried to infiltrate a level 3 bank that was filled with security guards, turrets, security cameras, laser grids, and so much more. I walked in on the second floor and had to go to the third floor. Sounds simple right? Unfortunately, the entire third floor is a restricted area and your target is a secure computer system in an upper office guarded by a security camera, guards, and an internal encryption on the network that you'll have to hack. Ummmmmm, ok.
Now, having explored the the areas on second floor I could access, I ended up proceeding to the first floor where there were secure executive vaults, each one containing their own external security camera, laser grid, internal security camera with turret, and its own defense robot. This floor also contained a security office with 2 guards and multiple cameras. So, how did I make it to the top? Well, for starters I scavenged literally everywhere I could in Prague. I completed every side quest first, and using my hacking along with breaking & entering skills, I managed to acquire a key for one of the vaults down on the first floor. So I went down to the vault and after dealing with security I managed to go through the two cable ducts in the security server room and kept track of where each one led. Then, utilizing the ventilation system, I managed to work my way to the third floor and that's when things got tricky. I had to sneak my way into the bathroom to exploit a weakness in the wall that led to the other bathroom and more ventilation systems. From there I was just picking and choosing what, when, where, and how to strike and move since I was armed with a stun gun while my foes had combat rifles. Or like I said, you could go in there, lay waste to literally everything, and not worry about any restricted areas.
That's the beauty of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The ability to choose how you want to experience the story is fantastic. From the extreme measures taken to not to kill anyone (the way I play it), a Terminator-Rambo style of brute force, or a mix of both; Deus Ex: Mankind Divided allows for true on the fly game adaptability and it's done brilliantly. Now, in order to manage all the hacking, shooting, and climbing, and anything else is left in the overall gameplay, you'll need to learn the controls and that's where Deus Ex: Mankind Divided also shines.
From the beginning you can choose what style of gameplay you want. You're offered very recognizable variants of traditional FPS control schemes to a control scheme that is very reminiscent of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, to one that has been developed just for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. All of these can be adjusted allowing you to find the one that feels just right for you. For my playthrough I selected the Mankind Divided option, not because it was the best one marketed at the selection screen, but I wanted to give this fresh game a fresh start and judge what they had developed specifically for this title.
For the most part I have to say that the control scheme is pretty easy to use. There is a bit of a learning curve that you will naturally go through as you progress during the game's prologue. For me personally, I found that the basic controls I preferred were pressing LS to enter and exit cover, pressing RS to bring up my quick inventory selection wheel where I would press the RT to use a health pack and LT to give my augments more juice. Since I never use my lethal weaponry I never really have to worry about selecting a weapon, but you'll notice that all your usable and consumable inventory options are displayed within this wheel.
As I played I ran into an issue that I noted early on, and it was while traversing through Prague and its buildings. I found that there were times where my character refused to jump as high, or grab a ledge, which caused me to fall off a building roof to my untimely death. These moments happened a little more than I'd like them to, and regretfully it made some of the game feel underdeveloped and rushed in that department, which if I'm honest, is a big department to have a fault with.
That's sadly not the only faults as well. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a sensational display of graphics on the last generation systems; however, you don't really get the sense of ground breaking work in Mankind Divided. During some of the animated sequences, if there was any movement in the frame, I experienced screen tearing like crazy, which didn't really didn't help the experience at all. Not only that, but the animation for the characters talking is nowhere near what you would expect from a current generation game. The whole graphics interface almost feels like it was developed using technology for the Xbox 360. Thankfully though Michael McCann is back at the helm for the soundtrack, keeping with the last Deus Ex quality, which is absolutely incredible. The soundtrack to Deus Ex: Human Revolution personally ranks in my top 5 soundtracks of all time with Mankind Divided already within my top 10. The sound environments as a whole are also masterfully done and you can easily see the quality in the audio work that went into this game.
I would love to tell you more about this game, but as I'm sitting here typing this up I'm realizing that it's taking time away from digging deeper into what I may have missed. Without question Deus Ex: Mankind Divided deserves to be in the running for Game of the Year at this point. Yes, it has its drawbacks, but despite the faults and flaws you still have an absolutely brilliant game. From a masterfully designed plot with twists and turns, a musical score and audio environment that is one of the best you could hear, to an emotional development of the narrative content on a psychological level, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is one of the best games for 2016 so far.
Suggestions: A vinyl soundtrack where the vinyl is the color of Adam Jensen's glasses! :)
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Valentino Rossi: The Game
For those that may or may not know, I'm an avid racing fanatic and I honestly can't get enough. From F1, to WRC, to MotoGP, and GT, if it has an engine and tires, I'm interested. Over the years there has been a tremendous leap forward when it comes to the development of car racing on the Xbox platform, but sadly I haven't seen the same quality leap for motorcycle racing. Recently developer Milestone S.r.l has come out with Valentino Rossi: The Game, which not only hopes to revitalize the MotoGP racing genre, but also show gamers that you don't need a AAA budget to put together a quality racing title. Ambitious goals, but do they actually achieve them? Grab your helmet and keys because the ride is on.Starting on your adventure you'll want to customize your rider. Some may overlook this feature and just skip right into the meat of racing, but customizing unlocks achievements down the road, so just spend a few minutes to go over the limited selection in front of you. Sure, you can switch up your nickname and number, but remember, the customization options are purely cosmetic so there's no real reason to spend any sort of in-game currency unless you really want to unlock a certain helmet, pair of boots, gloves, etc. Once you have completed your customization you're whisked away into the beginning of a lengthy career path, and that's when you start to notice how this game is rapidly growing into a quality racing simulator.
During the career mode you'll experience the race calendar along with various options such as email and the "feed" on the right hand side where the game tries it's best to compliment you on your racing. Other options are also available, but I found myself focused on getting through the career of races so the rest of the "fluff" that comes packaged in the career became irrelevant very rapidly. Starting off though, Valentino Rossi: The Game sticks you on a flat dirt track where you start to get a feel for the physics and handling of the game as you progress you work your way up to the powerful MotoGP bikes. I was actually very thankful for this because the more powerful virtual motorbikes stretch the new physics engine to the breaking point. I say new because it's new to the game; however, the physics engine itself feels dated and it isn't the the most responsive one I have experienced.
Outside of the career mode though, Valentino Rossi: The Game offers other game types such as split screen and online multiplayer, time trials, historic events within Valentino's career, and more. I tip my cap to the developers because it's clear that they want to give gamers a plethora of content to choose from instead of just giving a bare bones single player career, a bit of online content, then slap a full retail priced sticker on the box and say "here you go". While this is great on the surface, there are some issues that should be noted. For example, multiplayer matches are almost impossible to find in all my time trying. That being said, I think that once the bugs get ironed out, and the quality improves with a hopefully new title next year, we will see the market share grow for this genre of racing.
Now I have to admit I am not the best when it comes to controlling bikes at high speed; virtually speaking of course. Gone are the times of kicking on the E brake and power sliding through a corner, as now I'm faced with knees to the pavement and getting the angle of my lean just right so I don't go flying across the track flat on my back. Thankfully there are a multitude of options to adjust on the fly, which also includes your riding position to help you stay on your bike. Being that this is a simulator and not arcade racer, you can't expect to take a hairpin turn at 110 mph and expect to just bounce off the sides and be ok. Not only will you have to balance your throttle response, but you'll also have to focus on your body weight position and figuring how much to use front and rear brakes if you want to avoid becoming a stain on the tarmac. And yes, in other racing games there are far more options to adjust, but the fact that you even get some options to adjust is a positive. I do recommend that you take a few minutes to check out the control options and become familiar with not just the bike controls, but the car ones as well. Yes, you heard me correctly. Cars are now in Valentino Rossi: The Game.
This is where things get really interesting because normally it would just be a slag of GP bikes and a boring career and multiplayer matches that no one ever plays anyway, but not this title. You're given a chance to experience the thrill of drift and rally racing as well which is a nice change from straight motorbike races. These additions really help give this game more value by adding more content. The steering however could use some improvement in the handling aspect, so you may find yourself hitting the LB to instigate a rewind, because I guarantee you that the learning curve of this physics engine is up there, and not because of its realism, but because of its age. Sadly, the physics engine isn't the only aged beauty of this game, as that honor falls into the graphics department as well.
The key to a good racing experience is a fluid frame rate, unfortunately this isn't the case here. Valentino Rossi: The Game tries to be as smooth as glass, but the last generation graphics lag and drop the framerate to almost a still picture now and then. Hopefully there will be a patch that can smooth things out, but as of right now these instances can be quite frustrating as you find yourself in the middle of balancing for a turn and then the screen jutters and lags, only to lurch forward after skipping a few frames as it catches up to the animation where hopefully you're still in control of your bike. Normally at this point I would also address the quality of the soundtrack of the game, but it is incredibly flat and uninteresting, so let's move on. I understand the theory that the developers were going with; however, they had far better technology at their disposal. Even though it may have delayed the game while adjusting to the new technology, the game would have been far superior than what we are witnessing today.
I have to say that Valentino Rossi: The Game was quite a surprise for me. I went into this game with low expectations given the sad history of the downward spiral of quality MotoGP games as a whole, but I walked away having enjoyed it more than I expected. Sure, it has some noticeable issues now and then, but they don't always kill the game's fun factor. In the end, if you're a fan of motorbike bike racing, or the MotoGP series as a whole, then you're in for a fairly decent game, just don't expect a perfect racing experience.
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10
Breach and Clear: Deadline
The summer is winding down, and thankfully so are the mediocre games that have been flooding to the Xbox One. Trying to shoot its way out of this common scenario, Breach & Clear: Deadline breaks onto Microsoft's console for the price of $14.99. At the time of this review the developer, Mighty Rabbit Studios, had released a patch that was supposed to resolve a lot of the technical issues that were around at launch. Now, normally when we get information like this it gives us a hint about what we are about to get ourselves into, but I decided to dive head first and kick the door down on this game to see what's what.Breach and Clear: Deadline is an action RPG with both real time and turn based gameplay. With the press of the LB you can switch between real time action or a turn based gameplay style, and right off the bat I can say that I was very happy about this option, even if the platform is incredibly straightforward. You control a group of four individuals and you can designate each of their classes. Each class carries with it variable stats, ratings, and skills, and it's your choice how you want to play, but remember, only a medic can revive your fallen teammates.
The game's story is simplistic, which was kind of disappointing. The crux of the narrative has you fighting through stage after sandbox stage in an attempt to save humanity. What are you saving humanity from? Well, you're defending the human race from a parasite worm that can apparently attach itself to your brain stem and mutate you into a mindless killing machine.
Breach and Clear: Deadline manages to spice up the simplistic narrative by adding in a few new fetch quests and side objectives for you to complete. In the end however, there isn't anything worthwhile that makes the story compelling for those who play, which made for a somewhat non-entertaining experience. This area is kind of a downfall, but when you take into account that this game wasn't intended to be very story intensive, then you can cut it some slack, because in the end there are quite a few things that this game has going for it, with its controls being one of them.
As stated earlier, using the LB allows you to switch between real time and turn based strategy. When you're in real time the RB will bring up a radial menu where you can have different items mapped out. These can range from your basic med kits to stat boosting items such as energy drinks and more. These can all be accessed on the fly and each character class has different options in their real time radial wheel, so selecting them not only is easy, but important when you think about what's at stake. Switching into the turn based mode however will unlock more options that will be at your disposal. Options such as find cover, switch weapon, and more, become unlocked and the game turns instantly into a tactical turn based experience.
In this mode you can select a wide variety of options if you want to operate one soldier at a time, or you can press the X button and proceed as a team and issue orders accordingly. This is where tactics come into play, as some classes also allow you to breach doorways, which will knock back enemies and injure anyone caught in the blast. When you're controlling your men individually, pressing left and right on the D-Pad will allow you to quickly select between your characters. From here you can point to a spot relative to their line of sight, and if you place your cursor behind an object, you will see a shield sign that indicates your character is moving behind cover. This allows two ways you can go about moving.
Normal movement in this mode is simple, as you place the cursor on where you want to move and simply press; however, you can also have your characters go into what is called "sweep mode". By holding down the A button you will allow your character(s) to move slower, but they will engage any enemy within their viewing range (which you can setup with the RS).
Breach and Clear: Deadline claims to have RPG elements, and while it definitely does have them, it's not as deep as you might expect or hope for. Throughout the missions, and in-game exploration, you will collect scrap. This is the game's form of currency, and at workbenches you can upgrade your weapons, gear, and more. Different stats can also be increased by means of upgrade slots. Now, it should be noted that Breach and Clear: Deadline consists of a common color scheme to determine the rarity of the items. When it comes to weapons the basic fields are Damage, Range, Accuracy, and Reload speed. These are the primary factors that will be altered when you either spend scrap to upgrade a weapon, equip them with modifications (such as under barrel grips and scopes), or you do both. It's not too much to take in, which is good because it allows you to spend more time killing everything else that you see.
Originally Breach and Clear: Deadline had some visual bugs and issues to contend with; however, throughout my experience I can safely report that outside of a few dodgy camera angles, there isn't that much that would be considered game breaking. There were some hiccups and glitches in terms of framerate drops, but all in all it was a fairly solid graphic experience post patch. The soundtrack on the other hand left a lot to be desired. Going for a minimalist approach would be a good thing, if the minimal audio content was actually good. There isn't anything that would make you set your controller down and take notice.
Without a doubt there are some very enjoyable elements in Breach and Clear: Deadline; however, there are a few things to note. The $14.99 price point is on the high side for a game that came out over a year ago on PC, and while it's not that long ago when you consider some other ID@Xbox games, it's still on the aged side. And sure, the game delivers some enjoyment, but that enjoyment comes with a simplistic story, tedious side quests, and dungeons that feel like the same level over and over again. At $14.99 I would say pass on this, however, should this drop in price to say $9.99 or below then pick it up for sure and bust down some doors.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Marvel Ultimate Alliance Bundle
One of the biggest trends we see in gaming in today's world is companies re-releasing older quality IP's at a discounted rate to the consumer on the most current gaming platforms. In doing this, it's typical fashion for the gaming world to receive a remade or enhanced copy of the game itself. Recently an old classic, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Ultimate Alliance 2, were recently released for the Xbox One. Once on the cutting edge of what we could expect on the Xbox 360, these games received rave reviews, and the DLC made this entertaining experience even better. This release is priced at $39.99 + tax per game, or you can save $20 by getting a bundle at $59.99 + tax. Without a doubt that is a steep price tag, but is it worth it?Before we dive in, I have to confess that I'm a huge Marvel fan. I bought both these games on the Xbox 360 and loved what they brought to the table back in the day. Well, for those who aren't familiar with these games, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 are top down action RPG titles that enable you to select a team of 4 to venture forth on a storyline fit for the Marvel Universe itself. I don't want to say much about the story because it's one of the great features that make up the heart and soul of these games, but let's say it involves the end of mankind, an alliance of villains, and a whole lot of overacting. There is a problem in this package though, in that the DLC for Ultimate Alliance 1 is nowhere to be found, but yet for some weird reason Ultimate Alliance 2 has all the DLC included. Let me break that down really quickly.
$39.99 for Ultimate Alliance, a game that is almost a decade (10 years) old and that does not provide any DLC content. Or $39.99 for Ultimate Alliance 2 with all the DLC content provided. That's essentially what you're looking at here with these two games. Thankfully Activision has stated that the DLC will release for Ultimate Alliance as a free update, but details as to when are not much more than "coming soon". I'm sure this was a simple oversight, however, I would think that maybe adjusting the price point accordingly until the DLC is released would provide some assistance to helping mend some really broken fences with the gaming world. Will that happen? Who knows. Any who, let's press on shall we?
As I just mentioned these are action RPG games, and with a long extensive list of possible super heroes and villains, your selection of available powers and talents (which have to be unlocked by leveling up your character) is truly deep and provides incredible ways of using your character's skills. As you progress through the levels and break and destroy everything, you'll unlock coins to which you can spend learning and improving skills and abilities. It's fairly straight forward which is nice, but you will be farming for a very long time if you want to max out every ability possible.
When these games first launched almost a decade ago, the play control was very good despite some issues with the camera, and the same gameplay mechanics carries over to the Xbox One version, however it almost feels like this game received absolutely nothing in terms of tweaked or improved controls. Your RS operates your camera while the LS controls your character movement. You have a weak attack (A button) and a strong attack (B button) and utilizing the RT you can access abilities that are mapped to various face buttons. When you break it down, it's fairly simplistic controls. Now this doesn't mean it's a bad thing, however, it just means it's a lazy thing. Is it that time consuming and resource hungry to simply improve the responsiveness of the controls or maybe, just maybe, improve the camera system? I say this because you also feel that this game is also under powered when it comes to its graphics; and you know what? It is.
When the first Ultimate Alliance and Ultimate Alliance 2 came out, they were a fantastic graphic release by combining amazing cinematic cut scenes that almost felt like you were watching some CGI Hollywood spectacle, and tremendous character models that seemed incredibly detailed and sporting their own individual personality. The sequel continued this trend, and together both of the Ultimate Alliance games became staples that developed a cult following. Thankfully all of this is included in this release, however, if you were expecting an HD remake, you're going to be sorely disappointed. I feel it's important though to make a note that the developers warned the gaming public ahead of time to not expect a remastered version, but rather "touched up" for the current generation systems. And this is where the crux of the problems resides.
What "touch up" were they talking about? It literally feels like I stepped back in time back to October 2006 and as if nothing was done to provide any significant benefit or improvement. However, they are asking $20 below original retail price, yet I could go to GameStop now and buy a used Xbox 360 copy for $9.99 of Ultimate Alliance; or I could spend $40 for this Xbox One version. The games would be almost 100% identical, and that's what confused me the most. After much deliberation I know what the real mistake of this release was. It was the cost.
Even though the developers told us not to expect really any enhancements with this release, they priced their game right out of the market, especially when they neglected to include the DLC. I can't deny that the games are good, however, there's too much going against it to say that a $40 price point is worthwhile for little to no improvements over the decade old original. I could see a price point of $9.99 and let these games sell all night long, but with everything factored in, this is a textbook case of a straight cash grab, even though the game itself is great. Save your money until they go on a big sale.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Dungeon Punks
Well, it's approaching the end of summer, and while some are getting ready to hit the books again Xbox has decided to release some more games they hope are top tier indie titles. One of these games comes by the way of Dungeon Punks from the folks at Hyper Awesome Entertainment. Priced at $14.99 it's only $5 less than other RPG indie games, but the question remains: "What comes with that semi-hefty price tag?" Dungeon Punks is labeled as an action RPG that provides hours of fun and entertainment. It allows you to control parties of up to six fantasy characters as you set off on your quest for adventure and riches. What you just read is more in-depth than the entire story of Dungeon Punks. You spend your time jumping from job to job, all the while causing so much trouble and commotion that you are forced to flee to the next area in the game. With a heavy emphasis on humor, the execution of the story itself isn't entertaining or top quality, as it would rather focus itself on tongue and cheek chuckles rather than a substantial story that makes gamers want to find out more. Ultimately what this boils down to is a game that is a basic hack and slash side scrolling 2.5D title with what some might see as an anemic amount of RPG elements.
Starting out you select your character. While each one offers different spells and abilities, the entire crux of the whole character selection is based on deciding if you want to wield the steel or sling some spells, and all the while trying to balance out the bonuses and deductions that your character may have. For example, I decided to play as a Knight since it's the most balanced in terms of physical with a +10% to attack and -10% to defense. These RPG elements are fairly thin and stretch in very limited form to encompass both your weapons and shields. Each of those items come in your traditional RPG scaling, with white items being the weakest and yellow items being Rare. Along with some RPG elements there are some weapons that come with unique spells and abilities that be activated by pressing the X and A buttons together.
There isn't much to manage in terms of statistical categories, so think of this as very, very light RPG. After creating your character you begin your quest and find yourself on your airship, and it's from here that you can purchase/equip/sell items from the store or upgrade your spells. As you progress you'll unlock new characters to join your party, and at the back of the airship you can switch to whoever you want via the RB and LB while you're standing right below the character you want to control.
I was surprised to see that there is no Xbox Live connectivity. So, you and your legion on your friends list cannot play this game together, online that is. You can play together if you decide that social interaction is warranted and you hit up your friend’s couch for some local co-op. This type of thinking is about as useful as a screen door on the hull of a boat. In today's world you can't expect to slap together a game with only local multiplayer and not expect to get dinged for it. The developers though, have thought this through and instead of online teammates they fill your team with random AI controlled characters. While this can seem like a good idea, I'm sure all of us who are reading this understand why having human interaction is preferred over clumsy AI. Thankfully you can switch in-between characters on the fly by pressing the LB or RB. You're not told or shown this in any way, but that's because of the gameplay. And speaking of which...
It's simple in nature, yet since nothing is ever taught to you, let me help you out on some basics. First you have to hit start and go into settings and look for something to click on that turns movement by the analog stick ON. Don't ask me why they have it defaulted to only allow the D-Pad for movement. I personally think that the option to turn analog stick movement ON or OFF shouldn't even be an option, it should just naturally be included. You use the A button to swing your weapon, the Y button is assigned to use any consumable item you find in the level, and the X button and/or LS is combined with other buttons and assigned the task of unleashing your spells after you acquire mana. How do you do that? By beating the crap out of every enemy you find. After a few hits you'll get a pop up bubble of sorts that says mana charged and you then decide how you want to use it. As you progress, and you build your team up, you'll gain access to control new characters which will allow you to utilize new abilities and spells.
It's not all misery though for Dungeon Punks. The graphics are very clean and have a cartoonish feel to them, but the real bit of graphical joy comes from using some of the various spells and abilities. For example, there's an ability that the Werewolf (I'm calling him a clone of Saberwulf) has where he howls and multiple beams of energy strike down from above which target several enemies. These dynamic spells fill the screen with excitement, and thankfully you can utilize them quite frequently. Even though the graphics are decent, the sound is the surprising gem in this game. Every level and every moment is reprodced in a sonic surprise that is a delight to the ears and really makes playing Dungeon Punks an enjoyable experience.
Now comes the big question: "Is it worth the $14.99 + tax price tag?" I would pick it up in a heartbeat if it were $9.99, but currently I'm making the $14.99 price decision your call. I understand that there's no online multiplayer, and yes the campaign is short and not overly engaging; however, what Dungeon Punks does is make almost every moment of the game enjoyable, even with those issues I mention above. If you can rationalize that there is more to Dungeon Punks than the faults and flaws, you'll see that there is a quality job in paying homage to a classic gametype that hasn't seen much use in years.
Suggestions: Please release a patch or update that will allow for online connections via Xbox Live.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Sword Coast Legends
Before the days of cartridges, discs, and digital downloads, and before the days when we picked up a controller to play a game, there was Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). It's an IP that harkens back to the days when dice were thrown (I still have mine all wrapped up in a velvet bag), Dungeon Masters quashed dreams, and we relied on our ability to roll necessary saves. Dungeons & Dragons paved the way. We are talking about creating fantasy worlds and legends decades before Bioware was even invented. Now Dungeons & Dragons is back on the Xbox One with the release of Sword Coast Legends, and while it's priced at the top end of the indie scale ($19.99), the developers Digital Extremes and n-Space are attempting to bring the lore of D&D back to life. If you're thinking that this game is going to be your classic D&D then you're going to be disappointed. Sword Coast Legends suffers from what I would call a severe case of identity crisis. That's not to say things are bad, but to say that this is a pure D&D experience is a debunked myth. As you begin you're tasked to create your own character. Here you can select from a combined total of seven classes and six races, each bringing their own set of unique bonuses and proficiencies to the table. However, each character also has several skill trees from which to draw talents from and this is where the whole separation seems to begin as you start to think of this more like Dragon Age. Once you have your character selected and made the way you want, it's time to get into the real meat of this 17GB adventure.
In this behemoth of a game you are offered a few gametypes, though of course there is the massive single player story which can also be played cooperatively online or locally. This mode offers up a tale that not only is well written, but provides at least 40+ hours of content and will get you used to Sword Coast Legends. While the pacing of the story is good, the wealth of side quests will keep you busy, and the fact that this mode really does provide the best experience of the game, the issue that I have here exists not with the quality of the content, but the loading times associated with venturing between areas in the game. With seemingly over a minute in-between each loading sequence, you get the feeling that you could go catch some Pokemon while you wait for the game to load. You almost feel the game loads all 17GB of data every time you go to another area. It really becomes this game's biggest downfall, almost to the point where it becomes unbearable.
The other gametypes include your basic dungeon crawler where you go after loot, glory, and more loot. Then Sword Coast Legends tries to do something unique and allow you to step into the shoes of the Dungeon Master (DM) itself. This mode allows you to take up to four other people (totaling 5 in the lobby) and create a quest from which you have to decide if you want to be a fair DM, or one that is cursed by all and burned in effigy. This mode, while fun, has fairly limited resources at its disposal, and you use the resources called Threat to place traps, enemies, and more. When you take into account that the DM cannot alter the story and is forced, along with all the players, to take a direct route despite the choices made by the players, this mode can feel a bit restrained and under developed.
After you decide what mode you're going to want to play and dive into the game itself you'll be very happy to read the timed pop up instructional directions. Think of the gameplay mechanics mapped to the controller, where X, Y, and B are all mapped to abilities that you can learn from your skill trees, and the A button is for generic interaction/attacking. Then using Right Trigger, you can have a second set of four skills at your disposal, while using Left Trigger you can have a third similar blank set of four to work with. And finally, if you press in the Left and Right triggers you can bring up your consumable menu (time isn't halted in this mode) and have access to a whole new menu. This is how the developers have compacted the long list of skills available on the PC platform into a console controller. Pressing the back button will allow you to pause time where you can not only issue commands to your team (which you can also do on the fly using the D-Pad), but access inventory and much more. You will also want to familiarize yourself with the entire menu system altogether.
Being able to equip items to your other party members, as well as develop their skill trees, is all nice and fun, however you have to realize that in some menus the left stick can act as a selector which switch from left to right sides of the screens, while the Left and Righter Bumpers can be used in some screens to cycle through your heroes in your party. This is a clunky setup, and while I understand the reasoning for trying to literally cram everything in terms of gameplay into a controller layout instead of becoming innovative on the console roll out, I still can't excuse that. I can comprehend the resources needed by a company to essentially remake a game with a different UI; however, with a vast amount of resources that are already being used, the time is significantly lower in development and at a cost that is marginal, of which you could easily charge $39.99. Outside of the God awful loading times, this compact controller layout becomes incredibly frustrating.
While the negatives seem to keep piling up, there are a few bright spots as we wind our way home on this review. The graphics feel incredibly dated but this is either a deliberate art style or because this game released October 2015? Regardless of the reason, the graphics in Sword Coast Legends aren't anything you're going to find spectacular, but I have seen worse. Thankfully this mediocrity is broken up by the soundtrack. I'll never forget the first time I heard the soundtrack kick in. I had been listening to decent voice acting and sound effects like crazy, but then I heard this almost Celtic melody start to creep through my speakers and it literally haunted me. I absolutely fell in love with this and want to actually say thank you to everyone involved with the sound of Sword Coast Legends. However, amidst all this enjoyment I was also thoroughly let down. Not because of the quality of audio, but the sheer lack of times you hear it. It almost feels like 3-5 minutes pass in-between this wonderful music and every time it ends, you feel a little deader inside.
Normally I'm a very hard critic when it comes to games priced at $19.99 which are ported over from the PC, as I look at it as entertainment versus the value. As a quality Dungeon & Dragons game, I feel Sword Coast Legends falls short to what we have grown to expect from games such as Baldur's Gate; however, do I feel that this game is a quality gaming experience? Without a doubt, yes. That being said, if you're looking for a genuine Dungeons & Dragons experience, then there are better choices for you, but if you're looking for a quality 40+ hour single player experience along with co-op and multiplayer dungeon crawling options, look no further.
Suggestions: Please shorten the loading times. Also maybe look into innovating the UI in ways found from other games such as Diablo? And please, in the name of everything that is Holy on this planet, please release a soundtrack and make the soundtrack more frequent.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Dad Beat Dads
One of the most popular concepts within gaming today is the concept of fighting. Be it a one versus one match or a free-for-all group brawl, fighting games have become a staple in the gaming world. Now enter Stellar Jay Studios and their latest game, Dad Beat Dads. Clearly from the title of the game you already know that this is probably some Freudian subliminal messaging, but I'm not here to play Maury to some developers and their tainted past, I'm here to review their game, so let's go and give it the old' one-two shall we?And that's about as much humor and lighthearted attitude as I can muster. You see, Dad Beat Dads is priced at $5.99 and appears to be a comical low budget clone of Super Smash Bros. Now, with such a popular and successful game you would think that the developers would draw from the basics of the team fighting arena concept right? Wrong. First off, this game requires only local multiplayer, so no Xbox Live multiplayer for you; however, you can have AI bots, so I guess that's something good? In my opinion, in this day and age it's almost blasphemy to gamers if you don't allow online connectivity. Gone are the days where we would venture to our friend’s house and spend hours on the couch, floor, or chair, just to partake in gaming excitement.
I don't have to really worry about giving the story away because there isn't one. None. But what you do get are three different game modes to select from which are Corporate Ladder, Smash N' Grab, and Diaper Sniper.
Corporate Ladder is where you basically punch and smash your way upward through various levels as the screen scrolls upward, and you have to gather as many coins as you can while continuously jumping to higher platforms and beating the crap out of other dads. The winner is the one with the most coins when the timer runs out. It really doesn't get much simpler than that. Then comes Smash N' Grab.
Smash N' Grab is, in Disney terms, disturbing. It involves you punching and fighting other dads, causing them to drop their babies as you steal them and take their baby back through your Dad Door. You get 1 point for every baby you bring through your door, after of course you steal them by beating the crap out of other dads. Going through this I felt relieved to know that I'm not the most screwed up person out there. So I took it as a sign of personal growth and decided to move onto game mode number three which then made me almost want to stage an intervention with the developers.
Finally, nothing says fighting dads and fun like wrapping a big red brick in a diaper and hurling it towards other virtual dads in a knockout elimination style brawl, hence the mode name Diaper Sniper. 4 dads and 1 diaper fight it out, and as time progresses, more diapers are added which means that towards the end there's nothing but brick laden diapers flying everywhere. Provided you have some friends to come over and actually WANT to play this type of game. If you do, then I suggest you all gather at your nearest psychiatrist's office and schedule an immediate session.
You get to pick what dad you want, and you have the option to play a cute little acknowledgement mini-game where after you pick your character, you get to either beat or destroy something and then jump through a door and bam, you're ready to play the main game. If you don't want to play this mini-game you can head on into the settings and "flip a switch" so all you need to do is press A to progress. The choice is yours. When you get in the fight, the controls are simplistic; pretty much on the primate level. Your left and right sticks do very little outside of controlling the direction of your character and your other buttons do other things, but honestly there's not much else here to explain at all.
That is the entire game right there folks, and all for $5.99 plus tax. Not all is doom and gloom though, as there are some upsides to this game, if you can call them that. You get your basic stereotypical dad fighter categories, from construction workers to accountants, but then you get ones that are way out there such as a shark dad or a crocodile dad? Yes, you can pick your character to be a crocodile or shark who runs around the levels beating the crap out of other dads. Apparently there's a reason for a shark or crocodile dads punching and thieving and slinging diapers? I haven't got the foggiest clue.
The visual style is humorous and cartoonish which provides some levity and delay to the fact that you just blew $6 on this when you could have bought something else instead. If you are thinking that the soundtrack will inject some form of resurgence of entertainment back into this $5.99 title, you're going to get used to disappointment. If you're thinking of spending your money on this game, I urge you to take 10 deep breaths and think. Food to keep you alive costs less and tastes delicious. Dad Beat Dads is nothing but a psychological session of depression, but without any hope of recovery. I've never done this in a review before, but there literally isn't anything else worthwhile to say about this game, so you sane gamers out there should stay clear if you can.
Suggestions: At the very least include Xbox Live Multiplayer.
Overall Score: 3.5 / 10
Cast of the Seven Godsends - Redux
Continuing the trend of retro gaming, Raven Travel Studios has recently released Cast of the Seven Godsends on the Xbox One. Originally launched on the PC back in July 2015, Raven Travel Studios has attempted to capture the fun, enjoyment, and frustration of 2D side scrolling action set back in the 16 Bit era. With a heavy homage to some of the greatest 2D side scrolling games ever created, and priced at $6.99, I decided to take this game for a spin, which ended up becoming a bit of a crash.On the outside, Cast of the Seven Godsends checks all the right boxes that would signify that this game will take you back into your glory years of gaming with its retro feel; or if you're a young person who thinks a PS2 is an antique, then this is a glimpse of what gaming was like before you were born. What we see on the surface is stellar 16-bit retro gaming graphics and magic spells flying all over the screen; things even start to seem a little rosy. It appears that Cast of the Seven Godsends is almost like playing a modern rendition of Ghost 'n Goblins or Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts that's been cross bred with games like Shinobi and Contra; however, when you actually experience it, it's a completely different story. And speaking of story...
You play the role of Kandar, who apparently is this king somewhere, and one night in his castle while just sort of hanging out with your wife and new born child, a bunch of demons appear alongside their demon lord and kidnap your child for use in some form of satanic ritual. Armed with determination and a need to punish your A button, you set off in pursuit, but you're not alone because you have the support of the Seven Gods (Ice, Fire, Wind, etc.). It's through these gods that you, as Kandar, will master devastating magic, and you'll need them because right from the beginning, Cast of the Seven Godsends doesn't play around.
Sporting a dynamic control scheme of only 2 buttons, you can only do two things: throw objects and jump (that seems a bit restrictive but who am I to judge a king?). You can throw projectiles, which range from axes, swords, daggers, maces, and more, above and below so your not completely hindered in this fight, but there are times you'll find instances where the controls seem to lag a hair or two behind the input, forcing you to almost have to predetermine your path and plan your route. This would be ok, but unfortunately there are hardly any places throughout the game that you can just stop and observe without being attacked. Just like in the golden era of gaming, you start off very meager for strength and armor, but you can obtain God-like suits that will grant you new abilities and attacks, both on the physical and magical side. Each suit can unleash a devastating attack or ability by holding down the A button until your character is charged up, then by releasing the button you'll annihilate your opponents.
The rules of the game are simple, survive and kill everything as you go from point A to point B. Along the way you will notice in-game checkpoints, which are fantastic because you will die a lot; however, they do not save your game. You will actually have to physically do that, and even then the game save does not include the checkpoint data. Basically what I'm saying is that if you lose a life, you're back at the checkpoint, but should you have to use a continue though, it's back to the beginning of the level you go. While I understand that is how the games in the past used to be, and that staying true to the style means developing it this way, that doesn't make it any less annoying or frustrating because it was still annoying and frustrating back then as well. This doesn't bode well given the control responsiveness issues mentioned earlier.
It's not all doom and gloom for Cast of the Seven Godsends though, because if you enjoy retro gaming graphics, this title has you covered in spades. Incredible static imagery backdrops blanket each level, and with a wide variety of enemies you can almost hear the 80's roaring back as you play. This is in part due to the heavy retro synth filled soundtrack that strives to partner along with the visuals to deliver a classic gaming experience, and boy does it ever. What I truly enjoyed the most about this was selecting what God power I wanted and then letting loose with a fully charged shot as some of the effects reminded me of those days back in the Shinobi era and more. While this is good, sadly it can't help the quality of execution from Cast of the Seven Godsends.
If you're into the controller breaking frustration of the classic Ghost 'n Goblins or Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, then Cast of the Seven Godsends is right up your alley. This game will make you literally stress test an Xbox Elite Controller to the breaking point, but yet when you beat one of the mid bosses, or one of the massive level bosses, you're filled with such euphoria it's like you won the lotto. While the visuals are good and are complimented well with the music, the environments don't seem that well developed and the issues with the gameplay, even though the controls are quite simplified, hinder this game. You would think that this would have been addressed before launching on a console, but they sadly weren't. That being said, at the end of the day, for $6.99 you really can't go wrong as despite the flaws and insane difficulty, as Cast of the Seven Godsends provides a classic nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Ethan: Meteor Hunter
Here at XboxAddict I take my role as a reviewer seriously. I think of myself as a guide, if you will, that honestly tells you if a game is worth your hard earned money. Seaven Studio has recently released their latest puzzle game titled Ethan: Meteor Hunter. Priced at $9.99, the 'official' PR spin is that it is a result of Super Meat Boy meeting Braid. They also claim that you may die repeatedly and enjoy it. Oh boy. Stating something like this is pretty risky, and while the $9.99 price point is nice for a quality puzzle game, the main question still remains: Does Ethan: Meteor Hunter warrant a purchase? On the outside everything seems promising from the beginning. Ethan: Meteor Hunter boils down to a simple story where players learn that sometimes a war between neighbors can produce catastrophic results. You play as a rat named Ethan, and apparently your neighbor has just demolished your house. If that wasn't bad enough, cascading down from the sky are many meteors, one of which hits your recently destroyed home (I guess when it rains it pours). You emerge from the pile of rubble with the ability to manipulate objects and pause time (this would be the Braid influence). Fearing for his life, your neighbor takes off and now you are forced to jump, climb, and manipulate time in an attempt to venture through more than 50 puzzle levels to go after him. It's not a bad story by any means, but nothing that makes you sit back and take a deep breath as you absorb the plot. Of course none of this matters if you can't manage to control your character.
Using your sticks to move, and the A button to jump, overall the control is fairly responsive, which makes it a bit easier for you to get through the game as a whole. It's your job to guide Ethan through the puzzles in the levels, but the real innovation comes in the form of your ability to pause time. Here you can grab a hold of various items and objects within a predetermined space and manipulate them however you want, the catch is that you can't just pause time whenever you want.
You first have to find blue coins that grant you the ability to pause time, and only then can you use the power as many times as you have coins. There is a huge problem with this aspect, and that is when you grab your items within the puzzle space the controls are overly sensitive and you find yourself manipulating puzzles like you just had 6 shots of espresso and you haven't slept in a week. I do appreciate the ability to find numerous solutions for the various puzzles, and having that variety has saved me more times than I can recount, but this over exaggerated control scheme, while time is paused, is one of the game's flaws.
Another issue is that many times during my gameplay experience when I dropped out of the time pause mode I realized that I could not go back into it to solve the puzzles forcing me to restart, which is where the whole Super Meat Boy reference comes into play. You're going to die a lot. And I'm not just saying this to try and dissuade you from purchasing or playing it, you will die over and over and over again which is why you are given the whole Super Meat Boy reference that they provide.
Ethan: Meteor Hunter tries to keep you entertained by providng you numerous checkpoints that act as your 'instant respawn center'. The good thing about this is that you don't have to replay entire levels all over again if you die towards the end. The bad thing, however, is that to get to the end you will die many, many times from many, many things. Heck, the dev-team claims that you're actually going to enjoy killing Ethan over and over again, and I can tell you that I am a prime example of a contrasting opinion to that very statement. Is the misery over? I wish.
You should also know that the game was released as a PS3 title back in October 2013, so the game is technically a few months shy of 3 years in age. With this in mind, you might just be able to see where this is going in terms of the visuals. Braid actually looked amazing when it released, it won awards for its 2D retro gaming style graphics whereas Ethan: Meteor Hunter looks confused as a game. It's as though it wants to deliver some stunning artwork, yet it wants to be comical and lighthearted in it's over the top delivery, but it doesn't do that good of a job combining the two. This is all accompanied by a soundtrack that provides a bit of relief, but sadly it can't pull the game out from the shambles.
Ethan: Meteor Hunter was released almost 3 years ago and back then it was hailed by some to be innovative, creative, and beautiful. Take this, along with the developer's claims about one's gameplay experience, and this game has a lot to live up to, but sadly it doesn't. I was hoping for a Braid quality experience and I didn't get that. I was hoping for a Super Meat Boy experience, and I didn't get that either. That being said, I was looking for puzzles and I did get those and the all the freedom to solve them that I wanted, unfortunately that can't save this game. I was hopeful that Ethan: Meteor Hunter would deliver an experience that would have me captivated and challenged, but instead I got disappointment and regret.
Overall Score: 4.0 / 10
Full Mojo Rampage
Lately we have become inundated with a plethora of seemingly lack luster budget games. Enter Full Mojo Rampage from Over the Top Games, a twin stick style shooter for $12.99. Full Mojo Rampage is priced in the upper middle tier for indie games. So, you might already be thinking that it's pushing the expensive side of indie gaming and that there are only a few twin stick experiences of any quality that are worth playing. Well, after playing Full Mojo Rampage I can honestly say to get ready to add another one to that list. Over the Top Games has done something brilliant as they have taken a formula that was undoubtedly successful in the past, adapted it, and put some of their own influence in for a kick. Full Mojo Rampage is what you could consider a baby Diablo clone in almost every sense of the imagination. Think of it, if Tim Burton, Disney, and Diablo all had a wild evening together, the resulting product of that trio of fun would be Full Mojo Rampage. The game involves your character, a voodoo keeper in training, who must learn from various voodoo masters, and this requires many different challenges and boss fights; however, the plot is told with a dark and humorous twist that is very Tim Burton-esque, and you can easily see where some of his work has drawn influence here. It's not too shabby to draw from that type of material when constructing a game about voodoo and different powers.
When you start your game you have the option for single player, multiplayer, and other various options such as library, help, options, and more. When starting the campaign you can tackle it as a single player or with a friend or two, and multiplayer gives you the option to go at it co-op style or in a PvP match for more intense action! For this review let's start with single player campaign.
You'll get the option to select only the first world when starting, but as you complete the various worlds you'll get more. After this you get the option to configure your voodoo warrior. You can opt to change your mask though this is only a cosmetic thing. You also carry pins, that you can upgrade, that you find in the various levels you play. These pins give your character certain bonuses. The next section you have to pick from is from a stack of voodoo master cards that give your character certain abilities. As you level up you'll be able to purchase different blessings as well that are dramatic one time bonuses that come at the expense of both coins and medals.
After you have your voodoo warrior customized and ready to go you'll notice that the world is divided up into multiple stages. While some sit off the beaten path and provide sanctuary, such as shrines and stores, there are also optional side quests, which if you complete them, will grant you access to a special chest that contains rewards for your character from coins to mojos and more. Each stage requires you to fulfill various requirements before exiting, but as you'll quickly discover, the levels and presentation are a more lighthearted and comical style of Diablo.
The top down view works wonders for the twin stick shooting, and armed with a mini map you can locate everything from various doors, chests, and exits. Over the Top Games did a brilliant job here; however, their map leaves a lot to be desired. I'm playing on a 55" 4k Samsung and wow is the map ever tiny. There is an ability to expand it, but it doesn't seem to be an enormous benefit.
Earlier you heard me talk about mojos. These are bonus items that you can find throughout the levels that grant you bonuses such as attack power increases, health bonuses, increased critical hit chance, and so much more. These equip automatically to your character as you pick them up, but they can be switched with ones not equipped or those found on the ground. There are even unique mojos that offer you tremendous bonuses such as unlock the entire shaded map or reflect all damage back at your opponent. These are rare to find and are a treasure to hold onto. As you venture throughout each world you'll uncover rooms that allow you to combine your mojos. For instance, if you had one mojo that had health +50 and another that had a damage bonus of +5, you could then combine them to make one mojo that had both stats. This does wonders when you realize that you now have one spot in your inventory open for a new mojo.
One of the hidden gems of Full Mojo Rampage has to be the music. To coincide with the child like graphics and humor, the soundtrack and sound effects fit like the skull head on a voodoo master's staff. With a dark and almost groovy funk they serenade you as you play with interesting sound effects. Full Mojo Rampage does a great job delivering all of this in a package that makes it very hard to find faults. One thing however, is that this game is packed with Easter eggs from various sources such as Game of Thrones, Mario, Skyrim, The Jungle Book, and I'm sure many more that I haven't uncovered yet. Even though I just said it's hard to find faults in the game, outside of the map there are still a few big faults, and one of them is the whole campaign structure.
You have one life to get as far as you can through the game world. If you die on the level right before the boss, congratulations, because now you'll have to do all those worlds all over again. As you restart you'll be placed at the beginning with none of your mojos or bonuses, but if you've acquired enough XP to level up then you'll want to quit back to the main menu to level up your character. Sure, the pins you unlock and the stats you upgrade will help, but wow does this game like to kick you right in the groin. If you're playing multiplayer co-op, you and your partner will share lives, so make sure none of you die. The game mercifully gives you multiple lives to work with in co-op play, but only two. There have been many times where I lost focus and got killed on a boss only to have to start all the way back at the beginning of the world.
Despite the 'one-life' major fault, and a map system that could use some improvement, Full Mojo Rampage is a dark, humorous, gem from the voodoo gods. Priced at 13 bucks it is an absolutely brilliant game that will undoubtedly drain numerous hours, and even days, away. I usually find myself treating these indie games with the same scrutiny as top shelf titles because I feel that sometimes a game is grossly overpriced for the execution and content that it brings gamers, and with that in mind, Full Mojo Rampage is a bargain every day of the week.
Suggestions: Please improve the mini map, and if need be, directly rip the entire map mechanics from Diablo!
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
The Technomancer
Have you ever seen a blatant rip off that you actually enjoyed quite a bit? Now, I know that's harsh to start off with, but recently I sat down to give Technomancer a good solid run through, and even though I find it to almost be a lesser quality clone, I find it to be a clone of some fantastic Bioware RPG games from the golden years so many moons ago. Developer Spiders has actually been smarter than many other companies, and throughout this review you'll see where their brilliance takes form. I think when you take a deep look at Technomancer, what you find may just shock you (get it?).As I began playing, my character, Zachariah Mancer, is about to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Officer in the Technomancer Order on the planet Mars, 200 years after it was colonized. Technomancers are humans with a mutated gene that allows them to harness and control electricity. They have become both feared and revered throughout Mars. You're tasked to create a team, which you will build throughout the story, and your actions with the environment, along with the corporations, will determine how they view you.
There are also various corporations and organizations that are positioning themselves for control, and control comes down to water and serum. Water became a vital source of survival, corruption, and power, and throughout the story you must weigh the choices that affect your karma (how your followers and other NPC's regard you), your relationships (save someone's life and they may fall in love with you, but put a bullet in their head and that pretty much seals the deal), and even your associations with various factions (they can be hostile, suspicious, or neutral). Serum is the game's currency, which you can gain from fallen enemies, and if you decide to kill them you will get a serum bonus.
Things sound very typical and you'd be right thinking they are. However, this narrative is nothing short of a divine inspiration drawn straight from classic Bioware RPG games of the past, and that is a stroke of brilliance. With such a successful model already at your disposal you can imagine the guys at Spiders saying, "Hmmmmm... well what if we took the same type of model found in these other legendary games and applied it to ours?" That means what we have is a very deep system of character development combined with a moral dilemma tree system of choices. All of this means that the premise behind this game is sensational. Let me repeat that, the premise behind this game is sensational; however, the execution of the actual game itself is not.
Since we are on the topic of the story, it goes without saying that the voice over acting is laughable at best. Not only is it overacted about 90% of the time, but the other 10% is so comical that you almost feel it was a deliberate attempt to force dialogue into the game. All of this is quite disappointing because the music itself, and the sound effects, feel almost like they came straight from the Mass Effect universe. So, how one could have such terrible voice acting, yet put together a quality score and sound effects is puzzling to me. This isn't just a sliver of negative, but a massive black eye given that the voice acting permeates throughout the entire game. It really puts the hurt on Technomancer in a big way, and that's depressing because the execution could have really helped propel this game into a whole new category, but sadly it's not.
The gameplay mechanics in a 3rd person game have to be responsive in order to be enjoyable, these sadly are not. Now, when you’re playing, your character has multiple game menus to select from. For instance, Left Bumper will bring up your Technomancer quick access wheel at the top left corner of the screen where you can assign various powers and techniques that you can access on the fly. The Left Trigger will allow you to select various assignable buttons that pertain to items such as health potions, or traps, etc. Your Right Bumper will allow your character to select from three different fighting styles:
1. Warrior - The staff is your weapon of choice, with devastating single attacks and a wide but slow area of attack moves, the warrior can cause serious damage to a lot of enemies at once.
2. Rogue - This fighting style hooks your character into using a dagger and a gun. Get in quick and stab, slash, and pierce your enemies, then roll back to a safe distance. Utilizing traps become key for gaining strategic advantages in fights.
3. Guardian - The fighting style of the shield and mace. Using a shield, you can block incoming blows including gunfire, but anything that dares stand in your way will become another body statistic left in your wake.
The rest is very familiar as your Right Stick takes control of a sketchy camera that seems to be more of a hassle than helpful, and the Left Stick will move your character around as per normal. All of this is incredibly similar to games you have played before so that's great right? Sort of.
The responsiveness of the controls is next to nonexistent. There were numerous times where I would be fighting in Guardian style and blocking away when I wanted to dash backward to create some distance so I could lay a trap down. I pushed down on the LS to move my character back, along with the B button to do my dash, and my character actually turned to face the direction I was pressing on the LS. When I hit the B button to dash, my character zoomed right back into the fight, exposing my back at which point would get decimated by countless blades and gunfire which led to a rapid demise. You feel that the dev-team essentially thought to compensate for this sluggishness and erratic behavior by giving you a twitchy camera system to operate, and when your character finally decides to walk, the game almost naturally sends him into a sprint, which makes the A button sprint almost worthless.
Sadly, there is another gripe I have to raise about Technomancer, and that is with the map system. When you have quests selected you don't see any sort of notification or indicator on your HUD and you must push the RT so your map will enlarge to give you a wider view of your immediate surroundings. This is great until you find yourself constantly backtracking to reach objectives and running around with the map seemingly glued to the screen. It really detracts from the game, and unless you want to continue into the menu system to examine the full map, then that's all the support you're going to get. While that's a bad thing, what you need to realize is that the only reason it's bad is because there are so many things to do in Technomancer. Tons of side quests and main missions mean that you can level your character up rapidly. It took me only two days of casual playing to get my character to level 18.
All of this is wrapped up in a graphics presentation that feels very last generation. The character models are nice, but the environment itself is lackluster, and the various NPC characters, that seem to have zero point in the game, almost feel thrown together in a hasty way. But you're not really paying attention to that since you're looking at your full screen map trying to get to where you have to be anyways, so it's not that big of a deal. If you're thinking Technomancer is going to be some graphic powerhouse of pure brilliance, think again.
Technomancer is a game that I feel is undercooked. What I mean by this is that there are games that get delayed because they want to add more polish to the title itself, and Technomancer is a game that could have benefited from that. Had the developers at Spiders taken just a few more months to fine tune the gameplay, I have no doubt in my mind that Technomancer would be a breakthrough game for the company that could have launched them into a whole new level.
Technomancer has so much going for it in terms of story, sound, moral choices, and everything we’ve come to expect from a quality 3rd person RPG game from the big players in the gaming industry, so much so that it really feels like you’re experiencing a cheap knock off of a really great game. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just means that it could have been a whole lot better. Imagine what the quality of Technomancer would be like had the dev-team taken the time to do all of this? Wow. I honestly started off with a lackluster impression of the game, but after some long days of playing it I can say that it has grown on me, and even though it's not perfect it sure is fun, and that is what a game is supposed to be in the end right?
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10
Bard's Gold
Remember the days when 2D platforming games offered you a tremendous challenge and a ludicrous reward after completion? Welcome back. Bard's Gold is the latest release from the ID@Xbox program by the people at Pixel Lantern, and their goal was to create a challenging platforming title with "light" RPG elements. With a price tag at $4.99, could this be the reason we have the phrase: "Good things come in small packages?" Let's set off on our adventure shall we? I have to say that when going into this game I have a very small amount of knowledge about it, and after having played it for quite some time... I still know very little. Apparently the overall premise of Bard's Gold is that there is this nefarious Goblin that has stolen, well... all your gold, and now you must venture out to various worlds to hunt him down and reclaim your riches! Thankfully though the story doesn't really matter, but at least it's there in all is pixelated glory. But playing a platformer to focus on the story is like reading the back of a cereal box and thinking you can now unlock the secrets of the universe, it's not really gonna happen.
However, what you really play a platformer for is the gameplay experience. Responsive controls, challenging levels, and enemies that have their own identities are all qualities that we look for in a quality platformer, and how many boxes does Bard's Gold check? A lot of them. The gameplay mechanics are so simplistic that you start to wonder if Bard's Gold seems dumbed down for the gaming public, but then you enter your first of several worlds with your goal in this one being you must obtain the key on the level to open a door to continue in the time limit provided. If for some reason your timer hits 0:00, get ready, because fire will start raining from above, and will continue to do so until you either perish (where you will respawn and the time will reset to just over 50 seconds) or you manage to get to the door to the next level and exit.
To do all of this you use your A button to jump, X button to attack, and your Left Stick to move, all while you traverse the level and defeat the enemies that lie in your way. It really doesn't get much simpler than that folks, but that’s ok because you don't need to have an overly confusing control scheme to have a good time. Sometimes keeping it simple is truly the best thing to do. These levels though are challenging and can be quite tough at times, but it's nothing that we haven't experienced as gamers before. Just avoid the traps, kill the enemies, destroy boss characters, and you'll be just fine. As you progress through these levels you will acquire gems and gold that you can use to do business. Who's your shopkeeper? Why Death of course.
Yes, the Grim Reaper apparently has decided to go into merchandising and has setup a monopoly of stores that sell your character items such as an extra life, more powerful weapons, increased time on your timer, and even the ability to see hidden loot items. So basically Death is the 1% of Bard's Gold, but that's not all that happens with death. When your character dies repeatedly, and expends all of your lives, you will come to a character upgrade screen where any unspent treasure must be spent on upgrading traits for your character, or it will be lost forever. This actually creates a balancing act within Bard's Gold because now you have to choose such things as spending your money on things that the Reaper has that will help you complete levels or do you wait and save it till you die so you can pour all of it into upgrading your character overall?
These upgrades greatly influence your character's traits and gameplay, and unlocking these require you to find certain skill books. These can be acquired in many ways through boss fights, but I do remember for one of them I had to traverse a long series of pinpoint timed jumps throughout a tower which seemed to go on for ages, but I finally reached the top, and with it, my prize. Do make a note that because while your level progress saves, your gold does not. Also, it must be said that Bard's Gold switches up the level layout every time you start over, so whenever you run out of lives and go to play again, you'll have different level layouts. Which will happen a lot.
And all of this platforming excitement comes wrapped in a pixelated blanket of nostalgia. Everything from the details in the background outside the windows, to jars, and even the light itself is done in true retro glory, but unfortunately I cannot really say the same for the soundtrack. Sadly that's not the only flaw with Bard's Gold. You heard me ramble on about the gameplay; however, what I didn't mention yet is that Bard's Gold will literally destroy your controllers. Sure, you get a chance to select Normal, Challenging, and 'smash your TV in a fit of blind rage' difficulties, but none of that actually matters. While the game seems simplistic, the flip side of the coin is that it doesn't take much to make you start swearing, snapping controllers, and so much more because of the challenge. You could say though that completion also gives you some of the greatest feelings of accomplishment, and you'd be right, but at the expense of your wallet and a bunch of controller parts.
When it was all said and done, this pixel drenched platformer really surprised me. For $4.99 you get an incredible challenge. Think about it, a game cheaper than a fast food value meal that provides you an experience that is fresh, challenging, and very rewarding. Sure it has a fortune cookie for a story, there is no training to get you up to speed on the gameplay mechanics, and some of the later levels are downright rage inducing, but given its price you can't really beat its simplicity and content for the asking price. Nostalgic, retro, ancient, or whatever you want to call it, Bard's Gold delivers on a lot of key points. It may not be perfect, but it definitely is fun.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
PAC-MAN 256
Since the birth of video games decades ago, and probably well before most of you reading this were even born, video games were simple. We didn't have to worry about checkpoints, K/D ratios, story, graphics, and so on. All we had to be concerned with was having fun. Back then, over a partially eaten pizza, lightning struck the gaming world and Pac-Man was born. Over the decades, Pac-Man has seen everything from merchandising to various takes on his iconic layout, sound, and graphics. Most recently, and in my possession, I welcome you to what literally could be called one of the best iterations of Pac-Man to ever happen; Pac-Man 256. For $4.99 it's already priced to sell, but should you toss down the cash? Wakka Wakka everyone.Pac-Man 256 is literally a revolutionary way to play and experience Pac-Man. There isn't a story because Pac-Man has always been about scoring higher than your opponent, not about saving a princess from a castle, or saving the universe from destruction. It was simple back then, and developers Hipster Whale have thankfully kept it simple now. From the beginning you will have the choice of either single player or local multiplayer action. I wish there was support for Xbox Live multiplayer, but hopefully they do a direct sequel to this with it included; however, the joy that's found isn't the fact that there's no story, it's all about the gameplay.
Each time you set off in Pac-Man 256 you experience a new and ever changing maze of twists, turns, and straights that are set in a semi-top down skewed viewpoint. The key to the game is survival, which is even harder to do now when you have a game over screen that not only digitizes the board as it creeps along towards you, but also disorients the screen and audio through static and other nostalgic treats of sound. The closer the looming kill screen that chases you, the more distortion you will pick up, and if you dawdle too long then your Pac-Man will perish. This forces you forward through the maze and you have to adapt on the fly. This ever changing experience is what keeps Pac-Man 256 always entertaining and a massive value for only $4.99.
Normally a dramatic shift would be the only change; however, developers Hipster Whale have pushed the boundaries even further. Now Pac-Man has power-ups! Yes, Pac-Man can now carry up to three primary power-ups to help along the way. These range from laser beams that are straight line death rays that take out ghosts to tornadoes that start sending Pinky, Blinky, Clyde and crew back to Oz. Pac-Man even has an ability called 'Pac-Men" which sends out smaller clones of himself to attack ghosts, Stealth, and so much more. These are primarily unlocked through the over-consumption of pellets, and some of them take a very, very long time to unlock. Like I mentioned earlier, you can select up to three primary power-ups and throughout the level you may find a few different ones that will allow you to try them out before you even unlock them.
These powerups are a great tool to have and unlock, but the real joy is when you get to upgrade them. During your adventures you will come across different colored coins (yellow and a brownish red color). It's these coins that you will be able to spend on upgrading your power-ups. The first few upgrades aren't much in terms of cost, but when you start going for the max levels you'll be looking at dropping at least a few thousand, and when you only collect between 2 and 5 coins at a time, guess what you'll be playing for a very long time?
To help speed things up, if you complete challenges set before you, you can also earn different amounts of coins that range from 256 all the way to over 1,000. I've found that it's more based on performance, so if you have a really terrible run, then you're at the bottom of the scale when it comes to rewards, but go on a 10 min rampage through the game and your rewards will be tremendous.
All of these innovations are amazing to include in a Pac-Man game, but in Pac-Man 256 the innovation continues into the graphics realm. On the bottom left side of the main menu you will notice a Pac-Man symbol. Select it and you will be able to choose from a variety of different level layouts including office, cube, vintage 80's, and many more. These help keep the gameplay fresh as well, because let me tell you that there's nothing more enjoyable than when you have a red office chair wheeling itself after you. Even when your character dies, it explodes into a ton of pixel cubes instead of just folding back onto itself. On top of all of this, the opening intro jingle even got remixed into a downtempo hip hop beat that provided some funk and fun, mixed in with the classic "wakka wakka" sound and corresponding sound effects.
It really goes without saying that Pac-Man 256 is nothing short of an innovative homage to a classic masterpiece that is simply enjoyable gaming. With more innovation in this $4.99 release than we have ever seen, Hipster Whale has seemingly reinvented the wheel and we couldn't be happier about it. There are full retail games, including other ID@Xbox games that try to give you more, but fail at delivering such a quality gaming experience at a cost three times as much. Not here though, as Pac-Man 256 is another gem priced below the cost of a value meal at McDonalds that could quite possibly be the best value per dollar in gaming today, and I'm loving it.
Suggestions: Please add Xbox Live multiplayer support!
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Fenix Furia
When you're going to develop a game, what sort of qualities and characteristics do you want to be in it. Do you want it to be enjoyable? What about challenging? What about so freaking hard you swear to the unholiest of demons for some form of wrathful vengeance? If you answered yes, then Fenix Furia from Green Lava Studios should be right up your alley. Priced at $14.99, Fenix Furia originally was released back in 2014 on the PC as Fenix Rage, but now makes its debut on the Xbox One. Is it worth it? Let's find out.Set in a 2D platform world, Fenix Furia is designed to test your patience. Your reward for this? A virtual cookie. Oh, but there's so much more. I have to get this out of the way right from the beginning: Fenix Furia is tough, I mean like putting the durability of your controller to the test type of tough. Did you know they package extra sticks with the Xbox Elite Controller? Fenix Furia could easily be the reason for this. Why is this game so tough? Well, the developers were aiming for something between Flappy Bird and Super Meat Boy and ended up producing something that some would deem to be impossible. If you have never played a 2D platforming game before and you're considering this game, God be with you.
The story of Fenix Furia is so small it could fit on the side of a milk carton under the word "MISSING". You play the role of Fenix, not Marcus Fenix mind you, and your home world has been obliterated by an explosion leaving you and Oktarus. This other survivor manages to stay just one or two steps ahead of you. So, you travel through four different worlds, each one being 20 stages long, looking for each level's cookie. Yes, a cookie. What I just told you could be deemed a spoiler since the story is not only mysterious, but it requires you to complete the game to find out.
Your chance at finding out just who Oktarus is, and the story behind Fenix Furia, rest squarely on your desire for constant and repetitive punishment and death. The reason for this shady story is that the developers want you to focus on the gameplay, and trust me, you'll be glad they did. This is because Fenix Furia's primary focus is to make you pay an exorbitant amount of attention to make sure you get the timing of every single jump you make, right down to the micro-second. If you thought Super Meat Boy was hard you haven't played this game.
Fenix Furia's jump and dash mechanic is the fundamental cornerstone of the gameplay. It is also one of the biggest deceptions in video games. Sure, the controls sound like they are very simplistic, especially when you consider that the A button jumps, Right Trigger performs a dash, and you move with the Left Stick. It's clear that we're not talking rocket science controls here, but it's these three simple controls that you must master to thread the needle to ensure victory. Imagine you're on the moon, and you have to throw a pine needle through the eye of a sewing needle back on earth, and if you screw up you die. This type of gameplay has been improved and there is even an option to help calibrate your controller, and given the responsiveness and pinpoint precision you will praise the developers for this option, because without it there would literally be no hope.
The cartoonish style of Fenix Furia adds a lot of character to the game. Varying levels with different styles of enemies will always be present to keep you on your toes, and the whole retro synth music that blasts through your speakers will give your ears a sense of nostalgia as you quickly notice your heartbeat racing along with the tempo as you make sure every jump you make is precise. One of the interesting twists that I enjoyed was the inclusion of various powers such as ice, fire, and more. These grant you temporary powers to overcome certain obstacles and they add a nice strenuous touch which makes you feel that the developers just wanted to mess with you a little more than they already were doing.
One big drawback would have to be the dramatic and sudden spike in the difficulty. Now, I know what you're saying, but normally if you have 20 stages in a level, you would expect stages 18-20 to be the hardest right? From the beginning, Fenix Furia will put you in some incredibly simplistic levels to make sure that you get used to the feel and tempo of the game itself, but then BAM, off come the floaties and its swim or sink. As I'm typing this my character is stuck in a level that every time I try to complete it my right index finger goes numb from pressing the button constantly and I end up beating my controller like it owes me money. I played the game on easy difficulty and there are still 4 other difficulties to choose from (2 are even locked out probably because I haven't sacrificed enough of my stress and anxiety into this game...that's one theory).
If you're a hardcore fan of 2D platforming that feels impossible to beat then step right up to Fenix Furia and see what lasts longer, your controller or your patience. I have to hand it to Green Lava Studios as they have created one of the most difficult games I have ever played in my 30+ years of gaming. With colorful graphics and simplistic, yet deceptively difficult gameplay, Fenix Furia will be a champion to those who have the dedication and drive to be the best, while others may want to seriously reconsider their thoughts of buying this game in order to keep their sanity. To underestimate Fenix Furia's difficulty will be your greatest downfall as it will also lead to many bouts of swearing, smashing, as well as shattered dreams and broken controllers.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Mirror's Edge Catalyst
In today's gaming world, trying to introduce an original IP to the market is quite possibly the most terrifying thing a gaming company will ever go through. Recently I had the chance to review the newest release from EA, Mirror's Edge Catalyst. While the first Mirror's Edge originally came out to mixed reviews, it quickly developed a huge following despite the game's faults. Mirror's Edge Catalyst is, at its core, a reboot of the franchise, so the differences are altered with the present day being a clear opportunity to fix the past faults of the original hopefully allowing DICE to deliver a better quality product. So does this release fall into the "been there and done that" crowd, or does it keep the Faith? Let's see.As I just mentioned, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a reboot. The plot begins with Faith's playable history starting from the day she leaves juvenile detention. There is even a comic that you can read, called Mirror's Edge Exordium, that delves into her past and you will learn and why Faith got locked up to begin with. Upon release you realize that the source of this Orwellian torment that the game takes place in stems from The Conglomerate. Think of this as a large shadowy organization that is trying to control society, and in this game society lives in a city called Glass. The person at the top of this evil empire is Gabriel Kruger, and welcome to your main villain. The reboot isn't just about the plot though, it's about everything else which also includes how you experience the story.
In the original Mirror's Edge the game had what can be best described as a comic book style in its delivery. In this reboot that is gone. Instead, you now get full motion video sequences which are a tremendous improvement. While this change in the story delivery and execution is a good thing, the fact that the game itself doesn't look that improved upon in this current-gen version is a bad thing. Sure the cutscenes look amazing; however, everything else almost looks like a port from last generation technology. The scattered NPC characters throughout the environment look very outdated and can almost pass for early Xbox 360 quality. I don't know why this is, but the fact that it's so apparent is quite a drawback. Thankfully though there is still good audio quality in Mirror's Edge Catalyst. Ranging from very a futuristic and minimalist nature to edgy and intense synths and guitar riffs, the music does a fantastic job conforming to the environment and your character's action.
Controlling Faith in the original Mirror's Edge was quite touchy and was met with mixed reaction from the gaming world. This division was paramount to the game's future considering that is what the heart and soul of Mirror's Edge is. Controlling your character as you traverse the environment is the true balancing act of Mirror's Edge Catalyst.
If the controls are too touchy then the game suffers because it's not enjoyable, but if they are too forgiving then the reality goes right out the proverbial window. Mirror's Edge Catalyst offers what I'm calling a modified mechanic system. I don't consider the controls so dumbed down that you can play this game with your feet, but at the same time it's not hyped up on a mountain of caffeine and so twitchy that you can't even open a door.
When controlling Faith I lept from the roof of a tall building and then I hit the ground rolling to maintain momentum. The problem here was that the roll covered too much ground and I ended up rolling right off the top of the building I just landed on and fell to my death. I think that Mirror's Edge Catalyst is trying to find that harmonious center ground, and while I don't see it as perfect, they are well on the right path towards it.
Your controls and gear operate much as we are familiar with, except now you can earn upgrades by leveling up with enough XP to unlock new moves (which you will need if you want to get all the achievements). Having all these options can make parkour running all over the city of Glass an incredibly enjoyable experience, and when coupled with the new MAG launcher (think zip line), Mirror's Edge Catalyst can become pure entertainment.
You can truly see where DICE made compromises along the way in development though. They dropped the resolution to 720p on the Xbox One verson, but in doing so they gained the constant fluid speed of the framerate. Personally I think that DICE is lazy here given that developers can get 900p to 1080p with no problems. Makes me wonder why they haven't gotten up to speed in the programming area and upping the resolution.
Ok, so I digress....ahem....the dev-team at DICE has worked on adapting the controls while allowing you to upgrade abilities and unlock more movements to help keep the balance between fun and some form of realism. There are some issues with combat though. Fighting enemies with your hands and feet can feel somewhat clunky and not as smooth as you would expect from a game that prides itself on its fluidity. It almost makes you feel detached for a few moments, and the hit detection is laughable at times. Taking down an opponent from the air though while free running right through him is especially gratifying, but these moments are very few and far between.
As the moments in the game passed, I realized that this is one of the more dynamic reboots we have seen in awhile. Sure, there are faults with the game, but if you're a fan of the original, then it goes without saying that there's a very strong chance that your rose tinted glasses won't let you down. Instead of just porting over the original with a few pieces of polish, DICE made sure to try to address every single aspect in Mirror's Edge Catalyst, from the plot changes to the upgrade system, and the heavy amount of attention given to balancing the fairly fluid gameplay with realistic and enjoyable controls. At the end of the day they have done a great job in delivering a fairly good sequel that fans should enjoy.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Dangerous Golf
When you're young you are told by your parents not to do certain things indoors. That includes not to break things and that outdoor sports should stay in the great outdoors. Now Three Fields Entertainment cracks open a beer, disregards all of that, and brings us Dangerous Golf, a game where you get to combine miniature golf but on a Burnout style destructive environment, and all of it indoors. Gone are the days where you had to putt your ball through a windmill or around a banking corner with a water hazard. Nope, instead your golfing experience is packed with explosions, destructible objects, more explosions, money, and more explosions. The price for this party is $20, but is it worth it? Let's light the candle on this and get the party started!You heard me just then mention the game Burnout, and that's because I have to point out that some of the Burnout developers apparently have decided that they would be perfect to inject their punk rock style of destruction and mayhem into the world of Putt-Putt. As we go through this you'll start to see why this is strangely entertaining, but also at the same time, highly offensive. The premise of Golf is simple right? Get your ball in the hole in the fewest strokes possible. With Dangerous Golf though, things are a bit different, and I must say far more destructive then any golf game I have seen, or even played.
Dangerous Golf offers many modes of both online multiplayer and offline single player, but the meat of this game resides in the solo championships. This consists of playing multiple tournaments made up of varying holes in four different countries including the United States, Australia, England, and France. So instead of playing 18 holes of Australia and then being done with it completely, you may play hole 1 in Australia but hole 2 in the United States, hole 3 in France, and so on. This helps keep things fresh as a summer's breeze.
You're not offered any sort of guidance though because I'm guessing that the people at Three Fields Entertainment assume you know how to push the Left Stick forward to fire your shot, and the Right Stick to move the camera around. There are some guidelines in terms of the bonuses and shots you unlock, but nothing that is going to be taught to you, so like golf you will have a lot of trial and error. And when I say that I mean A LOT of trial, but a heck of A LOT more error.
One aspect of Dangerous Golf that you can see has been influenced by Burnout is the introduction of the Smashbreaker. You may recall Burnout offered a gameplay mechanic titled Crashbreaker, so already you can see where the similarities start, but they continue from there. After your initial putt, if your hole offers you a chance to have a Smashbreaker you press the B button and a direction on the Left Stick and it instantly becomes engulfed in an explosive flame allowing you to control its trajectory, destroying as much as you can in the allotted time before you putt to the hole.
You get only one putt so make sure that where ever you decide to finish up at the end of your Smashbreaker, that you're in a good enough position to at least make a shot towards the pin. The putting is quite forgiving so don't think the razor's edge of other Golf games. At times I've even managed to bank shots off of 6 different surfaces before finally settling in at the bottom of the hole.
Causing all this destruction can, at times, unlock money flags. These special flags can grant you cash bonuses that range from $10,000 (Silver Flags) to $50,000 (Platinum Flags). All of your rampaging gains you money, and when combined with bonuses from the money flags, and even your putt into the hole itself you'll earn some mullah. You can earn you massive bonuses such as $15,000 for a blind putt or a 6x ricochet shot for an additional $60,000. All this money does add up and you'll need it because if you want to achieve gold medal status or more you'll need to learn how to make the big bucks on a course. This is done through holding down the X button at the beginning to highlight scoring hints on how to obtain Smash Down bonuses of $50,000 or a Double Smash Down bonus of $100,000. Earn the cash on the course and the medal is yours. Can't get much simpler than that.
While the graphics are quite impressive for the environments, the real zest comes from the destruction of each individual level. Smashing through bathroom stalls and urinals, to collapsing an auto mechanic workshop, and even laying waste to an exquisite collection of priceless vases, grand pianos and suits of armor all bring about a guilty smile because you can see how simplistic this game truly is. That's not to say though that the graphics don't suffer at all. When you're talking a destructive environment, at any given time it's not uncommon to have over 20 pieces of the environment being manipulated simultaneously, then you will encounter a severe drop in the frame rate, but that is only because a small game like this has a hard time maintaining the physics of every piece of the level while in motion.
Dangerous Golf has one major fault, and that is the loading times in-between holes. Let's say you want to play a hole; well thanks to the graphic load on the game itself it takes at least 15 seconds to load, which may seem like a small amount of time but if you sit there and count to 15 you will realize that it's much longer than you originally thought. It's ok, go ahead and try it, I'll wait. So, now you know what you will experience every time you hit retry, or every time you move onto the next hole. Every 4 holes of Golf you play, you effectively spend at least 1 minute of your gameplay time waiting. Anyway you look at it, that's atrocious.
The faults keep coming too because thanks to the way Dangerous Golf's co-op works. The first player tees off and destroy items, which include key scoring targets, and when the second player steps up, the game puts all the key scoring targets back, but that's all. All the carnage would still be laid out, but for some reason this naturally hampers and hinders anyone playing second.
I originally stated that Dangerous Golf was priced at $20. Thanks to some of the game's missteps there is really no way I can tell you that this price is justified. Don't get me wrong, the simplistic core gameplay mechanic of destruction can provide hours of enjoyment, but there are also hours of waiting, and it is the latter point that takes away from the overall enjoyment of it. If the game is on sale in the near future, you could consider it, but until then you should just scroll on by this title when looking through the Xbox One digital store for a new game to play.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Elite Dangerous
Since I can remember, games have tried to "one up" each other by delivering larger and larger game environments. We as gamers have stood in wonderment, and awe, over the size and scale of some of our favorite playgrounds, but nothing we've ever experienced before could prepare us for Elite Dangerous, a game from Frontier Developments. Elite Dangerous provides not only the largest gaming environment found on the Xbox platform, but also one of the most in-depth gaming experiences found on the Xbox platform as a whole. Fire up your engines and get ready to explore the Milky Way Galaxy because we are in for quite a ride.When you start to play Elite Dangerous, you'll notice that there are other "add on" modules that you can purchase for a fraction of the cost. These additional modes unlock more ways to play, so think of these as DLC that help the evolution of the game. Another thing you will notice when you start is right at the top there's an option for training. This is where you will need to go first because the learning curve is one of the most advanced that you'll find on the Xbox platform, and could quite easily be the most advanced gameplay mechanic system you've ever played on a console.
Training is divided into two categories: Missions and Videos. Missions will take you through a training operation where the completion of the training goal will result in a pass or fail. The videos open up a Microsoft Edge browser which in-turn opens up an Elite Dangerous YouTube account where you will be able to watch corresponding videos relating to your training mission. I cannot stress enough how critically important training is. Let me explain why.
When you're playing a normal flying game there are usually about 4 axis to be concerned with, in Elite Dangerous there are 6, so your movement is far more complex than in any other flight simulation you may have experienced in the past. On top of that, the control scheme offers up what I'm calling a secondary control option. Click the LS and your entire flight mechanics of RS change; however, click RS and only your view changes from straight ahead to free view cockpit mode where you can look around at the vastness of space that surrounds you. Other buttons, such as X and B, offer up a secondary option that allows you to select various internal menus within your ship. Each of these internal menus allow for further exploration of your options and gameplay. Does it sound confusing? Well, if it does it's because it is.
When I finished my training missions and videos I ventured off into space and thought "Meh, how large can this be right?". So I held the X button down to bring up the secondary selection menu and from there I pressed left on the D-Pad opening up a control panel within my cockpit. Next I waded through the many sub menus, such as navigation and more, and selected the navigation tab and then choose a base so I could start receiving quests and earning money (a celestial empire isn't born in a day right?). I engaged my super cruise with the press of the Y button and aligned up with the base and boom I'm streaking through space towards my target. PHEW!!!! As a sidebar, when you're in super cruise you'll notice how you are unable to lower your landing gear or bring out your weaponry, and I wondered "Why"? With no friction from air in space, you're not going to risk any drag or create force powerful enough to rip anything off, but ok, I'll accept it.
You'll also notice that your flight mechanics have changed yet again into something far more simplistic, and if I'm honest, far more familiar. So here we are, still hurdling towards our destination, but now we must start making preparations for landing. So first thing we have to check is that our angle of approach and our speed, making sure we have both under control, as this will enable one's ship to shift into orbital flight mode and glide in towards your destination. If you miss, or screw up, your ship will disengage from super cruise mode early which leaves you with a tremendous amount of ground to cover (especially if you come in on the wrong side of the planet and have to orbit near the planet). If this does happen, just engage your super cruise again, but line your ship up with the escape vector and try again. When you have the base lined up you need to make sure you are approaching properly. At 7 km or less you can request to dock at the base. If you dock without requesting permission, there is a fine, that if not paid, can escalate into penalties which can include ship destruction. Just a note, DO NOT have your weapons out when approaching, otherwise you will see a plethora of artillery rise up that will blast you out of the stars.
To get permission to dock you hold the X button and move to the contacts tab. Here you will see any and all contacts around you, including the base. Press the A button on the base and a sub menu pops up with "Permission to Dock" and wait for the approval. Once this occurs you fly your ship to the assigned docking port. Sure, this sounds easy but when I took all these steps, 10 minutes later my docking permission expired, and since I couldn't quickly select the menu to request again, I got fined for loitering. Great! So on my second attempt I tried to balance out my throttle as well as my left stick flight controls. I found that it was much easier to keep my craft level, then click my LS to allow my Right Stick to shift my vessel left or right along a plane, where by then using the Right Stick to press up and down to control direct elevation to my target. I only then worried about using throttle to move forward or back along this plane and that is when the mechanics of docking finally clicked and the learning curve was overcome.
So, now I'm in this base and I call up the services that are offered. Outside of refuel and repairing the vehicle I can take a look at the base's economy in terms of materials sold and needed, and check if there are any missions that I can complete that will allow me to earn money. While I'm here I decide to hold the X button down and press left again to call up the menu where I selected Galaxy Map. It took a few moments to bring up, and when it did I looked and thought "Meh, it's large but I wonder what happens when I hold down Left Trigger and zoom out"? Oh... And that's how humble pie tastes. What unfolded was a perfectly proportioned map of the Milky Way Galaxy with system after unidentified system full of planets, stars, population, and so much more. Having now picked my jaw up off the floor I selected a couple of jobs available that had me venture to nearby systems and proceed to the corresponding bases for mission completion.
I had to make sure that I completed the missions, because I did get fined for not aborting a mission and letting the gameplay time run out. So, even though you may have selected a mission and went away, the game itself is still playing, so your mission completion time continuously counts down. Not completing a mission can make you unfavorable in the eyes of the faction for that mission, which can eventually become hostile if your actions push them too far away. These are all great things I wish I knew before hand, but you have to learn somehow.
There are other things you can do in the base as well. For starters, each base offers their own mechanical upgrades to your vehicle. Everything from your weapons to your engines can be modified and upgraded, providing you have met the requirements. Most of these require you to farm for materials which you can acquire either by blasting debris out of space and collecting it with your scoop, or landing on a planet and taking your rover out for a spin to mine materials from the surface. Doing this will also increase your reputation and allow you to unlock bigger and better upgrades. You can also purchase new ships that you can add to your growing fleet, so you don't have to be stuck with your entry level ship. I even paid off my fine at the base and was now deemed safe.
This is where you start to get a feel for just how deep the water is that you've jumped into (aka - the game you are playing). With all these systems and all these planets you will need to make sure that your craft's engines are up to the task, because networking the surrounding systems into viable flight paths will take a tremendous amount of time. I'm not talking hours here, I'm talking weeks at earliest, but if I'm realistic, it's more towards several months and even years. To appreciate the solitude of space in Elite Dangerous you will be spending a tremendous amount of time travelling to other regions.
That's not to say though that voyaging to these distant planets and systems is going to be boring. Along the way you will encounter undiscovered signals to scan, asteroids to mine and you will encounter other spacecraft that will either be friendly, neutral, or adversarial. All of the Milky Way Galaxy is drawn out in absolute beauty. From the hot surface of stars and suns to the shady darkness of an orbiting moon at night, Elite Dangerous offers up truly spectacular views of celestial bodies. This is also accompanied by a tremendous soundscape of ambient sounds, minimalistic music, and a true sensory barrage of melodic pieces and warm enveloping bass lines. All of this combines to help make Elite Dangerous a game that you will actually have a very hard time putting down.
Now all this content does come with an interesting pricing schedule and content delivery. As I mentioned earlier, Elite Dangerous offers up a core game to play and enjoy; however, it offers up what I like to call "seasonal evolution". What I mean by that is that Elite Dangerous is comprised of a bulk of content. Season 1 started with 1.1 evolving the communication, which then evolved into 1.2 which allowed pilots to fly in groups of 4 to team up and evenly distribute the wealth of their accomplishments. All of this carried over to version 1.6 which marked the end of Season 1, but before it closed there were a ton of new developments that helped to fine tune Elite Dangerous to what it is today.
And what it is today is nothing short of spectacular. This is thanks to the recently released Season 2 of Elite Dangerous, called Horizons. And it's big, I mean really, really huge. From hidden Engineers that can customize your vehicle in a way that you couldn't even dream of to an evolution on the looting and crafting to seamless rover exploration from any base located on any moon or planet. Oh, but that's just what is available now. Coming up next you are going to get multi-crew support (I can already see one of my friends dropping my shields in combat, and another shutting off my engines as I'm trying to escape), the ability to launch your own fighters from your own ship (think TIE fighters from a Star Destroyer), and you'll no longer be some random person who seems to be invisible. In this upcoming Season 2 bundle you'll actually be able to create your own Commander so now you can fly to all of the bases and say that they are your favorite.
Elite Dangerous offers gamers a seemingly unlimited amount of gameplay, and this is reinforced when you settle in and see how titanic the scale and size of the game environment actually is with the amount of possibilities and opportunities that are provided. Sure, there are some issues here and there, but as of right now this game is one of the best MMO-like experiences on the Xbox One. Many games have tried to be a variant of the MMO experience, but Elite Dangerous has damn near mastered the core of what it takes to make an experience last a lifetime. With more modules already released and more on the way, I can't wait to see what Frontier Developments adds to this sensational game.
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
One Piece: Burning Blood
Over the years we have seen a lot of anime titles from Bandai Namco Games, and while some have been welcomed, some of them haven't. Their latest release, One Piece: Burning Blood, is an attempt to turn a popular anime show into a playable video game. Going into this review I was unaware of this show's existence. Now, that may seem like blasphemy to some of you, and even ignorance to others, but this fact allowed me to approach this game from a point of view that was purely objective. I know what you're thinking already, basing a video game on a show or movie never seems to hit the mark, but this time things will be different right?The game itself is laid out in episodic form, so think of yourself trying reading a book by scrambling the chapters up and filling in the blanks. The levels consist of an animated sequence which inevitably leads to another fight where you are tasked with either surviving the fight, winning the fight outright, or other things. Upon successful completion of your fight you're treated to a closing cinematic and an overview of the map where you can select your next point in your chapter to play.
If you're reading this and your idea of an antique gaming machine is a PS3, then you may not have heard of One Piece: Burning Blood either. I was shocked to know that this is a wildly popular anime that started back in 1999 and consists of 12 movies and so much more. So, the content in terms of a plot is plentiful; however, in this game I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I'm sure fans are sharpening their pitchforks and lighting their torches based on my ignorance of the subject matter, but the convoluted story was difficult at best to understand for the unaware like myself.
Now if you're scratching your head and wondering just what the plot is, the most simplistic answer I can provide is that the story is about a young boy named Luffy who teams up with an individual known as Whitebeard and his band of pirates, and they are tasked with rescuing Luffy's brother Ace who has been kidnapped. Whitebeard is also trying to become the Pirate King and that mantle can only be obtained if, and when, he finds the One Piece which is claimed to grant the finder unlimited riches and fame. That is about as simplistic as it gets, and unfortunately if you're like me you won't have the slightest clue what is actually happening within the story. However, even though the plot may be convoluted to those who are not familiar with One Piece, the gameplay itself is surprisingly simple.
When you begin the game you literally are thrown head first into it and expected to survive. I cannot stress enough the importance of going through the options screen for the control scheme, because you will see just how simplistic this game becomes. There is even an option to make the simple controls even simpler, which can make life so much easier for you in the long run. Your A button is for jump, X button attacks, and you can even use the triggers to tag in a member of your 3-person team. You use your LS and RS to move and you can adjust the camera distance, but honestly, I found that keeping the camera close in helped out more, especially when you're talking about over the top anime moves that seem to level a mountain far off in the distance. Being able to close the gap quickly was a big plus, but it seemed like I would be running an intercept path towards my computer AI opponent only to land a few shots, then repeat the process until either time expired or my opponent did.
I found that the earlier opponents were crushed usually by button mashing the X button, but there always seemed to be an imbalance if you will, where not only did the computer AI seem to instantly, and almost constantly, flash guard my attacks, but when we both would land hits on one another, my attacks were shrugged off while my opponent's attacks were bone crushing.
Blocking was usually done by prayer. I would pray that I would block an attack and wait to see if it was answered or not, but most of the time I ended up flat on my back. In terms of combos, there are some to be had, provided you time your input correctly, have proper placement on the screen in relation to your opponent, etc. So you do get a good amount of content if you're looking for a brawler type fighting game, but if you're expecting some frame sensitive, in-depth fighting game, you're going to be disappointed.
Outside of the main story, called Paramount War, One Piece does pack in some other modes as well. One of the modes I frequented was the Wanted Posters mode. This is where I first found a training mode, but in order to unlock this mode, and all the others in the game, you are forced to play through the Paramount War mode until every game mode is unlocked. So until you sit through enough angry Japanese animated characters yelling at one another, you will not be able to literally do anything else in the game. It sort of force feeds the gamer, but maybe that's just the only way to get people to actually sit through the campaign?
Other modes also include an online fighting mode and a pirate battle, which is like a seasonal quest for power and control of a map. Essentially you choose a side to fight for and spend your time browsing a map trying to find destinations to fight where you can increase your team's reputation and expand your power. One Piece: Bad Blood is far from a one trick pony, but the fact that you are forced to subject yourself to the story until everything is unlocked is kind of a big negative.
In terms of how One Piece looks, it's everything you could expect from an over the top anime based game. What looks like a hybrid cel-shaded game provides incredible detail and beauty when you start talking about the game's 40+ fighters to choose from. You read that right, over 40 fighters to choose from; however, you have to unlock a vast majority of them first. Each one of these characters has an ultimate attack that, when triggered, unleashes a barrage of beautiful colors and vivid imagery in a small cutscene that fills up your entire screen.
One Piece is, without a doubt, a pretty game to look at from time to time, unless you're constantly staring at angry Japanese characters that are always yelling, which does tend to happen quite a bit. With the audio there's nothing that particularly stands out. You know there's going to be some form of upbeat anime techno music track, but apart from the constant yelling in Japanese, there's nothing else that screams quality audio work.
For fans of the popular anime show I'm sure that this title will undoubtedly be a big hit; however, for those who have absolutely no idea what One Piece: Burning Blood is about, they will most likely find it a shallow, confusing, and somewhat lackluster experience. And may I mention that all this wonderful confusion can be yours for the low price of a full retail title! Yes, for $59.99 and change, you too can be confused to all ends about the plot, admire beautiful graphics during the cinematics and fight sequences, and learn how to yell at someone in Japanese, since it appears that 90% of the time that's all the characters do.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Hard Reset Redux
About half a decade ago, developer Flying Wild Hog released a game on the PC called Hard Reset. Now after all this time they have decided to release Hard Reset on the Xbox One console with a "Redux" edition. Priced in at $19.99, or 1/3 of a regular retail priced game, Hard Reset Redux is tipping the scales on the higher end of some of Xbox's "budget titles". So the question is: Does adding the word "Redux" to a game title make it worthy of charging gamers a premium price? Starting off, the story and loading screens are executed in a comic book style. Images dash in their confined boxes as they tell the tale of Major Fletcher and his day from hell. The premise of the story is that Earth has once again fallen upon hard times and humanity is almost completely obliterated. This is due to an ongoing war between man and machine. Think of this more along the lines of a dark and gritty Terminator type future with a mixture of a few cerebral Matrix elements sprinkled in. You live in the last remaining city, Bezoar, and having finished your protection shift you think that your night is done; but it's just beginning. During an emergency you must seek out Dr. Novak and you end up doing some form of Matrix mind meld, and it's here the game opens up and Hard Reset Redux delivers its average story.
Each of the game's stages are fairly linear with a healthy dose of backtracking and puzzle solving mixed in between the constant shooting, all in an effort to give Hard Reset Redux a little bit of spice. I'm not talking about extensively challenging puzzles either, but instead of just going from point A to B you may be required to explore area C in order to go back to A, unlock the door to B, and when going through B it will lead you to D, and so on and so forth. While the levels themselves are fairly generic and straight forward, this release being the Redux gives you new enemy placements and even a new bad guy or two. Every level is also riddled with secret areas, but sometimes they aren't so secretive. Let me explain.
In Hard Reset Redux you need to collect NANO, which is an orange glowing cube that acts as currency to upgrade your various weapons (ammunition or plasma) or your combat suit. Again, nothing we haven't seen a million times already, but the execution is done on a quality scale. In order to collect NANO you'll have to scour the levels and blast away doors, walls, ceilings, and more to find the bulk of the hidden areas, but sometimes they are found just by walking around to the other side of a crate. One rule of thumb that I went by was if I saw a large stack of NANO sitting in an area that looks like I had to figure out a pathway to it, then that would be a secret area, and sure enough I was right a majority of the time. Now while we are on the topic of upgrades...
It must be noted that the graphics have received an extensive overhaul for this current generation console release, and they could easily be mistaken for a full on Xbox 360 retail release, or even at times an Xbox One retail game. Sure the levels seem fairly detailed and even the enemies themselves seem to hold their own visually, but the real star of the show is your weaponry, more specifically your N.R.G. weapon. While the levels sometimes overflow with enemies, your N.R.G. weapon has multiple variants, one of which fires out arcing electrical blasts that adhere to surfaces and opponents which, when used in groups of enemies, can create some sensational electricity work. And that's when the truth about this game hit me.
Hard Reset Redux isn't trying to be some cash grab release as demonstrated through the graphic upgrades, new weapons, enemies, and more. Instead, this game is all about mindless slaughtering of robotic enemies with a vast number of secrets in every level so you don't feel like your IQ drops while playing. The real fun is felt through the seemingly endless onslaught of varying evil robots of death. That's it in a nutshell and it is the quintessential core of enjoyment which it does really well. The whole campaign is rather short and if you're going to go for those 'cheevos', then be thankful for that as you replay the campaign.
With a price point of $19.99 + tax you start to wonder if the price of admission is worthwhile given that you mostly get some new enemies, a visual overhaul, and a few more gameplay mechanics. But then you see what else has come from the ID@Xbox program and realize that Hard Reset Redux is one of the better releases to come from this publishing program. There are far worse and far cheaper games that you could buy for the cost of this game, but when you see the quality and effort that has been put into this title, you'll wonder why would you look elsewhere? Despite some faults, some flaws, and a few dings here and there, this is a quality shooter for its price.
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10
Soul Axiom
There are certain video game genres that allow gaming companies free reign to deliver their product. Puzzle games are one such genre as companies can chose, or not, to include some form of story that they can weave through the delivery of the puzzles themselves and their ultimate solutions. Soul Axiom, an ID@Xbox title from Wales Interactive, is the latest such game on the Xbox One that tries to do this, and on the surface things seem to be quite promising. But are they? Let's find out.First off, even before I begin, I have to be honest and say that one of the best qualities of Soul Axiom is the music. Right from the beginning I was quite surprised at the production value of it and I loved how the music changed and shifted throughout the areas. One of the little things that I personally love when reviewing a game is find several points where I can set the controller down and just listen to the music. I ask myself such questions as "How does it feel with the atmosphere of the game?" or "How does it fit with the situation at hand?". These are just a couple of the questions that I tend to ponder when judging the music.
Right from the beginning, Soul Axiom had me hooked. Everything from haunting vocals to melodic synths to fluid, and at timed dynamic, percussion can be found as it permeates every level of this game. If anything, Soul Axiom could easily be enjoyed for the music alone. Ok, now where do we go from here? How about the plot?
There's barely any story here. Let me be more clear, as there is one but you have to spend a tragic amount of time searching for all the clues that would allow you to sit down and figure it out for yourself. Soul Axiom's story is vague in its premise and does a poor job delivering any type of significant plot progression. It had tremendous potential, but as I progressed I found myself becoming less and less interested in the story, and that actually bothers me, because having a premise that the game narrative is a psychological thriller, you would think that there would be some way to keep the puzzles while still delivering a quality story.
Now I know that it's hard to tell a story when you have puzzles as your only outlet, but wow, Soul Axiom could have done a great deal more with such a medium. Think about it. The premise is set upon a digital afterlife where you can receive messages from the 'other world'. Outside of looking like it was taken from Tron, they could have done much, much more. You are tasked with obtaining powers to complete the upcoming stages and puzzles that lay ahead; however, the puzzles are somewhat simplistic, poorly laid out, and require minimal effort to sort out.
These powers I just mentioned though are Soul Axiom's bread and butter. Using different color codes for different puzzle items, your character can phase objects in and out of reality. Keeping with the Tron feel, think derezzed. Other powers include the ability to control and manipulate time such as being able pause it with some objects and more. Each power comes with its own color and assigned button on the d-pad for easy selection, so being able to select what power for what puzzle is never a challenge.
The level design can span great distances, but in the end it offers very little outside of the puzzles themselves. I did however find the whole cyberpunk/Tron-like art style of the visuals put a classic nostalgic touch on the game. It almost reminds me of some of the first CD based mystery games from the past. I just wish where was more done more with it in terms of creating content, and add some more light. I say this because this game sometimes gets dark, almost to the point where you need a seeing eye dog.
The varying levels seemed to develop somewhat as you went through the numerous side memories, but the overall gameplay is very straight forward. Using the A button to jump and the B button to crouch, this makes Soul Axiom easy to just pick up and play without a complex menu system. There is a fault to this simplicity though. While I can understand why it's in place (no complex menu), it becomes the crux of Soul Axiom's destruction. Let's say for instance you spend some time on a level and you happen to encounter a puzzle that you need to solve with the time power. The catch is, if you screw up you are returned to the very beginning and all the traps are reset. Not all the puzzles involve a risk of death thankfully, but the whole feature of the puzzles being reset can become a pain to the point where you literally decide to play something else.
Soul Axiom ultimately tries hard to be something crafty and clever, but along the way it seems there were many issues with the execution of the message. You should be on the edge of your seat if you're experiencing something that wants to be a great psychological thriller, but with Soul Axiom there's little desire to even try to figure out the plot. Creating a game about attachment of memories in a digital afterlife environment, and not give the attachment to the story told throughout the experience, is a fundamental flaw that sadly puts the "ill" in thriller.
Again, I have to say that the music is the best part of this entire game, though that isn't saying much. With so many sources of inspiration that would have set this game up for tremendous success, you can't help but feel that this was an opportunity that sadly missed the mark. Priced at a mind boggling $19.99 + tax, Soul Axiom is a pretty good example of a game that chose quantity over quality. I wish I could say pick this game up, but sadly with all its faults, you're going to want to pass on it until a sale comes.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Overwatch
When you hear the names of companies like Blizzard Entertainment and Activision, your mind starts to draw up images of dungeons, epic quests, massive battles, tons of loot, and even more dungeons. Blizzard's latest game, Overwatch, delivers only a few of these; however, this fact could quite possibly be one of the greatest gifts to gaming. An online multiplayer only experience, Overwatch is Blizzard's latest attempt to take on the FPS genre, and while the beta was good in terms of establishing a courting phase of the game, the final product is just shy of a fantastic masterpiece. This is thanks to Blizzard following the "K.I.S.S." rule, which is Keep It Simple Stupid. So without any more adieu, let's answer the big question: Is this game worth the purchase?Simply put, and without question, Overwatch is a must have purchase. For starters, the backstory is so comically thin that it means you literally have nothing to concern yourself with, well, that is nothing except kill every enemy you see. That's right, this is the special sauce if you will of Overwatch. It doesn't try to overload you with a plethora of menus or a bombardment of options; it keeps it simple as you only need to kill your foes as you and your teammates try to stay alive and rule the level.
Now even though the core principle of Overwatch is incredibly simplistic, the available character roster is far from it. Coming in at over 20 characters, what Overwatch lacks in multiplayer levels or game types, it more than makes up for with its stable of unique characters, who are over the top, original, and should I say, somewhat stylish.
Normally in a class based shooter game you have a very in-depth and complex control schemes, but that isn't the case in Overwatch. Pressing RT fires your weapon, and buttons such as RB, LT, LB, and more, means that your attention is more focused on the game instead of making sure you push the correct button. I will say that there is a definite learning curve when it comes to almost dumbing down the gameplay controls, but they made it perform like a Ferrari.
I have a favourite in-game character named 'Reaper' who is essentially Death, but with two handheld shotguns. This dual wielding beast has his main shot (hold RT to auto fire your shotguns), a teleport feature (press RB), which allows him to place a marker and instantly warp to that location, and an ability to morph into some form of mist (press LB) that can travel at accelerated speeds while allowing him to not take damage, but he cannot deal damage while in this form as well. His unique power is straight out of Diablo 3's Demon Hunter, where he spins like a top with his arms stretched out firing both shotguns over and over again while chanting "Die... Die... Die...", because what else is Death himself going to say?
Each individual character has their own abilities and feel, but they also pack an individual power that can greatly shift the balance of the game instantly. This power is unlocked only after a circular meter in the bottom center of the screen fills up, and once it does you simply press Y and watch your character literally dominates the battle or insanely supports their team. This power lasts a short time so make sure to use it wisely, otherwise you will have to wait through for it to recharge. If you get killed almost right after using your power, you only lose a small percentage of it, so when you respawn your meter will be still charged at about 80-90% or so.
When you are talking over 20 unique weapon variants and individual powers, as there are that many characters, I cannot stress enough how important it is to go through the training simulator so you can test out each character before jumping online. In doing so you will not only learn the characters basics, but you'll also notice just how beautiful this game actually looks. Each character model is incredibly designed and the levels themselves give off a slight cartoonish feel which plays right into the fantasy setting. From different outfits, phrases, poses, and more, Overwatch has some very stylistic aspects to its presentation.
Remember now, Overwatch is a team based shooter. I know that a very slim amount of you actually care about the whole "team" aspect, but let me tell you why that's probably not the best method going forward. When a game actually packs in a class for a healer, you know that you're going to be needing some assistance in battle. The healers in Overwatch not only act as a real time healing station that can be done over some distance, which helps to keep you safe, but they can do more as well. If you prefer playing healers, give Mercy a try, as a simple press right on the D-Pad whips out a pistol that Dirty Harry himself would feel lucky to own. Hold down the RT with this pistol and watch as this healer starts dropping bodies in her wake.
Not only can the healer class heal you in real time, but they can also increase the damage you deal. Now you can have some of the weaker character’s start hitting the big boys with some oomph, and also have big boys hit like an atom bomb. Sometimes, being a healer isn't the worst thing in the world, and Overwatch almost teases you to play as one.
Now don't get me wrong, among all the good you'll find just a few problems that lurk under the hood. For starters, the time it takes to find matches is decent, but it could be better by connecting under 15-30 seconds. You'll also find a load time when selecting your characters, then waiting another 30 seconds as the game itself loads, add all this together and you're waiting a good 1-2 minutes before you even fire a shot.
When a match starts up and a few kills are exchanged, trouble starts when a couple people drop out. The game automatically kicks you out of the match as it finds a new game because the number of players dips below the minimum threshold. So instead of playing and allowing more people to join, everyone is kicked back out and you start the search process all over again. This is hands down my biggest complaint. Given that the game itself has its core centered on online connectivity, this is what you would consider a slightly important issue.
Now, I know some may disagree with me on this, but I'm not a fan of microtransactions for cosmetic items. Overwatch offers a range of prices all the way up to $39.99 for a set number of Loot Boxes. These Loot Boxes would be most similar to Halo 5's REQ packs. Each Loot Box offers things like stances, outfits, sayings, and more, and they are obtained through your performance in the game and by leveling your character up. Or you could just plunk down $39.99 and get 50 boxes in one go.
Despite a few drawbacks, which aren't deal breakers, Overwatch is one of the best games I've played this year. It's simplistic nature really allows you to just pick up a controller and shoot everything in sight. This is easily a game that will drain countless hours of your life away thanks to its quality, execution, and simplistic core. Blizzard seems to have understood that to make a great game you don't have to complicate it. If you want to game up with me, or anyone else on XboxAddict, send us a friend request! Until then, DIE... DIE... DIE...
Suggestions: Fine tune the connection issues. Maybe drop the player count limit so more people could still play and wait for others to join.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Grand Prix Rock n' Racing
If we set the way-back machine to take us back into the glory days of the NES, you might just remember a racing game called RC Pro Am. This top down arcade racer most likely helped form the foundation and reference for the game I am about to review, Grand Prix Rock N' Racing, the next racing game by EnjoyUp Games. This top down arcade racer attempts to capture the essence and excitement of arcade F1 racing using a top down view and in a boisterous rock and roll environment. Priced at $7.99, does Grand Prix Rock N' Racing take the coveted checkered flag and our money from our wallet, or does it hit a patch of oil, spin out, hit the wall and go up in a ball of flames?Right from the start there's no denying that Grand Prix Rock N' Racing is designed to push the incredibly overdone cheesy rock and roll music themes while throwing in an announcer that really needs to switch to decaf. This whimsical take is all fine and dandy as you browse the main menu and see that the only modes you can select from are Championship, Time Trial, Multiplayer, and Settings but when racing it's a whole other thing.
Settings shows you your button layout which is your traditional RT for gas, LT for break, B button for boost, and A, Y, and RB for gear switching, and of course click the RS to center your car. The latter is something that you will soon find to become more important to your racing in this game than breathing. You can also choose to raise and lower the music and the sound effects volume, but that’s it. No more options to select from, so now let's begin with Championship mode.
That is, if you can call it that. There are 10 race tracks that span all over the globe which equate to just different layouts and different skins, but be ready for what could easily be one of the more unenjoyable driving experiences you'll ever have. When selecting Championship mode you'll have to create a new file because obviously you haven't played this yet.
The first stop is an oval track in the USA. Pressing Y before the match brings up an upgrade menu that you can access before every race, and it's here where you can upgrade your speed, brakes, acceleration, turbo, and more. Pressing start will begin the race and you'll find yourself at the back of the pack. Now there's a tip on the settings screen where it says you can get a boost to your start if you press and hold the throttle when you hear the over caffeinated announcer shout "GO!", and so far there's about as much truth to that as there is to the Loch Ness Monster.
As the race begins your car begins to crawl, and I mean crawl at a snail's pace, and while your opponents start slow as well they still somehow manage to dart away after a few seconds. So now you've finally got momentum and here comes an oncoming left hand turn. Before you know it your car has collided directly into the wall thanks to the really questionable handling of your race car. It's at this point that I have to remind you, the reader, that this game is touted as one that possesses "realistic driving physics" as one of its selling points, yet it's nowhere to be found. So you've now crashed into the wall and you'll notice a circle around your car, it's at this point in time when you can press in the RS to center your car on the track and get going again (you will be doing this a lot).
You're on the move again (starting from a pace where you could drive Miss Daisy) and you're thankful that there is an oncoming straight away, all of a sudden you realize that for some reason you are being passed and you haven't made it out of the back straight. You may gain a position or two thanks to the AI deliberately crashing into each other or the wall, but then here comes another turn and by now you'll probably notice that hitting the breaks on this arcade racer makes you balance between a dead stop, full throttle, and everything in between. You muster your nerves and manage to go through the turn without incident, then onto the home straight. By the time you finish you will be lucky to place in the top 10 as you move onto the next track in the circuit and this one has a hairpin. Have fun.
Depending on where you place in your Championship race determines how many upgrade tokens you get to spend on your car. I personally managed, through the grace of God, to come in 7th place and earned a few upgrade tokens. I upgraded my handling, acceleration, turbo, and speed. This still made my car almost completely useless as I ended up taking 14th place in the next race. I understand that you have to build a competent race car with proper stats and "Clarksonian powerrrrrrr", but that forces you to play these race tracks quite a bit more than you want to.
Perplexed as to why the car accelerated at a snail's pace from the start and handled really badly in the Championship mode, I went to select Time Trial to see if this performance issue plagued this mode as well. Thankfully I can say that in Time Trial the car felt more responsive and not as sluggish or lethargic, and my times were consistently improving with each lap. I then went back to the Championship mode and WHAM, I'm right back into a horrible driving setup. I have no idea why your car decides not to accelerate from the start or handle so poorly, but if you play the Time Trial mode then you'll get a feel for how this game should be played. It's a shame though considering you're just doing Time Trials and not making progress.
Multiplayer is more of the same where you and three other friends can locally sign in, customize your cars, and race together. I don't know why you would want to do that, but the option is available, and after playing it I found myself going back to Time Trial just to have a proper handling and somewhat better accelerating car.
I was a bit disappointed to also discover that the races in Championship mode don't have a restart option (I don't know why, it would be very helpful). So every time you crash and wreck and end up in 19th place you have to exit completely back to the main menu and set up the race again to try once more. This means you have to sit through a lengthy loading animation that does very little except to showcase an over eager announcer and some ridiculous rock and roll music.
For $7.99 (USD) + tax I would say that if you're that hard up for some top down arcade racing game reminiscent of the quality RC Pro Am days, then look somewhere else. If you're a serious glutton for punishment though, you'll be hard pressed to find a racing game of any kind for under the $10 mark. But remember dear reader, you get what you pay for with this title.
Overall Score: 3.0 / 10
Killer Instinct Season 3
The time has come for a new season of Killer Instinct, and not only does it deliver a powerful message to the competition, but it single-handedly puts KI in contention for best fighting game on the market today. Since the original KI back in the days of the arcade, this game has captured my interest to the point where I can say without question that it would have been cheaper to buy an arcade unit instead of dumping a small fortune into a machine at the local bowling alley. Killer Instinct on the Xbox One has managed to somewhat dominate the fighting arena for so long that support continues to build for this iconic franchise. Iron Galaxy went through Season 2 by adding more classical characters, but Season 3 is said to offer the best lineup yet. So does it? Enough chit chat, let's dive into Season 3 and find out just what you get for your money, and what version is right for you!
It goes without saying that Season 3 of Killer Instinct introduces four out of eight new characters right from the start. Now Kim Wu, Tusk, Rash from Battletoads, and even the Arbiter from Halo itself are added to the roster, putting the total count of characters at 22 with Mira, Gargos, General RAAM from Gears of War, and a mystery character to be named later, on the way. I was wondering what they could do to top Season 2, but with this lineup of characters, Killer Instinct just threw down the gauntlet and gave all of the other fighting games the middle finger.
It goes without saying that Season 3 of Killer Instinct introduces four out of eight new characters right from the start. Now Kim Wu, Tusk, Rash from Battletoads, and even the Arbiter from Halo itself are added to the roster, putting the total count of characters at 22 with Mira, Gargos, General RAAM from Gears of War, and a mystery character to be named later, on the way. I was wondering what they could do to top Season 2, but with this lineup of characters, Killer Instinct just threw down the gauntlet and gave all of the other fighting games the middle finger.
For veterans of Killer Instinct, having Kim Wu and Tusk will be a nice touch, but the detail and representation of the new characters Rash and the Arbiter is truly amazing. Rash still comes off as a brawler but go into Instinct Mode and BAM, you are unleashing his off-the-deep-end style of animation and movements from the original game that also includes the original sound effects. But that's not all, because when you go into Instinct Mode you can call up the speeder-bike and start wrecking your opponent. Now this level of detail also applies to the other new kid on the fighting block; the Arbiter.
Now throwing a character like Arbiter into a fighting game may seem like it's out of place, but then you realize it; you're playing as the Arbiter! The Arbiter's stage has become one of my all-time favorites as it places you in the Arena of Judgement, with an entire Halo war unfolding before your eyes in the background. To say that they set the stage of a lifetime is an understatement. Arbiter comes stocked with some pretty nice moves and tools at his disposal. Sure you have your energy sword, but you also have some sticky grenades that will replenish themselves if given time, a covenant carbine with limited ammo (that you can restock with more moves when used in a combo) and you even have a cloaking ability and energy shield! While sluggish in movement, the Arbiter can deal tremendous damage incredibly fast and should always be taken seriously. Hands down the Arbiter is my favorite new addition to Killer Instinct. Thank you Iron Galaxy.
The other big change of Season 3 comes in the more technical sides by offering things like balancing some of the game's existing characters, matchmaking improvements based on skill level, and more. This technical balancing act is all part of the next big addition which is that Killer Instinct is available on PC through Windows 10 as well. Now, you might be saying that you already own it on your Xbox One, but if you get Season 3 then all your data will transfer over to your PC for free. It's these types of innovations that keep not only a series growing, but legends forming.
And those legends are going to be formed in the upcoming Shadow Lords mode releasing later this season. The few details that we do know currently is staggering. We know that Gargos will be introduced as the boss character for this upcoming mode. It will be up to you to take out Gargos' fighters with a team that you form. Crafting new items will also be available and this comes along with KI gold and more microtransactions.
Now you may be wondering to yourself if you already have Killer Instinct Season 1 and 2, is there a need to buy Season 3? Well, we here at XBA think you do. That being said, there are some different pricing options for you to choose from.
Combo Breaker ($19.99 + tax USD) - This version gets you all four currently available new characters and all the rest of the content as it's released over the season.
Ultra Edition ($39.99 + tax USD} - This version includes all of the Combo Breaker content, but you also get early access to the fighters. Also included are a VIP Double XP Booster, 8 retro costumes, accessory sets, and a whole new bonus retro color for all eight of the Season 3 characters. And finally, you get 18,000 KI Gold (this is a limited time offer (how limited? I honestly don't know).
Supreme Edition ($59.99 + tax USD) - This is the ultimate bundle for Killer Instinct as you get all of Season 1, 2, and 3 characters so you can instantly dive in with over 25 characters at your fingertips. Also included is all the content from all three Ultra Editions which means all the costumes, accessories, 18,000 KI Gold (Limited time offer), bonus colors for the Season 3 fighters, and VIP Double XP Boost. Plus, you also get Killer Instinct 2 Classic AND Killer Instinct Classic both on Xbox One (but are not included in the Windows 10 version).
If you have been on the fence about jumping into the Killer Instinct arena, then the Supreme Edition is going to be perfect for you because it gets you right into the game at its most current version with the biggest amount of player support. If you already have Season 1 and Season 2, then you can get all the characters for only $19.99, but double that and you get more than double the content so the choice is really on how you put a value on what is added for the $39.99 price tag.
Regardless of what version you select there is one undeniable fact that Killer Instinct Season 3 has catapulted this game as a serious contender for best fighting game on the market today. We think it's a worth addition to any fighting fan's library of gamers. See you in the arena!
Suggestions: Think of new outlets to explore with not only other games (maybe Dragon Age or Mass Effect?), but movies and other media for new potential character additions.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Doom
From the days of the 3.5" floppy disks (some of you may not even know what these are), id Software has done a tremendous job captivating our souls as we send them straight to the depths of Hell. The original DOOM was released on PC in 1993 and it's pixelated look and scared millions of gamers around the planet while attracting droves more to play, and now a reboot of the original is upon us and Hell has never looked so gory or menacing. Psychotic, bloody, and over the top, are all words and phrases that can describe DOOM, but in this reboot your biggest weapon of destruction isn't only your BFG 9000, but your bare hands too. Come, let's trudge through the broken bones, blood stained smears, and horrific screams of the satanic demons as we see just how twisted the minds of id Software truly are.DOOM, for those of you living on a different planet for over the last quarter century, is a FPS traditional survival horror story about your character awakening on an outpost on Mars only to find that some form of experimentation has gone horribly wrong as it has opened the gates to Hell itself and now all that stands between the destruction or salvation of mankind is you. The story isn't complex or convoluted in its delivery, but it still offers a few "OMG" moments. The real strength of the campaign however is the action within the campaign, which I'm thankful to report is extensive and plentiful. While the levels leave very little to exploration due to their linear nature, there are a couple nooks, crannies and secrets scattered throughout every level in DOOM's campaign which helps keep the whole discovery feeling fresh in your mind.
Within each level you will find a secret passage that takes you to a section where you can actually play an original Doom level from decades ago, but now with the more modernized monsters. It's incredible because when you go through these bonus sections you expect to find pixelated monsters from hell attacking you, but when you see highly detailed ferocious creatures lunging towards your skull, you realize quickly that this DOOM reboot is far more than what you were expecting. You'll also discover in some levels a series of scattered challenges called Rune challenges. These require you to complete a certain task within the allotted time limit and upon completion you are rewarded with a Rune stone which will grant you certain enhanced abilities or powers that can be equipped to really change the tide of war, but that's not the only item that allows for upgrades.
Doom has always prided itself on having a devastating arsenal of weaponry, and here your guns can be upgraded through modifications that give them different properties. For example, the combat shotgun is a DOOM favorite for many players, but now this weapon has two modifications that you can unlock, the first allows it to fire either a three round burst while the second allows it to fire one explosive round. I personally chose to unlock the explosive round because I know that DOOM games love to pack some heavy hitting enemies. This explosive round modification can be upgraded through collectible weapon mods or by the completion of certain instances that grant you weapon upgrades.
There are a total of four levels of upgrades which cost an increased amount for each one, but once you unlock the final upgrade for the explosive shotgun round you need to complete the individual challenge to gain "mastery" of the modification. In this case you need to do 20 direct explosive shots on imps (the ones that hurl fireballs at you, run fast, can be elusive at times, and yes I know that I just described a bunch of enemies in Doom). Once you complete this task every charged shot from your shotgun that is a direct hit will explode in a napalm like fashion that spawns other explosive shells that also go boom. Modifying your weaponry becomes paramount to successfully completing DOOM and escaping with your very soul, but we're not done yet.
On top of the Rune challenges I talked about earlier, your suit can also be modified in a similar fashion to your weaponry. Through items called Argent Cells, you can upgrade your Health, Armor, and Ammo Capacity, but snag yourself some Praetor Suit upgrades from fallen soldiers and you can withstand more damage from explosive barrels, move at full speed while aiming down sights, unlock every hidden item in the level and so much more. This upgrading ability goes a long way to converting your basic generic armor suit into its own weapon of mass destruction. This is why I mentioned earlier that your bare hands become one of your best weapons. Sure you have your BFG 9000, Rocket Launcher, or Plasma Cannon, but your fists bring forth so much death that the reaper himself would be proud. This is all thanks to the combat of DOOM which ultimately is the reason you have to play it. Let me explain.
Instead of just shooting until you see organs fly through the air, enemies will glow either blue or red when you deal enough damage before death. This is the moment of opportunity for you to charge into point blank range and use your hands to brutally execute your enemy in a variety of different ways. Things like tossing your enemy against a wall then using your boot to crush their head into a bloody smear, or jumping down from above and curb stomping their cranium into a goo like paste are just some of the various ways your suit becomes such a lethal weapon in the game. There's also a benefit that comes along with destroying your enemies with your bare hands, not only is it satisfying beyond description, but every enemy you kill this way will drop a health pickup which can be advantageous if you are running low. This almost forces you to get up close and personal with the demons of Hell and I personally wouldn't have it any other way.
Given the extensive amount of detail to the single player campaign I'd like to say that the same for the multiplayer, but this is not the case, and instead of this being a negative it actually is a positive. How is that possible? Well keeping things streamlined and simplified turns out to be the best possible option for the multiplayer. With a more "Quake" type feel, multiplayer allows you to go through a small variety of gametypes with one goal in mind, kill everything. Definitely entertaining, but sadly not on the same type replay level as other FPS games.
The real innovation though comes through a new addition to DOOM called SnapMap. SnapMap is essentially a level creator where you get to design your own multiplayer games. It's far from the scope of other map editors in games such as FarCry and Halo, but it's also much less detailed oriented. Although you have a scarce amount of options at your disposal, I still recommend using the tutorial to help you familiarize yourself with how SnapMap works. With such limited tools at your fingertips, I hope that this feature gets more updated content to allow users' imaginations to run wild. While not as exciting or entertaining as the campaign, it's far from a disappointment and adds to the game's feel and dare I say, depth and some innovation for the series.
From its early days until now, DOOM has undergone a metamorphosis unlike we've seen in the gaming world. Not many icons have transitioned so well into the current generation of gaming, but one thing is certain, and it is that id Software has done a fantastic job bringing the demonic and the satanic to life in a way that only DOOM could. While I do wish there was a bit more horror and terror (I wasn't really terrified throughout my experience), I'm glad that id Software decided to focus on what made DOOM so great from the beginning and that's killing everything without remorse or hesitation. If you're looking for a new beginning for an icon of FPS gaming, then DOOM is for you. As for fans of the franchise, you'll be happy too. In fact, I'm on my way now to go slaughter some more demons in Hell. See you down there!
Suggestions: In the upcoming sequels (because let's face it, we know that they're already in development), please bring back a strong element of horror. I believe Guillermo Del Toro would be a fantastic asset for horror consultation. If you decide to go that route, I'd love to see the path this takes.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Battleborn
Ever hear the phrase: "A Jack of all trades is a master of none?" It's a phrase that fits a game that seems to have some self-identifying issues to contend with. When you hear the name Gearbox, you automatically know you're in for a quality ride with some serious strait jackets, a bottle of liquor, and more explosions than a Michael Bay movie. Battleborn is the latest venture away from the Vaults and Pandora, and Gearbox is taking aim at creating a fun and addictive shooter-moba-loot-kill-everything type game thing and I realized that this is a game that wears many hats, almost like a 'Jack of all trades'.These many hats belong to the whopping MOBA-style, 25-character roster that becomes the foundation of Battleborn. If you have ever wanted to play a game in a wide variety of ways, then 2K Games latest release has you covered. Not all characters are available at the beginning though and most are unlocked through completing campaign missions or specific challenges. This very deep pool of superegos varies in their play style, but they all have upgradable DNA (their version of an ability tree) that allow each character to transfer into a total badass.
This double helix allows you to select a development path for your abilities as you level up, which is fairly simplistic in nature. Reach a certain level, choose between two possible upgrades, rinse and repeat until you come to the end of your development where you will realize that your character has become a one-person wrecking crew, and that your skill tree resets back to the beginning with each new mission.
My Oscar Mike soldier became what seemed to be an unstoppable force by the end of each campaign level. Armed with a grenade launcher, orbital attack, stealth camouflage, and an automatic assault rifle, it was almost unfair. My grenades were sprouting more grenades that all burst into flames, ammo for my assault rifle would penetrate enemy shields, my orbital strike went through floors so I could target enemies indoors, and it was extreme chaos so long as my shield stayed active and my health did not deplete.
Shield management became paramount as I would unload multiple clips until I noticed the shield meter drop, then I hid until it recharged and I popped back out and take on more enemies. This is how the combat is laid out in Battleborn though. You fight X amount of bad guys in one area, then move to the next area and fight X amount more. Collect currency and treasure in-between fights throughout the expansive, yet linear levels, and you have the total summation of what the Battleborn campaign is all about; kill everything and have fun doing it.
The Battleborn Prologue starts out like some adult Saturday morning cartoon. Over the top action that tries to lay the groundwork for what will become an incredibly short, but filled to the brim with action, campaign. Eight levels of intense spell slinging, grenade throwing, sword cutting action that feels detached from the game. Without any real sense of conformity or reason to do what you need to do, the single player campaign has been stitched together like some enormous quilt of heavily medicated visions. Sure there's a start and an end point, but Battleborn doesn't really care about the plot and if you're into action, and I mean an obscene amount of action, then you may not mind the lack of a cohesive plot so much.
There is a jewel within this quilt however, and that is every stitch is a masterful piece of writing. Even though it scarcely makes any sense, the humor of the Battleborn script almost feels like you could look up into the skies and see Pandora itself. There's no question that Battleborn is a beautiful game. The whole cartoonish feel adds a characteristic quality of frivolity to the experience.
Battleborn is a shooter that thrives on the multiplayer experience, which also includes the campaign. Going through the levels by yourself, you will not only be limited as to what you can achieve in terms of exploration and challenge completion, but you're also denying yourself one hell of a good time. Earlier I touched on character development and turning your hero into a raging beast of dominance, but in Battleborn what if you can take a whole team of raging beasts of dominance heroes? You can.
Rampaging and crushing through levels with overpowered displays of unbridled power, Battleborn takes you on a roller-coaster ride that you never want to end. This multiplayer experience is the core of Battleborn which also means that the dedicated multiplayer section should provide a sustainable wealth of content, but it doesn't. Clocking in with a grand total of six, yes six maps, Battleborn's multiplayer feels rather anemic as it is stripped down and broken into three types of multiplayer games, and each mode has two maps. Let me repeat that. Two maps. There are some more serious dents in the infrastructure of the multiplayer experience too.
One great example of this is when your multiplayer game is over you are automatically kicked back to the main menu thus forcing you to reconnect. There's more as well, including when you start tossing the word 'microtransactions' around. You can purchase cosmetic items through the individual packs that are released, or you can save some cash and purchase Battleborn's Season Pass that will add on an additional $20 USD and consists of five packs of new skins and taunts and one new story operation. Finally, you can get the deluxe edition of Battleborn for $75 which also includes the Season Pass plus some exclusive cosmetic items, you know, so you can show off to your friends how much money you spent on a game.
It feels as though Battleborn wanted to be so much of everything including an RPG, a MOBA, an FPS, and the list goes on, but instead of trying to be good at everything, I would suggest that it should have been great at a few things. It's a shame really because there is tremendous potential here and I can actually see Battleborn becoming another great IP from Gearbox, but only after they iron out the technical issues with the multiplayer connectivity, the length of the campaign, the amount of multiplayer levels, etc. So, Should you go out and play this game? Without hesitation I say yes, as even though there are many faults, Battleborn becomes the hardcore beast of action entertainment and explosions that it would make even Deadpool give a pronounced slow golf clap.
Suggestions: A few technical issues to work out, plus some more content for the multiplayer section instead of grinding out campaign missions.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
MagNets: Fully Charged
When you're a game company that wants to make a fun lighthearted platformer with some puzzle elements thrown in, you have a lot of source material to draw inspiration from. The problem is that most of the time inspiration for something innovative is hard to come by, which leads us to our latest XBA review. From the minds of Total Monkery, MagNets: Fully Charged finally lands on the Xbox One from its original PC origins. A fun adventurous platformer with some light puzzles thrown in for grins, and a whopping $14.99 + tax price point attached, MagNets: Fully Charged tries to attract your money from your wallet. Should you let it? Let's find out.I have to point out that the game has a multiplayer option that you can clearly see on the screen, but it's not selectable. You can see it clear as day, but you can't actually choose it. I even connected a second controller for local play and it still wouldn't let me select it, so I don't know who wrote "local multiplayer" on the game description or if it was just a bug that I was experiencing, but either way, it wasn't playable and with that said, let’s move on shall we?
MagNets is broken into four regions that each consist of five varying levels. These levels are fairly linear in design and will quickly become, through much trial and error, quite underwhelming. All of that is thanks to the basic essence of this game itself; let me explain why.
The story involves your character, a park ranger, yes a park ranger, who apparently gets in trouble with a glowing bean-like character that looks like a reject from Futurama. You are tasked with going to areas of the park that aren't secured. While doing so you have to deal with BoxBots, that for some reason decided that today of all days all of them would act out by commiting acts of random violence. Ummmm...ok, now how do you secure an area?
Using either the left or right trigger, you get your character to create a magnetic ring around the BoxBots to stun them, then while they are stunned you make another ring around them and turn them into scrap. You take this scrap and deposit it into a recycle machine that will then produce an item of importance after so much scrap is gathered. Your character then takes the item produced to the target area, place it in the slot where it's supposed to go and boom, just like that the area is secured. Then you rinse and repeat and do it all over again. To be completely honest, I'm already getting bored just thinking about it.
While the innovation of the magnetic ring is nice, the later levels that involve a higher concentration of BoxBots that not only explode but shoot laser beams at you and they require almost constant motion. Throw in meaningless gameplay controls such as the ground stomp, that does no damage but does stun the BoxBots which allosw you to try and gain the first of your two stun rings, and you have a gameplay mechanic that will leave you perplexed to say it best.
MagNets has some issues when it comes to keeping your attention and heightening your enjoyment, even though it does offer some decent graphics to look at. The various levels after the intro park level offer up a nice change of scenery, and as you work your way to the boss fight you'll be able to see some colorful imagery that runs at a smooth 60 fps. This is all great, but then there is the in-game music.
Just when you think that there's something good about this game, here comes another knock against it. Playing throughout the levels I found myself becoming annoyed with the repetitive pop/techno loops that weren't that good. Eventually I turned off the music all together and found my gaming experience somewhat improved, which shouldn't happen when you turn off a game's soundtrack.
Other little nuances seemed to get to me as well. An example of this is that I had no clue where some of these recycle bins were located as there is no mini-map at all. I was aware where the targets were that were under attack thanks to a simple red circle and an arrow, but with no map I would find myself wandering around aimlessly while trying to find a place where I could turn my scrap into objects, and then find where these objects go.
When you combine all the issues that this game has, you realize that that MagNets suffers because of it. For essentially $15 you get a less than mediocre single player game that is hard to recommend. Having released back in 2015 on the PC, you start to feel that this was more of a quick port than anything else. Sadly MagNets: Fully Charged is a pass.
Overall Score: 4.7 / 10
Party Hard
As we near the summer months, we say goodbye to snow and hello to sunshine. Goodbye to staying indoors and hello to parties all over the world! Party Hard by Pinokl Games is a recent release under the ID@Xbox program, and for $12.99 you can partake in the antics of a serial killer bent on one thing: to finally get some peace and quiet. So how does Party Hard fare and should you buy it? Let's look inside and see what we can find.As soon as you begin you'll notice that Party Hard does a fantastic job paying homage to some of the best in electronic music. Going into the main mission selection screen you're treated to what can be described as a pixelated treatment of Daft Punk "Get Lucky", so already I have love for Pinokl Games.
As you begin Party Hard, you'll notice that this game tends to stray towards what one could consider to be a bad cop drama trope. Trying to not take itself too seriously, Party Hard delivers what I would like to call, "intentionally horrible voice over acting". What I mean by that is that Party Hard knows going into this that it's not going to end well, so why not put your foot down and over exaggerate everything to play off of itself?
You play the role of a man who is just trying to get some sleep, but when he is awoken by a noisy house party at 3:00 A.M. with no signs of ever stopping, you reach for your modified Jason hockey mask, grab your blade, and go crash the party. The story itself of Party Hard isn't that entertaining or captivating, but along the way you're treated to a B horror movie with homage to great horror flicks such as Psycho and other classics.
As you navigate the party you will find that the layouts are slightly randomized as they switch whenever your character dies or becomes busted by the police and you need to replay a level. First and foremost, the control scheme for Party Hard is almost as simplistic as it gets. The 'Left Stick' is used for your movement while the 'X' and 'Y' buttons are used for stabbing and executing traps. Your character can sprint using the 'Right Trigger' but that is fairly limited and in the end does very little in terms of escaping cops when needed.
It's safe to say that the learning curve for the control scheme is damn near flat lined and you will find yourself spending more time waiting for the opportunity to activate a trap or stab someone with your knife instead. Each one of these parties takes you to various location such as a yacht party that's surrounded by man eating sharks, a Las Vegas night club where you need to worry about bank robbers, to even a roof top disco party where the dance floor can literally kill you. While these different scenes play in to the ludicrous storyline, there's one thing that can't be denied: the pixel art is fantastic.
I know that it's not ultra-modern HD super realistic graphics, but sometimes if done right, less is definitely more, and that's the case with Party Hard. The real treat is how these characters dress up, as you'll see characters such as Ronald McDonald, Hulk Hogan, Dracula, and so much more that it really becomes comical in a sense to see just who is attending these parties. One time I had Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre appear and he tore through everyone until a cop finally put him down, showcasing pixel gore at its finest.
This also goes the same for some of the traps throughout the various levels. I thoroughly enjoyed pissing off a bull, causing it to charge across the map while wiping out everyone in its path. I also thoroughly enjoyed watching an entire dance floor of people break out into a conga line, where I then hit the switch and sent the entire dance floor up in flames. As you progress you can collect items such as stun bombs, changes of clothes, and more to help you kill. The stun bomb works wonders if you have a large crowd because once it goes off it will literally knock out everyone nearby and open them up for easy killing and escape.
While utilizing traps and navigating through the various levels can be entertaining, the real beauty of this game is the audio, though not all the audio is worth praise. For instance, every level has its own music which is heavily inspired by great tunes already out there, so kudos to the developers for that but The problem is not only in the voice acting but the yells and screams coming from the guests themselves when you start slaughtering. When you just happen to leave a body around, it's not uncommon to hear at least 10 screams or yells, or a mixture of both, and when you're talking about slaughtering over 45 people, that amounts to a lot of yelling and that becomes very annoying quite quickly.
While yes, it goes without saying that this game does tap into something that is sort of mind numbing enjoyable, do I think it's worth the $12.99? Only if you buy it on Friday the 13th. I would say that if Party Hard were on sale for $7.99 or below then it would be a much better bargain. The humor is lackluster and there are setbacks that really seem to deflate the fun from this game. The sheer amount of repetition will have you struggling to complete the game, but thankfully the 26 achievements will award you for your trudging efforts.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Gunscape
Ever since the olden days of Wolfenstein and Doom, gamers around the globe have invested countless hours in classic FPS games. Developer Blowfish Games has recently created a FPS called Gunscape that attempts to resurrect these hours of enjoyment from decades ago while also attempting to bring them into the current-gen platform by giving you a map editor. Gunscape seems like it will be a fairly straight forward FPS game; however, after an incredibly short 8-level story mode that is absolutely irrelevant, you will have come to grips with the mechanics and play style of Gunscape. In case you were curious as to the campaign, it involves you infiltrating a secret installation to gain access to DOLOS, which is tasked for one thing; to become the ultimate AI weapon on the planet. You will not only have to read dialogue that attempts to be humorous at times, but you will gain knowledge on how switches and other items work within the game parameters, which is key when you take into account this game's soul is focused around one thing: a players ability to create new content of their own.
That's right folks, Gunscape's soul is based around the game's map editor. Using a simplistic method of construction, Gunscape allows you to create either your own multiplayer maps of various gametypes or campaign maps which can then be shared with the online gaming world. It goes without saying that the traditional gametypes are included, such as Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Free For All, Last Man Standing, and Infection gametypes to name a few.
You use the cubes that are provided at your disposal such as terrain blocks, but these have more uses than just a "floor". Some are angled so that you can create ramps, stairs, and more advanced shapes. However, while creating a strong foundation is important, Gunscape allows you to customize your levels with items such as statues and more to help give it your own personal touch. As you build and develop your levels you'll also have the ability to place special elements, such as dash/jump pads, teleporters, elevators and so on, on your created map
This gives you a tremendous ability to create some spectacular maps on your own, but you'll also see that
Gunscape loves to pay homage to classic shooters as their theme packs clearly show some generic tributes to games such as Quake, Bioshock, Portal, Doom, and so much more. This means that you can mix and match your blocks from varying themes making your possible combinations limitless as you will always have a tremendous amount of content to create, play, and enjoy.
But in the mix of all of this, there is a couple things that seem hurt this game somewhat. For starters, when you create a map you're limited to the AI enemies and their reaction within the map you're building. When I say limited to, what I mean to say is that you have barely any choice at all. Sadly, you can't adjust it and the theme packs have very little in terms of variety when it comes to your available AI enemies. It's this limitation that can tend to hold this game back and you can't have a setback like this affecting your main characteristic of your game.
Normally if that was the only fault, even though it's a large one, I could tolerate it; however, this isn't the only mark against Gunscape. Going through the build mode it became a chore and a half thanks to the stability issues that I had with it. Instead of having a bout of bad lag here and there I was the recipient of full on freezing. Thank the heavens I hadn't been investing hours and hours developing a level before it all crashed to the floor.
The stability issues continued well into the single player, but at the time of review I could not find one single multiplayer game to join. So while the network issues plagued the single player and build mode, I could not find a multiplayer match to see if they continued via that mode. I also noticed that my signal strength for the first time was jumping rapidly all over the place. I'd get 1 red bar, then 3 green, then 2 green, then 4 green, then 1 red bar, and the cycle would continue. This had nothing to do with the signal coming to my modem as I am
hard wired into my Xbox One and all my other games run smooth as silk.
When you create a FPS and you want to pay tribute to classics that have paved the way for this game to even exist, you want to make sure that you use those icons as a reference point on what to do. I don't see that here at all and it pains me to say that. For $20 you should get a game that offers more, and while Gunscape tries to do that, the stability issues are almost insurmountable as you cannot have these issues when you don't have much else packed into the game itself. If you're looking for a trip down nostalgia road then this will do it for you. If you're looking for a classic iconic experience, then look somewhere else or save your $20.00 for another time.
Suggestions: Please work on stability issues to make this game more enjoyable.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Lichdom: Battlemage
While many have not heard of the company Xaviant, their first person mage game called Lichdom: Battlemage has finally made it onto Xbox One after almost 2 years on PC. Priced at $49.99 this is a game characterized as a first person caster where you are given a ridiculous amount of spells and a massive cult army to dispose of in your journey ahead. However, is this game worth the $50 price tag, or has this game's enjoyment gone up in a proverbial puff of smoke? Well let's begin to unlock the mystery behind Lichdom: Battlemage.You will notice right away that the options are, for lack of a better word, scarce. You have no option to adjust brightness, though you do have the ability to adjust the sound. Instantly this becomes an issue because of the game's naturally dark settings. When a proper light source is lacking you feel a little like Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder in terms of your visibility, which could have been helped by any sort of brightness control.
This can be quite frustrating, as a few times while focused in battle I managed to find the one hole in the floor and fall through it due to lack of visibility, the result being having to respawn quite a distance away and the enemies I just killed came back to life. A brightness slider would have made a world difference in my time with Lichdom: Battlemage. Nevertheless, let's press on.
As you begin your journey you will notice first off that the control scheme is somewhat troublesome, and at times it feels as if it's borderline unplayable. As a default, your control sensitivity starts out under the '4' setting, but you will quickly set it to '1' just to be able to focus on not running into walls. Even when setting the sensitivity is this low you will notice that walking makes you almost feel as if you're flying, and running makes you feel like you're going into light speed.
The next issue you'll come across is that there is no targeting marker at all. None. Instead, you are given what almost equates to an 'auto lock-on' feature that is based off in relation to the enemy you're facing. You don't see the lock on, but it's there and you can't toggle your target unless you decide to go after another enemy by changing focus completely. When you're talking about having multiple enemies in the distance, it's very hard to auto target and switch when your control scheme feels like it's had 20 shots of espresso.
You would think that wielding two magical gauntlets on both hands would enable you to readily target two enemies as well. Nope. To top off all of this nonsense, you have a simplistic control scheme where you have three banks of spells (Y, X, and B buttons) to select from on the fly and your LB is utilized for blocking. RB is used for a 'blink', a rapid shift in any direction, but there are issues here as well.
Blocking, if done right will perform a riposte that will damage or kill the attacking enemy and injure any others within the blast area. This sounds great until you realize that the swarms that attack you prevent you from doing this. Regular blocking will let some damage through, but not all. I found myself learning fast how to properly use the blink maneuver in order to dodge ranged attacks while opening a window of opportunity to unleash a barrage of destructive spells. The issue I have here is that while you can even customize your shield that you have equipped, this almost makes blocking unnecessary, which then raises the question: why have it? For example, if you charge up your blink dash, your character releases a burst nova where ever they land, so it becomes a heavy offensive tool that will allow you deal damage without receiving any yourself (but you have to charge it first) and the regular quick blink is highly defensive allowing you to again take no damage. So the reason to have blocking again is what??
Your character Dragon, whose name is assigned by the game, has had their life suspended and everything they loved has been destroyed by a demonic group called the Malthus Cult. Apparently this cult is the center of all the undead monsters that are rampaging through your lands, ruining everything in their sight. Thus enter Roth. An incredibly powerful magic wielder who has selected you to become his next apprentice and agrees to help you get revenge on the Malthus Cult by granting you two magical bracelets that allow you to wield unlimited magical power. "Unlimited" may be a bit of a stretch, as you must go through the game's levels and unlock new magical spells and abilities as you progress. This is where the strength of this game really comes through in a big way. You want spells? Lichdom: Battlemage will give you more spells than you've ever seen in your life.
There are a total of 156 base spell types in this game, and from these you can combine and craft literally millions of different combinations and variants, which will come in handy throughout your quest provided you take some time to do some research and learn how the spells interact with one another and the enemies.
This is where the learning curve almost takes a sharp 90 degree turn straight up. Trying to find out what works best for you will take a long time to decipher given the fact that the writing and description of the spells themselves are incredibly small (even playing on a 55" 4K 1080p Samsung UHDTV, the print is damn near microscopic). You will find yourself spending a lot of time at checkpoints as you take a break to see what spells are needed. Trust me, doing this in the heat of battle (since the game doesn't pause) is the wrong time to be adjusting your spells. For example, you will have a fire spell, however this spell can come in three different forms. There's a direct attack, an area of effect (AOE), and a Nova variant. As you progress you will be able to upgrade these variants individually as well as give you the ability to modify more advanced level spells.
While the story is very linear and told in traditional level structure, the combat itself does provide enjoyment and becomes the highlight of this game. Using some incredibly powerful spell variants can lead to a tremendous amount of entertainment. For instance, my character will summon undead spirits to fight for me based off of tagging enemies with my necromancer spell while killing them, giving me their spirit in warrior form. Whenever enemies appear, they then conjure themselves up and start attacking while I rain down fire from above. You won't run into many different types of enemies in this game but they make up for this in the sheer numbers you face at one time. While the combat does give some enjoyment, there's more than this to keep you hooked.
The levels of this game provide you with some stunning graphics and backdrops now and then. Even though the caves, crypts, and dungeons are as dark as night, this helps embellish whatever flame or fire source you see, making all of this beauty a constant; that is until the screen tears. Yes, while you're standing in awe of your surrounding environment, your screen apparently can't handle the awesomeness and thus starts to tear consistently.
Now in the heat of the battle you don't notice it as much, but when just exploring is a different story (and given that it's a majority of the game, it's a huge issue). The voice acting however is what I would consider a wealth of talent but horrendous execution. Clancy Brown, Troy Baker, Jennifer Hale, Gina Torres, and more, blanket the voices of the characters, however the script itself and the execution will leave you shaking your head in confusion.
Overall Lichdom: Battlemage has a ton of points going for and against it, but the bad are somewhat concerning. Horrible play control, constant screen tearing, a mediocre story, and a bad script are all noteable problems. As well, at the time of this writing there apparently are no achievements to get as the game cannot connect online. Your game needs to connect to the servers online in order to get the achievement data and when you fire this game up, it will not sync your data thus forcing you offline and no achievements.
There was supposed to be a day one patch but unless it was included in the download I have yet to receive it, and if it did get included I would be interested to see what, if anything, was fixed because there is still a ton of work that needs to be done. This is such a setback given the fact that this is a direct port of a PC game that they are charging you $50 for. Until the improvements are made that fix all notable issues, it's best to stay clear and save your $50 for the time being.
Suggestions: In the name of everything that is holy, please find a way to allow your audience to adjust the brightness. Also fix the problems stated above and you're on your way to a great game.
Overall Score: 6.4 / 10
101 Ways to Die
Since we've relaunched Xbox Addict, I have been reviewing some titles that favor strategy and thought rather than muscle reflex and headshots. However, I haven't come across any that I enjoyed to the point that it took me away from the shooters and other titles currently in my queue.My most recent review duties, that you'll read here, had me playing 101 Ways To Die, and to be honest I actually quite enjoyed this one. For $12.99, developers Four Door Lemon/On The Metal games have put together a title that you'll find will bring hours of enjoyment, that is once when you get past some of the minor irritants of this game.
The story begins as mad scientist Professor Splattunfunder confines himself to his dungeon laboratory to begin his tireless work on completing his compendium of "101 Ways To Die". Literally, less than half a second later we see that it's finished (guess it doesn't take him long being a mad scientist, oh that and the montage that follows).
To celebrate this success, one of his splats (think stupid undead zombie minion) brings a bomb to the Professor, and you can probably guess what happens next. During the explosion the compendium is destroyed and Professor Splattunfunder must expedite its completion once again, but this time he calls in an assistant: you. It is up to you to help the good-evil Professor to rediscover all 101 Ways To Die so that the compendium can be complete. Pretty simple story.
So we've established that the story leaves little enjoyment; however, what we do discover is that this game is setup to help you create the most lethal Rube Goldberg machine you'll ever comes across. To do this you will be given a series of traps, which range from explosives, slippery goo, spring boards, and so much more. Naturally, as you progress you will get more traps but the levels themselves will progress in difficulty too. This is where my biggest gripe of this game resides.
There are different objectives that you will strive to reach such as 'Graduate Objectives', which consists of goals such as only one splat may escape, to 'Master Objectives', which consists of you killing two splats with one boulder. Clearing the objectives will net you stars which accumulate and unlock other areas of destruction to play with. Of course it is fun to watch the bloody dismemberment; however, you will find that as you go through the levels, the trick isn't just correct placement, but correct timing as well.
Should your timing be off even for just a slight moment, it can easily cost you a perfect score. So while the game is cerebral in its core, having to replay missions because you forgot to detonate a cannon at the right time, the exact angle, or at the proper target, can become frustrating at times. This is compounded by the fact that the splats move VERY slowly. You can hold the X button down to speed up time, but even then it's incredibly slow. I understand that this is to help you with proper timing, but it causes a disruption in the harmonic balance between gameplay and fun.
The control scheme is also questionable. First off, you have two different sets of views, an x-ray mode that lets you see your traps, and the normal view which is, well, normal. In the x-ray mode you can place your traps and tools of destruction while aiming them to the best of your ability. The aiming controls are not very precise and after trying to figure out the proper path to a gory death, trying to time your executions can be incredibly frustrating.
Thankfully the game has a camera system that can be utilized, though it can feel completely useless. No I'm not joking. I found that you can zoom in and out for whatever reason, but with seemingly no real purpose. To put things in perspective, when you have the camera zoomed all the way out, your splats look almost microscopic in size, if you zoom-in to the normal view, the screen zooms so far in you lose a lot of your surroundings. When you go all the way in with your zoom, you seemingly see a close-up of the splat and literally lose whatever limited vision you have left. If felt like there was no "happy medium" here.
After going through this game I have to say that I'm glad that the camera is so limited though. There is some great, sadistic humor to be had when you're exploding, impaling, and launching splats to their death. For $12.99 it's makes for an fairly entertaining game, even with the few issues I have noted. While it may be limited in scope, let your imagination run wild and your darker side have a little fun as you help complete the compendium of 101 Ways To Die.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
McDROID
Tis' the time for big blockbuster games to become far and few between and the mundane to take over the world, for now. I am a big fan of tower defense games as I find the cerebral planning and strategy a fun and addictive break from headshots, kill streaks, and more. McDroid from Elefantopia sets out to be a tower defense game unlike anything you've ever seen before. So do they manage to pull this off? Unfortunately, not this time, but let me explain. When you're talking tower defense games you're not really talking about a story of any real depth or meaning as it takes a back seat to the strategy. The story for this game is generic and simple as you find your ship returning to your home which is called Planet M. Through in-game dialogue, which I found somewhat meaningless and annoying, you find out that Planet M is sick because it has been poisoned by the Somanto Corp. So naturally the game is about you healing a planet and making everything good again. That's it. No really, that's a summation of the entire game. The best way I can describe it is that you are playing essentially a tower defense captain planet versus global warming/mutant hybrid game.
First off McDroid (the character not the game) is a multi-tasking machine. This little WALL-E on steroids seems to be this entire planet's only hope. Through levels you will have to gain strawberries, which become your in game currency, to buy your towers once you've unlocked them. Your towers are unlocked by collecting diamonds and spending them on blueprints. As you progress, you will unlock items such as other droids, rocket launchers, and even magical trees which act as support for your turrets.
In order to collect these items, McDroid must destroy enemies which can drop seeds and diamonds. Once you have a seed, McDroid can plant it and after a set amount of time he will have strawberries to harvest. Once he has collected so many of these items, McDroid must head back to your ship to store them. An innovative take on resource management, but the execution is horrible. Let me tell you why.
The thing about a good tower defense game is your ability to adapt on the fly, and while McDroid does allow you to do this, the constant returning to the ship to drop off your grocery bag full of strawberries and diamonds takes you completely out of the fight. This abrupt dismissal of action really becomes frustrating as you progress and find out that McDroid has to do a tremendous amount of different tasks. It almost becomes more of a balancing game of responsibility than a tower defense game.
That's not to say though that you can obtain some amazingly fun towers to play with, the problem though is that you're required to actually play through this game, a lot, if you wish to obtain all these toys. That's an experience that I'll gladly pass on. This feeling is compounded more thanks to some of the achievements which involve McDroid's Nightmare mode, which by the sounds of it, means pray to whatever deity you believe in because this game just got a whole lot worse.
McDroid (now the game, not the character) is a generally pretty cel-shaded game that is bright and vibrant with graphics are generally appealing to the eye, though not jaw dropping. The music though is a different story. I actually found more enjoyment playing this game with the sound off than with it on. I can honestly say that since I really found the story to weak, there was no reason for me to subject my ears to this noise. McDroid just does his best R2-D2 impressions with a bunch of bleeps and bloops while your shuttle craft chimes in with what he would consider a pithy comeback. All of this leads to a very lack luster experience and that's what got me thinking.
This game originally released in 2012 and the reviews were fairly solid; however, upon a transition to a gaming console in 2016, it seems that the shift did not go so well for this little droid. I do have to say that McDroid does try to give those die hard tower defense fans something to smile about, and for only $7.99 there is a bit of reason to grin...it's cheap.
A the end of the day if you don't go into this thinking you're getting some phenom of a game, you may not mind McDroid at all; however, I can honestly say that there are better alternatives. Consider some of the tower defense games that are backwards compatible from the Xbox 360 store instead. For an extra $2 you can get Defense Grid which is a far superior game. At $7.99 plus tax, you get what you pay for.
Overall Score: 5.7 / 10
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
With a tidal wave of indie games flocking to the Xbox Games Marketplace, it really takes a lot to stand out. Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (SPC) is a side scrolling platformer, ala Metroid and Castlevania, and is based on a theory: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Having already released years ago on other platforms, does the Xbox One version warrant the $19.99 price tag? Or is WayForward Technologies looking for a quick cash-in? Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is actually the 3rd story in a 4 story saga. The first two games are not available on the Xbox One, and the 4th story is nowhere to be found either. So essentially for $19.99 you get 1 story out of 4, and early on, you will find that the story not only makes very little to no sense, but the whole importance of the narrative is lost completely from the beginning.
The series involves you playing as Shantae, who is a guardian genie of Scuttle Town. Prior to this game you find yourself up against a pirate named Risky Boots, who in this game is now your partner, how that happens I don't know. Ok, so now fast forward to this game.
This entry involves Shantae and Risky Boots teaming up together to fight against the Pirate Master. This villain is the embodiment of all that is evil and must be eliminated to secure the safety of the village. However, this time Shantae has lost her genie powers (apparently she lost them in the previous games). $19.99 for a wafer thin fraction of a story? Why couldn't this be a 3 game bundle for that price? As we progress I think you'll see why.
Laid out across several levels, Pirate's Curse, is a side scrolling platformer that actually delivers in many ways. The nostalgia factor of the game's graphics harkens back to the days where we would spend hours trying to time our jumps, dodge incoming danger, and destroy every breakable item you can find. This sentimentality continues through to the music as the synth heavy rifts repeat over and over until you feel like the music will actually haunt your dreams. I have to say this is nice and the sectional map layouts that we are accustomed to for all the levels is a welcomed division instead of one gigantic map.
The gameplay is solid and that's a great thing considering it's the soul of the game itself. Having a responsive control scheme with simplistic commands bodes well, as sometimes you will find yourself caught in hectic, timed jumps that could easily lead you to your death, of which is an issue I had with this game. It seems like it takes forever for you to find some form of save point and should you get 99% of the way through the level but die at the very end right before the save point, you'll be sent all the way back to the beginning. While it's very frustrating, the satisfaction of reaching a save point is underestimated greatly.
Along the way you will utilize the same basic principles where you finish one level, go to another level, fight your way to the boss, eliminate said boss, gain pirate gear to give you new abilities to reach previously inaccessible areas if you back track, and repeat the process over and over again. While this can get repetitive quickly, the game's gameplay mechanics offer both frustration and satisfaction around every turn, it does offer some form of balance. It's this balance that keeps this side scrolling platformer enjoyable. While anyone can see a tip of the cap to other iconic side scrolling platformers, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse can easily stand on its own.
After all this I can easily say that the list of "pros" far outweigh the "cons" in terms of quality. Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is a wonderfully challenging nostalgia trip down memory lane, but again $19.99 for a game that came out in 2014 on a handheld platform, seems to be one aspect that I can't overlook.
Add to that fact that you only get 1/4 of the entire game series which is something that feels like a kick in the gut. The main reason for this is because after playing this game, you will want to play the others due to the quality, and unfortunately that will require you to invest more money outside of just the game so you can experience it all. And my apologies but this game series isn't a "system seller" by any means.
Then when you take into account the troubled past regarding the problematic development and lack of release of the 4th game in the series, I guess we should consider our Xbox's lucky that we even got one of the games to play. I simply don't feel it is worth the $19.99 price point. I get the impression that this is WayForward Technologies' form of trying to gain some form of revenue to finish a project that they already raised almost a million dollars for through PayPal donations and Kickstarter. My score for this game is high in terms of gameplay experience, and not the cost, so on that note I recommend that you until this goes on sale to buy it, but once you buy it, you'll sure be glad you did.
Suggestions: Please release the first two games in the series on the Xbox platform as well!
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
Spareware
When it comes to top down twin stick shooters, there have only been a few games that really stand out that have ever released on an Xbox platform. In an effort to add to this list, Spareware, a game developed by Rusto, has been added to the Xbox Live Store. It is relatively cheap ($9.99), and amidst all the actual political turmoil in our lives today, this game could easily be considered some form of political campaign material. Think that is crazy? Well, let me start things right off with a direct quote or two from the description of the game:"Fight the deluded human security forces to reach the Core, where you and HelOS can save the citizens from the self-destructive and manipulative power of Vote."
Wait, it gets better:
"Get stronger with every battle and get access to a variety of exceptional weapons and abilities to help the revolution."
So, I interpret the focus of Spareware's gameplay is to create a political revolution to protect citizens from the manipulative power of "Vote". That honestly sounds like a certain political campaign going on right now in the United States. Ahem, so now that this foundation has been established, let’s move on (get it?).
Developer Rusto has attempted to make Spareware fun and enjoyable, but unfortunately it doesn't quite hit the mark. For starters, you only have local multiplayer (1-4 players), so apparently all your friends on Xbox Live, you know the service you use to download this game and more, mean nothing. Don't get me wrong, I totally get the idea of couch co-op/multiplayer play, but this game just screams online multiplayer. I can let things slide without online multiplayer aspects if you create a tremendous gameplay experience, and there have been plenty of previous Xbox 360 Arcade titles, and current ID@Xbox titles too, that have done just that, but this isn't one of them.
You'll rapidly find that your primary focus in Spareware becomes upgrading your robot mech. Specifically, you'll combine such things as power, speed, and armor, most of which are unlocked through gaining achievements (something I'll get into later) which will grant you bonuses to use on the playing field.
Depending on what your mission objectives are, you are required to choose your weapons and items wisely because you have a limited number of fuel cells to spend, and once they're gone your game is over and you have to start again. In a weird twist of fate, starting over is one of this games few shining points, as when you restart a level it is different then what you just played, so you will always have a fresh experience.
So now that we have had our one bright and shining moment, let's talk about the controls. While Rusto had a wealth of quality content available for research, apparently it seems that none of it mattered. You utilize the right stick to aim and you use the left and right triggers to fire and reload. Perks and other explosive fun can be assigned to the various buttons such as Y, B, or X, but that felt odd to me for as this game is a twin stick shooter. It is almost like the game was having an identity crisis as it didn't feel like a true twin stick shooter.
When I play a game I'll admit it, I try to gain every achievement possible. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fail, but every time I try. However, outside of having values of 8, 16, 32 and more, there are achievements that you won't be able to get in Spareware unless you have three more people to play with. So, unless you have three friends over one night to sit down and play through this game with, I won't be getting all the achievements. For example, one such achievement requires that no one ever gets hit (including by each other as friendly fire is ALWAYS ON and there is no option to turn it off). Can they make it any more difficult for us achievement hunters? Why would it be so hard to do regular 5 or 10 point achievements and then some? Oh wait, I forgot Spareware is about a revolution. Gotcha.
Visually, this game really tries to push the whole cel-shaded futuristic look, but it becomes extremely repetitive. You could play this game for hours and see similar environments over and over again. Since the graphics are highly repetitive, why not focus on the music then? Oh wait, they didn't, as it too is repetitive. Yet another stellar example of a good reason to have a mute button. Normally I enjoy listening to a developer’s soundtrack as they realize it’s a way of positively connecting to their audience, but not here.
I know this review is harsh, and what is said isn't flattering at all, but I found that this game did so much wrong. For $9.99 there are going to be other ID@Xbox titles worth buying. I really wanted this game to be big given the premise it offered, but unfortunately there isn't much to this game in terms of content that’s enjoyable. I had high hopes for Spareware and regretfully I was let down and disappointed.
Suggestions: If you're going to make a political game, then go for it, but don't disrespect your audience's intelligence please. A title such as Bernie Sanders' Robot Revolution makes more sense than "Spareware". Oh and in the future, would you please refine and implement some of the qualities of the successful twin stick shooters?
Overall Score: 3.8 / 10
Tom Clancy's The Division
Ubisoft has always pushed the envelope when it comes to introducing the world to new titles. From Assassin's Creed to Watch Dogs they have prided themselves on creating its own stable of incredible IP's. When creating a new IP there is an amazing amount of risk taken by a developer and publisher. There is no data to base judgement calls on and everything is pushed to the breaking point. Many millions of dollars are usually on the line. Ubisoft has rolled the dice in 2016 as their their next venture into innovation has been released: Tom Clancy's The Division. Slated as a game that brings not only 3rd person shooting and gameplay mechanics, it also has an RPG experience that, like a drug, will leave you hooked. From the initial beginning the game will seem a bit watered down in terms of content and customization. You can also check out the rewards available on Ubisoft's Uplay store as well as establish your character's ID and more. When you're done, you follow a similar launch of other games by being tossed into the fray and forcing you to fight your way through the beginning of the story. This is where you will find a basic, and I do mean basic, tutorial in terms of how to get into cover, the basics of your gear and weapon stats, and so on. The story itself is not as dynamic and very obtuse when it comes to anything worthwhile to care about. This is the first mark against The Division. If you want to create a shooter RPG, then you need to create a story that can last the duration of what we could consider an RPG story. There have been other games released under much more hype that delivered much less story and are now mocked as a wasteland of failed potential. The Division comes very close to this.
The general plot, without going into too many details, is that there is an flu-like epidemic in New York City and when the National Guard became overwhelmed The Division, a group of specialized agents, are activated. They are a select few handpicked to be the last line of defense. The first wave was sent in; however they have gone dark and now you're part of the second wave, trying to make sense of everything. Your mission: Eliminate the gangs that have taken foothold in the city, figure out the who, what, and why of the viral outbreak, and try to find an answer to what happened to the first wave. To do this you need to reestablish a base of operations and take back New York City. Are you ready?
While a tad bit comical and simplistic when broken down, you should find that when you go through the various side missions and search for collectibles, you really get to experience the pandemic that has hit New York from various points of view. This is where the real meat of the story resides. You'll experience everything from a man with asthma mistakenly being judged as a carrier of the virus being burned alive to a woman breaking down to her mother on the phone as she comes out to her and tells her that she's gay. The range of experiences far exceeds the value of the actual story. While disappointing that the main quest/story is so lacking in quality, the fact that The Division creates tons of these experiences adds a tremendous value. A value that will leave you scouring every inch of the city, and what a city it is.
Broken up into multiple sections with varying level difficulty, New York unfolds itself into a very large spectacle. Starting out, you will notice how the game encourages you to explore and rewards you for doing so. Venturing down alleyways, into police stations, drug stores, electronic vendors, parking garages and more all yield the real wealth of The Division. I will say though that there are times when going after a collectible and you'll find that you have to backtrack about 3 blocks, cross over, come back down the street, go into a side alley, hop up on top of a semi-truck, then hop up to a rooftop lounge, then head across the rooftop back to the original building where the collectible is. You'll do so much walking and running you'll hear tour guide voices saying "and if you look on your left you'll see Madison Square Garden, we're walking, we're walking..." This traversing will not only eat up hours of your life, and feel monotonous at times, but it can give you a tremendous experience that you won't forget.
As noted, the various sections of New York are broken down into experience levels. While the cap is at 30, each section of the map has its own range of difficulty so make sure you plan accordingly. Pay attention though as the map showcases a bright red section in the middle called the Dark Zone. This is The Division’s PvP area and the source of not only your greatest challenges but greatest loot. In the Dark Zone it is literally you versus everyone, so it is very wise to wait and team up before going in. You'll thank me for that last bit when you arrive. When you play in the Dark Zone you'll notice that there is an entirely separate level system in place as is the Dark Zone's financial system. Killing enemy NPC's in this area will earn you items such as cash, loot, and Dark Zone XP, all which you will use to obviously level your character up and buy some amazing gear, but here's the catch, other human Division players will also be hunting enemy NPC's as well as other Division players. Kill another player, and that’s when the Dark Zone transforms instantly. Welcome to the Rogue game.
Killing another Division player will net you a much more substantial reward, but it also puts a target on your back that other players can locate on their map and hunt you down. So congratulations, your greed has now caused the entire populace of the Dark Zone to be notified of a massive reward for your elimination. Killing players that have gone Rogue not only means you halted someone's killing, but in doing so you become Rogue yourself. And so the madness continues.
The loot that you obtain in the Dark Zone has to be extracted since it's in a contaminated area of New York, and this requires you to activate a signal to trigger a countdown to a chopper that flies in allowing you to place your Dark Zone acquired gear and it gets whisked away to be decontaminated for use. I tip my cap to you Ubisoft, the transition from both PvE to PvP is wonderful; however, there are a few issues I have to address.
First, being that the game is a 3rd person shooter, you automatically put yourself into a game category that is going up against other 3rd person shooters. The controls are similar where you press the A button to go into cover, and press the B button to vault over an object or climb, etc. With this in mind, the control scheme should work flawlessly, but sadly it doesn't. You'll get stuck on the wrong wall when you don't expect it and you'll find that you'll sometimes jump over barriers or cover when you don't want too. Sometimes the control becomes so frantic in the middle of the gunfights that you don't have time to notice that some of the enemies are now flanking you. Yes, that’s right folks, we do have enemy NPC's that actually respond to your character. Got an M60? Lay down over 200 rounds and you'll see the character hide behind cover and the word "suppressed" will appear over his head, but be careful because the enemies travel in groups so while one may be suppressed, the other 2-4 will start positioning themselves in a flanking position to attack you. Brilliant job Ubisoft.
With the mechanics sadly feeling a bit unpolished, The Division tries to bounce back with its RPG elements. Think of your character broken down into three simple self-explaining main categories: Damage, Health, and Tech. Throughout your game you will come across chests that are placed throughout New York, as well as rewards from missions, that contain weapons and gear. The gear has an overall armor rating, and then will either raise, lower, or maintain one of your 3 main categories. It's through your gear that you balance your character and find a play style that works for you. For instance, if you like to walk down the street towards a group of enemies and unload clip after clip of an M16 into them, then you better stack your character with high health gear.
Aside from this, The Division also tacks on varying RPG elements with your weapons allowing you to use modifications and customizations. You can see how various weapons work out, find those that you love to use, and then modify them to the extreme. With aspects such as increased XP per kill, or increased headshot damage, The Division does a tremendous job giving you an enormous amount of customization. It's also through the quality of this RPG system that The Division can easily become a mammoth loot grind that will bring many people joy with every moment, while others may not like this aspect. You also have the ability to use your own independent crafting table in your base of operations, and it's here that you can use stuff you break down for resources to build your own weapons, gear, mods, and everything.
In terms of the visuals, I have to say that the game does seem a little last generation in terms of graphics. The weapons seem to almost be ported over from the Ghost Recon games, and sadly the environment doesn't seem as developed as I had hoped for. There are many, and I do mean many, areas such as apartment buildings that have almost identical layouts so there isn't really any variation to a lot of the city. Yes, there are areas that are unique, but those are few and far between the mediocrity of the majority. The most unique spot of the entire map has to be your base of operations. It is here that the you will have the chance to establish and upgrade three different wings (medical, technical, security), and each of them provide you not only new abilities to use in the field, but also perks that will become a tremendous benefit. Though to upgrade these wings, you need their corresponding currency, and you gain this through their corresponding side missions.
If the layouts seem repetitive, the side missions will clearly add to that disappointment in terms of your actual actions. It seems as though there are numerous side missions to complete; however, when you break it down, there isn't that much difference in them. For example, there are some tech side missions that have you carrying supplies that apparently JTF can't find, but yet you can. Very repetitive, and then you'll go to another section of the city, find a tech side mission and guess what, you're finding more supplies. It's this repetition that leads you to feel that the main focus was creating a deep RPG experience, not the story, not the graphics, and certainly not the side mission layouts.
Without a doubt The Division is already a big contender for game of the year for many, and the accolades it's achieved are well deserved. Yes, there are faults with it; however, when stacked against the amount of quality content, the question isn't will The Division drain hours of your life away, but how many? The Division has an addictiveness that once you start playing you will find it very hard to stop, and that's something I feel we have been missing for so long in gaming. Sure you have your rehashed HD remakes, and franchise clone copies, but when you get an original IP that offers up depth and action, you have the makings of an iconic series. Honestly, I could go on and on about this game, but I have it on the TV that is five feet away from me and I can't wait to get back to New York City, so I'll just say this that The Division is a game that should NOT be missed. I hope to see you in the Dark Zone.
;)
Suggestions: Please look into creating varying side missions and different experiences rather than repeating similar missions with slight changes. Also please look into finding a way to naturally traverse a little faster throughout the city as walking from safe house to discover a new safe house can be very tedious and tiresome.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Cobalt
How on Earth do you follow up one of the most successful games of all time? Minecraft wasn't just a great creative game, but a doorway that allowed the minds of others to take the game and shape it as they saw fit. Innovative and amazing to the point where it creates its own culture. Now Mojang and Oxeye Game Studio bring us Cobalt. Now before we begin, I have to stress that this is nowhere near as impactful as Minecraft. That's not to say that this game is without or devoid of any value, but at $19.99 USD it becomes hard to justify that value. Let me explain why.When you first start up Cobalt, you'll be whisked away back into the good old days of the 1980's complete with synth heavy music and imposing robots with laser beams and a tissue thin plot. Cobalt is the main character and essentially you're sent to investigate a signal that you receive from your computer friend that may have come from humans. This is apparently a big deal as there hasn't been any contact in 50 years. So off you go on a side scrolling action platformer that, even though it may have some big dents in it, can become fun, but not for $19.99.
The control setup can become very complex and even problematic. I was playing this game using an Xbox One Elite Controller and found that the trigger locks in this game prevent you from essentially doing any offense. On top of that, the game mechanics are overly sensitive and require precise timing otherwise you can kiss any chance of success goodbye. Once that was solved I rapidly found out that the game centers around one aspect of control, the roll. Yes, rolling will be something you'll be doing almost constantly. You'll roll and shoot, roll and punch, roll and jump, and roll and roll some more. The reason you're going to be doing all this rolling is because of Cobalt's built in bullet time feature where incoming projectiles can be deflected back at your attacker if you, say it with me now: ROLL! This is your main source of avoiding certain death so get ready to do more rolling than a gymnast.
Now you may be saying to yourself "no problem, I'll just keep rolling and nothing will hurt me." You would be very wrong. Cobalt at times can be very frustrating and when you are staring at your screen filling up with enemies and one little roll isn't going to help. Thus you have your armament broken into three categories:
(X button) Melee (shovels and fists, etc.)
(Y button) Ranged (alien blasters, guns, etc.) and
(B button) Throwable (basically everything else, bird eggs, grenades, etc.).
So now you have your weapons and your roll ability, and that’s when Cobalt takes a few more dings in the armor. Case in point, you will come across certain mini games throughout your adventure such as hacking. This mini game must be completed at times to utilize computers, open doors, and more; you get the idea. This however wasn't covered in the tutorial, neither was lock picking, or safe cracking, or utilizing musical tones to properly unlock certain doors. Being tossed into the deep end was frustrating at first since getting things wrong sounded the guards with guns, though once you get the hang of it, it still was very, very annoying.
While the single player has some issues, they tend to blend more into the background of the action. Multiple modes with up to 8 other people can engage in robot warfare on various gametypes. There are a lot of variants of robot to select from, each of which bears their own positives and negatives. Even though the multiplayer does do a decent job trying to inject the fun back into the title, Cobalt sadly can't recover and it's a case of too little too late, and that saddens me.
Originally I thought that this game would not be one that I would enjoy playing. I can sit here and honestly say that I did not expect to enjoy this game going into it, but after playing it, I do. I do enjoy the game and that is why it's sad. See if the game was horrible then no big loss, just chalk another one up in the column. But Cobalt wasn't that, and instead the faults that are found bear no joy. As I ended my gameplay with Cobalt, I was left with a feeling of regret. Outside of the dialogue, there is sadly no justification I can give for spending $19.99. I would wait till it was $4.99 or on the GWG (Games with Gold) and that is disappointing because it could have been great.
Overall Score: 6.2 / 10
Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
In the video game universe there are very few games that not only transcend a generation of hardware but create a following that becomes so large it literally creates a worldwide movement. Gears of War is one of these very legends. From its origins dating 10 years this November, Gears of War Ultimate Edition may seem like a cash grab on a current generation system, however, when you dive a little deeper under its skin, you'll find that what you actually have is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Let's get the elephant talked about right off the bat. Many other companies have gone the "HD Remake" route by performing some minor graphical overhaul and charging more than what a used copy of the original would cost. Gears of War Ultimate Edition is not that at all.
For starters instead of just touching up the graphics, what we bear witness to is the result of a new company, The Coalition, and their persistent chase for perfection. Rebuilding from the ground up, every graphical aspect that you can think of for both single player and multiplayer has been improved, but when you have your single player locked in at 30fps and multiplayer locked in at 60fps at 1080p, you'll truly see the accomplishment that was achieved. I can't begin to tell you how big my smile was when I charged around a corner and hit a Locust with my chainsaw. Not just because it looked absolutely amazing but because of the next major accomplishment: the sound.
Normally in any type of shooter, it really helps to have some form of surround sound, this time though, The Coalition have Gears of War running in 7.1. Now you have a reason to go crazy on a theater system and pick up those ungodly expensive headphones. Having listened to this on a Klipsch Home Theater System, I can almost hear the chain itself with the individual links right before it engages.
However, one thing that I do enjoy is how spatial the sound plays off its environment which also includes the sound effects. Hearing a Boomer grunt out "Boom!" and then watching an oncoming warhead explode next to me, it really becomes an intense experience, especially on insane difficulty. While all of this would normally be where a company would close up shop, slap a sales tag on it, and ship it out the door, The Coalition isn't a normal company.
In the gaming world, it's one thing to create one of the world's most iconic 3rd person shooters, however trying to improve it would be almost regarded as sacrilegious to the Gears of War community. Thankfully The Coalition got to work and delivered finely tuned gameplay mechanics that made every fan around the world take notice that Gears of War is in great hands. The way they did this was masterful because they took all the pieces of an already amazing system, then consulted many, many years of fan feedback of both good and bad, and then made each single aspect of the gameplay experience just a little bit better.
For instance: Gameplay actions such as reviving your teammates from cover and swapping weapons while roadie running are just a couple of the many gameplay tweaks and improvements found throughout every moment of this Ultimate Edition. This is also thanks to a drop in/drop out system that is as smooth as silk. Join when you want, leave when you want, and the transition is seamless and is truly an example to the other companies out there how to get things done just right.
If you haven't played Gears of War, what you need to know before jumping in is essentially that humanity is on the brink of extinction against the Locust Horde and have formed a Coalition of Ordered Governments, or COGs, to try and preserve any hope of a future. With hope hanging by a thread, protagonist Marcus Fenix is called upon to deliver what humanity desperately needs; a future. If you have previously played it, then you will enjoy the fact that the five exclusive campaign missions that were found on the PC release have also been included, so if you never got the chance to experience them previously, now is your time.
While all of this plays a major role in the development and execution of campaign mode, if we're honest with one another, multiplayer is where we find the soul of this game. The Coalition knew this, which is why they unloaded 19 maps to frag opponents to your heart's desire. But these aren't just your ported maps either. Nope, this is actually a completely rebuilt multiplayer that allows for new experiences such as their 2v2. When you couple that with the fact that the dedicated servers ensure a quality and solid match and a locked-in 60fps at 1080p, you really are in for a treat when it comes to the multiplayer experience.
So is Gears of War Ultimate Edition an HD remake? A quick cash grab of a company seeking to line their pockets with easy money from an established fan base? Not one bit. Any doubts or disbelief that The Coalition couldn't do the Gears of War IP justice were put to rest when you play the final product.
Way back when most of us were glued to the internet during the E3 of '05 and learning all we could about this upcoming game called Gears of War, what we were actually witness to was one of the greatest moments in gaming; the birth of a legend. Epic Games delivered an experience that many hail to this day as one of the greatest 3rd person shooter games of all time.
However as times change, so must the franchise, which is why Microsoft created The Coalition to make sure that Gears of War has a bright future ahead of itself. What we have seen from The Coalition is nothing short of a miracle. Now we have experienced what they can do when they set their goals on what I'm calling rebuilding a legend. I am eager to see them create one themselves.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Ori and the Blind Forest
When you hear the phrase "indie game" you are immediately filled with a sense that you are in store for another "B movie" experience. There are those times, however, that an indie game defies this classification and propels your gaming experience. Ori and the blind forest can become such a game. I say can because there are aspects that make this game great but at the same time hinder the enjoyment. When you talk about puzzle solving and platforming in the same game you already know that there is a lot to be done to make a game stand out. So will this indie game that was debuted at E3 make a valiant spectacle of gaming or will we get lost within the blind forest? Let's find out.Ok, for starters the story in the beginning isn't very in depth. Your main character Ori is this white spirit like cat creature thing that becomes adopted for some reason by a smiling bear thingy creature. Then you're orphaned again and thrusted into your platforming / puzzle solving adventure. This all happens within the first few minutes and doesn't really help establish an emotional bond or connection. You do gain a friend / follower in this floating orb named Sein and it's this orb's job to help you navigate throughout this map and restore this tree spirit. Oddly enough it seems like parts of it were ripped straight from Disney movies, and while that may not be bad; if the execution falters, then you lose a tremendous amount of untapped potential. I personally think there needed to be more inclusion and depth in the beginning of the story and more dialogue but that's where one of Ori's strengths reside; The ability to help the story through graphics and sound.
Ori does have a tremendous amount of beautiful graphics that almost remind me of a watercolor masterpiece come to life. Many areas of the map have their own characteristics that lend to one enjoyable visual moment after the next. Stunning sapphire like blues and emerald like greens and volcano reds blanket the individual areas which allow you to get an independent perspective of each new environment. This is apparent right from the beginning and never falters for a moment. While some are mesmerized by the beauty of the graphics, it's nearly impossible to miss the emotion and content relayed by the music of Ori. From start to finish this game has one goal in mind when it comes to its score and that is provide gamers with emotional content that not only were they not expecting, but become thankful for. The developers hit their marks on every note. However we all know that pretty graphics and moving soundscapes won't make a game great, as that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the gameplay.
Numerous games have tried platforming and puzzle solving and very few have succeeded. The key is to make the game's mechanics smooth and easy to use and Ori has done just that and then some. Utilizing a crafty upgrade system you are able to do more than wall jumps and triple jumps, but you are able to upgrade multiple facets of your gameplay to enhance your experience, and while some would garner that this gets in the way of pure platforming, I say that it helps breathe new life into a genre that has seen decades of failures and very few success stories. Given a pre-made map, it's your job to uncover all the areas and discover all the secrets but you will find yourself doing a lot of backtracking once you gain new abilities in order to achieve that goal. There are times when the control scheme does get in the way and you will find yourself having to retry numerous times but overall those moments are few and far between.
Overall Ori and the Blind Forest provides some amazing experiences and is easily worth the price, however if we are honest there are some bugs that prevented this enjoyment. For starters when the game finished installing and I selected the game, it would load up then immediately crash to the Xbox home screen. After doing this four times in a row it brought me to the main menu, but there were no options to select. Then again after reloading it it brought me to the main menu and I had options to select. While I was overjoyed by this I selected achievements and the game froze. I thought this was just another glitch so I reloaded it and experienced the same thing. Keep in mind at this point I have yet to play one minute of this game. Finally I just said forget it and jumped into the game, then when I left the game and came back to it, it gave me this weird black screen seizure flicker experience that was less than enjoyable and thankfully one press of the A button stopped it.
Yes Ori does have some bugs and yes some of them are game breaking, but like some AAA games you can expect patches to be incoming and if you can grit through the initial bumps in the road, Ori and the blind forest will provide you an amazing gaming experience from start to finish.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Terraria
Hot on the heels of the whole brick breaking, ore mining, and enemy killing sensation, we are finally treated to a current gen version of Terraria on the Xbox One! Remember all the hours of fun blasting away and exploring on the Xbox 360 Arcade version? Well get ready for this new release on the Xbox One to start draining more hours of your life away than you knew existed! Priced at $19.99, will this give Minecraft a run for its money? Well there's a whole lot more under the hood so let’s take a look and see what we can find out!As we start this new adventure it's fair to notice that the 16 bit spectacle returns in all its glory, but with it also comes all of the copyright infringing traits as well. Now you can build, smelt, and more to your heart's content but in the Xbox One version you will find that the world is three times bigger. Let me repeat that. Not the same, not twice as big, but three times bigger. In this case size does matter right?
This expansion of content though doesn't stop just at the size of the map. Also included in this steroid injected version of Terraria you will find over 1,000 new items. This includes things like 29 new tinker combinations, 50 new paintings, 10 new ores, four new bosses, 15 new pets, 12 new wing types and so much more. It's rare that a company releases a game again on another platform and adds so much extra content but hopefully we will see other classics of old take note and deliver the same wealth of content in a current gen delivery.
The increase in content though doesn't do much in term of increasing the playability of the game. The plot is still slower than molasses but this time the responsiveness is a bit better. The multiple control modes still exist but so do the issues that plagued it when it originally launched. You still have to traverse above and below and mine everything you see and kill enemies and bosses but the whole experience that felt slow before feels exponentially slower now thanks to the massive increase in size to the map and all the items included therein. One issue that still remains is the respawn aspect that builds with this latest release. Before it felt like a repetitive cross country trek every time you invested hours and days digging to a boss, only to have him kill you and now you have to start this grand adventure, seemingly, on the other side of the world.
Now the world is bigger and should you die, get ready to walk, and walk and walk some more. This is where you start asking yourself "why bother?". The reason this is so important is when you factor in where you actually go in Terraria. Most games have territories that you go to and from, but here in Terraria there is actually an achievement for going to Hell and back without dying. Yes, in this version of Terraria, Hell does make a triumphant return and getting there without dying is a lot harder than just digging straight down. Disregarding the amount of time it will take to just get you to Hell, the enemies along the way will unquestionably make it a difficult journey indeed.
It goes without question that the amount of new content for Terraria on the Xbox One is on a scale that we rarely see in the video game world. Priced at $19.99 there's no question that you will find your weeks pass away as you submerge yourself in the world of Terraria. Terraria may not make you say Mine who? or Craft what? However, the overwhelming amount of content provided will gladly drain countless hours out of your life, and let's face it; if a game is doing that, then that must mean it's enjoyable and that is what is needed to create a very good game. Sure the mass of nostalgia of the synth bleeps and 16 bit glory will take you down memory lane and if you played the original Terraria on the Xbox 360, then this new release on the Xbox One will definitely be considered a must have.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Pure Pool
It's a little known secret that I love billiards. What is more widely known is that I'm absolutely horrible at it. Many of times in the past my pride, manhood, whatever you want to call it, was decimated in a public venue much to the delight of my opponent. Now thanks to VooFoo and their latest ID@Xbox title Pure Pool, I can finally compete in a digital realm. They can have their pool stick and I'll have my analog sticks, what's up now? One interesting fact, and that is that not only is this the only pool game to find on the Xbox One at this time, but after the bar has been set so high, many should wonder if surpassing it is even possible. Let me tell you why this game has slated itself to be one of the crowning gems of the Xbox One lineup this year at a fraction of the price of some blockbuster titles.For starters the price is insane. $12.99 buys you an ID@Xbox game that easily has a chance to not only turn heads, but set standards. When you first start the game off you will be taken through a very small tutorial. I have to point out that there is no top down view of the table, however, that is because in real life, you can't look directly down on the table (unless your dancing on it, but that's another story). Creating a life like experience is what VooFoo had in mind the entire time and they delivered on a near perfect experience. They allow a small amount of guide as a form of assistance, but the gameplay mechanics also allow you to get up and walk around and view the table from multiple angles, position your cue stick properly for the right spin and even adjust the power by using the right analog stick.
One very innovative gameplay mechanic that VooFoo packs into Pure Pool is DNA. Think of this like your Drivatar in Forza. Yes Pure Pool will learn how you hit the ball, which type of shots you like to go for, and more. It does this so while you are offline, your virtual self can continue playing even while you're not there. Did Call of Duty provide some form of digital learning avatar like this? No. What about Halo? No. Did Destiny have it? No. How about Madden? No. What about a $12.99 ID@Xbox game about billiards? Yes. This whole gameplay experience is truly authentic and a welcomed sight on the Xbox One.
After you complete the tutorial you get to either continue in free play or proceed to one of the many options in Pure Pool. One option is Career mode and its here that you will start working your way through the billiard elite ranks from amateur to master by competing in both 8-ball and 9-ball competitions and tournaments. Each competition varies from matches to individual challenges such as pocket so many balls before times expires, or pot so many balls in a row, and more. These challenges also offer three in game challenges such as win the match, win without committing a foul, win with more than 3 opponent’s balls on the table, and then some. All of these are optional to complete but add a sense of extra challenge. Another gametype involve you taking on both live and DNA opponents in Xbox Live matches and in the beginning of every online match you have the ability to download the DNA of your opponent for play at any time. If you have a bunch of friends who like to play, Pure Pool allows you to start up your own pool league that’s complete with its own stats and the creator can even reset the stats should they desire. Other game modes include modes such as Perfect Potter where you have to keep sinking balls until you miss one shot, and afterwards you'll earn some xp and your will see where you stand on the leaderboards. This is my personal favorite as I find myself cursing because I may have a very long streak yet I'll miss one because I didn't strike it with enough power.
Visually Pure Pool is an eyegasam of beauty. I'm even going out on a limb here and saying that the graphics of Pure Pool remind me of the quality of Forza, which to sum it up in one word would be, heavenly. Not only are the balls and tables customizable and incredibly close to life like, but the environment as well makes you feel like you're far away from a smoke filled, dingy pool hall and instead in Monte Carlo or some other exotic location in a high end pool hall where you can see people dropping tens of thousands of dollars per ball. This is most noticeable at the end of every match as the camera goes into a cinematic mode for the final hit (this only happens though if the shot is going to be made, if not, then you won't see this view). This adds such a huge touch of class that it almost takes you back as it's rare to find something like this in today's gaming. To coincide with the quality of the graphics, VooFoo has put in the extra effort to enrich the atmosphere with an ambiance of some of the smoothest jazz music you will hear in a video game. With a track list that pops across the top of the screen with each new track, you will also hear the crowd clap, commotion of chatter, and more as you take to the felt and chalk up.
ID@Xbox was promoted to deliver independent gaming to the Xbox Live community and VooFoo has delivered not only one of the best ID@Xbox experiences you will find on the Xbox One, but one of the best games of 2014 on the Xbox One. I know that's a big statement to make, however, once you download it you will be hooked. In fact I have it playing right now in the background as I'm writing this because I'm itching to get back to some amazing billiard action. $12.99 to purchase one of the best games out there for the Xbox One? There should be no question that this HAS to be in your library. Just stop reading and go download this now. You can thank me later.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Grand Theft Auto V
The year is 2014 and as I'm writing this the Xbox One is officially one year old. It's been a trying year for the console. From a rocky beginning to a tumultuous series of problems from both the game and console side of the coin, there has been one truth that is as constant as the North Star. Grand Theft Auto V is back on Xbox One and could easily take the title of best Xbox One game of the year, and ironically this game set benchmarks on the last generation console as well. How could a game that has already been released come onto the next gen consoles and dominate? It's because Rockstar Games has devoted an unholy amount of effort in adding tons of new innovations to show the competition that having broken, bugged, and what some would call incomplete games, shows the gaming world just what kind of product you can produce. You want remastered done right? Look here. You want tons of new innovations while enhancing the already amazing product? Look here. You want a stable and working quality multiplayer experience? Also look here. Welcome to the new Los Santos and the true Grand Theft Auto V experience.At first, when I heard that Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) was coming to the Xbox One I was undoubtedly hesitant. I didn't want to see this iconic game suffer the same fate as other "remastered" or "hyped AAA" titles. As the release date drew closer the advertisements picked up and I could start to see innovations that really showed that Rockstar wanted to bring this game back but do it in such a grand way that a last generation title (with properly executed innovations) can destroy the competition and say **** you. One of the things that you rarely want to mess around with is a quality control scheme that even though originally thought a bit complex, still delivered a solid feel. This is where GTAV's biggest innovation and that is the introduction of First Person Mode. This new point of view will put you through the eyes of your characters to witness Los Santos like never before. I couldn't believe the quality work they did incorporating this and it's all thanks to customization. Let me explain.
While yes you can go through the entire game in first person, you can tailor the experience to match how you want to play. For instance let's say you want to select this mode, go into your Settings and then Display. Next go to Allow Independent Camera Modes and choose on. What this will do is automatically put you in first person view while you are moving on foot however, as soon as you decide to go mobile in a vehicle, the camera will switch back out to third person automatically. It goes without saying that Rockstar goes the extra mile with the new customization control options that make such a tremendous difference by perfecting slight touches. Options such as turning off Head Bobbing will deactivate the screen shifting up and down while you run/job in first person view. Another option is called First Person Third Person Cover if you turn that on, whenever your character moves into cover while in first person view, the camera will automatically switch to third person view to give you a greater sense of your surroundings. And as they say in those cheap, late night infomercials, "but wait there's more!" Rockstar thought that if they were going to put First Person mode in GTAV then they were sure going to do it right by adding new first person animations with over 3000 of those being just for the weapons alone. This is how companies moving forward need to take note on how to do quality innovative additions that sets them apart from the competition and puts them on the throne of the gaming public.
Originally I was highly impressed at the city of Los Santos and its surrounding areas and I felt that the qualities of the overall graphics were stunning, but now things are on a whole new level. The city feels alive with more people and traffic. The woods feel denser, the grasslands feel thicker, the entire atmosphere from land to even animals has been given a shot of steroids and jacked up far past ten to give you a truly immersive experience that not only shines in single player, but carries over into online as well but I'll get to that here in a minute.
Another tremendous improvement is the increased drawing distances. What this measures is how far off can you see in the distance and now if you're on top of a mountain, the views are simply breathtaking. This is also thanks to the improved weather and water/liquid dynamics that permeate throughout the entire game. Even driving/flying vehicles bring an option for a first person view where you can see the controls and cockpit that provide detailed insides with actual working gauges and instruments. Its small details like this that Rockstar may have thought "this may not be the major improvement that sets this game apart, but **** it, we're going to do the best job we can on this", and it shows.
Speaking of vehicles, one of the very strengths of GTAV has always been the soundtrack. When this game launched there was no question that a large amount of effort went into creating one of the best musical experiences for a game, ever. Now though, if reproducing that wasn't exciting enough, you have over 150 more tunes to select from. Realizing that in vehicles there needs to be more controls, Rockstar has added little touches such as watching your character bob up and down to the beats or new drive by control mechanics that show just how much Rockstar cares for the gamers of the world. All these new sounds culminate into a sonic masterpiece when you take into account the dynamic environmental soundscapes from a bustling downtown city, to a dense wood, or on a boat out in the water. Every single moment will not only be a beauty to behold but will entice every auditory nerve you have, every minute you play. Not just in single player, but in GTAV's multiplayer as well.
GTAV boasted a not only a tremendous single player but a very entertaining multiplayer mode. It didn't start out this way though. Originally there were problems and errors at every turn, but Rockstar went back to work, hit the ground running, and eventually ironed out a great multiplayer. Not only that but they took care of the gaming community that they thought they enraged by giving away tons of in-game items that benefited every player. Now though Rockstar games have learned (hopefully) from their mistakes and have taken their multiplayer to a whole new level.
Now you can take to the streets of Los Santos with 30 player lobbies and utilize over 150 new props with the creator tools available which means that Los Santos as officially become your new playground for mayhem. When I said that Rockstar takes care of the gamming community that also applies with this latest release. Realizing that gamers have already sunk hundreds of hours into multiplayer, Rockstar wanted to grant gamers the ability to transfer their character over so they can pick up right where they left off. This also comes with a few gifts from Rockstar as well however; it's a onetime option though, so unlike marriage you can't go back once you've made the commitment.
Look at the games that have come out since August and you'll be hard pressed to find a current generation title that isn't plagued by short campaigns, graphic bugs and glitches, broken multiplayer, and lack of original content. Not here though. Rockstar, once again, steps to the plate to show all the other companies where the bar will be placed for gaming dominance. With a devotion to bringing the best experiences in gaming, Grand Theft Auto V is hands down the game to beat this year. Unlike other games that add one or at most two innovations that slightly change how a game is played, Rockstar keeps its pimp hand strong by delivering more of everything while innovating every moment of the game. As an avid gamer I do hope that other companies take note of, not only how Rockstar got to the top, but how they remain there by bringing more wealth of content than the Federal Reserve. Welcome back to Los Santos, welcome back to one of, if not THE, best game on the Xbox One, Grand Theft Auto V.
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
MotoGP 14
The MotoGP series has seen a major overhaul since its inception, and now MotoGP 14 plans to take the series to a level it has never been before. Harnessing the power of savage bike racing that mandates you balance control and power, this simulation racing title tries to halve the number of wheels yet still deliver an experience that will leave your palms sweaty, heart pounding, and adrenaline pumping. Sounds good so far right? Unfortunately that's where the pleasantries end. From the beginning to end this is a game that will not only frustrate you to the ends of the earth, but leave you shaking your head.There are many reasons, but before I dive head first into that pile, I do have to say that there is a decent amount of content. Not good, but decent. You have eight single player modes to choose from along with multiplayer so in all you have a bunch of racing to do. In career you start small and then find yourself working your way through the ranks till you hit the monster GP beasts. Other modes include an instant race, grand prix, time trial and more but sadly, even though there seem to be all of these options available, you start to see where this game falters and comes up short and with that in mind, let's talk about the controls.
They are horrid. Now in a real bike, at speed, the bike actually wants to right itself upright, hence the reason why you see bikers lean so much is because they are actually finding the angle of grip, tension and speed. Think of it like trying to ice skate on a piece of dental floss and turn at high speed while you're doing it. It is paramount in any racing game, whether it's arcade or simulation, that you get the handling absolutely perfect. Granted the styles vary but the premise to deliver solid controls spans essentially every game. MotoGP 14 does offer varying physics levels and I found myself in the pro level having my back tire slide out from under me constantly. Oddly though when I went through career, the under-steer (which is predominant in the mammoth GP bikes), vanished completely, but as your bikes get bigger and better, the handling seems to drop in proportion, so by the time you've reached the top you're hoping to not enter a corner and come out like a stain on the pavement.
There are upgrades that you can make for your bike; however, as you go through the game you will see that the ability to upgrade comes only at the expense of you investing roughly three times the gameplay on the same single race, just to upgrade one section of your bike. On top of all that, the improvements don't make you feel any better or worse, so now you're left with a feeling that you wasted a bunch of time in your life instead of taking part in an exhilarating MotoGP race. It's an unfortunate disappointment but one that ultimately leaves MotoGP 14 more of a chore to play than enjoyment.
As stated earlier there is a lot of content in terms of play modes and with that a substantial amount of courses to run as well. These are all introduced to us by flashing video clips of what the culture and scene of the track area is like. The video then stems into a breakdown of the track itself with lengthy information on number of left and right hand corners, overtaking "hot spots" and so forth. After that pre loading screen you then go to another shorter loading screen and then you are place right in the middle of the action at your garage. Here you can tune your car (for whatever reason you may want to), hop in the race by putting on your helmet, and view statistics of the course you just watched for over 30 seconds and more. The course graphics don't look appealing at all and the bikes, while somewhat good looking, still combine to generate a feeling of being underwhelmed at the last generation of graphics. I can't seem to comprehend why not wait a few years in between releases just so you can put out a product that is a definitive staple in MotoGP racing? Is this what happens when there is so very little competition that you start taking advantage of the quality of your games?
The next stellar pieces of horrendous flaws have to come by way of the audio. To sum it up real quick would be to say that this game screams at you constantly. Not in the sense of a very loud, yet beautiful musical score, but in the sense of hearing nails on the chalkboard while hearing a baby scream at the top of their lungs. Should the crowd be included in the sound? Hardly at all. In fact I found myself laughing hysterically after turning the engine sounds completely off and just having the environment and everything else untouched and it literally sounded like it was on mute or some quiet nature channel. Bikes were taking off from the line, accelerating out of corners, spinning off, yet all I hear was next to nothing. When you can do that, there's a serious issue with your sound.
I can see what MotoGP 14 is trying to do. It wants more than anything to deliver you a racing experience that will make you feel like your heart will explode from your chest, your head pop from the intense amazement, and your knees weak under the after effect of the adrenaline surge. Instead you get a game that will raise your blood pressure in anger, make your head shake as to why you spent your hard earned money on this game, and make you toss or trade this game in out of sheer frustration and depression. Noble effort, but MotoGP 14 just doesn't deliver the quality racing experience you can find elsewhere.
Overall Score: 6.1 / 10
F1 2014
Delivering an arcade racing game is fairly easy compared to trying to produce a simulation, and Codemasters tries to do just that in F1 2014. With racing that involves razor sharp precision and demands a high amount of attention, to say that Codemasters has a hard time overcoming the highs and lows of F1 2013 is a tremendous understatement. This time we take note of what this new installment has to offer but most importantly we question is it really worth the purchase? Start your engines. To begin our driving experience we have to note that this year features a diminished amount of content. Not in cars or tracks as those have increased but rather in the modes of play available. Last year the acclaimed "classic" mode really helped bring this series to a whole new level and sadly that is gone and it feels like a slight step backwards. What's there though are your career, scenario and rival modes. Career mode allows you to choose between a short season (seven races), all the way up to a full season (of 19 straight races). It's here where you will also find your seasonal challenges and evaluation test (to determine what difficulty you should be playing this game). Scenario mode allows you be placed into a certain situation from which it is up to you to snatch a victory and is quite interesting when you are given selections that no rational thinking person on earth would choose. While some are just quick and easy pick up and play modes, others require you to hone your nerves to the point where they can shatter atoms in order to have a successful race.
Earlier we mentioned that you need to have laser like focus and that is so true due to the fact that this simulator is very, very, hard. As the game begins it doesn't do much in terms of educating you in the ways of driving an F1 car. Instead Codemasters throws you blindly deep into pool and says "Now let's see how you drive." You may think that just pressing the gas and break are all you need to think about, yet there are many more environmental aspects to consider in order to win the race and the season overall. Everything from proper speeds into the apex of a corner to finding the correct line while managing your tire wear, and properly balancing your pit stops with your fuel level and race statistics are all things that you must be aware of at all times. Now this game does not provide the same quality of detail you would find in a Forza game, however, there still are some tuning options that you can use to help set the car up so you can claim that all important edge.
Even though the learning curve is incredibly steep, your eyes will enjoy tearing through various courses around the world. While not on the levels of what we can expect from Forza, the F1 cars do appear to steal the show, even though there are some texture issues that plague even the new models and the 360 feels antiquated in terms of visual appeal. However do you buy a racing game to look at the cars and drive the cars or look at the drivers and the environments? It's a shame as well because while the attention to the cars is the primary focus, the environment doesn't receive the same love and even though you may have some new courses to drive on, don't have high expectations and you won't be disappointed. I do have to say though, on a personal note, that flying through the rain while blinding the cars behind me with a huge rooster tail of water was particularly enjoyable to watch in the replay.
Of course with a new release you will find some tweaking to the gameplay mechanics and maybe a new car and course or two but what really struck my ear was how these machines sound. F1 is known globally for providing cars that when flying by seem to shatter the sound barrier at ear deafening pitches and even though there may be some unity in terms of power and design between the cars, every engine sounded unique and that's something my ears loved to hear. It really does feel like an intense simulating driving experience when you are tearing around corners while hearing the engine roar in between gear changes and your pit crew chimes in on your headset to let you know of your stats during the race along with any pertinent information on the race itself. If you are someone who has never heard the scream of an F1 engine before, then you are in for a treat. If, however, you are looking for the psychotic atmosphere of thousands of die-hard international F1 fans, then look somewhere else. If you watch F1 on TV like I do, you can’t help but to take notice of just how passionate F1 fans can be. Massive flags that represent not only automotive pride but the pride of a nation fly free as the shouts of joy mix with the tears of sadness. This sonic event isn't felt anywhere in F1 2014 to the degree that it should be and that is actually quite frustrating.
If you are in search for an arcade racing game that will allow you to bounce off of other cars as you bash your way to the finish, you won't find it here. Instead you will find an unforgiving racing simulator that takes a lot of the excess "fluff" out of racing games and instead forces you to deliver with sniper rifle accuracy. While all of this game could stand some improvement, it is a solid entry in the F1 series of games, however, when you factor in the few extra cars and tracks at your disposal this time you may actually ask yourself why would you ever want to upgrade at full retail price? You lose modes of gameplay at a sacrifice of a minimal increase in content, but yet you are asked to pay full retail price for this game. Is it worth it? I don't see how it could be, and that’s the worst part about it.
I wanted to cheer on my McLaren team as it took on the likes of Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and more, but in the end I was left with a dream that has yet to come true and a viciously brutal game designed to test your ability to drive and if, god forbid, you should make a mistake will rip your head clean from your body and laugh at you. Codemasters is on the cusp of something really incredible in the world of F1 racing, but disappointingly, F1 2014 isn't it.
Overall Score: 6.7 / 10
Assassin's Creed: Unity
Utilizing some of the world’s biggest events and most dramatic periods in human history has always provided gamers the unique ability to travel through time and cosmos to experience this for themselves. It’s this definitive staging that has been the backbone to every Assassin’s Creed game, and in Assassin’s Creed Unity the stage is set for the French Revolution. Gone are the sun filled skies in the Caribbean and the woods and fields of the American frontier. Now you will find giant churches that tower over a peasant lifestyle mix together with unrest and violent outbreaks of rioting to blanket as far as the eye can see. In Assassin’s Creed Unity, this would be something of a tremendous undertaking to do on your own, this time you have friends, hopefully. Our blades are as sharp as a feather. Our brotherhood as strong as custard. Welcome to Assassin’s Creed Unity. Vive La France should be changed to Vive La What the ****?From birth, our main character, Arno Dorian feels like a privileged child. Raised in a noble setting with seemingly not a care in the world, Arno admires his father and while the story is another installment in the ongoing battle between the Assassins and the Templars, it is one that smacks of familiarity but albeit with many more pitfalls than you can escape from. While there is a story, the way you experience it is just a beginning tip of an iceberg that sinks a game that offered so much potential. This is the first Assassin’s Creed game that has decided to take the time tested mechanics and not so much disregard all the elements but rather alter them. Before the movement was a bit complex but fairly responsive and what we find in Assassin’s Creed Unity is a control scheme that has become very complex and less responsive than a catatonic patient. I remember trying to descend down a cathedral wall only to find myself using this new parkour climbing system to fall right past a fruit cart, down through the street, only to freefall for an ungodly long time till the game took pity on me and killed my character. It’s a massive setback right from the beginning when the essential essence of what makes an AC game great becomes something it never was because it never worked. But wait, there’s more.
Speaking of long load times, the loading times are longer than the actual French Revolution itself. This means that you will spend more time loading and preparing ACU than playing the actual game. It almost becomes painful when you also take into account that if you want to unlock every chest, you have to sign up and register on an external site AND download a companion app and go through that, oh and did I mention that there’s an achievement for unlocking every chest? There is. So here we have Ubisoft who now is forcing people to their external sites and apps in order to unlock achievements that they already paid for by buying a digital or physical copy. Seem fair? There are tons of other aspects for the life of me I need to talk about something cheerful with this game. Wait, I got it! The graphics! Wait….. No…. Sorry. There are certain aspects of this game that are quite strikingly beautiful. Really I’m talking graphics that are the Top Gun song “Take my breath away” gorgeous.
Sounds good and hopeful but then utterly gut wrenching when you notice the tremendous amount of screen tearing, lagging, stuttering, frame rate crashing that appears quite a bit through the game. I’ve found that as long as the camera isn’t moving and your character isn’t moving, you can witness some amazing graphic displays, but move the camera or the player and its game over. Going over Notre Dame was absolutely stunning. Venturing inside you could really start to grasp the beauty of the grandeur before you, then you traverse the insides and everything goes to hell.
In terms of any plot in Unity, you will find the traditional sequences to be rather mundane and not that important, however once you get to a Templar assassination at the end, those are the moments that stick out as your OMG moment, but sadly they are few and far between. In the past there has been an emotional connection between the protagonist and the gamer, but you don’t really get the same bond in Unity. I have found times where the sole reason I’m even doing anything in this game is because I’m trying to clear out my map. I’ll be honest I miss the days of old Assassin’s Creed games.
The plot found amongst those earlier entries in the series provided much better quality stories than anything you will find in ACU and the sad thing is that Unity is full retail price while the older, yet better games are now a fraction of the cost. You do the math on value for money there. I never really even bothered to care that I was in the French Revolution because the sounds that permeated my ears didn’t do much to put me in Paris at that time in history, nor did it help at all with the voice acting of Unity, and speaking of that... One strong area where this is apparent is the lack of French language in France. Listen I know the whole “Animus translation” angle of the story, but there seemed to be more authentic Italian feel to the dialects in the older games than in Unity. I don’t know if it’s out of shame or what, but last I checked the French are a proud people and have right to be. But I guess when a French company barely puts in any French language, and sticks to English without a French accent for fear of sounding foolish, you get the same attention to detail as you’d expect from all the other debacles of this game. Nothing like German language to make you feel like feudal Japan right? It makes about as much sense to me.
Enough though, of the doom and gloom, because there is one area that Unity actually shines and that would be the co-op missions. This is where you and up to three of your friends will join in a multiplayer session that varies between Paris and various dedicated missions. This is the only multiplayer you will find in Unity, but instead of just running around looking for people to murder, you join forces in an attempt to complete various missions at various difficulties. This premise does offer a lot of enjoyment and in Unity, is the single greatest mode in the game itself. Forget single player, because when you have three friends all communicating, you can really get to witness what a blanket of death really looks like. Setting off decoys to lure enemies into assassinations, tactical timing and efficiency, and lethal precision all encompass what the co-op missions are all about. Is there a downside to this? Sadly there are a few, and for starters there aren’t as many as you would hope for. Second on the list would be that not all of them are for four players. So you and one other person can technically play every co-op list, but only some will grant you the fun of four player assassinations.
While it goes without question that Ubisoft attempts to deliver a quality Assassin’s Creed experience, all the upgrade systems in the world won’t be able to upgrade the disappointment found seeping through almost every aspect of this game. It doesn’t matter what you wear, what weapon you use, how you improve your skills, because ultimately in the end you have a game that tries too hard to breathe new life into a series only to have it flat line. One little note of mention though is that Ubisoft decided to release Assassin’s Creed Rogue separate from Assassin’s Creed Unity. Unity is released on the One while Rogue is released solely on the Xbox 360. Oh and I have to mention that Rogue is supposed to happen before Unity. So just to clear this up, Ubisoft has released a game called Assassin’s Creed Rogue for the Xbox 360 ONLY which is just a single player event story that leads up to Assassin’s Creed Unity which is ONLY found on Xbox One. So essentially Ubisoft is saying if you don’t have both consoles, you’re up a creek without a paddle and won’t get the whole story. Wow, really? Such a shame.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
LocoCycle
Throughout your gaming timeline there are games that you have played that are brilliant, fantastic pieces of software put together in a way that staggers the mind, excites the soul, and ignites a passion that has you glued to the game for weeks and months on end. LocoCycle is not one of those games. Twisted Pixel Games has gone to tremendous lengths to create a title that offers much in the realm of bad humor, simplistic yet twitchy controls, repetitive gameplay, and a pointless overall feel that makes you wish you were playing something else. This whole review could end right now and you would have more content and experienced more than you would if you played LocoCycle, but alas, if you need more proof of why you should avoid this game, read on dear reader, read on.Remember back in the Sega CD days when there were games that offered live action video, and parts of which were interactive? This is the same style, yet on a grander, yet more vomit inducing scale. Starting off you will be watching a comedic parody live action video where poor acting and poor humor intertwine as we are introduced to S.P.I.K.E. and I.R.I.S. and from the beginning you can see that S.P.I.K.E. looks like something from Mad Max, while I.R.I.S. looks like a bike rip off of the famous Knight Rider car KITT.
Towards the end of this presentation you will also see how they blatantly ripped off lines and scene development from the movie Short Circuit as I.R.I.S. is left alone for a few moments during a lightning storm where, inevitably, a bolt comes down from the clouds and strikes I.R.I.S. causing it/her to become like Johnny 5, alive. I.R.I.S. is pushed back to a garage where Pablo is tasked to repair it but during the repair I.R.I.S. comes to life and scans a magazine that Pablo was reading and decides that attending a motorcycle ride in Indiana. Upon discovering that I.R.I.S. is different, Pablo ends up getting his jeans stuck in the bike itself and as the bike takes off, so does Pablo. This is the stage for LocoCycle and even though Twisted Pixel Games may have done this deliberately, the execution leaves little to smile about, let alone laugh at.
This is thanks to the stage setup and control scheme which is so simplistic you could technically play this game with your foot and focus your attention to other things. The A button acts as your boost gauge and counter attack while the X and Y buttons act as your weak and strong melee attacks. Steering is done via the left thumbstick but it would almost be more productive to drive using The Force because it would probably be more responsive.
Slight twitches left or right will have your bike veering wildly off course which doesn't really matter since you will hit an invisible wall and bounce right back into position thus almost making the left stick obsolete. Combat is the name of the game in LocoCycle, not racing, and involves you going through short chapters where you will fight various enemies that result in you smashing the X and Y buttons over and over again with the occasional press of the A button. This is the only actions you will do outside of a few mediocre mini games that involve you fixing the bike on the fly, but ultimately in the end, you will be repeating the same actions over and over again. At the end of each stage you will be given a grade based on your previous performance and awarded points which can be used to upgrade your bike. You can upgrade various trees such as melee combat, health, and weapon systems. Some of these unlocks require you to trudge through the levels ahead before you can upgrade them though so it's safe to say that LocoCycle enjoys thrusting you through levels of torture to upgrade all elements of your bike. That's a really sick joke from Twisted Pixel.
Either intentionally or unintentionally, LocoCycle tries to deem itself worthy in the graphics department, but sadly falls short there as well. By providing last gen graphics of non AAA titles, LocoCycle makes smooth moving garbage throughout each stage flow very smoothly. Now there were some last gen games that provided breathtaking beauty and stunning imagery but LocoCycle can't seem to even compete with that. Known for not having their games taken very seriously, Twisted Pixel Games seems to follow this trend very well with LocoCycle's graphics and even their sound. Trying to compete with C-3PO, I.R.I.S. claims to translate thousands of different languages, yet thanks to the lightning strike, can't understand anything except English which bodes well for Pablo as he speaks absolutely no English period. The result of this lingual blockade is poor humor that is constant and mundane and provides you with minutes of semi entertainment until it goes into the boring and painful. I.R.I.S. does try to convey the occasional classic movie line which adds the momentary nod to better quality work than this game, but the impact is lost thanks to the poor writing and audio work.
To finalize this insult, LocoCycle is priced at $20 and is only available as an online download. Yes all this below average software can be yours for $20, but wait if you act now you can come to your senses and avoid this short, yet painful title. This was probably a very smart move because it saved on the production costs needed to bring a physical copy to reality. And they realized that they would lose their shirt if they spent that kind of money because hardly anyone would buy this game. No SmartGlass or Kinect involvement means that your torture is subjected to controller only, and that’s perfectly fine with me. I understand that humor varies by taste, however there are comedic movies from 30+ years ago that are more iconic and could be used for inspiration and provide better writing materials to at least make LocoCycle more enjoyable. Given the boring gameplay, over simplistic controls, average graphics, extremely poor writing and mediocre audio, the question isn't why wouldn't you buy it, but why, in the name of everything that is holy on this planet, would you buy it?
Overall Score: 4.0 / 10
Contrast 
Emotion is a quality that can make a good game, a great game. This quality is abundant in the Xbox Live Arcade game, Contrast. Developed by Compulsion Games and priced at $14.99, Contrast puts you in the role of a character named Dawn who can manipulate between light and shadow and who is the apparent imaginary friend of a little girl named Didi. It's been said that children sometimes generate imaginary friends due to struggles within their own lives, and most of the time the focus is on the parents and the living environment they provide. This is the foundation of Contrast and really sets the stage for a dynamic performance. Does Contrast bask in the light of amazing glory, or does it seemingly vanish into nothing while deep in the shadows? Let's see what Compulsion Games put together.As we begin our journey, you'll notice that Didi is a small girl caught in a troubled family life. Her father is not in the picture, and the mother, Kat, is trying to make the best life she can for her and her daughter by being a lounge singer. This leads Didi to a life of loneliness and so, out of this situation Dawn is made to be. Set in a sort of fantasy, noir art deco environment, the plot consistently keeps you going like Alice and the rabbit hole. Throughout the game the plot takes several twists and turns, but plays heavily on the feelings of a little girl wanting her parents to reunite and become a family once again. The story is a bit short and can be gone through from start to finish in a few hours, but it's one that shouldn't be spoiled as the adventure of Contrast is very well done and even the ending will leave you with a smile ear to ear.
You will control Dawn throughout the entire game and will use her abilities of both light and shadow to complete the puzzles that lay ahead. A major cornerstone of a puzzle solving platformer is to have puzzles that boggle the mind, yet give you satisfaction when you finally figure out how to solve them. Sure there are more complex puzzle games out there, but Contrast holds its own by mixing up both 3D and 2D puzzles with a crafty solution if you take the time to figure it out. If you're into very complex and challenging puzzles then Contrast may not be for you, but if you like innovative twists involving solving puzzles with light and shadow, then this game will keep you entertained for hours upon hours.
The whole fantasy world you venture through is done brilliantly and almost every interaction involves shadowy figures that play out the drama of Contrast. This innovative twist goes a long way because it creates so much with only a little material. Each environment has its own twists, turns, and back areas to explore for collectibles and help add a sense of depth to this almost noir dream world. You will eventually go from point A to B as you progress through the game but there is a small room of exploration, but only if you're crafty enough to figure out just how to navigate it.
Another big plus that Contrast has going for it is the soundtrack. The voice acting alone will take you back to the early decades of the 1900's but the true audio gem is the music. A very minimalistic jazz style is heard right from the beginning and even though it's a looped verse, I couldn't help but listen to it over and over again as it's an emotionally calming, little piece of music. This whole musical mood is felt in every moment of Contrast and permeates every part of its atmosphere, in fact as I'm writing this I have the soothing main menu music going in the background. Take a bow Compulsion Games; you've more than earned it.
It actually is a relief that this tone was established for Contrast because there are two faults with Contrast and they are the control sensitivity and the camera itself. Dawn's movements are so incredibly touchy that when trying to make very minute changes in direction can leave you falling off ledges and plummeting to your death. This is a big negative when you're trying to figure out and complete certain puzzles that require you to switch in between both light and shadow. There were times when my character was on a ledge and I tried to just drop off the side to pick up a collectible and ended up launching Dawn way out into the abyss.
Then the other problem area, the camera, seems to suffer from the same schizophrenic movement issue as the controls. When you're trying to get your bearings in solving puzzles, it helps to have a stable camera system and that isn't found here in Contrast. At times our character involuntary switched from shadow to light due to a glitch in the shadows and environment and this caused us to become trapped, half in and half out of a wall which required us to restart from the last save point. If you're going to create a puzzle platforming game, you absolutely have to have a responsive, yet solid control feel and a good camera to help give you a perspective of your surrounding environment and possible solutions to the upcoming puzzles. Sadly the quality of the plot, graphics, music isn't found here.
While $14.99 is on the high end of Xbox Live Arcade games, Contrast brings a lot of content in a minimal way. The story may be short but is done very well, and even though there are some issues with the controls and camera, the simplistic beauty of every other aspect of Contrast will make every moment very enjoyable. $14.99 may be a bit steep for an arcade game like this, however, at $9.99 it's a must have for anyone who enjoys puzzle platforming games that bring a fantastic story that’s blended with wonderful art and music. Thank you Compulsion Games for releasing Contrast on the Xbox Live Arcade.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Farming Simulator 2013
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to a new innovation in simulation gaming. You have your flight sims, and you have your racing sims, but now I want to welcome you to.... Farming Simulator 2013! Yes you read that right, farming has taken front stage as the new kid in the simulator world and tries to, well I don't really know actually. Giants Software has attempted to deliver one of the world’s best (and only one on consoles) farming simulations available, and one thing is for sure, according to this game, farming is insanely boring, tedious, mundane, and repetitive. My family originally grew up as farmers so we have a personal tie to all the long hours, hard work, and environmental conditions that plague every farmer on this planet. While some simulators attempt to put their own spin on how they should be presented, I do have to hand it to Giants Software because they tried their best to fully engross you into the real world of farming. This isn't your daddy's Farmville.For starters, Farming Simulator 2013 puts you behind the wheel of some of the biggest names in the farming industry, including the iconic tractor company, Lamborghini. The controls may seem complicated at first, but the basic outline (gas on RT and brake on LT) are there. The LB will quickly become your best friend as there are many other functions that are unlocked depending on what piece of equipment you are using. Then there's the actual control where you use the RS to look around and the LS to move your tractor left or right. Instead though of just trying to balance out the throttle which is ridiculously hard to do, you can set your tractor in different cruise control modes which will have you whipping around your field at a mind boggling 9mph when you go to cruise control 1 but if you take it to 2, then you really start going wild at 10-12mph max, oh what fun.
Speaking of fun, the physics of this game are truly mind boggling. I drove a massive tractor down the street hauling a trailer full of crops when a little car pulled out in front of me and we collided. When I say collided I mean that my tractor ended up climbing up on top of the car, losing traction and getting stuck. I tried to unhitch my equipment, hoping that would allow me to break free and nothing happened. The car underneath me was perfectly fine and I apparently was unaware that what could be considered a Toyota or Honda could withstand the force of a head on collision with something over triple its weight and made of pure steel. Learn something new every day.
There are also plenty of different types of farming equipment that you have to familiarize yourself with in order to develop a fully functioning farm. Think of this game as a light version of what it would be like to farm in real life. You can't just start out planting crops, first the ground must be plowed which requires you to hook up your tractor to the plow and take to the plot of land. After the plowing you have to plant some crops which will require you to hook a seed spreader up to the tractor. First you have to drive it to the seed palates and then you have to load it up. After that, it's time to drive to the field and plant the seeds, but you're far from finished because next is irrigation.
Crops need water to grow before harvest and after watering and waiting comes the next step, harvesting. Here, your crops are now ready to be collected which mandates that you hook a harvester of sorts up to your tractor and tend to the field until your storage is full then drive somewhere to dump your load, and go back to the field and repeat until all is harvested. When you harvest some crops though, you will be left with leftover straw which you can then collect into either square or round barrels of hay which you can either sell or feed to your animals. Once this is all completed it's time to drive to market and sell your goods from your farm for cash. It's with this cash that you can enter auctions to buy more plots of land, buy new equipment and tractors, and hire help and more. After all of this, it is time to cultivate the soil. Think of this as a way to quickly get to replanting without having to plow again. This is the circle of life when it comes to Farming Simulator 2013 and boy does it sound boring.
There are other aspects as well that you had to focus on and one of them are the animals. Breeding and having a healthy livestock is essential for maintaining a high quality farm and should be considered just as important as crops. Also since Farming Simulator 2013 is an attempt to deliver real world experience, get ready to deal with the bank. Just like farmers in real life, usually a large loan is involved in order to purchase equipment, land, and everything else needed to get started, so get ready to manage your wallet while you watch your cash grow from the ground. While there is more to the game, there isn't anything though to keep you entertained. Farming Simulator 2013 should just be called Farm Work, and when you play games for entertainment they should do exactly that, entertain. I can't honestly see a farmer coming in from a 14 hour work day to go through the whole procedure in a virtual world, and I can't see someone deciding between this and Grand Theft Auto V.
There are some comical videos about this game that you can find online, but repeating these actions goes against everything the game is trying to institute with you and will ultimately leave you at a cross road and a choice. Do you go back and manage your farm like the game intended from the beginning, or do you just take the game out of your console and place it on the shelf to gather dust until you either sell it or trade it in. Both of these options though would imply that you had indeed purchased the game which is where your fault originally resides.
While Farming Simulator 2013 is about as enjoyable as watching grass grow, it does look very pretty. The farmland in both the United Kingdom and United States offer varying displays of the countryside, foliage, and more. The tractor and tool models are also done with high amount of detail, but to grasp the full experience, I would recommend driving from inside the cabins of the different tractors so you can get a feel for the different manufacturers and layouts of each piece of machinery. There really isn't anything in terms of a soundtrack for this game. You could honestly get the same sound if you drove into the country side, opened a window and shut the car off. Birds chirp off in the distance and each piece of equipment sounds different which goes a long way when you take into account all the different types of tractors and tools are available.
As a simulator, this game is very true to life in all manageable aspects; however as an entertaining piece of software, that's another story all together. Average graphics will not keep the boredom from overcoming your senses, but there is one parting piece that Farming Simulator 2013 gives us. Apparently new copies are hard to find, either due to lack of production, and that’s all I could come up with. This means that if you have a sealed copy then you could technically own one of the rarest simulation games ever made on the planet. When you look at it from that point, it helps take the edge of this failure of a game, but why you would want to purchase it in the first place remains a mystery. Next time you feel like entertaining yourself in the most boring way possible, try staring at a blank wall for hours, you'll get the same amount of enjoyment.
Overall Score: 3.0 / 10
Soul Calibur 2 HD Online
Have you ever had a game where you and your friends became so immersed that the minutes turned to hours which turned into days, then months, and even years? Transcending history, and the world, a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold. Welcome to Soul Calibur II HD Online. About a decade since its initial release, Namco has decided that a good celebration of such an iconic fighting game would be to re-release this classic with a HD graphics overhaul and include online play as well. Back when Soul Calibur II was released on the Xbox 360, there was an online war of words as each console obtained an exclusive (and different) character. The Sony platform received Heihachi Mishima from Tekken, Nintendo unlocked the iconic Link character, and The Xbox 360 got Spawn. To this day I don't know why. Link is a staple in gaming history with Nintendo, and Tekken appeared to be solidified with Sony. Dead or Alive brought out Master Chief, yet Soul Calibur II unleashed Spawn. Soul Calibur II was already a stunning game when it first came out and has a lot of things going for it right out of the gate. So does SC II fall short or is this truly one game that will transcend history and time together. Let's find out.SC II was one of those games that caused many groups of people to gather around the console, passing the controller to whoever had to take the walk of shame. There were no fatalities, no Ultra Combos, just stunning fighting displays with varied weaponry. This time, Namco has gone to great lengths to celebrate the 10 year anniversary, but not all is as golden as it sounds. There are multiple modes to select from within the single player realm. Your time attack mode, survival, arcade, and more all make their triumphant return; however the bulk of your time will be spent in Soul Calibur II's Weapon Master mode. It is here that you will select a character to start your journey looking for the legendary weapon itself.
Along this path there is a loose fitting text story that you can read if you wish, but then you are tasked to fight in various arenas under various circumstances. For instance, on one stage you could have a strong gust of wind will keep blowing through the stage, forcing your character towards the edge, and you have to win by a ring out victory. Other examples would be your opponent has poisoned weaponry that when you get hit, will slowly start to drain away your life and make your character move more sluggishly, yet you have to win. By navigating your way through Weapon Master mode you will also unlock more content to use in SC II. Certain fights will net you new weapons for some characters, different stages, or even new characters themselves. Speaking of characters, earlier you read that there were exclusives when the game first released. That isn't quite the case this time. Spawn is back, but this time so is Heihachi Mishima from Tekken. Sorry but it looks as though Link will be staying put with Nintendo, but at least both platforms are now on a level playing field.
For the Soul Calibur fans, you will be happy to know that the control scheme for this arcade game is just as you remembered it with some minor improvements in terms of input timing; however that isn't the case for the online aspect of this game. Fighting online is something that has become essential to making a successful fighting game. Once you decide to fight online though, you fall victim to very sluggish button inputs that completely detract from the precise movements that are necessary to win. Once frustration takes over you will find yourself resorting to button mashing as you try to figure out how to properly time your attacks and adapt to balance out the lag input, but by that time round 1 has already ended and now round 2 is starting. Now you start to get a feel for how to compensate and you start to fight, however, attacking isn't the only thing lagging behind, blocking is affected as well.
There are other issues as well for online play such as no lobbies.... at all. Instead you get whisked away back to the multiplayer menu where you have to go through searching all over again, unless you host (but prepare yourself for sending out a lot of invites, over and over again). Namco didn't even include a way to rematch the player you are going against now, and to me that is just sloppy. Top quality online lobbies are the icing on the cake that makes a good fighting game, a great one, however the ability to rematch your opponent is almost essential, and to not include that is a mystery we may never solve.
While the online aspect does suffer somewhat, the entire HD overhaul of Soul Calibur II makes everything look better than ever. When it was originally released, Soul Calibur II was a beautiful game, but now Namco has put an HD touch on it and wow will you notice a difference. Each stage now looks breathtakingly good and the character models have all received visual upgrades that make them appear more realistic, natural, and in some cases very menacing. Thankfully the different stages also come with various soundtracks that accompany each fight. Known for some very dynamic music, Soul Calibur II HD Online delivers again. The voices of the characters can though wear thin over time, but having the original announcer's voice brings the audio quality right back up.
At $19.99, Soul Calibur II HD Online is priced at the top end of the Xbox Live Arcade scale, however when you factor in that this was originally a full retail title, the scope of the content included more than warrants the price. You also have to take into account that this game includes more with the online play and HD makeover and then you'll see that what Namco has done was given you another opportunity to lose months out of your life as you fight your way to become a Soul Calibur II legend, and like they say, the legend will never die.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Air Conflicts: Vietnam
In the pantheon of World War II games, there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. Air Conflicts Vietnam falls into none of those categories. Set in the beginning stages of the USA’s involvement with Vietnam, Air Conflicts Vietnam are just as the name implies, flying only. You have multiple jets and helicopters to select from, but not all of them are unlocked at the beginning. You also have pilots to choose from which offer different characteristic ratings in dogfighting, bombing, AA defense, and more. Going into this game, try not to think about this as an advanced flying sim, or even an intense flying combat game. Instead set your goal bar very, very low and you just may enjoy some of what Air Conflicts Vietnam (ACV) has to offer. Here's hoping we don't go down behind enemy lines but I can't make any of the campaign you are given a brief cinematic story of how the USA got involved with Vietnam in the beginning. The threat of Communism spreading over the globe terrified civilians and the USA and its military might was to join forces with other countries over the globe and fight back. You play the role of a pilot who is one of the first to arrive in Vietnam at the start of the war. The story unfortunately is vapor thin with hardly any substance outside of 'fly here' and 'shoot there' aspects. This is disappointing because with Vietnam you have such a palate of content, scenes, and scenarios that can be taken right from history to bring to life such a pivotal point in mankind. Regardless of your political viewpoints on the Vietnam War, the fact remains that you could get more content from a Time Life video collection, than in the story in Air Conflicts Vietnam. A shallow start, but let's start to pull up from this nose dive.
The plane and helicopters from the Vietnam era are properly modeled; however, since this game is focused on only flying, shooting, and bombing, you would hope that the mechanics of flight not only made sense, but were accurate with the laws of physics. I hate to break it to you but they are not. For starters your left and right bumpers will maneuver the plane into a barrel roll to either side and pushing both together will effectively loop your plane. The Left and Right triggers are used for firing your weapons and your X and Y buttons are used for controlling speed.
While the button layouts are somewhat misleading, the actual physics involved with the flight itself are some that will leave you scratching your head. In reality when your helicopter has its nose pointed downward, forward flight is involved, but in ACV it's possible to fly a helicopter backwards while having the nose pointed down. Also given that one control stick tilt's the aircraft, and the other controls direction of movement, you can really perform some unbelievable flying. I say unbelievable because that's exactly what it is and it's a shame that such effort was made to devote to a realistic time period and yet the realism for flying seemed to be a nonexistent theory to the developers. You cannot control the plane on a flat axis so what you end up getting is a constant loss of depth perception which will ultimately lead to a very short lifespan since not all realistic maneuverability is included in ACV. Looks like we lost the right engine on that one, but it's ok because we still have one engine left.
When you talk priorities about ACV you can definitely see that visually the game tries to make a stunning impact, but there are some issues as well with this. Starting off, the aircraft models are done well and accurately depict the aircraft of the time period with good accuracy. The issue though with this is that if you don't fly in 3rd person view, you won't get to experience the detail. Flying from the viewpoint of just a target reticle on the screen will completely negate any graphic beauty of your plane flying through the Vietnam skies, and instead enable you to focus on the dark green, brown, and even darker green color scheme that blankets throughout this game. You can switch to a bombing camera as well to give you a top down view of your surrounding areas, but they are done in such a mediocre way that you really have nothing beautiful to look at.
If looking at slightly average graphics didn't help ACV, the sounds though aren't that much better. The weapon sounds are definitely a big plus and are done well; however, there isn't much that stands out as a piece of audio mastery. The soundtrack leaves a lot to be desired and the voice over acting can be quite comical at times, especially when you lose a wingman during combat. Looks like we just lost our last engine, things aren't looking well.
Given that Air Conflicts Vietnam released on November 19th you would expect that there would be some form of multiplayer and there is, but no one is playing it. At time of this writing there is literally no one playing this game online. You can though host a game if you want that consists of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. It is also possible to customize the weather, scenery, number of players, and more, but if no one is playing, good luck trying to find a game. This is a major problem for ACV because if the game released doesn't provide the quality to warrant at least one person to want to play this game online, it's time to scrap what you have and start over. This is where we start to lose full control of the plane and start heading in a massive dive.
Air Conflicts Vietnam was originally priced at $29.99 which is about $24.99 more than it's worth, and now has been reduced in price to just $19.99 brand new. While saving $10 is always nice, there's no earthly justification for purchasing this game. It makes you feel though, a bit melancholy when you think of the effort put into this and Kalypso putting their stamp of approval on such a dissapointment, but all sympathy goes right out the window when you hear the price.
So just a quick recap; you have planes that defy the universal laws of physics, a control scheme that feels schizophrenic, graphics that are marginally ok to look at, audio support that is powerless, an unsubstantial story, and a multiplayer system that even though is there, is completely nonexistent due to no one playing. I'm failing to see why anyone would even want to spend $19.99 on a retail game that packs less quality and content than some $9.99 arcade title. Sorry Kalypso, but Air Conflicts Vietnam just got shot down. This is one game that should go MIA.
Overall Score: 4.0 / 10
Crimson Dragon
Back in June at E3 2013 the world watched as the debacle unfolded for the presentation of Crimson Dragon. Those who rallied behind the classic Panzer Dragoon series were greeted with a glimmer of hope that a successor would be flying in on the next generation console; and bring forth some amazing rail based shooting aspects combined with stellar graphics, sound, and controls. Priced at $19.99 Crimson Dragon is far from a retail title, yet still provides a wealth of content, even if some of that content isn't the greatest. Brace yourself as we ride in our review of Crimson Dragon.Humanity stands upon the edge of a knife as you enter the infamous Icarus Division on the planet Draco. Over the years a virus infestation has taken place called the Crimsonscale and it has infected every living being on the planet, including the dragons themselves. Your mission is to navigate throughout the various levels ahead and, like Darth Sidious said, "wipe them out. All of them." Killing everything on the screen is pretty much the summary of the entire story and while parts of it are entertaining, you will find that the story itself is very weak and often detracts from the game's overall quality. Originally Crimson Dragon was filled with potential to produce a storyline that enveloped the gamers as they took to the skies in their beasts, however after playing it, you will come to be annoyed that some parts of the story you cannot skip. It would actually be more entertaining to just do level select, go for rankings or medals and press on, instead of trudging through a lackluster story. It's unfortunate that right out of the gate Crimson Dragon takes a hit, but don't expect your game to get high marks for story content if you don't make the effort to write one.
For a fantastic on the rails shooting experience you need to have the gameplay to back it up, and sadly Crimson Dragon doesn't. The left and right bumpers are used for barrel rolls which will save your life if you time them right during an onslaught of incoming fire, but where you may avoid the fire you also may roll right into the side of a mountain. This wonderful sensation is brought to you by yet another clunky and muddled camera system. Fluidity is a characteristic that does not apply here as you will find yourself facing hordes of enemies from all directions and you will have to maneuver the targeting reticule around to lock in on your prey while trying to maintain a clear flight path with an unresponsive system.
To help add some stand out qualities to Crimson Dragon you will come across some areas that aren't on rails, but rather offer full 3D movement to explore the land. While this innovation seems on the surface to be a good thing, thanks to the clunky control setup, it's far from it. Losing your bearings will happen often, but when you take into account combat in this mode, you'll suffer a lot of unnecessary deaths. Originally designed to be a pure Kinect game, Crimson Dragon has opted to stick with the Xbox One controller, yet still offer some use for Kinect. Voice command navigation through the menus is a nice touch, but your controller can do that as well but not as quickly. You can also use Kinect to control your wingman, however, the voice commands you have to issue are rather lengthy and when you are in the heat of battle, controlling your wingman through voice becomes more of a chore than a benefit.
Not all is doom and gloom though for Crimson Dragon. The leveling system is fairly in depth and allows you to unlock, customize, and upgrade a wide variety of different flying dragons. Each of them offers different characteristics including elemental damage. This game however, is limited to only three types: lightning, wind and fire, and you must be careful on the making the right choice for the level ahead. Throughout the short levels you can come across new abilities that you can train your dragon in so also make sure you know what dragon you wish to upgrade and learn these new abilities. Even though this aspect of growing your own dragon is a nice addition, you will find that your starting dragon can become a world wrecking powerhouse from its early development.
Another innovation to Crimson Dragon is the ability to hire your own wingman. These do set you back a substantial amount and they are only available for use in a few missions before dissipating, but there increased damage and overall support is undeniable. These wingmen though are not just generic characters, but rather AI characters taken straight from the leaderboards. When you also factor in that a wingman can make up for a bad choice in elemental attacks, they almost become a must have.
Given that Crimson Dragon has released on the next generation of Xbox consoles, one would expect a dynamic improvement since the original Xbox days, and you would be right. Earlier on you read that this game does allow for full 3D exploration of only some levels, however, all the arenas you fly through are sensational when compared to the past Panzer Dragoon games. Even the flapping wings of the different dragons seem more realistic; however, the models of the dragons themselves do leave something to be desired. Given that we have seen phenomenal looking flying beasts on the Xbox 360, you find yourself asking the question "if they could do it on the Xbox 360, then why not at least match the quality on the Xbox One?". The graphics though are not the only thing enhanced in Crimson Dragon. The entire game boasts a driving electronic soundtrack that not only varies between levels and missions, but also will lead your heart to be pounding in your chest and your palms sweating intensely as you dodge, roll, climb, dive, and survive the impending attacks. Once you hit a boss battle though, you know it's on as your speakers start pumping and you fight for your very life.
While Crimson Dragon is priced at $19.99, if you are a fan of the Panzer Dragoon series, then you will find a multitude of content to keep you occupied and satisfied. Yes there are some serious issues that hold this title back, but overall the average execution may just make this game a guilty pleasure. One thing that would have been better would be if they allowed you to customize your dragon via SmartGlass, but hopefully that is a feature that is coming down the road. When you take into account other games available on other platforms, it goes without saying that there are worse games you could buy for $19.99 so why not pick up a better game for a better price?
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Forza Motorsport 5
Throughout the history of mankind there have only been a few select moments that have altered its future and the birth of automotive transportation is one such moment. Freedom was just a turn of the key away, and only our imaginations became our limitations. The sensation of the road beneath your tires with a ribbon of black asphalt stretched out before your eyes is a feeling unlike any other, and in Forza 5 we find the greatest tribute to one of the great liberators in the history of mankind, the car. Turn 10 has been producing Forza Motorsport games since the years of the original Xbox, and with every release their goal is to pay homage by delivering the best driving experience you can find anywhere in the digital age; and they have succeeded in a way that is so significant that to accurately measure it would require you to almost compare it to other great monumental achievements in mankind. If ever there was a bar to rise, Turn 10 strapped it to the back of a Bugatti Veyron and sent it 250 miles an hour, straight into orbit while on fire. Chill the blood in your veins and start your engines because it's time to launch into the best driving game ever available on any console, Forza 5.Starting out Forza 5 will treat you to an opening sequence by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, and after that the game takes you straight into racing behind the wheel of a McLaren P1. This is Forza's way of introducing you to the world of motorsport and the physics that coincide with its existence. You will then be able to choose a car for the upcoming league event you will be participating in. After that you are off on your way through your first series of events that will help familiarize yourself with the courses, the physics of driving itself, and such features like replay and more. Before the races begin you have the option to select different driver assists and decide if you want them on or off, also you have the ability to choose your difficulty of competition. The other racers you will find in Forza are not computer AI controlled vehicles, but actual human drivers via their Drivatar.
Think of your Drivatar as a "virtual you" that learns how you play Forza 5. Techniques such as how you take the apex of a turn, breaking and vehicle control, passing, and more are all recorded as part of what could be considered a virtual training simulation. Upon completion of your initial events you will notice your Drivatar will sync with the information from the recently completed race. Once this process is complete your Drivatar is born, but will have a lot more to learn. This is done by driving and a lot of it. Through racing you will gain the ability to fine tune and develop your Drivatar so that its performance will be better in the digital world, so just like life, the more you train, the more you will improve. This is one of Forza 5's biggest innovations and now will set a standard for other developers to follow.
Once done with the initial league events you can move into the career menu. Through this menu you can hit the B button to go back to the main menu, or you can select from: Continue Career, League Select, Car, and Forzavista. As the name implies, Continue Career allows you to pick up right where you left off, so you don't have to go searching through individual races to find where you last tore up the pavement. League Select allows you jump between different events for different classes of cars such as the hyper car Bugatti Veyron, Grand Touring, Exotics, Open Wheel and more. Each league is comprised of multiple races so when you take into account the amount of content in actual racing, it's simply mind-blowing.
The car menu selection allows you view, buy, upgrade, and paint your cars. While the first two are pretty self-explanatory, the submenu Forzavista allows you to view your cars by digitally interacting with them. You can open the doors, climb inside the seats, start the car, view a video on your car, and more. While this feature is a novel approach to examining your cars, when you take into account the diminished number of cars available, you may save this feature for only a select few rides. While viewing the cars is fantastic, the upgrade option is another innovation that really sets Forza 5 apart from the competition. There is a quick upgrade option that will maximize your car's performance based on the class you select. While this is quick and efficient, when you dive into the actual amount of upgrade components available, you can really get a feel for the sheer mass of a game this size.
If that wasn't enough you even have the ability to apply a conversion to your car that can affect either the engine via an engine swap or you can swap out the drivetrain, or both. This also changes the upgrades available for your car and can chance the performance instantly. On top of upgrading components of your car, you also have the ability to tune your vehicle in multiple areas such as: tire pressure, suspension, gear ratios, and more. This feature has been welcomed with open arms by the gaming community to the point where gamers have become known for their setups of cars and it's through here that you get to experience Forza 5 like never before.
Just as tuning has its own devoted following of gearheads, so does Forza's artistic painting. In the past Forza games have given artists a chance to showcase some amazing and often beautiful pieces of artwork. Other artists, including myself would spend hours upon hours creating stunning imagery with only 1000 layers to work with, but not anymore. Back at E3 2013, XboxAddict reported that the number of layers would increase with the release of Forza 5, and now our painting prayers have been answered. The sides and top have now had their available layer increased from 1000 to 3000 layers, and now the bumpers and wing have had their limit increased to 1000. If going blind trying to line up individual layers isn't exciting for you, there is an option where you can search the marketplace for different designs based off of what keyword(s) you type in. Once you find the design you can pay the credit value (if there is one) and the design is yours! What this means is that the quality of the artwork is going to exponentially increase, making Forza 5 the uncontested king of turning cars in masterpieces of art.
This is thanks to the jaw dropping beauty of Forza 5's graphics. Cars from all over the planet have come to life in a surreal manner that is without a doubt, breathtaking. Every curve, every edge, every bolt, every inch. Attention to detail is one thing, but almost life like duplication is a whole other matter. Not only will you drool over the quality of the cars, but the race tracks themselves will send you right over the edge. Tracks from all over the world combine with iconic legends like Laguna Seca and La Mans to give you a backdrop that every motoring enthusiast would sell their very soul for. Given that most of us are not multi billionaires that could fly around the world, renting these tracks, and transporting our cars all over the globe, Forza 5 gives an almost flawless life like replication of what experiencing this would be like. While you are cascading down the straights, or drifting around a tight hairpin curve, your ears are blanketed by a symphony of harmonies and choirs. This almost holy themed soundtrack is one that you would expect from a different style game, but the minimalistic feeling sets the tone perfectly. Hearing a choir with a string section as I'm power sliding around a corner with my tires screeching, engine revving, and my turbo spinning is an amazing marriage of sound between car and music. This is one harmony that I never saw coming, but am so thankful that it's here.
With the grand amount of content packed into the career mode of Forza 5, you would think that it would be all said and done, but not this time. Outside of the career mode is the main menu where you will find various tiles where you can quick select from tuning/upgrading, paint, Forza profile, Forza TV, message center, and coming soon, the Forza marketplace. Other options are available too from the main menu and consist of Rivals which ultimately is a leaderboard hunt where you can try and outrun your friends. The other selections are Free Play, which is where you can do split screen racing and configure the race in a multitude of options. Then we have Forza 5's famous multiplayer system. Here you can compete in multiple challenges where you can see what requirements are needed and how many racers will be competing. Some of the events require a certain car, such as racing the McLaren P1 V.S. La Ferrari. Yes you will lose yourself in Forza 5's career mode, but you cannot rule out the amount of content and quick access in the main menu. Forza 5 delivers on a lot of fronts but one innovation is a step in the right direction, and that is the head tracking via Kinect. When activated you must sit in front of your sensor and Kinect will recognize your head and then when you turn your head in the game, your view will follow suit. While this feature is fun and is quite interesting to the players that actually lean while playing driving games, it's execution leaves little to be desired and thus not a deal breaking feature.
Forza 5 is the accumulation of decades of desire and centuries of passion. Since its conception, mankind has always wanted cars that went faster, that were more powerful, and that made you turn your head and gawk. Turn 10 has done a spectacular job in delivering the best racing experience you can find on the Xbox One. We can only hope that in the future there will be support available for Microsoft's SmartGlass, but as of right now, it doesn't exist. This could be an innovative new way to do tuning, or artwork, but only time will tell if Turn 10 decides to implement it. If you are a fan of cars, a fan of racing, or a fan of art, there is no reason why you wouldn't want to own the undisputed king of racing, Forza 5.
Suggestions: Please look into using SmartGlass for this game. Tuning your car via SmartGlass and/or designing artwork would make this the standout game for SmartGlass use. Would also like to see an increase in environments to race in. Forza 4 provided 27 different areas while we only find 14 on Forza 5 on the Xbox One.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Killer Instinct
Over a decade of waiting, gamers around the world have been subjected to numerous teasers which amounted to nothing, the running joke of April fool’s jokes, but no longer. For those XboxAddict faithful, you'll know that I've personally been waiting for this moment since the Nintendo 64 days, and when the lights went down over the Xbox One launch, that was when the bell rang out and the fight was on. Killer Instinct makes a triumphant return as a downloadable game in the Xbox One store. There are many different versions of Killer Instinct to choose from and as expected different price points as well. For instance you can purchase the game for free, however the content you get is limited to only Jago as a selectable fighter and you will also miss out on the other five levels and characters as well. Currently there are six characters available now and those characters are:Orchid
Chief Thunder
Jago
Sabrewulf
More characters will follow such as Spinal and Fulgore, coming in January and March respectively. Given the number of variants of Killer Instinct, the price breakdown and content is as follows:
1) FREE - Jago only
2) Single Character - $5 per character
3) Combo Breaker Pack - $19.99 (First 8 characters which includes 6 from launch and 2 more to follow later)
4) Ultra Edition - $39.99 (First 8 characters which includes 6 from launch and 2 more to follow, PLUS costumes for each character, and accessories for each character, and even the original Killer Instinct game.)
Then Pinny Arcade has decided to step up to the plate and release a Killer Instinct Pin Ultimate Edition. This is the edition that we will be using for this review as it includes everything that you will find in the Ultra Edition, however like any true warrior you now have a way of showcasing your talents to the world. This version allows you to collect physical metal pins that have different characters, emblems and more and collect them inside a hardcover case. At this time there are two ways to acquire new pins once they are available. You can either purchase them plus pay for shipping costs, or you can register your Pin Ultimate Edition and complete various challenges throughout the months to get them sent to you as a reward for your success in Killer Instinct! Now you know what versions there are available, let's dive into the game itself. Fight on!
Right away you will be taken down memory lane as you here the terminator style drums kick in and the Killer Instinct title fade in from the fire below. Once you hit the start button to begin, your ears immediately feel the joy as the infamous guitar riff starts to take over your speakers. For any Killer Instinct fan, this moment was one that solidified your belief and faith in a game that was once thought to never be released again. From the opening menu you have some various options besides just the standard local, online and option menus. Your options in the local menu allow for player vs. player matches, survival mode, dojo missions which essentially are training simulations that you have to accomplish and will take you from the basics to advanced techniques of Killer Instinct.
You will also find training mode here which will allow you select an individual character and practice his/hers/it's combinations and even ultras as well. You can configure the training dummy as expected from other fighting games, but there is one thing missing, and that is a story mode. Why there isn't any form of story mode is beyond us and still leaves us with lingering questions from the last Killer Instinct. One little ding though has to fall with the multiplayer option. Your multiplayer menu will allow you to fight in either exhibitions or ranked matches online and view the leaderboards. If you want to challenge your friends it's incredibly simple to host a match and send out an invite, but ultimately in the end that is all that is provided at launch.
Other menu options such as Fight Archive allow you to view your fight profile, your achievements, and even replays which can be selected as favorites for view later. With the Xbox One allowing to record game footage, now your replays can be recorded and uploaded so you can show off your 50+ hit ultra-combos! Underneath the Fight Archive is the KI Store and it's in here that you can purchase additional characters, levels, and even character costumes. The costumes and levels must be purchased using the in game currency known as KP.
Gaining KP is done by completing various challenges such as jumping over 10 projectiles, winning one fight of survival mode, and so on. Once you have enough points you can purchase the levels, however, to purchase the costumes you first must complete the requirement to unlock it. These requirements follow a similar criteria to earning KP, and once unlocked can be purchased. Rounding out the new menu options is the Customization selection. Here you can go through all your characters and customize not only the color of their outfit, but their accessories as well. For instance instead of Jago wielding a razor sharp sword, he could use a mace instead. Each character has their own customization options to unlock and provides a great way to diversify the characters from their standard stock appearance.
There is a menu that will allow you to configure your buttons and that is critical in every fighting game, and in Killer Instinct, it's no different. The play controls are incredibly smooth which allow beginners to pick up and play while giving Killer Instinct masters, a true test on chaining together their longest combos. Killer Instinct is definitely a game that is simplistic on the outside but incredibly deep when you dive into the controls. Thankfully there is little lag when it comes to the button input which means that linking and chaining long combinations are fairly simple, however watch out for that combo breaker. In previous versions, your combo breaker required you to perform a certain move and match the strength of the attack in order to break it. This means that if your opponent hits you with a strong attack, your combo breaker must be done with a strong attack. While this could get confusing to some, in this version of Killer Instinct, you can use a combo breaker by using the right stick and pushing it either up, left, right, or down.
There are some new aspects as well to the gameplay and those are the Counter Breakers, Shadow moves/linkers, and instinct mode. The counter breakers are devastating moves that when pulled off correctly will allow you to counter your opponent's combo breaker and continue your unrelenting attacks at will. These turn the tide of a fight almost instantly and are a key to success. For instance, let's say that your opponent may be reveling in a successful combo breaker after you landed 15 hits; however, their hopes are immediately dashed as you counter their combo breaker and beat the ever loving crap out of them.
Instinct Mode allows your character special traits and abilities when activated. Some of these traits increase mobility while others can regenerate health. In order to use these new abilities you have to charge your Instinct meter to full and activate it, and even though the effects may be only temporary, when you time it right it could mean the difference between walking out alive, or death. Another addition to the gameplay is the inclusion of a "shadow meter" found at the bottom left of the screen. This meter climbs when you take damage, execute special attacks, and more, but what is interesting is what this shadow meter does to your character when activated. Take Jago for instance; normally he can only fire one projectile at a time; however, when he activates the shadow meter he fires five.
Once in the game you will see that Killer Instinct looks absolutely stunning. Character modeling has been taken to a level that fans have dreamed about but never seen in existence, until now. The background detail is also done very well. Various stages such as Glacius' crashed ship, Sabrewulf's dungeon, or Sadira's spider lair provide stunning backdrops to the fluid and intense fighting that will be taking place momentarily. Making sure the graphics run with a high sense of fluidity is a difficult challenge when creating a fighting game, but the crew at Double Helix Games makes it look effortless. While your eyes may be overjoyed by the visual beauty, your ears, however, will celebrate when you hear the dynamic soundtrack play throughout the fight. Each level has its own theme, however, as the fighting progresses and intensifies, the music will change. You will hear alterations and additions to the music including a rise in tempo so what you thought was just a rollercoaster ride of fun turns into a rocket launch about to go into orbit.
Also making an auditory triumphant return is the original announcer's voice for Killer Instinct. Beating the crap out of your opponent is always entertaining, however, when you hear that announcer yell, everything intensifies. Such an example would be when you land a combo breaker, the announcer yells, but if you land a counter breaker it sounds as if the announcer starts screaming "COUNTER BREAKER" right in your face. This however, is nothing compared to when you land the mother of all combos, the ultra-combo. This is where the announcer goes absolutely ape s*** crazy and screams as loud as he can, UUUUUULLLLLLLTTRRRRRRAAAAAA CCCCOOOOOOOMMMMBBBBOOOOOOOO.
There are a few gripes with Killer Instinct, such as the lack of a true story mode, online lobbies, ladder matches, lengthy load times for the fights, etc. Overall though, by producing a superior fighting game at a budget price point is a task that few attempt, and even fewer succeed, however the crew at Double Helix Games have pulled it off in a way that is absolutely remarkable. Solid and fluid gameplay is combined with stunning visuals, dynamic sounds, and relentless to create a truly mesmerizing fighting experience. With the inclusion of the original arcade game, this version of Killer Instinct is hands down the best value for dollar experience you can find right now on the Xbox One.
Suggestions: Include more multiplayer modes which include online lobbies, winner stays matches, ladder matches, etc. Please also work on including a story mode going forward. Include online play with the original Killer Instinct arcade game. It was possible to play the original Killer Instinct on the Super Nintendo via the Xband, but why not now?
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD
One of my favorite gaming franchises of all time is without question, Castlevania. Growing up in days of 8-bit, side scrolling, vampire slaying greatness, I have witnessed an evolution of sorts throughout the decades that have seen amazing innovations, fantastic storytelling, and an increase in addiction to scouring the maps hoping to find that long lost treasure. The classic Castlevania relied heavily on creating multiple side scrolling environments that allowed you to explore every nook and cranny of Dracula's castle while pitting you against a seemingly endless supply of nightmarish creatures that one must fight through to reach the prince of darkness himself. MercurySteam attempted a reboot of the Castlevania franchise and released Lords of Shadow to mixed reviews. There were some who reveled in the beauty and transition to a 3D environment, while there were some that crucified the game and all involved with it as blasphemy. In an attempt to salvage the hard work of many, MercurySteam released a title on the Nintendo 3DS called Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate. Besides having one of the longest titles for a Castlevania game, or any game period, it offered MercurySteam a chance to help tell the story with more detail leading into the next release called Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2. Knowing the fan base spans larger than a handheld gaming platform, MercurySteam decided to port the 3DS release straight onto the Xbox Live Arcade but give it and HD makeover and charge $14.99 plus tax. Some may call it a gift, others may call it an excuse to grab any cash they can off the name. Which is it? Let's find out.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate HD (which will be known as MoF) spans six decades of vampire slaying lineage for the Belmont family. You will get to play as Trevor Belmont, Simon Belmont, and Alucard himself. These three events take place in a nonlinear fashion and will find you ultimately taking part in a paper thin story which leads to one final destination, the death of Dracula. This is where the first fault is found because MercurySteam has decided with all this extra power from console hardware, not to include any more plot content at all from the handheld version. I'm sorry but if you wanted to explain and give more detail to help gamers bridge the gap between LoS and LoS 2, then why not utilize this release to do so? Not only is the plot thinner than water, but the story itself is ridiculously short in stature. There is even an achievement for finishing the game in less than 3 hours and 30 minutes. $14.99 price tag for a game that can be beaten in less than 3 hours and 30 minutes and we are supposed to be overjoyed by this?
Another tear in the dark lord’s cape comes directly from the environment as well. Yes there are a few items to discover along the way and some will only be available to obtain after you have ventured far enough to gain new abilities and then backtrack to where you originally began to try and uncover all that was once hidden or out of reach. The latter part of that last sentence can be said about many of the Castlevania games in the past; however, what once seemed like an army of the undead now feels more like a long walk with only a few enemies here and there. The boss battles though remain the game's toughest challenges and will easily deplete any health you may have if you don't pay attention to their movements and time your strikes well. I did however find the controls did need some improvement, but unleashing that whip with brutal, unending force always brings a smile to my face.
Now the letters at the end of the title are HD, which signifies that the graphics should be greatly improved over the 3DS, and that they are. The cut scenes are done in a beautiful, comic book style scene, and although short in length, is one of the highlights of the graphics. The environments, without question, feel like a Castlevania game and even the character modeling has seen significant improvement. While all of this looks good so far, there is one element that made its horrific return in MoF, and that are the quick time events. With LoS there was a twist to the QuickTime scheme which required you to time your button presses to correspond with the rings on the screen. Now that has been replaced with either following a sequence of button presses or beating the crap out of your A button.
I have been a supporter of MercurySteam's first Lords of Shadow but sadly I'm beginning to feel that things are going a step backwards. Everything, minus the online leaderboards, has been taken straight from the 3DS, and when MercurySteam had a chance to improve upon the console versions, they didn't. They did though include a downloadable demo for the upcoming game, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. The important word to focus on here is demo. If this is the only way MercurySteam will let you play the demo, then wait for the game instead. I can't comprehend why someone would pay $14.99 plus tax for what appears to be a complete lack of effort plus a demo of an upcoming game that gamers know ahead of time doesn't resemble the final product. There was so much potential for this game, yet it feels like MercurySteam let it all slip away.
The story could be better. The controls could be tighter. The graphics could be better. Almost everything could be better. Now I know you're sitting there saying "yes but it's just a port of a 3DS game, so you're wanting too much." And my response would be, is it too much to ask for a good story in a Castlevania game? Is it too much to ask for responsive controls given the 2D environment in a Castlevania game? No, no it's not.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Hexodius
There has always been a diehard niche in the video game world that revolves around top quality twin stick shooter titles. There have been iconic staples from the past such as Geometry Wars that have long since set the standard for those to follow. Recently Brain Slap Studio and Namco Bandai Games have taken a PC title over to the Xbox Live Arcade called Hexodius in an attempt to see if their twin stick shooter can top the competition. The story is fairly straight forward and involves a robot named Fred who builds your character, B.O.B. and the two of you set out on a fast paced, action packed adventure to stop the evil robot forces. Yup that’s pretty much all there is to say about the story. While priced at only $9.99, Hexodius already won't put a dent in your wallet, but is it worth a purchase right now, or is this a budget game that should be picked up during a sale? Time to find out.By definition, twin stick shooting action requires you to move about with the left joystick while aiming your projectiles with the right. You are free to fire in any direction as is the same with movement. This alone encompasses the main criteria for producing a quality title that utilizes twin stick action and thankfully Hexodius has done it right. Not only has Hexodius nailed the core mechanics but they have also incorporated a mix of dungeon crawling elements that will have you uncovering the map to obtain every possible upgrade. Speaking of the map, each level in the story is laid out in a hexagonal maze where each available space offers up either: A) Checkpoints and repair spots, B) Some form off offensive encounter, C) Store, D) Teleport, E) Map uncovering scans, F) Boss/End Level teleports, or G) Blank spaces.
Most of the time you will find yourself engaging enemies in battles, however, this is where the second gem is found. Throughout your exploration of each level you will have the ability to not only purchase, but find new upgrades for your B.O.B. to help you clear tougher levels, but there is a catch. You are limited to the amount of upgrades you can use per level throughout the entire game, so choose wisely.
Upgrades and bonuses range from automatic turrets that disappear after a set amount of time, to shields that can not only absorb damage, but reflect it as well, to even flamethrowers for extreme close quarters damage. You will get the opportunity to equip only three upgrades, so make sure that you decide what works best for you when playing. Then you have to decide what four bonus items you want to equip and these will only be unlocked when the resources become available. How do they become available you ask? Great question and the answer is simple, from the deaths of many, many enemy robots. The enemies in this game follow somewhat similar characteristics to those found in Geometry Wars. There are those that you can only attack from behind, enemies that will run away when you try to fire at them, and more. Each one of these enemies, when killed, will drop a varying amount of resources and after you collect a certain amount, your bonus items and weapons will be available to use. Upon level completion you will be graded from no pass to S rank and your performance will net you needed coins to purchase other upgrades and bonus items from the store located on every level.
Graphically speaking the level layouts are done in bright vibrant colors, but lack the "pop" that would keep our eyes from blinking. There is another issue and that is on some levels, for instance, the enemies you face turn to that color of the level making it quite difficult to distinguish and thus ultimately leading to hordes of enemies coming up to surprise you or hit you off screen. In one instance I was on a lava planet, which was red and my enemies turned to a reddish tint, which was more red on the screen, and then they fired shots at me which were red as well. This lack of definition can also be found in the sound quality. Mediocre level music compiled with mediocre map music, and sprinkled with a dash of mediocre menu music and you've hit the nail on the head. With the varying degree of level settings you would think that such attention would also come from the music department, sadly this isn't the case either.
What Hexodius does really well is deliver fast paced shooting and quality twin stick action, however, with faults being formed on both the graphic and sound aspects, it's far from perfect. When you take into account the arcade mode which is just score attack throughout six different levels, the bulk of your time will be spent in story mode, and if you only give value to half of your title, then that too is a fault to consider. Even though Hexodius is priced at $9.99, that price still seems a bit high for the amount of quality content that you do get. If you are a huge fan of Geometry Wars, then this could be the next big thing for you, but if you wait till it goes on sale, then you are really paying for what it's worth.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Another battle in the frantic world of first person shooters (FPS) has begun. The never ending war between Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty is back in full swing and this time, Call of Duty: Ghosts takes aim to secure the crown and if the 1 billion (yes billion with a b) in launch day sales doesn't catch your eye, Infinity Ward has two discs of content ready to finish the job. The Call of Duty franchise has seen a volatile history not only between Infinity Ward and Treyarch, but between Activision itself and Infinity Ward. Talks about grand developments were blended with a massive media onslaught and then the fuse was lit. Call of Duty: Ghosts exploded out of the gates on day 1 with 1 billion in sales, however instead of a global cheer of happiness and excitement; there was a global roar of displeasure and ill will. This new Call of Duty: Ghosts seems to be gutted from versions we have played before, but how can this be? Well after reading this, you'll see why:A) The war between Activision-Infinity Ward-Treyarch has cost the series greatly.
And
B) I'm going back to Black Ops 2 for my Call of Duty fix.
In the past the Call of Duty plot lines were fairly straightforward and may have presented "omg" moments via the plot but more often were done through over the top cinematic sequences that tried to give gamers a grand perspective of everything going on. This Call of Duty is no different. A massive war is ongoing against The Federation and it is up to you and your team of Ghosts to infiltrate and tip the scales of power in your favor in order to save mankind. The story is following the same watered down suit as we've experienced before in the past and even though the situations have been more over the top than before, the bond with the dog Riley seems to be the best part of the story.
Honestly I never really cared for the story of the Call of Duty games as there never was any real depth or emotional connection. Other games such as Final Fantasy VII or the original Bioshock offered much deeper stories that grasped the gamer and provided a phenomenal storyline. Call of Duty games never seemed to have that; and even though there is a dog in the game, it's a shame that his presence is the best part of the story. What's even more of a shame is that the story is the best part of Call of Duty: Ghosts and here's the reason why:
Multiplayer has always been the heart and soul of the Call of Duty games. Providing a 15 hour or so campaign was nice, but gamers over the globe invested billions of hours online which makes any form of multiplayer that much more important. Earlier I mentioned that Call of Duty: Ghosts seems to be gutted from earlier versions of CoD games and this is where things go from bad to worse. For starters if you wanted to do Co-Op anything you have two choices:
1) Squad mode - which pits you and up to five other people against computer AI throughout various levels. There are different modes to go through, but nothing really groundbreaking or worth justifying a $60 day one purchase.
2) Extinction - I feel that this replaces the zombie mode as now you are trying to eliminate a hostile alien race with extreme prejudice. Yup you fight aliens in Call of Duty. Now I've seen everything.
Neither mode really stood out as something earth shattering which was disappointing given that there is so much potential that isn't being utilized for whatever reason.
Also earlier I mentioned briefly about the battle going on at Activision with Infinity Ward and Treyarch. The reason I mentioned this was because originally the battle was between Infinity Ward and Treyarch to create the best Call of Duty experience you could find on any platform. This was the case for years until the battle switched between Infinity Ward and Activision. Without recalling all the events that took place, the end result was Infinity Ward essentially being stripped down and forced to restaff due to departures. While Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 did get released with the assistance of Sledgehammer Games, Call of Duty: Ghosts is the first Call of Duty title from the new Infinity Ward only. This plays a significant role because Ghosts, pales in comparison to not only past Infinity Ward games, but Treyarch as well. This dynamic shift has had tremendous consequences and not all of them are good. Starting first with the graphics.
Poor. Bad. Outdated. Less quality than Black Ops 2. Take your pick but all of them are easy, one word descriptions that justify the graphics of this game. Buildings seem bland with little to no attention to detail, and upon closer examination of your entire environment, you will easily see a lack of effort in creating a visual masterpiece. Even the dog itself looks better, but upon closer examination looks as if Infinity Ward needs to ramp up on the graphics technology if they are going to have any success moving forward.
Not only are the graphics mildly impressive to begin with, you will also have to contend with frame rate issues throughout the game, which leaves you wondering, "With all this technology available that has created eye blinding beauty in the past, why not use it now?". With games like Battlefield 4 already out, dealing with frame rate issues on graphics that look very outdated isn't something that Call of Duty fans around the globe want to face. But yet they have to. This is even more evident when considering that the Xbox One version of Call of Duty is native at 720p and will only upscale to 1080p. Things have just gone from a downward spiral, to an unhindered free-fall; and the worst is yet to come.
The multiplayer aspect is one that we agree on is the most important for a Call of Duty game because it helps to deliver a very high replay value to gamers, and if that suffers, then so does the replay value, and it's here that we find some of the greatest changes to Call of Duty: Ghosts. Theater mode is now nonexistent. UAV's are but a memory. No Headquarters mode or Hardpoint and I don't know why. Instead of UAV's flying overhead they have been replaced by a deployable item called a SAT COM which sits on the ground and after enough have been activated, a UAV style scan starts to appear. Gone is the dive and it's replaced by a double knee slide (like your soldier went to rock star camp). Starting out you will have access to one squad member out of a total of 10. Each of these squad members has six loadouts, however, you only have access to three of them and you have to unlock them with Squad Points. These points are the currency you need to unlock pretty much everything within the multiplayer game. Weapons, attachments, perks, score streaks, squad mates, loadout slots, and even requesting new objectives cost Squad Points.
Squad points are gained by completing objectives, on the field challenges and ranking up. The field challenges are done by picking up blue briefcases which gives you a random objective to complete. These objectives could range from things like getting two kills while crouched, to killing someone from behind, to even teabagging your victim. Completing these field objectives will net you one Squad Point. You get two Squad Points for reaching the next rank and you get one Squad Point per completed objective. If you get more completed objectives then you can get up to four bonus squad points. Now take into account that some squad members cost over 200 squad points and that some weapon cost over 10 and some perks cost over 15 and you can start to see that if you want to unlock everything you will be investing a good portion of your remaining life to Call of Duty: Ghosts. That is, if it was worth the time.
This new style doesn't seem to feel right given the fact that with Black Ops 2, gamers got to unlock scopes and attachments by utilizing the weapon more and more, instead of just spending squad points to unlock everything. Yes you had unlock points but now you don't need to level anything up to unlock what you want, so if you wanted to, right from the beginning, you can safe up enough points and buy the under barrel grenade attachment for your assault rifle, instead of having to level the weapon itself up (which I may point out, required more dedication than saving points for a purchase).
Another massive blow to Call of Duty: Ghost's multiplayer system is that it only supports up to 12 players in some game modes, not all. When you take into account that the competition offers up 24 player combat (current gen), only providing 12 players on some modes simply doesn't make the cut. What was Infinity Ward thinking? If your competition allows for 24 players, then why cut back by half? It may be because they want to keep the frame rate smooth, however, when you factor in the average graphics of the multiplayer, that doesn't seem to be a logical reason.
On top of all of this the new levels feel much larger in size which means you'll spend more time running around seeing nobody only to be picked off by a camping sniper that’s tucked away in a corner and forced to respawn and do it all over again. With these larger maps you will notice an increase in more tactical gameplay, which is a nice way of saying there's going to be a dramatic increase in camping. All these maps feel that they could have supported larger groups than just 12, but sadly they don't. There's even a new infected multiplayer mode which seems like it took a page straight out of the Halo universe as you're armed with shotguns and the goal of the infected is to kill those who aren't. There are some other new variants and new multiplayer modes, but with an almost straight copy of Halo's infected gameplay and the removal of Hardpoint and Headquarters, you will find a better multiplayer experience in Black Ops 2.
Without question Call of Duty: Ghosts delivers a relatively enjoyable first person shooter experience, however we as gamers have become accustomed to more bells, whistles, innovations, and improvements and sadly we find very little of all of those in this title. Sure your stats carry over from the Xbox 360 version to the Xbox One version, but given the minimal upgrade when moving to the next gen consoles, Call of Duty: Ghosts is still in a world of hurt. With Ghosts being gutted and reduced to a shell of what it could be, the competition providing 24 player matches, a Squad Point system that would be worth investing months into if the multiplayer was better quality, a native 720p performance on the Xbox One, better replay value from older titles and more; Call of Duty: Ghosts is a massive disappointment and for those reasons, if you want a top quality Call of Duty experience, stay with Black Ops 2. There is a silver lining though to this whole debacle and that is we as gamers won't have to wait long for the next Call of Duty game to come out.
Suggestions: On a personal note I want to say a big thank you to Activision for their campaign to help find Veterans jobs when they return home from service. This is a wonderful campaign and I wish them all the success in the world for honoring our real world heroes. If you wish to contribute you can go to your local retailer (mine was EB games) and there they should have a metal dog tag in a package which you can pick up for less than $6.00 and ALL PROCEEDS go to helping veterans gain employment.
As for improving Call of Duty: Ghosts though, without question improve the graphics. Keep the format from Black Ops 2 as a foundation for improvements. Try not to get over excited and remove more than you should. Improve the graphics. Increase the amount of gamers that can play in a match from 12 to 24. Do away with Squad Points. Revamp multiplayer in all aspects.
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10
Batman Arkham Origins
AAAHHHA-HA-HA or is it HOOOOOHO-HO-HO, oh well who cares. Welcome back to Gotham kiddies and Merry Christmas! Now Christmas time is supposed to be about love and family and blah blah blah, but what we really care about is the presents! Sadly though, Santa is a bit tied up at the moment so your old pal Joker here has taken it upon himself to fill his boots for the city of Gotham during Christmas Eve night! Now I know what you're saying, "Joker how can you possibly expect to deliver all those presents in one night?" and the answer is simple! Employ a small army of ruthless and heavily armed elves all handpicked by yours truly! Now though there are rumors fluttering through the air about a man who wants to be the Grinch of the season and to top it all off, he's dressed up like a giant bat!?!?!? Can you believe it, and they say I'm the one who needs help?!?!?!? Well no Grinch is going to stop my Christmas, and in fact let me tell you a little story that will leave you grinning from ear to ear. I'm calling Batman Arkham Origins and it all begins on a night like tonight...
Twas the night before Christmas and Gotham was merry. Not a bad guy in sight so things weren't so scary. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, but Black Mask escaped jail so he's no longer there. Assassins all over took notice with glee as the Black Mask put up, a whole bunch of money. The job was simple, and that's kill the Bat, and 50 million bucks to the one who did that. The night became lively with bad guys abound, he may own the sky, but we all own the ground. I heard their calls going out through the night, ON Shiva, ON Bane, this is one awesome fight. The calls rang out ON Croc, ON Deathstroke, ON Copperhead and Firefly, ON Electrocutioner, On Deadshot, shoot him out of the sky. The hunt was now on with the clock ticking down, but everyone forgot this smiling little clown. Will Batman survive by a very close shave, or will a cunning assassin put him in his grave? The night is still young and what a great lead in, to tell you more about Batman Arkham Origins.
Did you like the story kiddos?!?!? There's so much more to tell, but it's naughty to look at your presents early! Speaking of presents, I've heard Batman has some wonderful toys at his disposal. We all have heard about his remote controlled this, his grapple that, his batwhatever, his crypto who cares, blah blah blah, but now I've heard he's got a new toy that will allow him to target an enemy and grapple them to another enemy, an interactive object, or even hang them from a stationary ledge! Batman also has other items that he can requisition from fallen foes to help him along the way such as the Shock Gauntlets that allow him to recharge dead generators and gain access to previously unreachable parts of Gotham. Now really after all that do you think that’s fair?!?!?!? All I've got is this killer smile...... and a whole bunch of explosives. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Apparently he has a vehicle that lets him fast travel to various points in the city, and guess what he's called it... guess... come on.... NOPE! He's called it The Batwing! Oh but apparently his precious little plane doesn't seem to like these hijacked radio frequencies so he'll need to disable them before he can use it in the area. Here, have a cookie.
Controlling and gliding are all what we've heard and experienced before but now with this new grapple accelerator he apparently has the ability to chain glides together seamlessly with the push of the A button. Now SHHHHHHHH, you didn't hear this from me, but I've heard that our Batman has a bit of an ego problem and has called himself the "WORLDS GREATEST DETECTIVE" and this is because of his new detective mode which allows him to reconstruct crime scenes to determine who did what to who and when and where. It's through this new detective mode that Batman can identify bodies, but more importantly determine a timeline of events that led up to the crime. This mode will also allow Batman to scour and identify any evidence that my help him determine what happened during the crime.
Once Batman has compiled all his evidence for the crime, the great detective not only will know what happened, but who's responsible and next on his "naughty" list. Personally I feel that if you have a computer doing everything for you, that you're not really being a detective, right? One thing that I've also heard is that Batman is one heck of a fighter, but this doesn't just come from beating bad guys in the head with the same polished fighting mechanics from before; but with new training simulations and challenges that gain him experience and the ability to unlock improvements on his gear.
This time however, Batman will have to utilize every bit of training to contend with the local thugs looming around Gotham. No more do you have just standard enemies that are either armed or not, but now Batman will have to contend with Heavy thugs which are dressed head to toe in body armor and are impervious to melee attacks and will require you to stun them with your cape before trying to take them down. Not only are these new thugs going to pose a serious challenge for Batman, but there are new martial art style baddies that will counter Batman's attacks with some of their own which in turn will force Batman to learn one unforgettable lesson, learn how to counter a counter, or die. Throughout these fights you will gain XP based on how well you perform and the variety of takedowns you use throughout your combo chaining. Once enough XP has been earned to level up, you will gain the ability to improve one part of your gear. How do I improve my gear? By lighting a match.
Now this tale is an original one kiddos and done by a new studio, but that doesn't mean that our old city is looking tarnished and run down; in fact it's looking better than ever with much more exploration at your fingertips. Buildings and bridges look far more realistic and the inside environments look incredibly life like. Not only has the environment made to look more realistic, but the character models themselves have received a nice artistic touch. Villans such as Penguin, Deathstroke, and more have been drawn to a degree that dramatically fits their psychosis perfectly. They even managed to do great work on my pearly whites!!!..... and on every other baddie throughout the game.
So what this means is now we know that the graphics team at WB Games Montreal is on our "NICE" list. Being that this is an original, you will also hear new actors trying to portray our beloved characters. There are some that do a quality job on yours truly, and yet there are some that smell worse than croc and are shorter in character than Penguin. If you thought that you would be hearing familiar voices throughout the game, you would sadly be mistaken. Gone are the classic voices that we have all grown up with and WB Games Montreal stood firm in making sure that this game holds almost no similar voice acting to make sure that this game is "theirs" and not just more of the same from a different studio. This seems a bit disappointing for long term fans and you can't help but feel that if as much detail went into the sounds as did the graphics, then we would have something truly amazing, but sadly it didn't. Other games have done the similar work with their voice talent and none of it has been exceptional before, and so is the same with Batman Arkham Origins. This would make me frown.... if I could.
Now what could be more exciting than playing this game alone? How about playing it with friends! Yes, you heard it here from the Joker himself, there's a new multiplayer mode, but this time Batman pairs up with boy blunder to tackle not only my gang but those of my good friend Bane as well. What a bargain that this is included since normally you have to pay extra for three way action! Each of us brings 25 of our meanest baddies and we fight not only the bat and his boy, but each other for total control of one of the several multiplayer levels! The dynamic duo will try to deplete our gangs but if we nail the bat or his boy, then all of our gang becomes available again! You know the old saying, if you can't beat 'em then get more men with guns.
So there you have it my Christmas kiddos! The latest installment into the Batman universe is almost near perfect. Sure there are a few dents and dings but those can be "pounded out" over time. With DLC looming on the horizon and a top quality story, Batman Arkham Origins is a good first step with a new development team. Ohhhhh there is so much more to tell, but some presents just have to be unwrapped themselves! So what are you waiting for???? Pick up a copy to make sure you don't get put on my naughty list! And a Merry Christmas to all, and to all a dark night! HAHAHAHA!
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX
It's been said that imitation is the best form of flattery, but what if the imitation was bad, we mean really, really bad? When you talk old school platforming games that offer controller breaking difficulty, hair pulling frustration, and an overwhelming sense of accomplishment upon completion, A.R.E.S. won't be in that discussion. Developed by ORiGO games and released originally out on PC a while ago, A.R.E.S. seems to take its cues directly from games like Mega Man, however, trying to pay homage to such an iconic franchise is nothing short of a titanic challenge, but ORiGO thought they were up to the task. Sadly they were wrong; very, very wrong. Let us also not forget that this tribute piece costs a whopping $15, or 1/4 the price of a full retail game. Now you may be asking yourself what exactly makes A.R.E.S. a game to overlook? Here are a few reasons why we say save your money:A.R.E.S. tries to play off a theme that has been played out more times than we can count. On a space station deep in space, a virus has surfaced that causes the robots on board to become armed and very dangerous. The robots apparently turn on the humans on the station with one goal in mind, next stop, the end of all humanity. Naturally the only ones to stop the evil robots are two good robots named Ares and Tarus. These wonder twins are on a quest to stop Zytron from unleashing these evil robots and thus save mankind. That right there is literally the entire story of the game which is played out over seven, yes seven, platforming levels where you will have to jump and shoot and slide your way to victory. This watered down story is what is supposed to pass for a plot, but there are children in Ethiopia that have more meat to them.
While the duration of A.R.E.S. is relatively short and lacking substance, the 2D platforming aspect is in absolute abundance. The play control does take some getting used to; however, there are times where the controls vary between pinpoint and accurate, and skittish and cumbersome. There are differences between the characters to help distinguish them from each other, but outside of that, the only difference is the character model itself. For instance, Ares has a slide move whereas Tarus has a forward roll. Another example would be Ares's ability to air dash compared to Tarus's ability to hover in midair for a short period of time. These play a role in the other gameplay mechanics such as using the right stick to direct your weapon, or making sure to hit the A button perfectly to time a critical jump. While the mechanics of a 2D platformer are paramount, when the action gets hectic (especially during a boss fight), you may find the controls to be overcomplicated and borderline psychotic for your thumbs as you try to balance shooting your target and running and jumping for your life.
There may be times when A.R.E.S. seems to overwhelm you with enemies and combat, but thankfully you have an arsenal of four weapons to help you eliminate the opposition. These weapons though can be modified and upgraded through the use of upgrade chips that can be found throughout every level and after every boss battle that you win. As you progress and decimate enemy robots, you will notice that you collect materials from their fallen shells. It's these materials you will need when you obtain the upgrade chips as each one costs a certain amount of materials to use. The upgrades though are not easy to obtain and will require not only split second reaction times, but the time necessary to explore each of the seven levels trying to find them.
As this arcade game pays tribute to some old school, side scrolling, and platforming shooting games, what would be complete without vintage 16 bit graphics that have been enhanced in HD? Every single graphical facet harkens back to the day when we went crazy over the detail of sprites but now with an HD makeover, A.R.E.S. tries hard to bring you back to, as Bruce Springsteen calls it, the glory days. Even the text box dialogues between characters helps to add a sense of nostalgia to help take you back down memory lane. To compliment this entire package A.R.E.S. tries very hard to include a retro, synth heavy, electronic techno soundtrack that is reminiscent of games we have grown up enjoying. While this effort is noble at best, one can't help but notice that other games of the past have done all of this better, and for cheaper as well.
A.R.E.S. tries very hard to accommodate all the nostalgia of the past glory years of 2D platform shooting, however, there's a reason why games of the past have done this so well that they become legends, they focused on what was core to the gamer's enjoyment and left out all the other "fluff" that would not do the game justice. For $14.99 ($15) A.R.E.S. is a game that is for suckers who want a chance to relive some of the glory of old, however, if that is what you are looking for, then consider other options that would not only save you money in your wallet but give you far better enjoyment that this.
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
For those of us who don't consider an original Xbox console to be an antique relic of a distant, long forgotten gaming age, there is a good chance you grew up loving the invented characters from pens of Eastman and Laird called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If, by some chance, you happen to have lived on another planet or haven't been born yet, the premise of TMNT is fairly straightforward; There are four turtle brothers named Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. These four turtles came into contact with green ooze which mutated them into life sized characters. These brothers were cared for by a rat named Splinter who (according to the purists of the story) became their ninja sensei and taught them everything he learned while watching his owner and ninja master, Hamato Yoshi. It's through Splinter's teachings that these brothers learned about the harmony of life, the secrets of mastering the art of Ninja, and the bond that forms through brotherhood. During the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade, gamers around the globe waited patiently to get their hands on this latest turtle adventure: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. The time has come for the turtles to arise once again, but is this latest release a knockout blow, or does it get shell shocked to the discard pile. Let's find out.Starting the game is quite possibly the best moment if you are a TMNT fan as you hear the sample from the iconic song T-U-R-T-L-E POWER booming over your speakers. If you're a fan of TMNT, then I'm sorry to say that this will probably be the highlight of your gaming experience. After that everything pretty much doesn't go downhill, but rather in an orbital free fall decent without any form of recovery. This will lead to complete amazement as you shake your head in disbelief, then feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and depression when you realize that your hopes and dreams have been utterly demonized, set on fire, demolished and then the remains blown into atoms. This is honestly where the review could end, however, there is so much going against this game that it's our duty to relay all of this agony to you our dear reader. Got all your affairs in order? Here we go.
To start things off the story is incredibly short and relies on your turtle running through various levels beating the ever loving crap out of anything that isn't a turtle. While the gameplay overview is fairly straight forward, there is barely anything at all redeeming about it. Ninjas were supposed to be renowned for their ability to move quickly, silently, and their movements would flow like the wind. In this TMNT game the characters do move quickly and silently, but instead of flowing like the wind, it feels more like a chaotic and psychotic explosion. This is caused by one of the worst cameras available in a game. The only quality that could be considered good about the camera system is that it gives other developers a brilliant and shining example of what not to do. While you're running around fighting everyone, you will also notice that there is no mini map or objective marker anywhere on the screen. So ultimately what ends up happening is that you go looking for the next batch of guys to beat up because you realize that you haven't been in this part of the level before.
Now that we have established that the best way to navigate the levels is to go looking for fights, how does this latest TMNT game stack up when it comes to combat? When you factor in that this TMNT game is supposed to have a combat system similar to the new Batman games, you automatically you start to think, "**** YEAH, THIS IS THE NINJA TURTLES GAME I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!" Then you play the game and realize that this combat system is lackluster at best and feels very distant to what was originally hyped up. You do have your attacks and counter moves, however the execution of these moves don't have the razor precision of a ninja sword, but more like the cumbersome force of a wrecking ball. Sure you can do online co-op with three other friends, but honestly, if your friends want to play co-op TMNT, there are much better games to play.
So far we have touched on how the overall gameplay mechanics make the game about as enjoyable as cliff diving in the desert, but if you thought all this misery was at an end, we're sorry to disrupt the years, the characters of TMNT have undergone some dramatic artistic changes that either have you in pure bliss, or uncompromising misery. This time around the characters are based off the new Nickelodeon cartoon show, or at least that is what's supposed to be the case. What we actually find in this latest TMNT game is more of a genetics experiment where the outcome isn't what you hoped it would be. Somehow Red Fly Studio managed to create a character that looks as though an elephant mated with a turtle to produce either an Elepurtle or a Turtlephant. A true genetics masterpiece, however, the end product reminds me of the "kill me" scene in Aliens. The comic style screens between levels and important moments do pay homage to the origin of TMNT, but outside of that, Out of the Shadows looks like it should go back and hide.
There are some factors though from the RPG realm and that is in the form of character upgrades. Instead of training for years to perfect your ninja form, just beat up enough people and earn experience to level up and gain a character point. Using these points will allow you to unlock new combos that you use and even upgrade your weapon. While this feature does the job, it would have been a nice to include more depth to it, as opposed to its very basic and minimal aspects. Even this small amount of ingenuity can't help the demise of this TMNT game. Oh and we almost forgot, this incredible steaming pile can be yours for the low price of $15. There are retail titles out there right now that cost less than $15 and give you a far better experience, furthermore, there are TMNT arcade games that are better and are cheaper as well. Why would anyone spend $15 on this disaster? Maybe that’s a long lost ninja secret.
Suggestions: A quick checklist for any future TMNT games:
1) Story - longer, more dramatic, meaningful.
2) Camera - not as twitchy and more refined.
3) Gameplay - simplify and perfect.
4) RPG system - give more substance and depth.
5) Artwork - look to the past to give solid ground.
Overall Score: 3.0 / 10
Grand Theft Auto V
The time has finally arrived. After over half a decade of waiting patiently we finally get to dive back into the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto, only this time Rockstar Games has set their sights on making the biggest and most in depth gaming experience of our lives, and you know what? They succeeded. Normally when games take over five years to produce, that prompts warning bells to go off as there isn't a great history with long development times equating to a top quality game. This is Rockstar though, and Grand Theft Auto V is like the back handed slap across the face of those who doubted and the kick in the junk to all those who said it couldn't be done. Quality over quantity is the theology with Rockstar and throughout this review you will see why Grand Theft Auto V is one of the best games available on the Xbox 360.To kick things off, we have to talk about the environment. Historically speaking, Grand Theft Auto games always strive to provide a wide open sandbox world for you to explore. While Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was a mammoth place of exploration, gamers felt that GTA IV was a step back in the wrong direction because many felt that the world wasn't big enough and lacked the quality that the GTA games have been known for. Not this time though. The city that GTA V is based in is called Los Santos, and there's really only two words that can describe it, f***ing massive. Imagine a city set in the state of San Andreas and combine that with the area of another fantastic Rockstar game, Red Dead Redemption and put it all together, bring it all to life and there you have the setting for the biggest game Rockstar has ever made. With such an open playground at your disposal, Rockstar has gone to extensive lengths to provide plenty of diverse areas to explore. Areas such as ghetto development properties, industrial construction zones, vibrant downtown metropolitan areas, and even mountainous wilderness zones complete with mountain lions, deer and more are just some of the wide variety of territory that you can explore on your quest to rise to the top with your eyes on the prize.
Speaking of quests though, there are tons of them. Over five hundred (500) to be exact. Actions ranging from riding a gondola up the side of a mountain, to watching TV, going to see a movie, and other risqué adventures wait inside the world of GTA V. While there are a bunch of nonviolent, "PG" and "PG-13" style events to go through, such as playing Tennis, or walking your dog, Grand Theft Auto V wouldn't be what it is without a huge amount of "Adult" content. Strip clubs, prostitutes, drug labs, armored bank trucks and more abound throughout Los Santos and will offer you a chance to not only get paid but also gain character bonuses as well. It's this wide array of varying events that help bring the entire experience to life. When you also take into account all of the "random events" that take place that allow you to interact with other NPCs, there always seems to be something or someone to do, every time you pick up and play Grand Theft Auto V. All of these experiences though are not played through just one character, but a total of three (Franklin, Michael, and Trevor), and all these experiences differ between characters so in essence you have three different playable characters and each of them have their own "world" that they live in.
These characters are controlled via 3rd person perspective and what we've come to love and expect from a Grand Theft Auto game has been improved upon. Your cellphone is back and it's through this device where you get your quick save option, emails, text messages, contact lists, etc. While the controls of Grand Theft Auto allow you to do some amazing things, you can't help but wonder if Rockstar Games has gone a bit overboard with trying to fit too much onto just one Xbox 360 controller? Multiple buttons do different things depending on the situation and in order to access these "secondary" functions requires you to almost detach yourself from the gameplay to give the game time to load up and perform these other actions. Of course you can still do things like run, jump, swing your fits, shoot people, but actions like climbing for instance feels still a bit unpolished and yes there are times when the play control feels cumbersome and when this happens in a gun fight, good f***ing luck chuck. It almost feels as though Grand Theft Auto V would benefit from less complex controls and more streamlined ones instead. As each character has individual events, so is the case with the development of skills and attributes.
Stamina, strength and more are the types of character traits you can increase throughout the game by performing various deeds. For instance if you want your stamina to increase, then go for runs instead of driving. This will naturally build up over time and when further developed will allow you to sprint for much longer distances without getting winded. Each character also has a special ability such as slowing down time, increasing damage dealt and more and it's these special abilities that can turn the tide of war in your favor that is unless you forgot to bring a bigger gun to the fight.
Not to worry though, as sprawled throughout the massive city of Los Santos though are many stores that you can go to improve various items in your character's life. There are barber shops where you can change your hairstyle, auto repair businesses where you can not only repaint your vehicle, but upgrade it in many different aspects to create a truly unique and original ride, and even gun shops where you can purchase different types of weaponry, ammo, and upgrades as well. With so much customization available to the players, Grand Theft Auto V goes above and beyond anything that we have ever experienced before and that is thanks to a very in-depth character experience and expansive customization options. All of this adds to the overall beauty of GTA V which is eye popping gorgeous. Watching the sunset over the water as you climb high into the mountains is breathtaking and when you see the sun finally going down and the city turn on its lights, the whole downtown area looks like multi colored diamonds shining against a star filled night. Textures from the environment to the characters are done with such high attention to detail, you can really see the five years of development that were poured into this game. However, what is the fun of exploring all of this beauty if you don't have any tunes to listen to along the way? It's cool; Rockstar has you covered there as well.
Normally throughout the past GTA games we were limited to less than a handful of radio stations to listen to in our cars and each station had a very limited amount of songs to listen to. In Grand Theft Auto V however, Rockstar Games has put more effort than ever before into the sounds and soundtrack. With over 10 radio stations to choose from which range from country and electronic pop, to classic west coast rap and classic rock, Grand Theft Auto V sports over 200 licensed songs to listen to which range from Queen, Phil Collins, and Johnny Cash, to artists like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Too Short, and more. Just the soundtrack alone is enough to fill over 10 CD's and that is just the beginning. All throughout Los Santos you will hear conversations between various NPC's which always feel fresh instead of recycled so every time you explore the city you get a feeling that it's a brand new day, instead of listening to the same thing repeated from different characters. When you take into account all of this massive audio innovation combined with the main story script, what you have is one of the best sounding Xbox 360 games ever created.
Now as you're reading this you're probably going to have many friends that purchased this stellar title as well and because of that Rockstar games has put forth a hefty multiplayer system. Now you can join 15 other gamers in incredibly large 16 player activities. Jobs such as street racing and bank heists are just some of the things available as you get to venture around a duplicate setting of Los Santos. There are other gametypes as well to select from including Team Deathmatch but that is included in the competitive multiplayer which allows you to become part of a crew. This feature was also found on Max Payne 3 but now allows you to either create your own crew, or be a member of up to five other crews to compete competitively. If you do well and win your multiplayer sessions then you earn experience which allows your character to level up and improve their skills and abilities. One innovation that Rockstar included was to allow gamers to carry over their crews from the multiplayer mode of Max Payne 3 to Grand Theft Auto Online thanks to the synchronization of the Rockstar Games Social Club. This feature though will launch on October 1st, 2013 and will have full support from Rockstar going forward, so time to lock and load and prep for war!
Easily one of the most anticipated games of the past half-decade, Grand Theft Auto V provides a gaming experience that is second to none. Making a game that will keep you entertained for months and years to come is a challenge that many developers fail to overcome, but not Rockstar. They have poured blood, sweat, and tears into this game and it shows in every second and around every turn. The last Grand Theft Auto game set a Guinness World Record and make no mistake, Grand Theft Auto V is designed to smash the records and be one of the bestselling video games of all time. Did you manage to grab your copy on launch day? Don't say we didn't warn you if you decided to wait and can't find a copy available. With all the top quality content provided, Grand Theft Auto V is without question the new standard of excellence when it comes to sandbox game development. When you think brilliance, think Rockstar games. When you think quality, think Rockstar games. When you think of some of the biggest and greatest video game experiences available, think Rockstar Games.
Overall Score: 9.8 / 10
Payday 2
Have you ever heard the phrase "crime doesn't pay"? Well apparently no one at 505 games has heard of that when they created Payday 2. From the same company that brought you Brothers: A tale of two sons and Terraria comes a release where the goal is simple; commit crimes, shoot cops, and repeat the process over and over again. Payday 2 is about you taking control of one of four gang members and going through the city pulling off various criminal activities. These range from making and distributing narcotics, holding up banks, robbing jewelry stores and more. Priced at $39.99, 505 Games is trying hard to bring you deep into the criminal underworld. The only real question is does Payday 2 make off with your hard earned loot, or does it get nailed by the cops and hauled away to jail? Don your mask, load your guns, and get the engine started because our XboxAddict review starts right now.The premise of Payday 2 is quite simple. An unknown person named Bain sends your crew out on various jobs to get paid and perform certain tasks. This is very simplistic; however, it's the execution of this entire game that brings whatever promise of a quality title, crashing through the skylight with the subtlety of a stick of dynamite. Being that Payday 2 is a first person shooter, we're positive that if we asked you what a good first person shooter game is, none of you would say Payday 2. This unfortunate situation is caused by a control scheme that tries hard but ends up being very clunky and unresponsive. We're sorry but how hard is it to come up with a responsive control layout? Call of Duty does it every year, and so does Battlefield and Halo, but does Payday 2 manage it? Absolutely not. It's especially sad when you factor in the computer controlled AI because they are about as useful as a blind seeing eye dog. They may take down a few law enforcement officers and even revive you from time to time, however, if you think you can take them into more elaborate missions, think again.
This forces you to take part in multiplayer, however, while there are some good sides to it, there's always the other side of the coin to contend with. Playing multiplayer allows you to combine and discuss strategy of the task at hand with other players. Using different skills and abilities (which we'll get into later) your goal is to try and scope the area to figure out the best way in and the best way out. This is truly the best way to play the game; however, like we said earlier, there is a flip side to the coin. Payday 2 offers up a great deal of randomness with each and every mission which means that guards may be in different places, doors may be opened that were once closed, security cameras may be installed in new locations, etc. This randomness means that your crew will constantly have to adapt their plans in order to have any success during the crime. This is especially difficult to do if you have random people in your game who aren't talking or just want to run in guns blazing.
Without a doubt the hardest thing to do in any criminal activity is to complete the job without the cops being called in. This holds very true in Payday 2 as being detected can be done just as easy outside your mark as inside. Simply putting on your mask outside and having a pedestrian watch you do this will arouse suspicion and then they will make a phone call to the police and even before you set foot inside, the cops are on their way. If that tends to be the case then you can find both solace and frustration with Payday 2. For instance, you can find walls that you can warp through but so can the cops. Another example of the flaws of the game is watching hostages or police sink through the floor only to pop up near you and unload a boat load of ammunition into you. While there are things you can do to try and hold off the oncoming assault, a lot of these bugs and glitches provide you with more and more frustration than enjoyment.
The bugs don't stop there however because graphically Payday 2 has more bugs than a roach motel. Walking around your environment will showcase a lot of the faults with Payday 2 in the graphics department. Walls will almost scan into place; you can witness cops and civilians walking on air, and more. These bugs would be tolerable if the outlying character models were more polished and looked better, but that's not the case here. It's been a long time since we've seen such a late stage game bring forth such watered down and weak graphics on the Xbox 360. The pain that Payday 2 suffers graphically can also be applied to the soundtrack as a one-two combination that knocks this game right on its heels. A very energetic but boring soundtrack, Payday 2 offers very little outside of hearing looped sounds play over and over and over again. We are so very thankful that the Xbox 360 allows for custom soundtracks during gameplay, and so will you.
There is though a bright spot in Payday 2 and that involves your different skill trees. Apparently you don't start out as a criminal bad@$$; however by leveling your character up in various skill trees allows you to upgrade your abilities and even unlock new items such as sentry guns, hacking tools, and more. While the upgrading character tree is a welcomed feature in Payday 2, the reward system at the end of each mission is not. If you were looking to acquire a new suppressor or accessory to a gun, (not your gun, but any gun) you have a 1 in 3 chance of obtaining something random. While this forces the replay value, it does make you wonder why would you want to keep playing this less than mediocre game just to obtain one weapon add on?
Ultimately in the end, Payday 2 tries hard to make a fun and enjoyable criminal experience; however, it is plagued with too many faults and bugs to make it worth the $39.99 price tag. On other platforms such as the PS3 and PC, Payday 2 has received some tlc to help improve the gameplay and fix some of these issues, however, the Xbox 360 version seems to have gotten the cold shoulder treatment. If you decide to pick this game up, and deal with all the glitches, bugs, imperfections, and frustrations, then go through the Xbox Live Games On Demand section as the asking price is $34.99. It can be said without question that the biggest crime of Payday 2 is trying to coax you to spend over $30. Instead of falling prey to this crime, why not wait a couple weeks, spends a few dollars more and enjoy a different crime game called Grand Theft Auto?
Suggestions: Here are a few short tips if there should ever be a Payday 3.
1) Improve gameplay mechanics so they feel responsive
2) Do away with the random loot choice at the end of missions.
3) Spend extra time polishing the game and removing bugs and glitches.
4) Improve AI so they actually have a use.
5) Improve the graphics and soundtrack as well.
Overall Score: 6.6 / 10
Diablo 3
For decades the Diablo games have been exclusive to the PC platform. This has always been a source of tension between gamers as those on their consoles felt neglected and ignored by Blizzard. Not any more though. Recently, Blizzard has finally granted the wishes and answered the prayers of millions of gamers around the globe by bringing Diablo 3 home to the Xbox 360.Originally launched on the PC platform, Blizzard has had a challenging time trying to convert the game from keyboard and mouse to dual thumbstick controllers. The interface as well had to be adapted for console users, and all of this and more had to be polished and perfected if the transition were to be a success. So, has Blizzard vanquished the demons of hell back into their abyss, or has the challenge of converting an iconic PC game series proven to be the games own demise? The gate of hell hath opened once again, and hell hath no fury like Diablo 3.
While managing the plot was relatively an easy task to do, the entire gameplay mechanics of Diablo 3 were a much different story. Starting off Diablo 3 will allow you to play offline instead of requiring an always online connection, but that is just one grain of sand in a desert. To truly overcome this monumental obstacle, Blizzard has decided to do two things: 1) keep it simple, and 2) keep it streamlined.
This innovative thinking is the driving force behind the smooth user interface and allows for a perfect transition from PC to console gaming. To access your characters inventory, skills, and more all you need to do is press one button and a radial menu system pops up where you can designate what items you want to equip, what spells you wish to use, and more. Your gear is still ranked via different colors and effects, but with the simple press of the X button you can compare newly acquired pieces of gear and weapons to what you already have equipped. There is also an option where you can "auto equip" weapons and armor however, that becomes rather moot when you factor in the crafting of your own gear in this game.
There is also an inclusion from the PC called "Elective Mode" where you are able to map any power to any button so you can start to customize how you want to play the game. Using the left thumbstick to move, your right thumbstick plays the role of your dodge move where you can press it in eight different directions to avoid enemy attacks at will which helps you keep out of danger while maintaining your attacks and thanks to a lock on system, deliver them with pinpoint accuracy. It can be said that without a doubt Diablo 3 on the Xbox 360 provides one of the best game play mechanics we have seen on a console to date.
All of this talk about weapons, armor, and other gear is the result of Diablo 3's strong loot system. We discover that the gear that is dropped will be slightly more suited for your character, which may not be so good if you're looking for gear for a friend, but really good for your own character. To hold all this loot we are now given 60 item slots and with a more uniformed storage system, the focus shifts less towards the weight carried and instead on hunting for rare and more powerful loot.
When you manage to find some new gear it will appear as starred in your inventory and if the new item provides you with increased stats in any field, you will see up and down arrows indicating the increase or decrease of your character's stats based off that item. Even though you can go through Diablo 3 on your own, the real fun is when you get a group of people hell bent on vanquishing demons and collecting rare loot and that is thanks to the brilliant multiplayer system.
Diablo 3 on the Xbox 360 supports both two to four local co-op and two to four online co-op as well. So, now instead of your friends coming over all the time and eating all your food, drinking all your drinks, you can enjoy four player co-op from the solitude of your very own couch. If you do decide to have friends over, you will find that the screen is locked so that all four players are on the screen at the same time, and if someone should happen to venture off from the group, they are teleported back to where player one is located. This is essential to keeping the pace of the game moving forward. All of this multiplayer perfection is also easy to customize so creating a private, public, or party match can be done with tremendous ease. Diablo 3 for the Xbox 360 is a perfect example of how multiplayer should be done.
Even though Diablo 3 on the Xbox 360 is an amazing title, there is though one area where the PC world will always dominate, and that are the graphics. Now consenting that a PC rig will always dominate the console markets in the graphics field, the Xbox 360 does hold its own and only suffers based off of local co-op play. When you have four characters locally on one screen and the action heats up you can see a slight drop in frame rate, however, the game feels smooth as silk when you are online.
When running at 1080p, the lighting looks absolutely amazing and there are only a few hiccups in the graphics department, but when you are running at 30fps, your eyes will thank you. Thankfully this graphical adaptation also means that the haunting score of Diablo 3 makes another triumphant showcase. Not too many gamers will invest many hundreds of dollars in a sound system for their PC, however, if you have an Xbox 360 hooked up to your TV, then there's a good chance you either enjoy listening to your games via a high end headset or home theater system which ultimately is the way you want to hear Diablo 3.
When it comes to dungeon crawling, loot collecting, boss killing action, there are few titles that can stand up to the Diablo games. Blizzard though has gone above and beyond expectations to deliver a final product that will literally drain hundreds of hours of your life away. We said it before that Diablo 3 was one of the best gaming experiences found on the PC, and now we can say that Blizzard has produced one of the greatest gaming experiences found on the Xbox 360. The question isn't, "should I pick up and play Diablo 3?", instead the question is "what could possibly be the reason to ever stop playing?" Make no mistake, there's a special place in hell for those who pass on Diablo 3.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
In the video game world there are very few times when someone from another entertainment medium can bring together elements from outside the gaming world to produce something that will captivate audiences around the globe. Sure there are games that sell hundreds of millions of copies where you run around and shoot other people, but rarely does a game tap into the most powerful emotion we humans known to exist, love. Starbreeze Studios has worked alongside an award winning Swedish film director Josef Fares to bring you a tale of just how dark the path of unconditional love can be. This innovative tale is priced at 1200 MS points ($15) which is steep when it comes to an Xbox Live Arcade game, and 505 Games publishing it means that there isn't a pedigree of past quality games that will lead you to expect this to be a must have purchase. That our dear readers is where you would be terribly mistaken as Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons could easily be considered the best title 505 Games has ever published. How can we say that? Read on.All video games on this planet try to do one thing and one thing only, make a connection to the player that will allow them to not only enjoy the game they are playing, but to also keep them coming back for more. Some games accomplish this by allowing you to shoot people hundreds of thousands of times in intense combat while others accomplish this by bringing you the most stunning graphics or breathtaking music. However, a very slight few actually accomplish this tremendous feat through the power of emotion. When we as gamers can relate on an emotional level in any degree, we become hooked on the game. Anger, love, frustration, bliss, and more are all emotions that all of us feel throughout our days and it's this emotional bond that makes Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons so powerful. Starting out by witnessing a catastrophic and unbelievably heart breaking event, you quickly realize that the darkness is not through with you yet. Now, united through this journey, these two brothers set off on a quest for salvation of their father and must rely on their love for their father and each other to see this quest through to the end.
Already the tone of the story is dark; however, it's through this feeling of love for your family that will forever triumph. From the very beginning you are now in control of both brothers. The older brother is controlled through the left thumbstick and the younger brother via the right. The control scheme doesn't stop the division there as the left trigger is the action button for the older brother and the right trigger is, yep you guessed it, the action button for the younger brother. The gameplay mechanics on the surface appear to be very straightforward and simplistic to use, however, you quickly become aware of just how clunky and clumsy controlling two separate characters at the same time can actually be. Finding yourself focusing on one brother while ignoring the other is very common and even though this innovative control layout, you get the feeling that you could do more if you had focused on one brother at a time and then switched between brothers as needed. This fault though is only magnified when you realize that each brother has an individual response to certain instances throughout the lands. The reason it falters more is due to the meaningless execution of these actions. There doesn't seem to feel any sort of "reward or punishment" system established thus creating a void of emotion in a game which is supposed to be focused on that particular thing. One time I took a ball from a little boy who was playing with it and threw it down a well causing the boy to continuously sob his heart out. Did I get punished for this in any way? Not one bit.
That’s not to say though you won't enjoy your quest from start to finish. Each area has some spectacular views that provide beauty at almost every turn. Striking mountains that climb high into the skies above, the rays of sunlight that strike through the clouds onto a watery pond, or even the darkness of night are perfect examples of why this game is a short but beautiful game. Even the musical score of the game dramatically shifts depending upon the upcoming moods. What was tranquil and peaceful can become eerie and dark as the mood shifts just as quickly in the game. There are a few issues though with the sound and that comes in the form of character dialogue. There isn't any. Instead you get Sims style gibberish and vague clues as to where you need to go and what you need to do. There isn't even an option to turn on subtitles, which we reckon is pointless given that there aren't any words to begin with. This is where Brothers could have done better even with just a box of text that could be scrolled through. This lack of spoken word could play a role in another fault with this game and that are the puzzles themselves.
Fairly simplistic would be the Disney term for it as you find yourself struggling to maintain control over both brothers. Increasingly frustrating rapidly becomes the growing trend which is why we believe the puzzles themselves are so simplistic. Trying to complete very complex and challenging puzzles while splitting your focus simultaneously is a quality not many gamers have. This is quite depressing actually as you feel that there is so much more that could be done had there been changes in the gameplay mechanics from the beginning. So while there are some good points and some bad ones as well, we haven't touched on the biggest blemish of them all. The complete absence of any form of multiplayer gameplay.
When you base a game where you control more than one person at the same time, the simple act of having someone else play in your game with you becomes sort of paramount. There have been plenty of blockbuster titles and even budget games that have managed this idea with great success, but sadly not in this game. With so much potential and influence to draw upon, who in their right mind thought that the way to go was to make a game where you have two main characters, yet no one can play with you?
Overall 505 Games has a hit on their hands with Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons, however, not a masterpiece. While 1200 MS points is very pricey for an Xbox Live Arcade game, Brothers has too many faults to warrant a pickup at that price. Yes the game does offer some innovative features, but ultimately the faults hold this game back from becoming something astounding. If the game goes on sale for say, 800 MS points, then sure pick it up. However, for a short game that has many faults at its core, it's better for you to save your 1200 MS points ($15) for something else.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Mars: War Logs
During the summer months, many gamers find that the "drought" of quality retail titles allows for surprise quality titles on the Xbox Live Arcade. MARS: War Logs is one such title that aims to separate you from your 1200 MS points ($15) and provide a fantastic RPG experience. Developed by Spider Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive, MARS: War Logs tells the tale of a man who is a prisoner in a POW camp named Roy. Roy's story is mostly a mystery at first but he befriends another inmate who became a recent resident named Innocence Smith. So now that we have the beginning established, let's peel back more layers of this game and see if this game truly warrants the $15 (1200 MS price point).MARS: War Logs' story tries to deliver a top quality RPG story with elements and ingredients of character development and morality scattered throughout and a dash of combat skills to bring gamers around the globe a truly amazing experience. On the surface this game has all the right ingredients, sadly though the execution is one of a sous chef instead of a master chef. For starters the story of MARS: War Logs attempts to be detailed with a morality angle embedded within, however as you progress through the story you will find multiple faults. There seems to be little to no emotional build of the characters and other NPCs so where the story should seem meaningful, it unfortunately though ends up being very watered down, thin, and lifeless. There are moments of what could be considered emotional investments, but those moments are few and far between and when they finally arrive, you have already trudged through a very dull story with no emotional stake in what happens next.
Along with the transparent thin story is the inclusion of morality. Certain actions and responses in dialogues will either increase or decrease your reputation. If this aspect sounds familiar you probably have experienced this already in games such as Fallout and more. The difference here is that morality is somewhat nonexistent in the game itself. It's entirely possible to kill multiple people and not have any damage done to your "reputation", thus making you wonder, why would this be included at all? Sure there are character bonuses that come with different reputation levels but the pointlessness of having to work with a broken system leaves you with a sense of irritability. If the main story lacked any soul at all, the side quests as well offer very little outside of something to do to kill a few hours out of your life. This is a major disappointment because there are several successful titles that utilize these factors into a fantastic gaming adventure of your own control, and it appears that none of them were used for any sort of inspiration when this game was being made. Is it really that difficult? It's like trying to reinvent the wheel by making it square.
Things go from bad to worse when it comes to MARS: War Logs. Given that RPG titles strive to be lengthy in content, to give tremendous value for dollar to the gamers, the control layout of the game becomes critical because honestly, who wants to play a game for 30-80+ hours with horrendous gaming mechanics? Apparently Spider Studios does want exactly that. While the 3rd person maneuverability is good, the camera system isn't. Yes another game has fallen victim to the dreaded camera bug. This becomes increasingly annoying when you manage to get into combat, which by the way happens a lot. Combat in this game gives you two options.
1) Use a free camera to maneuver through the fight and focus on multiple enemies.
Or
2) Use the lock on feature and keep the screen locked on one particular enemy and thus narrowing your field of view?
Now here is where it gets really bad. If you decide to use the free camera system you will find it is very clunky and will ultimately become your primary focus instead of the fight itself. If you decide to lock onto an enemy you will often find yourself getting the back of your skull bashed out by an enemy you didn't see because they were attacking behind you. With other top tier 3rd person RPG games managing this problem, we find ourselves shaking our heads wondering just what they were thinking when they looked at this broken pile, gave it the thumbs up and said "yes this is what we want to release".
Given that this game is supposedly set on the planet Mars, get ready to become a fan of the color red. Every shade, every tone, and even some of the blacks in the game, are really (we suspect) even darker shades of red as well. There are structures as well, but the metal has tints of what color? Yup, red. This tends to make the game incredibly boring to watch and even when you find observation points, the scenery seems to all blur together into something similar around every corner and through every door. With very little variety, don't expect vast and varying lands to explore, instead tons of red rocks, red ground, red sun, and more red everything else. The funny thing is that normally when a game is taking this much of a beating it tries hard to pull something back to make a big impact and normally that would be in the audio department. This is completely untrue for this game as well. The voice acting is good in some very rare points, but ultimately horrible in almost every other instance. Nothing breathtaking either when it comes to sound effects, or the soundtrack for that matter. It's a shame to because now it seems like the game has given up and is just waiting to be put out of its misery. Let's give them what they want.
When you think of what you can buy today for $15 you want value for dollar. Buying a Fallout game for $9.99 is a deal because you know you'll get a fantastic experience that will last for well over 80+ hours and deliver a top quality product. For $15 Spider Studios is giving you poor control layout with a God awful combat system, a short and meaningless story with mundane side quests that serve little to no purpose, graphics and sound that feel like a step backwards and very unpolished, and an overall dirty feeling that you have just been violated through your wallet. There are other aspects such as character development and item crafting, but those are also so underdeveloped that it really doesn't bear any weight to help the game climb out of the grave. R.I.P. MARS: War Logs, we will be saving our $15.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Remember Me
When you think of every person on earth, each of us has an individual fingerprint, each of us has individual eyes, and each of us has individual memories. How we perceive events throughout our lives is as singular as our fingerprints. But now in Neo-Paris in the near future, these memories of ours have become digitized. While on the outside you bear witness to the elderly reliving some of their most cherished moments in time; families reminiscing about births of children, graduations, and more. “Wonderful moments which can be recalled upon demand and digitally fed into our minds to enjoy” is the line we are fed, however not all memories are nice ones and on the surface everything may look enticing, but underneath is another story all together.The memories of some of the most powerful and influential people on earth would be all that is needed to shift global power in favor of one who combines this knowledge with their own. Welcome to Neo-Paris and the futuristic world of Remember Me.
In an iconic setting of the wealthy vs. poor, you see the upper-class seemingly brainwashed into mindlessly supporting this false utopia while those who have lost everything become ghoulish memory hunting creatures that were deemed unworthy to live above and therefore cast down into the sewers and surrounding areas outside of Neo-Paris.
In the beginning we find Nilin (who apparently is the best memory hunter in the world) fighting for her life during a memory format procedure, and it's through this struggle that we learn more of her past and thus why she was there to begin with. The overall story of Remember Me is one that will bring enjoyment but the main innovation that sets this game apart are the memory remixes. This feature will allow you to enter a target's mind and not only relive the memory as it originally is, but rewind and most importantly, alter the memory to produce different outcomes. This is not only the source of a great strength but great weakness as you realize that these moments do not happen nearly enough and while they are brilliant moments to go through, they just don't happen enough which gets you punched in the stomach because now you have to contend with another big problem of Remember Me and that are the controls.
When you maneuver your way through Neo-Paris and the slums below, the gameplay (which includes camera controls) are not the best in the world and often will cause more stress and confusion than simplicity and effectiveness. Wandering across ledges, pipes, and other climbable elements is very responsive, fluid and easy to use. If you find yourself on the ground however, and in combat, then you come face to face with the combat system and when combined with the gameplay brings the entire game down. Remember Me does allow you to customize your combos to produce different bonus results with each individual strike, and this is achieved through what are known as Pressens.
There are four Pressen categories: Damage, Regeneration, Recharge, and a multiplier. Each Pressen category has multiple X and Y buttons which are unlocked and placed within the combos and the further into the combo a Pressen is placed, the more impact that Pressen provides. As you go through combat Nilin will naturally level up allowing you to unlock more Pressens and even longer combinations to either create more damage or heal large chunks of health right in the middle of battle. While this provides some interaction into what could be characterized is a very simplistic combat system, there are games, such as Batman Arkham City, that provide identical combat but on a more polished level. This lack in the combat system weighs heavy against it considering most of the time you are pressing the X or Y button and occasionally the A button.
Nilin not only remembers more Pressens and combinations as she levels up through the game, but she also remembers the very powerful S-Pressens. When Nilin breaks into this form her true potential is unlocked and depending on what S-Pressen you select, incredibly powerful, yet very temporary bonuses are granted to Nilin. Powers such as enhanced strength and uncovering the invisible are just a couple of these amazing powers at Nilin's disposal. There is one item though that makes Nilin a force to be reckoned with and that is her gauntlet. It's through this tool that Nilin gains the ability to hunt and remix memories and also interact with her environment as well. This gauntlet can be upgraded to interact with items such as locks, electrical switches, and can even destroy weak structural areas. While this aspect does make the game more enjoyable, it's almost too little too late.
Even though there are gameplay issues that hinder Remember Me, there are some beautiful areas of Neo-Paris that are truly a sight to behold. Remember Me does a great job showcasing the differences between the "haves" and the "have not’s" and even though the character modeling is somewhat good, the scenery around you is better. The only major graphic downfall of Remember Me is the fact that most of the time the levels feel very linear and only seem to push you into an open environment where either a boss fight occurs or a mob of enemy Leapers. There really isn't much in terms of exploration or interaction and that's a pity because this world has so much to offer. This graphic prowess is complimented by a surprisingly good soundtrack that offers climactic scores of sweeping orchestral music during intense moments of combat and drama and peaceful and tranquil harmonies while you are exploring what you are able to of this future society.
Remember Me is a game that had the potential to be incredible but ended up being marginally good instead. There are some amazing moments that will bring smiles to your face, the amount of negatives and inconsistencies hit far too hard and far too often. While the story and premise of Remember Me is generally good, it's sad to say, but if there were a more precise and polished combat system that we find in other games out there, then that would go a long way to improving the quality of Remember me. Ultimately is Remember Me worth a day one $60 price point? Unfortunately no. Is Remember Me worth an improved upon sequel? Without a doubt. Hopefully Dontnod has learned from this release and take feedback back to the drawing board and create an improved Remember Me 2. If that does happen, it will truly be a game to remember.
Suggestions: Please improve upon the gameplay mechanics (which include combat and camera controls) and you will be well on your way to a great sequel.
Overall Score: 7.2 / 10
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
When you think of settings that would make a great video game, one of the time periods that always find its way near the top is the old west. Days of stagecoach robbing, horse riding, gun dueling, bank robbing and more all provide our imaginations a taste of what life would actually be like in the Wild West. Like a classic western showdown, there have been games that hit their target with pinpoint precision and those who have missed so wildly that their demise isn't a question of "if" but "when". Now enter Techland who has been responsible for the western franchise Call of Juarez. This series has had a rocky history from the beginning but if Call of Juarez wasn't playing second fiddle to Red Dead Redemption, it was pushing up daises with their most recent retail release Call of Juarez: The Cartel. Seeing this backward trend starting to form, Techland very wisely decided to take gamers back to the roots of the series by releasing Call of Juarez: Gunslinger on the Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 MSP ($15). So does this new fps western game dominate the Wild West and ride off into the sunset in a blaze of glory, or does it loose its grip on its gun and get mowed down into a grave of mediocrity? Grab your spurs because it's time to find out.One of the key features in any Wild West game that must hit its mark is the story behind it. Stories of this day and age are filled with legendary tales of mammoth gun battles, wild fist throwing brawls, rebel gangs without a care, and the iron clad lawmen who rule with compassion but enforce with an iron fist. With such a wealth of storytelling at its fingertips Techland has done a great job with Call of Juarez: Gunslinger by delivering a classic old west feel with a hefty amount of classic western celebrity name drops. The story begins with your character Silas Greaves who begins to recount his tales at a saloon to a troop of young'uns who are enthralled by witnessing a legend of the west right before their eyes. This method of storytelling fits perfectly as the backdrop for the various levels you will play through and when you take into account names like Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Pat Garrett and so on, you know that whatever happens, this is going to be one entertaining ride.
As you progress through the numerous levels you will notice that as Silas' years have grown, his memory has been drowned in the bottom of the glass and details remain a bit 'fuzzy'. During these tales you may experience things such as barns materializing out of thin air, bodies dropping out of the sky, trees magically appearing in different colors and so on. This is the game's way of having you experience Silas' stories while adhering to the idea that, like today, people still exaggerated their stories even back in the Wild West. It's times like this when you go from experiencing a few stagecoach robbing bandits to what Silas would call an army of hostile savages with nothing but bloodshed on their minds. While these changes in recollection do tend to slow the pace of the game down at points, it does help you realize that this isn't some Discovery channel biographical portrayal of characters in the wild west, but more of a comical and entertaining story told by an old drunken bad a$$ bounty hunter who has rode with the best and fought the worst.
While you are going through the story Silas will have the opportunity to utilize a varying amount of weapons. Weapons such as ranger pistols, quick draw pistols, sawed off shotguns, long range rifles and even dynamite can be used to unleash the cold steel justice of the west. Being that this is a western fps game, it does go without saying that the levels are fairly linear and when you get the stones to try and wander off, the game gives you a pop up menu warning you that you're breaking off from the story, and if you push it, the game will actually reset you to where you started, thus forcing you to stay on the predetermined path and kill everything on it. There were moments, especially when switching out weapons that are on the ground, where the control scheme doesn't feel as refined and ends up feeling clunky and somewhat unresponsive. This was felt the most in the dueling sections because the aiming circle which you have to line up moves very, very sluggishly and even after you have stopped moving the control stick, the aiming circle continues to move on. This is incredibly frustrating given the fact that your opponent moves both left and right before the draw. When you have less than a second, making sure you're able to hit your target becomes a matter of life and death and when you have a sluggish and unreliable aiming procedure to go through, things can go very, very wrong, very, very fast.
That being said though, the majority of the joy will come when you level up your character and you get the ability to upgrade your stats, learn new abilities, unlock improved weaponry, and eventually become a dominating legend of the old west. If throwing one stick of dynamite doesn't bring a smile to your face, then upgrade the ability and not only can you shoot it out of the air, but you can also split the stick into three parts with your bullets to increase the damage radius and overall lethality.
These gameplay mechanics makes the story sequence of Call of Juarez: Gunslinger a very fun experience, but where the replayability of the game takes shape is in the arcade mode. Think of this mode as going through multiple timed levels where you have to go from point A to point B and kill everything in your path. There is no story to worry about here, the only thing you should be concerned with is creating the largest kill combo streak you can. Taking your time to pick off individual enemies won't net you the coveted three star rating; however, rushing into the fray with guns smoking from the fire will grant you the much needed points. This is where the bulk of your time after the story will be spent as you look for new ways to string larger kill combos and ultimately become the fastest gun in the west. Speaking of that, Gunslinger's weakest mode, by a mile, is the Duel mode. In here you will be able to relive all the classic duels from the single player story and, just like the ones in the story, they will be over in a blink of an eye. The short and sweet of Duel mode is that it's there if you want to practice and perfect your dueling, but outside of that, serves no relevant purpose what so ever.
Even though there may be a few blemishes in the game, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger does pull it off in a beautiful Borderlands-esque, cell shading style that makes the environments around you not only detailed but stunning to behold. Rays of sunlight creeping over the crest of a mountain, cascading through the tall trees and casting shadows all around is just a taste of the visual eye candy that blankets all facets of this game. The same can also be said thankfully for the soundtrack and sounds of Gunslinger. Classic gun sounds blend perfectly with iconic western music to give you a feel that you have immersed yourself back into the year 1910 and go a long way to secure Call of Juarez: Gunslinger as a great western arcade game.
So ultimately has Techland produced a game that delivers an incredible and defining example of quality western video games? Sadly, no. Have they produced a game that blends beautiful linear levels with classic first person shooting action and a fantastic storyline? Undoubtedly yes. While Call of Juarez: Gunslinger won't be a groundbreaking western game, if you think of it in terms of Call of Duty meets Red Dead Redemption, the enjoyment factor is absolutely immense. Priced at 1200 MS points ($15) Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a must have for any western fan, or for any fan of great storytelling and enjoyable games.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Dead Island: Riptide
Would you pay full retail price for what could arguably be considered a massive DLC pack from an already released title? Apparently Deep Silver and Techland think you will. Before we begin hacking our way through Dead Island Riptide, we have to forewarn that the game that was released promised much in the beginning, but then in the end became like an old marriage, where there are many faults, yet you still find enjoyment after all this time. If you approach this game as a direct sequel to the original Dead Island and with a bunch of new innovations that breathe life back into the undead, think again. Does Dead Island Riptide survive the outbreak, or does it succumb to the mindless cannibalism of the undead? Let's find out.For those who have missed out on the original Dead Island, Riptide offers up a gory, survival horror game with various RPG elements scattered about to give what would normally be a very shallow game, some much needed depth. This recipe gives a great foundation for a good game and with the proper execution will deliver a fantastic game. What apparently got missed by the people at Techland is the whole "proper execution" part because Dead Island Riptide suffers from the same faults as the original and adds a lot more to the mix. You would think that the whole idea of a sequel was to improve upon the faults from before so they no longer exist and develop new ways to improve the enjoyment of gameplay from the first to the second game. Unfortunately though, you would be mistaken.
To say the story of Dead Island was less than stellar would be a gentle way of putting it, and the main reason for that are the shallow plot development and the speed of the story itself. In Dead Island Riptide, not only are the plot holes bigger in size with less development, but the story plods along at a snail's pace. Granted the whole premise of Dead Island Riptide is to explore a vast, beautiful island so technically you could pour many hours into exploration before starting off on the main quest, but in the end, you just can't escape the thin veil of what is supposed to pass for a plot. The story begins right when the original game ends and the original immune survivors think they find refuge aboard a naval aircraft carrier, but instead they are now joined by a new character that also appears to be immune to the viral outbreak. During this time on board you are greeted by a man named Serpo who would be considered your initial cliché corporate bad guy and with clouded intentions. An incident occurs aboard the ship and you end up wrecking onto the island of Palanai and now the stage is set for another round of gory zombie killing in paradise, Jimmy Buffet be dammed.
While the premise of the story offers potential, the execution and delivery of the story offer very little in terms of support. This is disappointing given that lessons should have been learned from the original release. This is when the shroud of promises begins to lift and you realize that there's more that went unaltered or even worse, gone backwards. Speaking of which that’s a great way to introduce another, glaring problem, with Dead Island Riptide, and that is the gameplay. Normally for a first person perspective you want controls to be tight, responsive, and most importantly fluid, however none of that is in this game. Instead you are treated to a very clunky, sluggish, floaty, unresponsive control scheme that makes you feel like you are moving by using the force rather than your analog sticks. It almost feels as though the game is second guessing what you want to do. If you are trying to maneuver throughout pathways, or open beaches, it doesn't matter to Dead Island Riptide because the control system almost pauses to think about what you want to do, and then ask you the question "are you sure?" After that is says ok, and allows your character to move, and when you find yourself surrounded by a hungry masses of the undead, the last thing you want is to have your movement compromised in any way, and unfortunately, it is.
Sadly though, this isn't the end of the beating this game is going to take, only this time, the beating comes at the behalf of Dead Island Riptide's greatest strength, the graphics. On the surface the game offers a beautiful rendition of what paradise could actually look like. Amazing lighting effects coming through the lush jungle trees, casting moving individual shadows that coincide with the ever changing environment provide amazing backdrops that you will find yourself pausing to admire the beauty around you. There's more good news as well with the graphics because every gory detail still looks amazing now as it did in the original Dead Island so decapitating numerous zombies never gets old. So you may be wondering what problems exist with the graphics? Well, the fact is that all of this beauty is great, until movement is introduced to the picture. Once that happens all the visual beauty and breathtaking landscapes comes to a crashing halt when the screen not only tears greatly, but slows to a jerky halt and almost will cause the game to crash. Right from the beginning when we had to get off the boat and onto the island, one enemy we killed in the water apparently produced so much lag that the game itself froze for over 10 seconds which caused more enemies to bombard us and with no response to controls, we took a serious beating. This problem though does exist all throughout the game in varying forms of intensity and degree, but most importantly, it never, ever, ever, ever, goes completely away.
With all the beating that Dead Island Riptide has already received, you start to think that Dead Island Riptide is a lost cause, but thanks to the RPG elements you will find yourself loosing hours upon hours of your life as you level up your character to the new level cap of 70. There are other positive notes as well. You have the ability to import your previous Dead Island character into Riptide so your character progression will pick up right where you left it. Fear not though, if you haven't played the original Dead Island because right from the beginning you are catapulted to level 15 and immediately have skill points you can spend on leveling up your character. This feature also bodes well when playing multiplayer because let's say you have a level 55 character but your friend you're playing with is at level 18. The enemies that your friend faces will scale to his level in his game, while the enemies you face will scale to your higher level. This prevents a really strong player from joining and completely overrunning all enemies in their path and creates a balanced challenge that rapidly becomes Riptide's saving grace.
This aspect that we just mentioned is where the core of any amount of goodness can be found within the game. You will find yourself traversing through the island over and over again, even after you beat the game, just trying to level up your character, improve your skills, looting numerous caves, houses, and more, and construct and develop new and brutally lethal weapons. When you tie in the seamless drop in and out aspect of multiplayer that we witnessed before you produce a game that removes a lot of the boredom and tediousness of the game and instead replaces it with a symmetrical balance of action, survival horror, and RPG elements.
Now that we have had our ray of sunshine amidst the nightmare, it's time to come back to reality. Already heralded as a sequel here is a list of what you actually get in terms of new content in Dead Island Riptide:
1) One new character - yup just one new playable character. This feature is normally found on DLC yet apparently is a reason to buy a retail title.
2) New vehicles - so the next big thing is new vehicles to control? Why isn't this DLC? Nothing awe inspiring here.
3) New level cap and weather conditions - Borderlands 2 raised the level cap on their game through DLC for a fraction of a price, but apparently the "new weather conditions" seem to one-up that fact and should be regarded as a reason to purchase a new retail title. Yeah right.
4) Evolved Multiplayer - the saving grace of Dead Island Riptide and as mentioned earlier will be the cause of you loosing mythical hours of sleep.
5) Weapon Proficiency - New RPG elements that allow you to grow in various forms of decapitation and body mutilation. You would naturally think that the more you shoot a gun or wield a melee weapon the more efficient you would be with said weapons.
6) Hub Defense Game Mechanics - While this new addition does add a slight amount of new enjoyment, it pales in comparison to the monumental faults already found in Dead Island Riptide.
So after all of this Deep Silver and Techland think that this warrants a new retail game purchase instead of just releasing this new content as episodic DLC. Sure there are new enemies to contend with which is slight breath of fresh undead air, but you get the sense that the people at Techland were more concerned with generating new enemies than fixing any of the previous faults that you can find blazing throughout the game. There are new vehicles though. We can't seem to comprehend why a company would think that following this path is not only productive, but profitable given that the potential to be a staple in the zombie survival horror genre. There is one new character though. While you will find yourself lost amongst the RPG elements, you will also find yourself struggling to get past the flaws and in the end, will only play this game for short periods of time. If you want a good first person experience where you can kill lots of zombies, look elsewhere. If you want a game that provides a DLC worth of content at retail price that is plagued with numerous faults, we give you Dead Island Riptide.
Suggestions: Improve the gameplay so that it feels more responsive, fluid, and direct. If you're going to do a retail title, then offer the wealth of content found on a new game. Dead Island Riptide feels like everything we do on this new island, we could have done on the last one. Fix issues that have plagued this series since the original title and that still arise today in this current release. Learn from this and improve the series, or just let it die. Whatever you do, do not release content that could be considered DLC as a separate retail game with retail price as the gaming world will see this as a sign of being taken advantage of and not be pleased.
Overall Score: 5.5 / 10
Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons
Revenge is a motive that can poison a soul and ultimately leave one worse off than before. This emotion is the backbone of one of the most iconic sequels in video games, Double Dragon II. The original Double Dragon starred two brothers, Jimmy and Billy Lee who were on a quest to rescue Billy's girlfriend Marian who had been kidnapped by the Shadow Warrior gang and their leader Willy. Seeking payback for losing the girl, the stage is set for this sequel as in the opening moments you bear witness to Marian's ultimate fate at what appears to be the Shadow Warriors attempting to have their revenge on the Lee brothers. While normally opening up with such a revelation is a bad thing, in this case you will thank us for doing so because that is ultimately the best part of the game. What was expected was a successful adaptation from classic and iconic retro gaming into current gen gaming bliss with eye popping graphics, intense music, and fluid gameplay that keeps you hooked for hours. Sadly you find none of this in this 800MS point game. Now before you rage off in disbelief, let us tell you why this is quite possibly one of the worst games available on the Xbox Live Arcade.What was mentioned in the story above is pretty much the entire plot of the game, so any attempt to extract some form of meaningful information down the road is pointless given that this game is plagued with so many faults that you may not even want to finish the game. With that being said, let us explain in further detail. When you have a side scrolling action game it is without question and absolutely critical to have a fluid and responsive control scheme. Now in Double Dragon II what you find could easily be described as one of the most frustrating and anger inducing control scheme ever invented. You have just as much success and fun trying to play the game with your feet while blindfolded. This pathetic attempt is incredibly sad when you think that games back in the 16 bit era could somehow manage phenomenal side scrolling action games. It gets even sadder when you consider how this iconic series started back in the arcades and was such a monumental success.
If you thought that was the last of the abysmal faults of gameplay, sadly you're very mistaken. The core to the whole side scrolling action gameplay rests in the combat of the game itself, and we're sorry to say that Double Dragon II provides arguably one of the worst combat systems ever to be found on a console, arcade, or planet earth, you get the idea. It's not complex by any means. You have a punch combo or a kick combo and if you want to try and perform a more powerful move, then hold down the RT. Holding RT apparently creates this sort of super special power move, which ultimately is just the same move in slow motion and with no apparent dramatic benefit, thus making this move completely worthless. This combat system is tied hand in hand with the monumentally idiotic stamina system. Think of this system as a rechargeable bank of energy that allows you to pull off combos, sort of super moves, provided you have the amount of stamina to pull it off. What this means is that in the middle of a fight of, let's say three, enemies you may run out of stamina and the next thing you know you're getting banged from all sides in a nightmarish way.
It's not like you're without any form of defense though because if you hold LT you can perform a block which if timed right to the opponents attack will create what’s called a Perfect Guard that in theory will open up your enemy to a counter attack. While this may prove to be an opening for an attack, performing a Perfect Guard will also drain stamina, so if you do perform a Perfect Guard then your opportunity to perform a counter combo is dashed because you already have lost stamina by not throwing any sort of blow. When this stamina runs out it needs to recharge and thus opens you up to attacks from multiple enemies and multiple sides without any hope of recovery and the only outcome is your demise. If you can sit and play through Double Dragon II then you have the forgiveness, and patience of the Pope.
While yes the graphics do look a lot better than what we have seen in the 16bit era, or on the arcades, that doesn't really boost Double Dragon II's credibility. You could have golden 3D dragons flying out of the screen, and massive explosions going on all around you with scantily clad women draped everywhere and none of that would matter because you still have such a phenomenal steaming pile in your hands. Now that we have touched on the only good part of Double Dragon II, we thought it would be nice to come back to reality and deal with the issue of no online multiplayer. This is a game where the fun rests in going through missions with a friend, and while there is local co-op support, there is nothing outside of leaderboard support for the game's online capabilities. We find this appalling given the fact that the next generation console is rumored to be months away and thousands of titles with some from over half a decade ago providing fantastic online multiplayer support. This is completely inexcusable and yet another blow below Double Dragon's belt.
While we could go on about other issues such as the voice in the training area not saying the words indicated by the subtitles, the dumbed down computer AI, or the pathetic attempt to recreate some of the iconic music from yesteryear, but we won't. In fact there's nothing else to say really except that there is no logical reason on this planet, or in any physical plane of existence that would justify the reasoning of why you would ever consider not just playing, but purchasing this thunderous showcase of pure gaming trash. There are two words that describe what developer Gravity and publisher Cyberfront Korea Corporation have done to Double Dragon II by pricing it at 800MS points, blatant robbery. Please heed our warning dear gamers. This game needs to be avoided at all costs as cherished memories from the past will forever be bastardized with irrevocable and unrelenting pain and torment.
Suggestions: May the failures of this game give you the knowledge of what not to do in the future.
Overall Score: 1.8 / 10
Poker Night 2
Well helloooooooooooooooo gamers! It's your favorite cyber ninja, secret spy, international ladies’ man, Claptrap here to tell you about this new Xbox Live Arcade game from Telltale games called Poker Night 2! Apparently they needed some real star power to help sell this game which is why they called me! It only fits right? I mean I'm the one with a Spike VGA award for best character, so naturally my agent has been busy with so many offers for appearances and tire signings that now it's time to kick back, relax, and win a @#$% load of money! Now minion, in case you didn't know, Poker Night 2 is a sequel to the original Poker Night, hence the "2" part, but now instead of taunting virtual characters till they wallow in their own tears of fear and failure, you can actually win items for Borderlands 2 as well as items for your avatar! There's so much more to talk about minion, so for that, let’s kick this review off with.... another paragraph! AH HA!Welcome minion to the Inventory! It's here where we find the most sadistic, confusing, and hilarious poker game ever to be found..... well, ever I guess. The field for this game is more hardcore than Moxxi and consists of this quiet, arrogant lone hero type guy named Ash Williams. Really? A guy named "Ash" gets his own video game called The Evil Dead? Seriously, were all the Christies taken? Any who, there's another guy named Brock Samson, who is built like a house but is dumb as a rock. He comes from a video game called The Venture Brothers, but I personally think that he holds a secret deep down inside that only booze can drag out of him! Then after what you call "normal" people, we have a giant dog wearing a suit named Sam who has this weird companion named Max who is mentally unbalanced, hungry, and armed to the teeth, all eight of them. This pair apparently stem from a series of games called.... wait for it... Sam and Max! These are going to be your opponents at the table minion and while there's nothing you can do about it, we've called in a special dealer just for you! May I present the one.... the only... GLaDOS! Now this is what I'm talking about! A robot fascinated by death and dismemberment, I'm all in, all in love! Psssstttt.... Don't tell Moxxi that. Speaking of Moxxi, we couldn't have a poker game without a bunch of intoxicating alcohol right? And guess who was looking for a group tip? Why the top heavy Moxxi of course! That’s right minion, all you need to do is flash a little cash and she'll get right to work serving you and all your friends! The real beauty here minion is that the dialogue between characters is so well written, it's only a matter of time before we win a Pulitzer Prize for our witty banter!
This time around minion we'll be playing two different styles of poker. First style on the table is No Limit Texas Hold'em. If you don't know your way around the felt its cool, here's a crash course. You start with two cards in your hand called hole cards. A round of betting starts, then three cards are dealt face up which is called the flop, and then another round of betting happens. After that a fourth card called the Turn is dealt and another round of betting happens. Finally the last card called The River is dealt and this is where dreams can turn into horrific nightmares that haunt generations of your kin! All you have to do is make the best possible five card hand and hope that it beats your opponents, and if it does, you win fame, glory, and riches for a lifetime, or until the next tournament starts. If you lose though, your friends will laugh and point at you, women will shun you and your family will probably disown you due to shame. There's another mode of poker though called Omaha which is almost identical to Texas Hold'em except you get four starting cards instead of just two. Like the old saying goes, double your pleasure, double your fun!
Now we couldn't just pile all these great characters together, drown them in booze, tears, and laughter and not expect to win anything right? Well since we're on the Xbox Live Arcade, there are some amazing prizes to win such as your very own Aperture Test Chamber or even Bloodwing from Borderlands 2! While having a massive bird for your avatar pet is nice, it's nothing compared to the gear you can win for Borderlands 2! We're talking fun loving, cross dressing excitement here! Zero apparently is very fond of Portal hence the reason he's dressed all cosplay like in a nice Portal helmet complete with a scary red eye thingy! There are even more prizes to win minion! Not only is all this content up for grabs, but each of us has a special reward you can win by first completing your challenges and then winning the tournament! Ash is offering up the Necronomicon which is just a dirty old book, but I am offering up my Spike VGA award! With all these new amazing super friends and jaw dropping prizes minion you'll quickly forget about your old friends who are less amazing than we are and for that reason we decided to have no multiplayer support what so ever!
So there you have it minion! Think you have the stones to throw stacks of money around and gamble your way to glory and greatness with the likes of all of us? Then throw down your 800 MS points and ante up! Fair warning though, we won't take it easy on you just because you bought our games and worship us silently in your room so be ready for the fight of your life! Who knows what will happen minion, but like Moxxi said to me last night, if you want to win sugar, you have to go all in. Welcome minion to Poker Night 2 on the Xbox Live Arcade! Heyooooo! Oh Steve says hi too.
Suggestions: Please work in multiplayer support with avatar importing.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Sacred Citadel
From the title of this Xbox Live Arcade game alone your mind wanders and reminisces about the last Sacred game on the Xbox 360, Sacred 2. For those who haven't had the chance to enjoy Sacred 2, you are missing out on a fantastic, dungeon crawling, sandbox action RPG game. Inside Sacred 2 you will have six different characters to choose from with their own unique mounts to ride and with each of these characters you can chose to be light or dark. Being that it's a dungeon crawling, action rpg game you will find yourself neck deep in a sea of amazing weapons, armor, and loot and will draw you back for hours and weeks and months on end looking for better gear. With this, Sacred 2 packs a tremendous amount of character customization and when you factor in the different modifiers, the number of customization options seems limitless. The reason we just told you a very brief synopsis of Sacred 2 is because you will find almost none of this in the latest Xbox Live Arcade game, Sacred Citadel. 1200 MS points is a lot to ask for when it comes to arcade games, and with other heavy hitters in the genre such as Torchlight, will Sacred Citadel rise up to conquer or cower in shame and disgrace? Let's find out.While the name of the world is the same (Ancaria), there is little to no similarities between the Ancaria of the retail games and the one found here in Sacred Citadel. There are more dramatic differences as well. For instance, the retail game Sacred 2 is a top down view of the land where you observe, direct, and command from on high. Here in Sacred Citadel each level is a pseudo 3D side scrolling environment where the action is up close and personal. That isn't the end though for the dramatic differences by any means. Gone are the six classes of characters to pick from and instead you have a group of four generic styled classes to choose from such as warrior, archer, shaman, and mage. Also gone are the individual classes of useable mounts and instead we get some generic mutant that looks like it was cross bred between a chicken and a triceratops then armor was put on it and a saddle. So far these dramatic changes have greatly altered from what makes Sacred such a great series, but maybe the gameplay and content will make up for this?
Sadly no it won't. Sacred Citadel's gameplay blueprint is something that one would find dating back to the 16 bit days of Golden Axe, and while some would think that to be a good thing, always remember that not everything ages well over the years. Your character will already start out with basic combo system, and when we say basic, we're talking about simple X, Y button presses. The X button is your basic attack and, yeah you guessed it, the Y button is your strong attack. Combos are initiated by pressing X first, then either up, down, left, or right on the LS and the Y button. There are more advanced combos that you can learn but they only involve more presses of the X or Y button. These combos can come in handy when you're faced with a bunch of enemies, but thanks to their dimwitted intelligence, you can run around, grouping them together in a bunch, then wail away on them until they all drop. While this gameplay is good in theory when you talk side scrolling action games, the whole movement and combat system feels over 10 years old with little to no refinement thus making it almost feel like a chore to play rather than a grand adventure, and that makes us melancholy given the wealth of potential and yet none of it used.
Now we know what you're thinking, Sacred 2 has tons of loot to collect so is it the same with Sacred Citadel? Yes and no. There are various types of weapons, which range from swords, axes, maces, hammers, bows, and more and each weapon carries a bonus attribute. For instance, swords can increase your chances of critical hits, while axes are unblockable and will always land an attack. There are other elemental bonuses that can be found attached to certain weapons as well and each of them provides another unique trait. Fire damage, as expected, will burn your enemy and cause damage after the initial attack lands, while spells such as lightning will stun enemies and keep them vulnerable to a second attack. There are also multiple armors to be found throughout the game and each as well provides different boosts and stat enhancements, however, after all this there is a lingering problem. Sacred 2 allowed you to customize multiple pieces of armor and unfortunately that is not something found in this game. This is a huge black eye given that Sacred has always been about customizing your player with new amazing gear and weapons, and that isn't found in this game. What a shame.
There are other aspects of this game that don't seem to fit the feel of the Sacred series. Aspects such as the poor attempts to knit humor into the plot or the fact that each of the four acts in the game are broken down into multiple, very short, side scrolling levels instead of one big world. While there are some similarities to be found, such as potions that can be collected and used in battle, or the distribution of character points after each time you level up, the differences you will find in Sacred Citadel amount to nothing more than a side scrolling hack and slash title instead of a dungeon crawling, loot hunting, action rpg game. Should you spend 1200 MS points on this latest entry into the Sacred series? Undoubtedly no. If you're looking for a generic side scrolling hack and slash game, then there are better ones to choose from, and if you're looking for a dungeon crawling experience that will keep you hunting for long periods of time, then again, there are better games to spend your hard earned points on.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Battle Block Theater
With summer fast approaching and the well of amazing retail titles starts to temporarily dry up, it doesn't hurt to go looking to the Xbox Live Arcade for entertaining titles that will keep you gaming for hours upon hours. With that said and after a long and patient wait, Behemoth games finally releases a new title called Battleblock Theater, and for once in our gaming history we get to enjoy the unrelenting, powerful, and awe inspiring power of cats.Known for such titles as Castle Crashers, Battleblock Theater provides another innovative platforming experience from the twisted minds at Behemoth. Priced at 1200 MS points, Battleblock Theater is one of the more expensive titles you can find on the XBLA, but is it worth it? Only one way to find out, so let's begin! First and foremost one thing has to be considered and that is the plot of this game is full of humor that wouldn't necessarily be geared more to children, or sane people for that matter. Everything seems to start off swimmingly for your hero and friends. Everyone is cruising along on a massive ship called FRIENDSHIP (get it?) and having a great time until your ship gets caught in a storm so large that Russell Crowe himself would have been cowering with fear. With no end of the storm in sight you end up shipwrecking off the coast of some exotic island which has been claimed in name of cats.
Right before your eyes, you witness your bestest friend in the whole universe, gets corrupted by powerful cat magic and forces him to be a bad guy. What’s his first order of business? Why it's to kidnap your other friends and hold them prisoner while they perform a dramatic theater production of platforming tension and death that keeps you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
With platforming being the central focus of Battleblock Theater it is absolutely critical that the play control of the game be next to perfect. Other games have suffered from either controls being too twitchy or too sluggish, but like Goldilocks, Battleblock Theater's control scheme hits very close to just right. Simple control setup such as punch, jump, use weapon, and suicide are complimented by responsive touches with both the left and right stick to produce a fluid and very responsive feel for the game. This plays into a major role when you find yourself trying to go from area to area and you have to contend with multiple different traps and obstacles. Each of these areas are divided up into smaller individual maps (which you can preview in the screen right above the doors themselves) and will force you to jump, double jump, vault, jet pack and more in order to collect all the gems and balls of yarn which will aid you in releasing your other captive friends and snag your character some fun new weapons such as a paper airplane.
There are a few innovations that bring more value as well to Battleblock Theater and that involves both the trading system and the level designer. At your fingertips you have the ability to create your very own levels and play them online with your friends and other gamers. With even most retail games not offering some form of level editing, it's a great surprise to have a platforming title on the XBLA offer this option up. Trading is also something that makes a revamped appearance in Battleblock Theater. By allowing you to trade for other prisoners, weapons, and more you get the sense that this is far more a social game than a single player platformer.
Deliberately done in a stick puppet theme, the graphics of Battleblock Theater are more humorous than eye blinding. The cinematic sequences between each chapter provide a comical experience comprised of the quality you could expect from say the earlier seasons of South Park. While the graphics have a deliberate funny feel to them, the soundtrack to Battleblock Theater could be classified as downright disturbing. While in the prison and selecting your level, your ears will be haunted by an eerie tribal riff which is complimented by the sounds of cats meowing over and over and over again. While the soundtrack is disturbing, the voice overs throughout the game provide another shot of comedy that is both strangely insulting and entertaining all at the same time. So now the curtain falls, and it's time to make a decision. "To buy, or not to buy, that is the question." The answer is a resounding yes. Even though 1200 MS points are a lot to spend on an arcade title, Battleblock Theater provides a hefty platforming experience coupled with a very creative and time exhausting level designer. When you add in the twisted humor that drowns every aspect of this game, what you get is a severely demented, yet very addicting and enjoyable platforming arcade game.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Terraria
When you think of an Xbox Live Arcade game that lets you construct pickaxes, mine gold ore to be melted into bars, and traverse a wide open world both above and below ground you may be thinking of Minecraft, but now there's a new kid on the block. Conceived by 505 Games and originally released on PC before Minecraft, a port of Terraria released on the Xbox Live Arcade in an attempt to put a dent into the crown of the infamous time drainer. Priced at a whopping 1,200 MS points Terraria is one of the more expensive games on the Xbox Live Arcade, but the big question is though, is it worth it? Given that Terraria released before Minecraft, one would venture to guess that it is already poised for mining domination, but is it? Well to find out we grabbed our pickaxes and torches and set off into the depths to see what lurks down below.Right from the beginning you will see that the biggest difference between both games is that Terraria is 2D compared to 3D and that everything around you will harken you back to the days of old 16 bit enjoyment. While there are other differences between the two, this is without a doubt the biggest. Given that this game is set to go toe to toe with Minecraft, let us show you some more similarities. For starters the whole menu system looks and feels almost like a direct copy of what you come to expect from Minecraft. Boxes and tabs indicate what you can build, smelt, etc. provided you have enough resources. This means that for those familiar to the menu and crafting system of Minecraft will find a slight learning curve, but you almost wonder how close to a legal battle Terraria actually is, given the sheer amount of similarities.
The plot behind Terraria is not only glacially slow, but pretty much nonexistent and consists of one main rule, explore and mine everything you can see both above and below ground throughout the world. To accomplish this you are given a straightforward control scheme that unfortunately doesn't seem to blend well with the controller and gameplay. The reasoning behind this is due to the fact that there are two different ways to mine. You can go full out ahead but your accuracy in choosing what blocks to mine will suffer greatly forcing you to make many repairs along the way. Then there is the more precise "mouse mode" which allows you to use your Right Stick to direct a cursor around your character to choose what particular block you want to mine. The latter method is far more exacting, but also far more time consuming. Deciding on what method you would like to use is as simple as clicking the RS, however, when you take into account Terraria's seemingly endless supply of evil baddies, you will find yourself clicking your Right Stick like crazy as you can easily forget that you're in precision mode and your cursor is pointing away from the enemies. Even though the control scheme works, in some aspects you get the sense that a little more refinement would have gone a long way into improving the overall gameplay experience. If you have a massive world to uncover, discover, and mine, your game must have a very fluid and user friendly control scheme and sadly you won't find that here.
To say that Terraria has a massive world is a huge understatement. Taking note of the width of the map you will find that it is a lengthy trek across, but what is more surprising than the width, is the depth of the world itself. Above ground the world is abundant with trees, mountains, various plants and more but what is more surprising is what resides below ground. Veins of different types of ores pulsate through the layers of dirt and stone, but what makes up Terraria's subterranean jewel are the different boss fights and regions below which even include the depths of Hell. On the surface, this seems to be all well and good, but there is a slight issue with this and that is that the pacing of the game itself makes you feel less inspired to spend the countless hours and days of mining stone and mud to get to one boss, then get killed and respawn what seems as an eternity away just to make the long walk back to battle. This goes to show that even though you may have content available, you have to make gamers actually want to devote their time to getting there, and otherwise, what’s the point?
All of these block breaking, enemy destroying, and land traversing experiences come blanketed in a very nostalgic 16 bit glory. Colorful sprites can be seen in every facet of Terraria and when you start taking into account the actual character creation process, dungeons, and boss areas, you can really get a feel for the 2D world of Terraria. If the graphical nostalgia wasn't enough to bring a smile to your face, the generic blippy soundtrack that courses through the game will. Think of this in terms of classic SNES soundtracks and you will pretty much hit the nail on the head.
So now the big question, is Terraria worth 1,200 MS points? Without hesitation, yes. Sure there may be issues that plague critical points and aspects of this game, but the addictive value in beating the ever loving crap out of the world in 16 bit glory will take a very long time to get old. Terraria may not make you say Mine who? or Craft what? However the overwhelming amount of content provided will gladly drain countless hours out of your life, and let's face it; if a game is doing that, then that must mean it's enjoyable and that is what is needed to create a very good game.
Suggestions: A little refinement with the controller interface and a bit faster pace with the gameplay.
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel
When video game companies want to make a blockbuster intense action game they seem to follow the same recipe as a Hollywood movie. Start with a very generic plot, add some supporting characters that no one will remember or care about, then spend the rest of the entire budget on weapons and creating as many explosions as possible. Then they go through the painstaking editing process to mix everything together, put some polish on at the end, then package it and send it out to the masses to enjoy. EA has been known to follow this formula to the letter and the latest installment in the Army of TWO series is no different. Time to choose your loadout because we are heading in to hopefully see the good, probably see the bad, and most likely the ugly with this review of Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel. Incoming!Army of TWO has always put plot on the back burner to focus almost entirely on creating over the top gunfights, executions, and as many explosions as you could possibly fathom. In this regard, the previous games gave you control of the duo Salem and Rios, but in this instance (for whatever unknown reason) you get control of two new overacting contractors called, wait for it... Alpha and Bravo. Either they were named by their parents after military checkpoints, or EA didn't have a phone book handy to pick random names from, and the hits keep on coming. The plot lines of the game itself are incredibly cliche, but more disappointing than that is the feel that EA decided to put more value on creating intense and crazy over the top gun battles than creating a meaningful reason to do so. So because of this decision, ultimately in the end the whole plot of Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel seems to consist of brief cut scenes of choppy animation that lead right into more gunfire and explosions. We'd like to think that EA wanted more of a parody of iconic action movies and games with this latest Army of TWO, because if you go into this game thinking that the story is going to become a pillar of example for others to follow for the future, think again. If you think that Army of TWO will provide hours of mindless shooting and more explosions than Rambo could handle without any regard to a meaningful story, you're right on target.
If your intention is to create quality scene after scene of firefights and explosions, then you must have at least some adequate play control to support this endeavor. Unfortunately though for Army of TWO the control scheme feels like a cheap knock off of other top tier 3rd person shooters. The movement itself feels slow and unresponsive and the incredibly clunky cover system does very little to help make the game feel fluid and fast paced. There are other bugs and glitches with the gameplay that don't help matters either. For instance, many times when my character went into a melee kill that missed he would continue to swing away with his knife over, and over, and over again and while he was doing that, other enemies were firing off RPG's and heavy machine guns in my direction. Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel does offer a wide variety of customizable weaponry but unfortunately that seems to be the only thing of any value to the game that would make you want to keep on playing and when that becomes the case, it may be time to totally rethink the series. There is though one innovation to the gameplay that tries like a defibrillator to shock some entertainment and enjoyment back into the game, and that is the Overkill system.
Essentially when you kill enough enemies your Overkill meter will fill up and once full can be activated to temporarily make your character invincible and when both you and your partner activate it the game will take on a slow motion feel allowing you to exterminate any and all living things around you. While this adds a lot to the overall enjoyment of massive death and destruction, it unfortunately can't bring the control scheme back to life. All of these poor gameplay mechanics ultimately give Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel a massive black eye and when you take into account all that must be done to create a fluid combat system, you feel yourself scratching your head and wondering how EA could see the final product and approve of its release. Even though the plot is almost nonexistent and the play control is about as fluid as concrete, that is unfortunately the tip of the iceberg of issues that face this latest Army of TWO.
As the title of the game implies in capital letters, Army of TWO means that the beating heart of this game revolves around a cooperative experience and the issues that plague that factor almost make this game stillborn. If you are deciding to tackle this game in a single player fashion then be prepared to face a crippling downfall, the online game invite. If you have an open session and someone decides to join it, you must first complete the chapter before they can enter your game, but here is the kicker: you will have to start your chapter over from the beginning. Apparently there is no fluid drop in/out system implemented but there are more faults as well with the whole game invite system. It isn't uncommon to get spammed with multiple invites to join, but the downfall to this is that the game pauses every single time you receive one of these pop up invites and if you are in the process of going into cover, you run a high risk of unknowingly accepting the invite and thus undoing all of your hard work in your current mission. Bear in mind that this is the third installment in the Army of TWO series but you often wonder how much slack you can give a franchise before you totally overhaul the co-op experience and start from scratch because you realize that your current co-op system is relatively poor.
If you thought that the negatives would have stopped there, we're sorry to say that you're mistaken. One characteristic that has made some other mediocre action games somewhat tolerable would be the inclusion of fluid and beautiful graphics. Sadly, this isn't the case here. When you first pop the game in you are given the option to install an extra 1.5GB of data which apparently is an HD graphics pack. Now why this option even exists is a mystery to us but even with this optional content installed the graphics themselves suffer from choppy frame rates and an overall low resolution style feel.
The character modeling is acceptable but given what other examples we have seen from other companies, there is little room for forgiveness here. You could say that the game is held back by the technology of the platform, but where others have succeeded, Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel falls flat on its face. Along with the average graphical display, there isn't much in terms of supporting sound either. To break this down think of three categories: dialogue, gunfire, explosions. While the dialogue is somewhat comedic in nature there isn't much in terms of quality audio that help bring this game back from the dead.
As mentioned earlier, this is the third game in the Army of TWO series and in this latest release there are far too many issues and problems to just turn a blind eye and forgive. Poor gameplay mechanics mixed with a cliche and overacted story combine with mediocre graphics and choppy frame rates to create a game that by now has had more than enough opportunity to produce a quality title. On top of all of these previous issues, Army of TWO: The Devil's Cartel is priced at full retail price of $59.99 and that almost makes it feel like an insult to gamers. When you add in the disappointing co-op experience, which we may remind you, is the backbone of the whole Army of TWO core, what you're left with is a game that does little to deliver any sort of quality, long lasting, or even memorable gaming experiences.
Suggestions: Completely overhaul the co-op experience and even though it's never been done in the past, try to include some form of meaningful story that compels gamers to want to play more of the game. Also fine tune the gameplay mechanics and the whole online invite system as well. Then develop some way to allow gamers to keep what progress they have made if they decide to join another game in progress instead of just having to start all the way over from the beginning of the chapter. Ultimately, it's time to completely rethink and overhaul the entire Army of TWO.
Overall Score: 5.2 / 10
Dollar Dash
Sometimes sticking to the basics in video games is more than enough to produce a very successful title. Elements such as engaging a community of gamers, very simplistic controls, and straight forward goals that allow for constant and evolving gameplay are but some of the basics that companies must get right in order to secure a victory on any platform. This brings us to the game Dollar Dash by Kalypso Media. Priced at 800 MS points and available on the Xbox Live Arcade, Dollar Dash is fairly straight forward. The rule of the game is simple, steal every dollar you can from the levels and any other fellow thieves, first one to steal the required amount is the winner. Now let's see if this game can sneak away with our 800 MS points, or if it gets caught red handed.When you begin your crime spree the first thing you will notice is that Dollar Dash makes you feel like you've stepped back in time to the 1930's-40's era with characters that go over the top when it comes to stealing that hard earned cash. The menu system is fairly straight forward allowing you to do one single player training session called Boot Camp before you go toe to toe with other thieves from around the world. After that one single player mission you will have to fight on in multiplayer through three different types of capers. The first one is called Dollar Dash where the object of the game is simple, when you find money sprouting up throughout the levels, collect as much as you can in your bag, run to the drop off point to "bank" your stash, then rinse and repeat until the cash goal is reached, then start a new game. While the gametype itself is simplistic, when you throw in the mix a bunch of other gamers and all of you blasting away with weapons and defensive options, you will quickly realize that holding onto all that cash is a lot harder than originally thought.
The second gametype is called Hit'n'Run and this mode is even more basic than the previous one. Using the weapons provided in the level, blast apart every other opponent to earn cash. There isn’t any drop off points to dilute the action, so what you are left with is just massive carnage that is never ending. Every time you knock out a player your character earns cash; knockout enough players to hit the target cash goal and you'll steal yourself the victory. The third and final gametype is called Save the Safe and involves a massive safe that your character must pick up and hold onto so your character can start making money. While this is going on though, you'll have your opponents firing away at you trying to make you drop your safe. When you add the fact that your character runs slightly slower while carrying the safe, it goes without question that this gametype also provides fast paced, explosive fun.
The reason we say explosive is because the amount of over the top weaponry in Dollar Dash is extensive. Ranging from Nuclear weapons and stun guns, to snowballs and vacuum cleaners, Dollar Dash gives you a lot of tools to use to steal every dollar you can from your opponents. You can't have a good offense without a good defense and that is where you can obtain some tide turning items that will shift victory into your favor. Items such as the Jelly mold will deflect any incoming armaments for a short time and items such as the bear trap will snag enemies and cause them to drop some of their own cash allowing you to swoop in and pick it up. There are other special items that can be picked up throughout the levels and these special items give you temporary perks such as increased speed, cloning, invisibility, and more. When you combine all of this into one contained arena level, you end up with nonstop action in every game.
While you may be thinking you're the top thief around, Dollar Dash allows you to customize your thief with a hefty amount of personalization options. Options such as changing your hat and face are all pretty standard, but you can also change out different perks for your character such as immunity to fire or increasing the size of your sack. There are literally hundreds of items to unlock for purchase, however, to obtain these things requires you to do something rather unfortunate, which leads us to the main problem with Dollar Dash, and it's quite a big one at that.
The issue in question is repetition. Earlier we mentioned that games like Bomberman allowed for an incredibly fun experience and it allowed customization as well, however, Dollar Dash is far from having the same quality experience. Repeating loops of music, top down view of the arena, and multiple characters on the screen at the same time all sound like qualities of Bomberman, but Dollar Dash though just doesn't provide the same type of entertainment or excitement that grasped us back in the days. Even though the graphics are not the worst, they aren't the best either and it really doesn't matter since like we stated earlier, you're looking from the top down on your character, so customizing it is almost relatively pointless, and if that becomes the case, then why play to earn cash and unlock new items?
So has Kalypso released a game about comedic thieves that provides many hours of enjoyment and excitement? Sadly no they haven't. Priced in at $10 (800MS points) when you think of what other amazing games are available for the same price, Dollar Dash won't stand out in a lineup. This game could do incredibly well if it were a $2-$5 mobile app, but instead it's a $10 Xbox Live Arcade game that should sneak away in the night and be happy to count the actual money that does come in from the sale of Dollar Dash.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Bioshock Infinite
In the pantheon of video games the title Bioshock sent smiles across faces of gamers around the world. Millions who realized that they were about to embark on a twisted and dark journey that would ultimately test the limits of their very own sanity. Phrases like "Would you kindly" set the stage for what could be argued as one of the biggest surprises in video game history, and, originally set in depths of the sea, provided a haunting, claustrophobic stage from which survival became almost an unreachable dream. It has been a long time since the minds of Irrational Games took us beyond the sea but now in their latest release, Bioshock Infinite, gamers arise from the depths below to take to the clouds and the skies above as the sunken landscape of Rapture is left behind for the soaring city of Columbia. Come with us as we look into the heart and mind of Columbia and examine what makes Bioshock Infinite a possible crown jewel of video gaming.Straight away Bioshock Infinite sets you as the role of Booker DeWitt on your way to a remote lighthouse which apparently is the gateway to Columbia. The reasoning for your voyage there is clouded at first but the one certainty is that you must find the girl to wipe away a debt. Mystery clouds your initial arrival, but few details that you do gain in the beginning allow you to unravel the many layers of intrigue only to be left with more questions in your mind. A top quality story has always been the backbone of any Bioshock game, and in Bioshock Infinite the trend continues. Instead of a story that plunges you head first against an adversary and their challenges, Bioshock Infinite takes it's time to prepare and set many stages that ultimately in the end become incredibly satisfying and allow your mind to play tricks upon itself thus dramatically increasing the psychological aspect of the game. Think of Bioshock Infinite's story more in terms of parts of a play where each act not only brings you one step closer to solving your mystery, but also adds additional questions for you to think about. The story itself though wouldn't be as compelling if it weren't for the girl herself, Elizabeth.
This innovative take on the single player experience is one that was a big risk for Irrational Games due to the fact that some games in the past that offer a companion don't fully utilize them and thus making them feel more like baggage than an actual companion, but not in Bioshock Infinite. When you think of Elizabeth's character you can easily draw reference from the childhood tale Rapunzel where a young girl is trapped in a tower from which she must be rescued, except instead of a gallant hero we have a protagonist with a shady past and instead of saving her from a witch, you have to contend with the Song Bird. Elizabeth however, offers up more than just an NPC character with a few lines of dialogue. She has the ability to do many things such as: look through items to collect resources to give to you, pick open locks, point out hidden areas of exploration or valuable items, and even do quite well in battle. These abilities though pale in comparison to her greatest power, tearing. These tears in space time allow you to gain resources such as health and ammo but can also provide paths for navigation and more. Aside from all of this Elizabeth's character also will interact with other NPCs in Columbia including various machines which all adds to the wealth of the character and in the end adds a wealth of meaning to the character and the story as well.
Being that previous Bioshock games have tried to bring innovation to a first person gameplay experience, Bioshock Infinite goes to great lengths to bring back that unique quality gameplay. The plasmids of old have been replaced by Vigors but that doesn't mean that the joy or lethality has been lessened in the slightest. Vigors will allow you to harness powers such as fire, electricity, crows, possess enemies, and more. Now though you have options in the forms of combinations and traps. Instead of using the crow vigor you can hold the button down to throw a crow trap that if any enemy sets it off, a murder of crows circle around the enemy tearing it apart slowly piece by piece while you watch and hear your enemy scream for mercy. These Vigors are not just one trick pony though, they can be upgraded to increase damage, area attacks, and even have your enemies kill themselves. The possession vigor allows you take control of an enemy or machine to temporarily aid you in a battle, but once the vigor is upgraded your enemy NPC that you possess will kindly commit suicide. These combinations of different vigor powers greatly increases your options and enjoyment in battle and to be honest, there's something satisfying seeing an enemy survive a murder of crows only to attack you with part of a face that’s recognizable but that’s where another strength of Bioshock Infinite resides.
Jaw dropping, breathtaking, heavenly. Any of these words could blanket any discussion about Bioshock Infinite's graphics. Everything from the other NPC characters, to the environment, to the special effects has been polished with tremendous attention to detail making every moment in Bioshock Infinite a wondrous moment to see. The flying buildings and mammoth airships that cascade through the clouds are populated by a wide variety of NPC characters that create one of the most beautiful settings of any game. We did experience some graphical glitches with some out of place textures but those very few and hard to see glitches paled in comparison to the overall magnitude of beauty all around you. While the graphics of Bioshock Infinite make you feel closer to the heavens than ever before, the audio will immerse your mind into the society and psychological aspect of the game. Listening to other NPC conversations provide a tremendous amount of backstory on what life in Columbia is really like, and the musical score does great justice to the year 1912. Without question, it really is spectacular to witness every moment of this game.
As stated earlier you will come across a wide variety of NPC characters in Columbia, but that also means that your enemies have changed. Now gone are the splicers but only to be replaced by a militarized force of police, guards and of course, automatic turrets. One character that has been an iconic staple of the Bioshock series has always been the Big Daddies, but now they are replaced by the Handymen who are monstrous in size, very aggressive in temper, and viciously powerful. These massive brutes are a force to contend with so keep the strategy simple, aim for the heart and don't stop firing. While the Handymen may be massive, the Songbird is gigantic. Imagine a massive bird of prey that is six stories high and has one purpose in life, to protect Elizabeth in the tower at any cost.
It is very rare to find a game that delivers such a top quality experience in almost every field, but Bioshock Infinite does just that. Innovations in character development, gameplay, and story really help take Bioshock Infinite out of the shadows of Rapture and into the light of Columbia. Without a doubt, Irrational Games and 2K have done what very few thought would be possible and that is bring out a Bioshock game that not only lives up to the high quality standards that we all know and love but exceeds almost every expectation we as gamers have for the franchise. As the sun sets on the life of the Xbox 360 we as gamers raise our glass to thank the folks at Irrational Games and 2K for providing one last breathtaking tapestry of psychotic beauty on this console.
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
Darkstalkers Resurrection
When you hear the phrase fighting game, there's a strong chance you will think of the company Capcom. For decades they have strived to obtain the fighting game crown with their most popular franchise, Street Fighter. However, there is a series from Capcom that while not as main stream as Street Fighter, has gained an almost cult like following and that series is Darkstalkers. Molded from the same formulas as Street Fighter, Darkstalkers brought to the ring a slew of characters ranging from those found in horror movies, to children's stories and more, which in turn, provided Capcom a way to seemingly re-invent the wheel. Using a few innovative (for the time) gameplay additions such as air guards and ex attacks allowed Capcom to create a fighting game with a very fluid and fast paced feel to it. This is the fundamental core of what makes Darkstalkers a dark horse fighting game. The Darkstalkers faithful have lit their candles for years in hopes that Capcom will release a new installment of the franchise. Instead of granting that wish though, Capcom has decided to test the patience of those faithful by releasing HD remakes of Darkstalkers Night Warriors and Darkstalkers 3 into one release on the Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 MS points. Side scrolling, button mashing, screen flashing moves have always been the backbone of the Darkstalkers series. Given the fact that there are two separate games in this release, let's take them one at a time and see if you should be spending your 1200 MS points on this, or something else.
Darkstalkers Night Warrior is the first title in this double feature and from the beginning it will instantly appeal to the hardcore fans as well as provide a great way for those new to the series to jump in and play. The customizable six button configuration remains intact and if you do not have an arcade stick you're in luck, because you can customize the layout to suit the controller. There is a single player arcade mode which allows you to select any of the demons available and twist your way through the dark levels honing your skills as you prepare to take on the world in the very solid multiplayer option. It's in here where you can configure your search by not only region but also player level and ping time as well so you will know ahead of time what you are getting yourself into. There are other options within multiplayer such as tournament and there's even the new innovation of syncing your Xbox 360 to YouTube to display your unholy dominance to the world.
Already known for being a beautiful and colorful fighting game, Capcom has done a fantastic job with providing the HD remake for Darkstalkers Night Warrior. Now the backgrounds look more vibrant and the colorful characters we know and love look absolutely brilliant. Now when you manage to pull off special moves and connect that 20 hit combo, the screen lights up in a spectacular fashion bringing to life every aspect of this HD remake. Originally releasing on the Sega Saturn system back in 1997, Capcom has done a fantastic job resurrecting the classic joy we had back in 1996 and bring it into today's world. With one of the two Darkstalkers games showcasing some amazing beauty in the new HD remake, time to press onward now to the next game included with this Darkstalkers Resurrection arcade title, Darkstalkers 3.
Originally released back in 1998, Darkstalkers 3 has arguably been hailed as one of the definitive titles in the franchise. Knowing that a large and loyal following would be combing over every detail of this game, Capcom set out to give this game a facelift that any Hollywood plastic surgeon would admire. While the core gameplay remained, there were a few changes however to how the matches were played. Instead of opting for a more traditional round system, Darkstalkers 3 implemented a system that made each fight one round but allowed each person a dual life bar that when drained would signal your character "downed" and after the second bar was lost, the match was over.
Capcom has done a terrific job keeping the gameplay as original and hectic as it was before, but not contempt to rest there, Darkstalkers 3 has been given such a tremendous HD remake to the graphics that the entire package looks simply stunning. Bright, vibrant colors grace every inch of every level and the character models of the fighters look like they have aged better than Dick Clarke. It goes without saying that Capcom has done a magnificent job bringing these two aged classics back to life.
There are a few drawbacks though, and that mostly rests within the content provided, or should I say not provided. This isn't the first time these games have been released, yet in previous releases, we as gamers were treated with more content such as a chaos tower mode, more characters, etc. Capcom though does include an innovative challenge system where you can go through different tiers of challenges to level up your "player" and unlock various artworks, movies, and more. This extra content though serves very little purpose to gamers and in the end seems to bring down the overall title itself. Had there been more content, then it could easily be worth the 1200 MS points ($15); however, when it comes to just purchasing the content provided and then waiting to purchase more DLC for the game that should have already been included, Darkstalkers Resurrection should rest in peace.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Tomb Raider
There is one word that seems to be becoming a growing trend in the video game world and that is reboot. It's this word that we have seen developers and publishers alike throw around when talking about iconic video game franchises and their future. What a reboot means is essentially take every game prior to this latest release and throw it away. Then focus on beginning another story with this new game. Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have decided that the next video game to receive a reboot is the Tomb Raider franchise and the once overly voluptuous Lara Croft. If you haven't played any Tomb Raider games before in the past, you're in luck since this is now the official beginning of the series. If you have played any or all previous games, forget everything you already know because all the other Tomb Raiders are now obsolete and the Tomb Raider official cannon apparently starts now. When you hear the title Tomb Raider your mind instantly snaps to qualities such as: amazing treasure, perplexing puzzles, quick reflexed combat, body destroying traps, and more. It's these core platforming mechanics that must not only be introduced, but overhauled from scratch due to the reboot and still provide the utmost quality and if possible, improve on what we all know and love about the game. To accomplish this herculean feat Crystal Dynamics set off to provide gamers a quality balance of exploration and puzzle solving mixed together with intense but fluid combat and cinematic beauty. And they topped it all off with some high quality polish that brings Lara to life like we've never seen her before. On paper all of this sounds like a great recipe to make a truly spectacular game so has Crystal Dynamics' reboot of Tomb Raider found the discovery of a lifetime or does it get crushed to death by a rock? Let's find out.
First and foremost you have to understand that in this reboot of Tomb Raider, we are literally experiencing Lara in her infancy when it comes to exploration and hunting treasure. While the beginning of the game does very little to help establish any sort of meaningful connection with your supporting cast, it does though manage to integrate past experiences throughout the game in order to allow some form of meaning when it comes to your team. One of Crystal Dynamics' biggest successes with this reboot of Tomb Raider is how we as gamers get to experience Lara's evolution and growth as she progresses through the story. While the beginning tutorial of the game is relatively slow with occasional moments of high paced action, you will find that once you progress through the basics of Tomb Raider, the world opens up to you and allows you one amazing experience after another. Make no mistake, this story of Tomb Raider is a dark way to begin the reboot experience, however, when faced with challenges head on that involve choices that impact whether you live or die, you do what you have to do to survive.
Now that Crystal Dynamics have provided a dark, evolving story of Lara Croft, their next success comes from their gameplay mechanics. Scampering up walls to higher ledges, flying down zip lines, jumping from platform to platform on your way to treasure are just a few of the platforming elements that made all the previous Tomb Raider games what they are, and in this latest reboot of the franchise we experience a very fluid and straight forward control scheme which allows you to focus more on exploration and combat than camera control and checkpoints.
Not stopping there, Crystal Dynamics has also included some new gameplay innovations to Tomb Raider that push the single player experience from great, to absolutely brilliant. This is accomplished by adding the ability to upgrade Lara's characteristics such as getting more xp from hunting animals, to scavenging more scrap to allow you upgrade your equipment and weapons faster and so on. Yes scavenging for scrap is what it will take to survive through Tomb Raider. This is how the second innovation takes shape. Crystal Dynamics is allowing Lara to upgrade her equipment via the use of scavenged scrap which you can find from animals (with the right character boost purchased), enemies, chests, etc. These upgrades are weapon specific; however, they greatly change the mechanics of gameplay when you start getting deeper into the story of Tomb Raider.
Graphically speaking, Tomb Raider and Lara Croft have never looked better. Stunning rays of light creep through the foliage while cascading waterfalls produce breathtaking backdrops to your adventures. Lighting effects from your torch and campfires are gorgeous and even the Tombs themselves are beautiful in their own dark and perplexing way. Even though the graphics are blindingly beautiful, adding additional support from the sound department allows the island and all its inhabitants the treasure seeking experience of a lifetime. Crackling of fires, creaking of foliage under your feet, the voice over acting, all of it and more has been done with precision detail giving your ear drums an auditory sensation like no Tomb Raider ever before.
Now everything so far sounds pretty good, however, there are a few drawbacks that cause Tomb Raider to take an arrow... nevermind. The main drawback of Tomb Raider rests squarely on the multiplayer. While the single player is done brilliantly with only a few minor drawbacks, the multiplayer however does not feel as polished as the campaign, is a pain to get loaded up and configured, and ultimately is the most broken and boring aspect of the game itself. You can find Atlantis in the time it takes to load one multiplayer game and in-between rounds you have time to write a bestselling novel based off your adventure. The level design is not the best and when you get to the point where you can customize your loadouts in multiple ways, you will have already lost interest because you will feel that Tomb Raider's multiplayer was compiled at the last minute and when you throw in a poor multiplayer into a stellar single player story mode, that really does give Tomb Raider a black eye.
So overall has Crystal Dynamics pulled off a successful reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise? Undoubtedly so. By providing a dark and ominous storyline with exceptional play control mechanics and a vast island to explore with secondary tombs to uncover, this is the Tomb Raider that gamers around the world have been waiting for. Stunning graphics, amazing sound quality, and innovations for both weapon and character upgrades make this adventure one that shouldn't be missed. Throughout the past few years there have been reboots of other franchises, but none of those can compare to the quality that Crystal Dynamics brings in their reboot of one of the greatest platforming, adventure franchises of all time; Tomb Raider.
Suggestions: Either improve on the multiplayer to bring it to the quality of the single player experience, or let it go to focus only on the single player experience. Also some more depth to the secondary characters to help give the story more of a sense of meaning and involvement between the characters.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Capcom Arcade Cabinet
If you're reading this and you consider the original Xbox an antique and you wonder to yourself "What exactly, is an arcade?" then what you're about to read may astonish you. Back in the day there wasn't facespace or mybook or gitter or toogle, instead there were arcades. Areas that was local around your city where masses gathered and not only gamed together but socialized together. Instead of spending money for digital content on a facespace game, gamers poured small fortunes of quarters over and over again until closing time. This "Golden Age" of gaming resulted in some of the most iconic games we have ever played and could easily be considered the foundation of the games we know and play today. Many companies tried their best to bring gaming to a whole new world and without question Capcom could be considered one of the best. To bring this classic feel to life, Capcom has attempted to deliver some of these amazing games to us in a virtual arcade cabinet form. The setup is fairly straight forward but the amount of content provided is absolutely staggering. For starters, Capcom is offering a triple pack of games for 400 MS points. This could be looked at as the "starter pack" for the arcade. The virtual cabinet you access should be considered more of a portal where you can scroll through the onscreen games list, select the game you want and whisk yourself away to days of big hair bands, spandex, and leg warmers of the mid to late 1980's. This however isn't just a one trick pony ride. Included in the first pack of games that you get for your initial 400 MS points are: Black Tiger, Avengers (no not those Avengers), and 1943: The Battle of Midway. While the first two may be unknown to some of the gaming community, 1943 becomes the "one you know" game to play. This gives you the feeling of going to a concert hoping to hear one song, then finally you hear it and all is right with the world again.
Capcom isn't stopping there thankfully as there will be additional games introduced between now and May 21. These packs will cost 800 MS points each but if there is only one or two games you want, then Capcom is allowing you to purchase each game individually for 320 MS points. In total there will be 15 games released and if you pick up all the other games, then Capcom will give you a bonus game pack of two games to be named latter so ultimately you will end up with a total of 17 brilliant arcade games! Some of the other games to be released that could be considered must haves are: Ghosts n Goblins, 1942, Section Z, Commando and more. After the dust has settled and the magic day of May 21 arrives, you will be able to purchase a complete arcade package for the price of 2000 MS points. While that sounds like a big price, this game actually becomes cheaper if you pursue this option and that to us doesn't provide any reason to purchase these when they release. Here's what we mean. There are a total of five game packs and outside the initial starter pack for 400 MS points, each is priced at 800 MS points, so for you to purchase everything is 3,800 MS points. According to Capcom though, if you wait until May 21 then you get everything including the bonus games for only 2,000 MS points. So let me repeat that, you get everything for 1,800 MS points less than you would if you were to buy all the packs when they release. This right here folks is the find of a lifetime.
Yes these are the original games that brought us years of enjoyment back in the day, however, Capcom has allowed us to configure the play, difficulty, screen size, and more of each and every single game released. While achievements won't be earned in most of these more casual game modes, these do offer you the chance to enjoy a game that may have haunted you before with failure in the past without having to worry about breaking your controller or swearing like a sailor at the screen. One beauty of these games that we miss in some of today's titles is the simplistic ease of use controls. No messy camera angles only you, your game, and the challenge that waited ahead. True we won't get to see realistic lighting and shadow effects that resemble reality or character facial expressions that are so lifelike we could swear we were looking into a mirror. Instead we are given 8-Bit greatness. Graphics from a time where artists had to become magicians with squares and still managed to surprise us for many years to come.
So now the big question, is the Capcom Arcade Cabinet worth the MS points? Well the honest answer is both yes and no. If you enjoy going back in time to a "Golden Age" of gaming, then yes, without question you should pick it up and enjoy every moment of it. However, if you only want a couple of the games, then picking them up individually is more suited for you instead of the massive 800 MS point game packs, but if you want all the games and all the content, then wait until May 21 and pick everything up for 2000 MS points. Thank you Capcom for giving a vast majority of gamers their childhood dreams back.
Overall Score: 7.3 / 10
Crysis 3
In the video game universe you often find a few diamonds amongst the collective mediocrity. Every genre of video game suffers from this truth, and in the realm of first person shooters; this is where the big boys come to play. Originally on the consoles we had a choice between Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Halo. For the longest time the PC gaming community hoarded like Gollum, a secret first person shooter game that has not only been the punch line of many jokes when it comes to the size of your um... graphics card, but has also led the forefront assault to deliver some of the most beautiful gameplay around. Finally after years of demand by the console community, Crysis found its way home. While the PC loyalists still proclaim it to be the best on their system (which they are speaking truth), however when you enter the gaming world on a console a fifth the cost of a top end graphics card, you will truly be surprised by what can be accomplished. For years since Crysis 2 released, the Xbox world has waited patiently in hopes that Crysis 3 will finally release and provide us all another amazing experience while wearing one of the most bad ass outfits ever conceived for a video game, the nano suit. It's time to get behind the visor and see for ourselves what the good and bad elements are of Crysis 3.When we hear the name Crysis we automatically have a bar very high in our minds where we see how the evolution of technology and game development is going and want that same evolution applied to the already stunning Crysis games. Crysis 3 from Crytek sets out to achieve that mark, but unfortunately there are some soft spots in the armor, but we'll get to those here shortly. For starters one of the softer points of the Crysis games has always been the story. While the campaign itself is always done in stunning beauty, the story itself left gamers with a deflated feeling given the sheer magnitude of production that went into development. This unfortunate feeling still persists in Crysis 3 today. While you do play the role of Prophet that is awakened over 20 years and reunited with one of his old friends Psycho, the overall feeling throughout the story is lacking in substance and emotion. While a letdown already going into Crysis 3, this is not something new so we can't bear much weight against it on this issue.
For those who haven't played any Crysis games, your character wears what is called a nano suit which enhances your speed, strength, intelligence, and more. The suit also offers you the ability to switch between stealth like cloak where you are merely a faint ghostly outline of yourself or an increased armor mode where you may move slower but you will be able to absorb a lot more damage before falling. This innovation has been with us since the beginning but now the people at Crytek have decided that you need to add a very destructive compound bow to your disposal. While you may be saying, "oh great, a bow against heavily armed military and alien forces, yeah this will go over well." Your sarcastic thought will leave you eating humble pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Let us explain why. If you decide to go all stealth like in your gameplay approach, any gunfire of yours will not only make a lot of noise, but significantly drain your suit's replenishable energy supply and thus draining any cloak or hope you had of making it through ten guards on patrol. Now I said gunfire and that’s because if you use your bow there is very little reduction to your energy supply, meaning that you can fire an arrow cloaked, and remain cloaked after the shot. So now you're probably thinking, "So what if I'm cloaked after the shot, it's an arrow against enemies with advanced weapon systems and body armor." Here is where your 2nd serving of humble pie comes to the table.
The bow in Crysis 3 is in the same customizable boat along with almost every other weapon in the game. There are two points you can customize on the bow. The first option you can configure is your draw power. This allows you to optimize your bow for how you want to play. A higher draw will result in more power and more accuracy, but it will take longer to set up the shot; whereas a lower draw will result in quicker, but maybe not as lethal of a shot. The second customization point involves the arrow tips themselves. Outside of the standard razor tips, you can equip a timed explosive, electrocution, or proximity arrowheads which can really catch enemies by surprise, especially since you can remain cloaked after firing off an explosive arrowhead. The weapon customization feature is something that isn't new, however that doesn't mean it's a bad thing, especially when you're configuring powerful sniper rifles, heavy assault rifles and more.
One of the main strong points of the Crysis games has always been the graphical beauty of the game itself, and Crysis 3 truly pushes the envelope as to what we would think to be possible on consoles that we as a public already consider to be very dated. Back in the day you would read of people boasting about the specs in their brand new gaming computer, but when one question was asked, very few could raise their hands and the question was: "Can it run Crysis?" Given the fact that the technology inside the Xbox 360 is very limited and in some eyes, antiquated, Crytek goes a long way to showcase what can be done on such outdated technology in Crysis 3. Brilliant lighting effects, gorgeous detailed environments, and spectacular special effects combine together to create something so breathtaking that every level of play becomes unbelievably enjoyable. While the graphics of Crysis 3 are simply stunning, the sounds of Crysis 3 are sadly not up to par. It almost seemingly becomes a balancing of corporate resources and while the graphics team received the lion's share, you get the feeling that the sound and story departments scavenged for scraps.
Given the fact that the replay value of each level of Crysis 3 is very high, if you wanted to take your skills behind the visor against the world, then Crysis 3's multiplayer has you covered. While the traditional modes such as Deathmatch and Capture the Flag (Relay) make their presence known, gaming modes such as Hunter and Spears make their debut and offer up some innovative new ways to play Crysis 3. Hunter mode is just what the name implies. You become the prey of C.E.L.L. and are forced to stay alive but without stealth. Get killed and your character will turn into a hunter with a bow equipped. Spears could be considered to be Crysis 3's answer to a conquest style gameplay. When teams fight to take control of a spear, the winning team to capture it does not have to be near the spear in order to gain points. This aspect puts an innovative and action packed twist that will provide multiple hours of excitement.
While some Crysis 3 gamers may miss the truly open world of the original Crysis, Crytek goes to great lengths to create a vast open series of levels that while may ultimately seem linear, provide expansive gameplay choices and decisions that impact how the game plays out for you. There have been a few bugs and issues that have been encountered as we played through, while some were small, others involved the sound completely cutting out or stuttering throughout the cinematic sequences. These little glitches and bugs though can be found in almost any game and we're predicting a patch in the near future to resolve this little annoying issues and bugs.
While Crysis 3 does not do a whole lot in terms of groundbreaking innovations that entice and captivate audiences for weeks and months down the road, what it does provide is a beautiful backdrop to an incredible gaming experience. If you haven't had a chance yet to pick up or play any Crysis games, the time to start is now. While not a perfect first person shooter, Crysis 3 has its sights locked onto that crown and with new technology around the corner, you should consider this the perfect farewell to the old technology, and get ready to start dreaming about the quality we can hope for from Crytek in the upcoming future!
Suggestions: Please work on developing an emotional story and a soundtrack that provides as much impact as the graphics do.
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Let us ask you a question. Is it better to try and expand on a series that was iconic in inception but deteriorated as it progressed, or is it better to leave well enough alone and reminisce about the amazing experiences and emotions we felt right from the beginning? The subject in question are the Aliens movies, and while the series started strong it has evolved into what some would call "cash cows" where the movie studio knows that people will buy a ticket just because it includes the infamous Xenomorphs. This trend has also infected the video game world by spawning very few successful game entries. This was a question that Gearbox had to answer and the result of their toil is the newly released Aliens: Colonial Marines. Having seen Sega and Gearbox debut this game back at E3 2011 we were initially taken back by the amount of effort that was poured into recreating much of the horror and excitement that we all know and loved from the original movies. So much effort has taken place that the story of Aliens: Colonial Marines is officially regarded as cannon for the Aliens series. So is Aliens: Colonial Marines a purebred masterpiece of horror and suspense, or is it just another notch on the belt of already released mediocre Aliens games? Let's find out.
Set in the near future after the classic James Cameron movie Aliens, you play the role of Corporal Winter sent in to investigate a distress signal picked up from the U.S.S. Sulaco which is found to be in orbit over LV-426. Just like in horror movies, nothing ever goes according to plan and soon you find yourself neck deep in acid filled Xenomorphs which seem to be crawling out from every direction possible. While this may start the game off on a positive note, regretfully this is about the brightest summary we can give. Yes unfortunately even with a console that has lasted all these years, there are no developments that can accurately portray the same level of quality we experienced in the movie Alien and Aliens. They say in space no one can hear you scream, but unfortunately for fans of the Aliens series, when you play this game everyone will hear your heart breaking. Not because some Xenomorph drives its tail through your torso, but because you rapidly realize that there was so much potential for this game and so much effort to try and recreate the experience, and a vast majority of it fails to live up to the mark. Hear us out on this.
On paper, Aliens: Colonial Marines gives us a glimpse of greatness. Proper settings such as LV-426, U.S.S. Sulaco, Hadly's Hope and more that tie right into the movies allow us to be transported back into the glory years of the Aliens series. The iconic Xenomorphs return and this is the first time that new types of Aliens such as the Crusher and Boiler are also included in the Aliens series. There are even classic characters that we all know from the Aliens movies that make their presence known in the game so a great sense of familiarity is injected right from the start. When you combine these three factors (on paper) you find you have a solid foundation to build something truly great, which perplexed all of us when we found ourselves scratching our heads saying, this game was delayed why again? Originally Aliens: Colonial Marines suffered the drawbacks of delays and while few welcomed the multiple delays a vast majority of the gaming world held their breath just a little longer as we collectively hoped that we would get to experience a truly brilliant adaptation of an iconic piece of film come to interactive life. Then we were hit with a punch in the gut and our fantasy filled hopes came crashing down like a Xenomorph dropping from above.
To allow gamers more focus on the game itself and not fumbling around with complex gameplay, Gearbox has included a very streamlined control system that allows for on the move, quick access to different weapons, navigation and more. Gearbox has also included innovations such as four player co-op campaign, and various forms of multiplayer. While these innovations do allow for an increased enjoyable experience, you can't help but be detracted by the game's AI system. Now on the front side we are told that there is an advanced AI system that will send Xenomorphs flanking around in strategic movements to increase the difficulty in hitting them. What we actually get is a predetermined path that all Xenomorphs take and with proper angle of controlled fire, Aliens: Colonial Marines takes the random scariness element out of play and thus ultimately removes one of the greatest elements that Alien and Aliens had going for it; the element of surprise and shock.
It almost becomes a matter of finding out the pattern, dying, and then starting over knowing where everything is coming from and killing it. This tends to turn the game into something very tedious instead of something to be enjoyed. When you combine the fact that you will go down many different hallways that look exactly the same, and you will do this multiple times, you really get the feeling of "now why again do I have to go back here for a fifth time?" These imperfections definitely make a significant negative impact, especially when you remove one of the key qualities that made the Alien and Aliens movies such masterpieces.
If the pain of this has become unbearable, it's perfectly ok. We couldn't believe how our dreams and aspirations for this game to be phenomenal have been shattered so severely. Unfortunately, the pain though doesn't stop there. The graphics of Aliens: Colonial Marines look fantastic in still photos; however, as you play through the game, you will find the graphics to fill you with an overwhelmingly large feeling of disappointment. There have been games released within the last two years that have blinded us with unimaginable beauty and when you're thinking of the Xenomorphs, the potential that was there feels squandered and in some instances completely disregarded in total.
While the graphics may be a kick in the junk, Aliens: Colonial Marines gets some serious help in the audio department. Infamous sounds from weapons such as the flamethrower, assault rifle, shotgun and more all return from their original use in the movies. Even the infamous motion tracker beep is done straight from the movies so you get the feeling that Gearbox tried very hard in the audio department, and when you factor in some of the original actors provide the voices for their character in the game, you see that the sounds themselves were meticulously integrated to really help immerse you back into the nightmare in space.
Outside of the story mode, Gearbox has included some various forms of multiplayer. Some of the modes are variants of classic gametypes such as Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and more and with support for 12 people, you can create some incredibly intense firefights. Both through the story and multiplayer you can rank your soldier up by completion of in game tasks and commendations, which in turn will grant him access to various weapons and weapon upgrades. This multiplayer innovation is going to be where the bulk of your time is spent, especially when you get to know the movement patterns and insertion points of the oncoming computer AI Xenomorphs from the story mode. As your character progresses in multiplayer you will quickly see that the addition of human controlled Xenomorphs do allow for that blin-out-of-you moments.
So does Aliens: Colonial Marines pull off a herculean feat of heroism and provide a fantastic Aliens experience? Heartbreakingly no, and instead it is court marshaled and sent packing with a permanent and undeniable list of blemishes. It is absolutely devastating that a game with so much potential will go through multiple delays, only to produce a product that is lackluster and full of disappointment. We cannot stress enough how badly we wanted this game to be a masterful work of interactive art, a game that would capture our minds and scare every fiber of our souls. We wished for a game that provided a beautiful visual spectrum with every step and instead we get graphics that feel like you have taken a time warp back to the beginning years of the Xbox 360.
For those who are diehard fans of the Aliens series and love the Xenomorphs as much as we do, we feel your pain. If Aliens: Colonial Marines was done in a way that delivered the game we all hoped for, then without question it would be fantastic and contender for game of the year, but instead for Gearbox, it's game over man. Game over.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Omerta - City of Gangsters
When you think of "Gangster" references in the media, you often get less than a handful of examples that would classify as great quality. Movies such as: The Godfather, The Godfather II, Goodfellas, and Scarface have defined the gangster role in our minds for decades. While these examples define top quality gangster movies, Omerta: City of Gangsters by Kalypso aims to become known as a top quality gangster simulation video game. There have been very few successful classic gangster style games, so will Omerta break the trend and stand above the competition to prove once and for all that you can have a violent turn based strategy style gangster game? Well let's find out.From the beginning there are a couple things we would like to point out. First off the install size of the game is less than 900MB which means that either there is a wealth of content but it's microscopic and in many pieces, or that there isn't much content to begin with. After wandering the streets and trying to build an empire you realize that there is a ton of content packed into this little game however, a vast majority of the content is nothing that would help improve the game. The second point we have to mention is that Omerta is what gamers might call a "budget" priced title since it retails for $49.99. While the savings on the wallet is significant, please don't expect some grand or amazing classic gangster production that would make Marlon Brando stand up and applaud.
To start things off with a bang you are given a multitude of options in the beginning ranging from a story mode to a very simplistic multiplayer mode. When you select the story mode you have a chance to roughly develop your character and back story by making various choices to various questions. Each answer brings with it bonuses that apply to your character's stats but at the same time to increase the balance of the game, there are also stats that are negatively affected so make your choices wisely. After you make your way through your character development, you will go face to face with the greatest enemy of the game, the turn based world of Omerta. Think of this game as a turn based strategy game set in the time when prohibition was rampant and organized crime was just staring to... well, organize. From the top down view you have your basic camera controls which operate from the left and right thumbsticks and control things such as zoom and rotation. The problem though with this is that sometimes as you navigate buildings and the surrounding areas, trying to find good places to position your characters becomes a hassle due to the time it takes to properly align the camera.
The turn based control scheme also is something that feels like something that hasn't been polished up. Forcing you to zoom in to pinpoint where your character wants to go becomes an almost immediate hassle that unfortunately will stay with you throughout the entire game. If the control scheme wasn't enough to make you disappointed, the levels themselves will. In Omerta there are your buildings (gold building signs), independent businesses (green building signs), or competing businesses (red building signs). Your goal is simple, make these buildings turn to your color. Once you do that, nothing changes except the color of the sign over the building. This gives gamers a feel of pointless exploration, esp. when you have to manage a God awful camera system. To compound the problems already blatant with Omerta, the plot of the game is next to non-existent. There may be a few storyboard scenes with only a few lines spoken, but the majority of the time you will find yourself dealing with just a pop up screen that delivers a few lines of text and that’s it.
Now previous turn based strategy games have been assigned to a more grid style system which made maneuvering very straight forward and simplistic, and in Omerta that grid system is almost non-existent, which in turn, gives you the gamer more freedom to control your character and move them where you actually want them. This is handy when you start looking for cover to hide behind but becomes an instant and constant struggle when you combine in the already existing problems with the poor control scheme. So while this freedom is new, the execution of the movement failed to hit its mark. When you actually get to combat there will be multiple times when you wish you hadn't, and that’s a shame because you would expect such a game to have taken the development steps needed to ensure a top quality game at a budget price. Sadly though, the more you play Omerta the more you wonder if Kalypso had any staff devoted to quality.
There is an important question though you have to ask and that is: "Is there anything enjoyable about Omerta?" and the answer is the music, but only by a small amount. The reason for this is due to the classic feel of the music and the time period it puts you in, however, there are issues with this as well as during certain scenes and loading sequences the music would skip repeatedly and when you have a trumpet blasting over and over and over again, by the time the loading screen is done and you're back in the game, you're already given up all hope and are looking for another game to play.
Unfortunately the same people who brought the gaming world Tropico couldn't produce a quality title with Omerta. With such a monumental stack of flaws and faults and priced at $49.99 you wonder two things: 1) "Why isn't this game priced at $19.99 or below?" and 2) "What other games are out there that may be worth the $59.99 price tag that I could find more enjoyment out of?" Make no mistake, if you buy Omerta, you'll bring it home, play it for maybe a couple hours, then seal it in concrete and let it sleep with the fishes. It really is a shame when you can find a better quality game for less money and on the Xbox Live Arcade.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Dead Space 3
It often becomes a scary situation in and of itself when a company releases an original IP. Not only releasing an original IP, but an original horror IP at that. Visceral Games originally released Dead Space and almost overnight not only was a series born, but also a devout following of gamers from around the world. Following up such a classic success with another of greater impact is not as easy feat to do, but to do it not once, but twice, is a feat that is almost unheard of. This success is due to new innovations that take shape with each new release, and the overall development of everyone's favorite engineer, Isaac Clarke. Originally Dead Space 3's future hung in the balance of the performance of Dead Space 2, and it was up to the gaming world to let them know if they wanted a sequel. The gaming world spoke, and their message echoed through space with the force of a planetary explosion. It's time to keep calm and stop everything, because we're going in head first into the dark innovative depths of Dead Space 3. Surprisingly, we actually start Dead Space 3 during the events and time when the markers were first found which take place before the events of the original Dead Space, and after a terrifying walk down that memory lane we fast forward to a time which is years after Dead Space 2 to find Isaac Clarke a shell of his former self. Mentally distraught and locked in a constant battle to retain his sanity over the influence of the markers, Isaac has lost almost everything he's cared about. There isn't time however for Isaac to come to terms with everything that has happened before he's violently thrown back into the horrors that he has worked so hard to repress, not just physically, but mentally as well. Throughout the campaign, which is quite long if we're honest, you will venture to explore areas such as 200 year old deserted warships and even the marker home world of Tau Volantis and one thing is for sure, every area goes to great lengths to provide one amazing pants ruining experience after another. While this has always been the backbone of the Dead Space experience, the real beauty of Dead Space 3 rests in the brand new innovations that help adapt one of the most iconic survival horror games into the oncoming future.
When games fail to innovate the gamer's experience, we tend to find an experience that leads us straight down the path of disappointment. Thankfully Visceral Games has taken this knowledge to heart and provided Dead Space 3 with some innovations both good and bad that all accumulate into a truly amazing gaming experience. One of these innovations involves the gameplay of Dead Space 3. While the tried and true control scheme that we have followed since the beginning remains as solid as it ever was; Isaac now has a summersault roll which will come in very handy as you find yourself face to face multiple times with multiple necromorphs. This small innovation packs a mammoth planet cracking punch as it actually deepens the gamer's gameplay. Another innovation to the gameplay comes in the form of allowing Kinect voice integrated commands. While other games have allowed this feature, just like the others, Dead Space 3's Kinect voice command support doesn't fit the feel of what we have come to know and love about the Dead Space games and ultimately, in the end, is more novelty than essential and does very little to enhance your Dead Space 3 gaming experience.
Not to be contempt with just providing a couple new innovative gameplay mechanics, Dead Space 3 brings to the table a whole new revolutionary upgrade system that affects, not just you’re RIG, but every weapon in the game. Gone are the days when you needed power nodes to enhance your weapon, but more important than that, is the fact that now you can make almost any weapon you want, so long as you have the materials to do so. Want to make a lightning chain gun on the top and have an explosive spike launcher on the bottom? Go ahead. What about a shotgun/sniper combo? Of course. Without question this new innovation will have you spending hours constructing and upgrading weapons from blueprints, or from scratch itself while you determine what works best for you. This upgrade and weapon construction feature can only be used though if you have enough resources to make it. Various components such as Tungsten, semiconductors, and more will be needed in quantity to make these new weapons come to life and thankfully there is no short supply of them, except Tungsten which you will find out is THE most critical material you can find.
While this innovation is masterfully done, there is a downfall though to this amazing new innovation and that comes in the form of microtransactions. For just a couple hundred Microsoft points you can actually buy all the material you need to create a devastating weapon right from the beginning. Unfortunately this method, while rapid and overpowering, will dilute the game experience which, in the end, is the most critical part of Dead Space 3. Times when you only had a basic plasma cutter to use against an oncoming onslaught of necromorphs are now only there if you want them to be. While the weapon construction and upgrade system is phenomenal, the microtransaction system leaves this innovation with a black eye.
As we all have known leading up to the release of Dead Space 3, there is a brand new innovation and involves the inclusion of co-op gameplay. This has been a controversial move since inception given the fact that Dead Space has always been a tremendous single player experience, and after the failed multiplayer of Dead Space 2, we find that co-op has taken its place and while it may sound entertaining at first to stomp necromorphs with a friend, there are some drawbacks to this as well. One of the interesting points is how the game itself adapts to include a secondary player. This is done by altering certain cut scenes and including new dialogue between characters and hallucinating sequences that will twist and warp any lasting memory of what reality actually is. That however, isn't the full story as we find that there are some co-op ONLY missions that are ONLY accessible if you have a second player participating. While there is less than a handful of co-op only missions, you get the feeling that you're, essentially, locked out of fully enjoying everything that Dead Space 3 has to offer if you decide to play through the game solo.
Whether you decide to play through Dead Space 3 by yourself or with a friend one thing is certain and that is you will find yourself going through insanely tense battles many, many times. This dark and twisted journey is brought to life in stunning beauty by depicting gorgeous environments that provide you small amounts of peace and tranquility amidst a seemingly endless nightmare of death and horror. There is however, one issue that has led Dead Space 3 down a path that ultimately hinders the game and that involves the music. Originally Dead Space had a minimal score which allowed gamers to hear more of their surrounding environment and thus adding to the "holy crap, what was that I just heard and where is it coming from?" moments. Unfortunately the sound of Dead Space 3 resembles more of a dramatic Hollywood movie score where you can get the feeling something big and bad is going to happen as the music climbs in intensity. This ultimately takes away from the environment around you which hurts the game in the end because the environment has always been a primary focus of Dead Space's appeal.
Without question Dead Space 3 delivers some amazing new innovations but in the end, you get the feeling that there was more focus on what innovations were to be included, than making what content that was in the game perfect. Make no mistake, Dead Space 3 is a fantastic survival horror game, but the setbacks that effect a lot of these new innovations hinder the game's overall quality and prevents it from developing into an almost perfect game. Moving forward, gamers want quality, not quantity and hopefully Visceral will learn from this if or when they decide to release Dead Space 4 and focus on scaring the crap out of us instead of culminating new innovations that detract from what makes the Dead Space series arguably, the king of survival horror.
If you are one of the millions of gamers from around the globe who fell in love with the Dead Space games, then you will enjoy the new adaptations and innovations in Dead Space 3 and while yes there may be some faults and flaws, Dead Space 3 is a must have for anyone who not only enjoys quality survival horror games, but enjoys quality games period. Always look over your shoulder, and remember to stay away from the vents. Keep your gun always loaded and your wits about you and you just might make it out alive, but what condition will you be in afterwards? Play Dead Space 3 and you'll find out...
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Skulls of the Shogun
When it comes to turn based strategy games, there is very few that stands the test of time and even fewer initially succeed. Stepping onto the field of battle is 17bit with their latest Xbox Live Arcade game Skulls of the Shogun, and it proves that not only is it a bad idea to backstab a ruthless and brilliant military general who will stop at nothing in the afterlife to have is revenge and gain the love of a top heavy female spirit, but that you can laugh hysterically while doing all of this. This is the story of General Akamoto who has led countless men into countless victories, only to be betrayed and stabbed in the back by your second in command. To rub salt into the wound, when our good General Akamoto arrives in the afterlife, he realizes that the one who betrayed him also stole his identity to command a massive blue army of undead warriors and rule the afterlife realms as Shogun. Now General Akamoto is pissed and vows revenge and dominance by conquering the realms of the afterlife and taking the title of Shogun from his second in command. It is time to recruit your own red army of undead soldiers who want nothing more than to kill things for you and in your spare time get you to autograph various.... things. Time to focus your warrior spirit, harness the soul of the Samurai, and grab something to drink if you're thirsty because the battle begins now!Skulls of the Shogun is setup in a very straight forward design where you will progress through multiple levels with different layouts, item bonuses, and various magical aides all while fighting off a number of equally challenging (and sometimes downright viciously intelligent) blue enemies. Given that this game is heavily focused on strategy, there are a wide variety of soldiers to choose from in your army and each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses. There are infantry soldiers that have average defense and offense; there are archers that deal tremendous damage but possess the weakest defense; there are even mounted soldiers who possess a little bit better defense than the archers, but slightly less power.
Throughout the levels there will be various places that your undead army can haunt and while some provide rice (the game's in game currency), there are some that will provide you with magical creatures that offer a multitude of impressive bonuses from healing your soldiers to severely wounding almost every enemy on the battlefield. The point to the rice besides being needed for some amazing spellcasting is that you can use that to purchase more soldiers of your choosing from a soldier shrine. At the start of every turn, every rice patty that you have haunted will give you +25 rice and will heal any wounded soldier who happens to be standing on top of it. This is a plus since when you haunt anything you, in essence, freeze your character for one whole round and prevent them from counter attacking.
The game consists of battles over multiple rounds and each side is given a total of five commands per round. With a command you can select a member of your army and move them within the movement circle and while you do that you will see a secondary circle that follows your character shrink. This secondary circle is what will be leftover for movement if you perform an action. If an enemy is within range when you move, you can attack them and then use whatever is left of your movement circle to move to a different area. The key to all of this is balance and here's why. Actions such as attacking will allow you to move afterwards, but other actions such as eating skulls, or haunting shrines or rice patties will effectively end your turn instantly. When you combine the balance of movement with the balance of your soldier, then that is where strategy becomes absolutely critical.
While the depth of this game is surprising, it's not without its own style of beauty. Each level is done in a cartoonish feel with bold colors and vibrant elements that really stand out on the screen such as cherry blossom trees. While the sound is gibberish of noise that you would find in an early sim type game, the gem of the dialogue is found in the humor of the writing which will have you laughing throughout each and every stage. While Skulls of the Shogun is a game that might go undetected on your game radar, it provides a quality gaming experience that will be both challenging and rewarding. When you also take into account that the game also supports multiplayer, Skulls of the Shogun demands a lot of respect in the turn based strategy genre.
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
The Cave
When you think of gaming companies that produce quality games and are still in business today, the list is not as long as you would expect. In today's day and age the true test of the quality of a gaming company is one that is still around and making great games today. One of those companies known worldwide for their work is Double Fine. They have released such titles as: Stacking, Iron Brigade, Costume Quest, Brutal Legend, Psychonauts and more. Now Double Fine has released a game called The Cave for the Xbox Live Arcade and they are hoping that gamers will find their treasure at the end of a long demented spelunking journey. Let's grab our mining helmets, some dynamite, and a canary or two and see just who will make it out alive as we take our first steps deeper into The Cave. (Insert evil laugh here...)The Cave starts out with an introduction by the omnibus, wait, no, ominous, yeah that’s it, ominous narrator who is The Cave himself, or itself, or... can you even say "who" when talking about The Cave since, well, it's a cave? This voice is what will be your guide throughout different scenarios that you will encounter throughout the levels. This dark and twisted voice puts a humorous twist on watching you navigate and manipulate the puzzles ahead, and all the while you can't help but think its intentions are hardly genuine. In the beginning you are given a multitude of characters to choose from. Each character has a backstory provided through the narrator, but ultimately you must choose three of the characters and submit them to the tests and trials of the cave below.
You will notice from the beginning that the levels themselves are done in a spacious, multi-elevation layout where you will find yourself spacing your characters out at critical interactive points to solve various puzzles ahead. A vast majority of the puzzles will consist of having one character find an object that can interact with another object, but to get to that other object; you will secondly need another character to interact with some other item or obstacle to allow your first character to progress to their original goal. While it sounds confusing at first, you will find that the control scheme has been simplified to make things as smooth and streamlined as possible to allow easy navigation and access to The Cave's multiple levels.
Now given that this whole experience takes place inside a cave, you have to wonder what beauty lies beneath, and sadly the answer is not much. While the graphics are done in an almost cartoonish sense, it almost feels as though you are playing something that we've seen before over five years ago. The same can be said, unfortunately, for the sound. While the narrator's voice is humorous, there really isn't much that stands out as something memorable to your ears. While these dings may make The Cave seem a little "lack luster" there is an overshadowing fault that almost makes you want to light your dynamite and seal The Cave off for good. That fault is the lacking feature of online multiplayer. How can you expect to make a multiplayer game and not allow it to go online? This means that if you want to play with three people like the game allows, you better make room on the couch for two other friends, and that is the biggest fault of The Cave.
While puzzle platforming games attempt to seemingly reinvent the wheel when it comes to puzzles and how to keep gamers entertained for hours and hours, sometimes if you try and perfect perfection you end up with an abomination, and sadly there are too few redeeming qualities of The Cave to go up against the monumental shortcomings. Even though Double Fine makes some amazing games, unfortunately The Cave is not one of them. Throwing your Microsoft Points toward The Cave makes as much sense as throwing money out the window while you're driving on the highway.
Suggestions: Provide online multiplayer if you are going to have a multiplayer element to your game.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Sleeping Dogs
In the world of video games, various categories have arguable favorites. If you question a gamer about top sandbox style games, you will find that the list consists of Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption and less than a handful of others. This is because only a few games have managed to balance the harmony of open world exploration and action packed entertainment. Recently United Front Games and Square Enix have developed and published a title aimed at one thing, to be regarded as one of, if not the premier sandbox game. Originally planned as a reboot of the True Crime series, this game ended up being cancelled in 2011, however Square Enix saw the potential and thanks to Square Enix, we get to enjoy an absolutely fantastic and entertaining game. Now given the competition that is staring at it right in the face, does Sleeping Dogs shy away with its tail between its legs, or does it come out swinging in a nonstop onslaught? Let's take a stroll through some of the back alleys of Hong Kong and find out what Sleeping Dogs is all about. Buckle up; this is going to be one exciting ride.The secret ingredient that all the top games in the sandbox genre share is a fantastic story. It's the story that keeps gamers glued to the set for days upon weeks and helps provide multiple reasons why you want to go explore such a massive map. The story of Sleeping Dogs is without question the gem in this game's crown. Yes you may have a lot of "favors" that you will have to do for the locals that will have you exploring all over Hong Kong, however the main story itself is done very, very well. From the beginning you are put right in the middle of a drug deal gone south and you come to realize quickly that you play the role of an undercover officer who walks a hazy line between upholding the law and succumbing to the other side of the tracks. Working your way through the criminal underworld of Hong Kong is essential for your career as an undercover Hong Kong police officer, but at what price?
Navigating throughout the massive city can be a bit difficult at times, and thankfully the control scheme of Sleeping Dogs allows some very fluid mechanics to help you out. Driving vehicles for instance, provides a very arcade style sensation by making quick turns and car control very simplistic and easy. There are successful gameplay elements though that really shine through and that rests in the hand to hand combat of Sleeping Dogs. Modeled almost exactly from the Batman Arkham games, Sleeping Dogs allows gamers to attack, throw, and counter with minimal frustration by incorporating one button controls. When you see your enemy glow red, press the Y button and your character (even with his back to them) will counter the oncoming attack with one of your own and open up the combat for continued assaults, throws, and more. There is through an unfortunate gameplay mechanic that tends to take the wind out of this enjoyment and that is our old enemy, the camera. Not only will you find it somewhat frustrating when tackling groups of enemies, but there are times when you are driving that you will end up cursing it entirely. This though isn't the only downfall of Sleeping Dog's gameplay. While the control scheme is fairly straight forward and very easy to use, the responsiveness seems to feel a bit sluggish at times and that can be irritating when you start various missions and without knowing it you vault over some railing and fail the mission.
Without question, United Front Games has worked diligently on the gameplay mechanics of Sleeping Dogs but what really helps make this game stand out are the various skill trees that you can level up throughout the game. The three skill trees are categorized by police, triad, and face. Each tree provides bonuses and unlocks for your character which can range from decreasing the damage you take, stronger melee attacks, disarming armed opponents quickly, and more. The way you unlock points to spend in these skill trees comes from your performance during missions. If you don't cause a lot of collateral damage and people seem to escape alive from your driving or shooting, then you will find your police meter increase. With that being said, to increase your Triad meter, you pretty much have to go to the darker side and take out anything and everything in your path. This whole leveling system incorporates a much deeper attraction to gamers as you will find yourself completing every side quest in an attempt to max out these skill trees and unlock everything for your character. This little surprise packs a serious punch when it comes to creating a game that will have you mesmerized for a very long time.
One facet of video games that have taken a huge leap forward in recent years is the graphics. There have been sandbox games that have blown gamers minds with the high quality attention to detail. Sadly though Sleeping Dogs isn't one of them. While the city itself is large in size, the graphics feel outdated and you can't help but think that while it would be a monumental task, if United Front Games had put just a bit more attention to detail, Sleeping Dogs would have been absolutely beautiful. There are some plus sides however as the character modeling and facial movements seem more realistic and border on the quality of L.A. Noire. Sleeping Dogs, while lightly slacking visually, does manage a good job with the sounds of Hong Kong. The voice acting is done well, and the variable soundtrack goes a long way to help bring to life such a vibrant and deep rooted culture. While not a knockout blow, Sleeping Dogs still manages to stay planted on its feet.
While playing Sleeping Dogs you can't help but to naturally compare it to the other sandbox kings, but when you add in innovations to the gameplay mechanics, all the other faults of the game tend to take a back seat. This is a great thing because the story of Sleeping Dogs is one that shouldn't be missed and with the upcoming DLC we can hopefully expect more great things from United Front Games and Square Enix. Sure it may not be Grand Redemption or Red Dead Auto, but once you get locked into the story of Sleeping Dogs, you will find such an in-depth and entertaining game. So what are you waiting for? Here are the keys, let’s go for a drive.
Overall Score: 8.6 / 10
Hitman: Absolution
Blessings my child, please come in. Here in this Sanctuary you will find peace and solace, and you look like you could use both. You have the look of a man who has walked a dark path for many years and has seen how black the night can be. Let me ask you a few questions. How far must one go to save a life? Would you sacrifice all that you hold dear to fulfill the dying wishes of a traitor you once called friend? How do you absolve a soul of so much agonizing pain? Let me tell you a tale, and maybe through this story, you will learn how to not only rejoice in the wonderful, but also confront the demons that haunt you head on. This is the story of a man. A man whose past is filled with darkness and death. This man is called not by a name, but by a number. 47. His life though, like yours, is not without hope of salvation but to do this, one must overcome their demons and only through this will they find their Absolution. It is time my child to hear the tale of Hitman: AbsolutionWhat we see on the surface is but a mask worn by those in the shadows, who seek the success of their own agenda, but they have a problem, they pissed off 47. A byproduct of genetic science and a need for the ultimate weapon, you could say that 47 became a global problem solver under control from the Agency. Oh how things are about to change. Betrayed by those who he called friend, 47 uncovers some questions behind the motives of his employers and when no one wants to talk, 47 gets the answer. As silent as a shadow passing through the night, the Hitman series has seen a long and devoted following by bringing to life a character that fills our gaming desire for brutal action, suave one liners, and the most stain resistant suit ever seen in a video game. Being the 5th Hitman game on consoles, I/O Interactive and Square Enix have gone to great lengths to bring about new innovations to Hitman: Absolution.
The premise of Hitman: Absolution is fairly straight forward. 47 will navigate various enclosed levels and attempts to find his target and determine the best way to fulfill the contract. These levels offer gamers multiple styles of play which in conjunction with the level challenges equate to a very high replay value. One of the new innovations that you will find in Hitman: Absolution is the inclusion of a new instinct meter that allows you to, highlight targets and places of interest, foresee enemy movement, and blend in amongst enemies while in disguise and more. There are multiple things you can do to replenish instinct, such as: completing objectives, silently or creatively take down opponents, hiding bodies and more. While some of the devoted following the Hitman series may see this as a negative, I/O and Square have gone to great lengths to make sure that the core gameplay stays as close to the center as we have come to expect from games in the past. Being efficient, not dramatic is the name of the game and being quiet and stealthy will prove more beneficial to you than choosing to be loud and the center of attention.
The gameplay mechanics of Hitman: Absolution allows you to showcase some incredibly brutal forms of problem solving. Small QuickTime events allow you to watch 47 beat the ever loving crap out of someone, then with a push of a button, hide the evidence. When you have decided that someone is worth a bullet, you can call upon your instinct to allow you to go into Point Shooting mode and tag your enemy(ies) and with the press of a button, unleash a swift, but deadly barrage of bullets. This will undoubtedly announce your presence, but if you must kill everyone to remain silent, then so be it.
Showcasing for the first time in Hitman: Absolution is the brand new Contracts mode. In this mode you pick your level, target, method of death, clothes you must wear and more. Think of this like a game of HORSE where you get rewarded more for challenging contracts and extravagant deaths. Contracts mode also allows your friends to create contracts to send to you. This new version of multiplayer does allow you some variant of current mission maps, but in the end does very little to actually engage multiple people on a map at the same time and that’s a shame because other games have managed to do this well and this mode seems to be missing out on even greater potential.
To say that Hitman: Absolution is a beautiful game is an insult. I/O Interactive has worked harder than ever to bring 47's world to life like we have never seen before. Beautiful lighting effects abound through the 20 levels and the character modeling and interactions have catapulted into levels never before seen on any Hitman game period. While you are taking in the beauty visually, you will be surprised by the high quality audio of Hitman: Absolution. While the voice over acting is good at times, the real beauty is when you get into the busy crowds and you hear all the commotion going on around you. Having subtitles turned on is a plus as you may miss hearing information about some secret in the area, or information on your next target. This is exactly what Hitman fans have been waiting patiently for and thankfully I/O Interactive and Square Enix have done a job beyond any we could hope for as gamers.
So far Hitman: Absolution seems to have the makings of a fantastic game, but there are a few things though that ties 47's hands behind his back. The first thing that stands out is the story itself. As you progress through the various stages you'll find the story try very hard to become many different things. It's like the old saying goes: "A jack of all trades is a master of none." This is a great way to sum up the story quality of Hitman: Absolution. The plot tries very hard in multiple areas but ultimately in the end we are left with some pretty good attempts, instead of one amazing story. You read earlier about the new instinct system and that too is something that purists of the series may not take to so nicely. By allowing you to "blend in" with a push of a button, it takes away some of the challenge and the decisive actions that had to be made in the previous games. Another small gripe is the placement of checkpoints. Out of place is a good description for most while some would seem obscenely pointless as they are surrounded by many enemies. These checkpoints though can make the difference between a slight frustration and full on fury inspiring gameplay because if they are not activated and you have to restart, it's going to be from the beginning of the level.
Hitman: Absolution does deliver a solid experience despite a few setbacks and fans of the previous games should look beyond the faults and changes to find a quality gameplay experience that is truly entertaining. So there you have it my child, the story of a man and his life. While there were demons that he had to fight, he did fight and through his success we have Hitman: Absolution. Go now my child. You know what path you must walk and you know what you must overcome along the way. It is time for your own soul to have its own Absolution.
Overall Score: 8.6 / 10
Guardians of Middle-earth
Darkness stirs in the East. An evil beyond any could comprehend is poised to rise up from the shadows and blanket Middle Earth in despair. The time of peace is coming to an end, and in its stead we find the prelude to a war that will forever shape the outcome of all those who dwell in Middle Earth. It is up to you to answer the call of the hero, take arms against your adversaries, and drive the foul beasts back into their abyss! The moment of truth is upon us and only through your actions can victory be obtained and the evil vanquished from the lands. Victory in this war cannot be won alone, therefore an alliance of heroes will be formed and through your brotherhood will the darkness finally be vanquished. Hear the horn blowing. Answer its call.Very few tales have been told that impact humanity on such a scale as Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. To grasp how much influence these two tales hold, you need to start thinking on biblical levels. Over the past half century, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have captivated millions of people through text, and when adaptations of these books cross into other forms of media, there is almost a collective holding of breath in hopes that the representations at least match the expectations we already hold in our minds. There are some works that do justice to the source material, however there are some that make us hang our head in shame. Now upon us is the Xbox Live Arcade game Guardians of Middle Earth. It should be noted that starting out, things look promising. Guardians of Middle Earth is published by Warner Brothers and developed by Monolith, and when you add support from New Line Cinema, Wingnut Films, and Middle-Earth, you start to get a sense of a true interactive masterpiece that will keep you locked in constant amazement.
As you set forth on your grand adventure, you will notice the sheer depth of the game before you. This depth is what will provide you with countless hours of enjoyment. For starters, there are multiple loadouts that provide different opportunities to base your character stats around your gameplay. There are multiple classes that feature a total of over 20 different Guardians and each offers their own individual abilities that can turn the tide of war in an instant. Your character will have access to relics that are based off of multiple support characteristics. It's in these relics where your gems will go that will offer additional stat or character bonuses. All of these make up what is known as your hero's "belt" which provide your character numerous bonuses and enhancements that can not only benefit your character, but your entire army as well. On top of this customization you will also have the ability to customize what types of "commands" you want to have at your disposal in the middle of battle. Various commands will grant your Guardian a quick boost of power that will decimate foes in front of you, or provide your troops healing powers to help keep them alive longer, and more. When you combine all of these elements with hotkey potion management, then you have the ingredients to make not just a fantastic MOBA game, but a fantastic game period.
Guardians of Middle Earth does do some justice to Tolkien's masterpieces, however, before you start getting too excited there are a couple of drawbacks. Now when we had the chance to review Guardians of Middle Earth, there were very few other reviewers online and nowhere near enough gamers to make a full room. This situation allowed those who were online and loving this game to charge head first into a really big issue with the load times. Since open slots in matchmaking will be filled with AI controlled characters, Guardians of Middle Earth takes two minutes to find a game. While two minutes may not seem like a long time, while you are waiting, it seems almost long enough to read The Hobbit itself. On a plus side though, once the game releases and many more gamers jump online, this issue with the two minuet wait time should be erased, hopefully.
Another issue that I have with Guardians of Middle Earth deals with the voice acting. While some of it seems to come directly from the audio from the movies, there are some voices that do not fit the feel of the characters. Take The Witch King for example, instead of having a sinister shrieking voice it sounds like his name is Phil from accounting. Thankfully only some of the voices are like this, but all of this combat brings forth another issue and that involves the levels you get to play on. You don't get three maps, or even five, instead you get one, and only one. Like the phrase says, one ring to rule them all and now you have only one map to rule them all. Given the iconic scenery throughout The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, one thing Tolkien has always given his readers are dynamic settings from which all these events are staged. Unfortunately with only one map that never changes, the combat does get stale after a while.
"Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." This quote sums up Guardians of Middle Earth perfectly. As an avid fan of Tolkien's works, great care must be taken to make sure that the quality of work presented does justice to the source material, and sadly that is not the case here. With a price tag of a hefty 1200 MS points, Guardians of Middle Earth tries very hard to justify a purchase, however the faults are unfortunately crippling. If more content as far as maps and arenas were initially provided for free, then it would be well worth the purchase, but for now unfortunately, wait till it goes on sale.
Suggestions: Please make sure that there is more than one map available for gamers. If at launch there is only one map, please make sure that you release multiple maps in the form of DLC where the first map pack (of lets say 3 levels) is for free. 1200 MS points is a lot to spend on a game where you play only 1 map and it would go a long way in showing gamers you want to provide content equal to the quality of work of the Guardians themselves.
Overall Score: 7.9 / 10
Pool Nation
"Fat man, you shoot a great game of pool."If you're a fan of pool halls, tournaments, or just pool in general, then your choices for quality billiards for a while has been very slim. One of the most popular games around the world now comes to the Xbox Live Arcade with the release of Pool Nation. Priced at 800 MS points, now lets find out if it sinks the 9 in on the break, or scratches on the 8. Grab your chalk and line up your break as we take to the felt and find out what Pool Nation is all about.
One of the many beauties about pool is that there are tons of variants to the game. Thankfully Pool Nation does honor this quality about the sport by providing six gametypes to play in multiplayer which range from 3-Ball, to Golf, to Rotation and more on top of the lengthy 9-Ball and 8-Ball tour mode. Pool Nation does offer one new innovation to billiard games on the Xbox 360 and that is the introduction to Endurance. The goal is simple, sink all the balls as fast as you can and survive till the end, but you'll quickly learn that isn't as easy as it looks. Starting similar to 9-Ball, however, after the break, more balls are added to the table in random spots every few seconds. This mode will have you thinking quickly because the twist is, if there are a total of 24 balls on the table, the game is over. That means you have a starting limit of only 15 balls so timing is critical. There is a small window of hope though and that is what I like to call the time stopper. By completing various trick shots and gaining high pocket streaks, your time stopper meter fills to a point where you can actually freeze time temporarily and prevent any new balls from being in play.
While this new innovation goes a long way into breathing new life into this sport, the same can also be said for the graphics and physics. To say that this game handles like what you would expect from a real pool game is close to the truth. All the ball skill shots are available to use, so now you can work on your trick shot skills as you work to become the pool shark of Xbox Live. The balls themselves react as you would expect from a real world game, and when you add that feature to the ease of use controls, then you have the makings of a brilliant billiards game. You just heard me mention that the graphics are stunning, and when I say that, I mean jaw dropping realistic. Every aspect down to the fibers in the felt showcase a beauty beyond comprehension. The only thing that is missing graphically would be the inclusion of using your own avatar on Xbox Live and instead you are left with an invisible person holding the cue stick, but it's hard to focus on that while you're staring at something so mind boggling gorgeous.
The sport of pool has been around a long time, and many other games have tried to do it justice but have fallen short. Others have hit the mark and have quickly become the definitive title in pool. Now with Pool Nation for 800 MS points we get a wealth of content wrapped in a beautiful visual bow. If you are a fan of pool, then without question Pool Nation is a must have game.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Pid
Have you ever had one of those days where you wanted to get home, but for whatever reason, your space ship bus driver dumps you off at the wrong planet and your day just keeps getting worse and worse and all you want to do is just get back home? Neither have we. Apparently though Kurt is one of the unluckiest kids in video games because his day just started off bad and then the bottom kicks out and sends him on an adventure to get back home, but along the way he gets caught up in a conflict that threatens the machine residents who apparently can't fight off the evil around them. This is the nutshell for Might and Delight's debut platforming title Pid. Time now to fire up our beams of light and energy and shoot for the stars as we launch this review of Pid.The heart and soul of any platformer has to rely on the game mechanics. The ability to challenge the gamer while still allowing them to enjoy not only the aesthetics, but the deeper aspects of Pid is a central focus in this game. The play controls allow for a very easy pick up and play feel, however sometimes they feel a bit sluggish and when you are traversing multiple different moving traps that can kill you in one hit, which could pose some issues. Along the way you will come across different puzzles and enemies that you must find inventive ways of dispatching to free your path. Some of the puzzles you face will require some depth of thought and even though there will be times of controller breaking frustration, there will also be many times of a great sense of accomplishment. Pid represents a growing trend of phenomenal platformers that balance challenging levels, simplistic controls, and an addiction to finally achieving victory.
Throughout the varying regions of Pid, your eyes are treated to an ocular sensation of overwhelming beauty. Each area is treated separately but they all provide a staggeringly gorgeous backdrop amongst the stars. While the character modeling is quite simplistic, it's in this simplicity that we find a visual cohesive gel that helps you visualize that you are indeed on this planet.
While the visual beauty of Pid is brilliant, the same can't be said for the sound unfortunately. If you can imagine a futuristic jazz style loop playing over and over again, you'll quickly understand the audio similarities in Pid. While the loop itself is done well, the amount of repetition will drive the riff deep into your mind, where you'll be hearing it in your head after you've shut the game off. The sounds themselves do differ in between the levels, however, it's a loop and nothing more which is sad when you think of the amazing sounds that you do get to hear. On top of that the voice acting is replaced with spoken gibberish, but I feel that serves as a double edged sword. On one hand, you don't have to pay voice actors and risk hearing some horrible overacted lines; but on the other hand, going with just a silent pop up dialogue screen would give gamers a classic RPG style feeling which would go a long way in helping this game.
Overall, you could say that the platforming genre has delivered some top quality entertainment, for fractions of the cost of some retail titles, and Pid is another entry in this short list of arcade greatness. For 800 MS points, Pid provides another amazing entry into the platforming/puzzle solving genre, however, is it worth it? Sadly no. The control scheme while good, could be tighter and more responsive, and the sound could use some touching up, however, if this title ever goes on sale, it is without question a must have if you enjoy platforming/puzzle solving games.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Halo 4
Cortana: Chief, take a look at this. I found this while deciphering code within the Forerunner intelligence network. It's a heavily protected file that if my decoding is correct, should shed some light on what’s in store for our future. Fancy a read Chief?Master Chief: Always love good intel.
Cortana: Interesting.... It appears to have information from a site called XboxAddict which may be useful to helping us along the way. Apparently there is a lot of data concerning the overall qualities of our missions and the title of the report reads, Halo 4.
Master Chief: Talk to me
BEGIN TRANSMISSION
XBOXADDICT.COM
HALO 4 REVIEW
"Wake me, when you need me"
A long time has passed since we left Master Chief floating adrift amongst the stars, deep in a cryogenic sleep. Many Halo games have released since then, but no game has had more anticipation than Halo 4. For years we have waited anxiously to awaken Master Chief from his slumber and propel ourselves through the next chapter of this gaming masterpiece. It is time to rejoice my fellow Spartans for the wait is over. The time has come! As a new war approaches, it brings with it, a threat so overpowering it is beyond human comprehension. Humanity needs a hero. Someone who can overcome the unrelenting forces of adversaries to ensure that mankind survives. The time has come. Wake up John.
From the beginning Halo 4 opens up to a symphony of vocals, instruments, and visual beauty set against the backdrop of the wreckage in space over the Forerunner planet. With the push of one button, however, Halo 4 springs to life and shows you why the years of waiting for Master Chief’s return were worth every moment. A whole new user interface has been implemented which provides a very clean and ease of use as you go from menu to menu. Your beginning menus allow quick access to your Campaign, Infinity, Halo Waypoint, and Xbox Live Marketplace. In the campaign menu you will have the options as before where you can select levels, skulls, and difficulty. They say that the legendary difficulty is where a Spartan is born, and if they survive, become legends in their own right. The Infinity menu is where we find the heart of the Halo experience, and the beginning of your multiplayer journey. When you select Infinity, your menu choices consist of: War Games, Spartan Ops, Forge, and Theater.
War Games are your traditional multiplayer experience. It is here where you can chose between finding a traditional style Halo multiplayer game type, and creating your very own. There are many game types that we have all come to expect in Halo such as Oddball, Capture the Flag, Big Team, Slayer, and more so when it comes time to find a game, nothing could be easier. On the surface, the simplicity of the structure shines through, but when you dig deeper in creating your own custom game, you realize just how in-depth Halo 4 actually is. This new wealth of customization options is thanks to the new inclusion of the Forge toolkit at your fingertips, so now your imagination becomes your limitation.
Not only has Forge been expanded deeper into multiplayer, but when you enter the individual worlds itself, you will see that not only has your toolkit expanded, but the interface has been polished as well to provide gamers an easier time to create the worlds that they want. A big improvement to Forge rests on the new streamlined commands such as locking, and more importantly duplicating. With just a push of one button you can now duplicate objects over and over again. There is one feature though that will have Forge users beyond happy, and that is the introduction to magnets. This forever removes the need to line up objects perfectly through painstaking movements and alignments. Now you can have objects automatically align themselves and hold in place thus cutting down on the stresses found before.
Spartan Ops is brand new to the Halo universe and allows a different storyline to unfold that intersects with the story from Halo 4. These new adventures can be completed either solo or with friends and are released as episodes that shed new light on the Infinity after the end of Halo 4. Through these episodes you will become familiar with Infinity's Captain and crew, and you will also bid welcome to a new team of Spartans called, Majestic Squad. This brand new innovation to the series will ensure that Halo 4's story will always be evolving into a true cinematic spectacle.
Overshadowing all of this however, is Halo 4's brand new Spartan Hub. This new innovation to Halo allows you to access various features such as the Armory, Challenges, Loadouts, Commendations, and more. Loadouts is a new feature to Halo's multiplayer and gives you the choice of what equipment you wish to start with. If you want to start with a DMR, Plasma Grenades, Jet Pack, Ammo Boost, and Maneuverability, go ahead. First though, you must not only unlock the items, but you must also purchase them through Spartan Points (SP). You gain one SP every time your character ranks up but with certain items varying in cost; you may have to save your points for a few levels before you can buy the bigger toys. There are other new innovations to your Spartan loadouts and those are the support and tactical packages. These new options include features such as: speeding up your shield recharge rate, increasing the amount of grenades you carry, to increasing ammo capacity and improving sensor range. Ranking up not only allows you new weapon and support unlocks but also new additions to your armory. While some may want to jump head first, in Halo 4 you have to earn the armor you want wear.
When people call something beautiful it usually is because it makes an impact on us on some level. Someone may hear a piece of music and connect with it emotionally; another still may view a painting and make a personal connection with it. Without question, Halo 4's beauty goes beyond any word that could be spoken. Every level of the campaign is a wonder to behold. All the details from the towering Forerunner peaks against a blue sky to the very core of the planet itself are done to pinpoint precision and since every scene is interlinked by beautiful video footage, every moment in Halo 4 instantly becomes memorable. This is Halo like you have never seen before and easily sets the bar almost beyond reach of what is possible in the world of gaming. Earlier you read how the new user interface makes jumping between menus much easier and that is also in part to the graphic overhaul that it has received. Now large boxes indicate options to choose and since the interface is streamlined, finding things is now simpler than ever.
One factor that has made up the backbone of Halo has always been the music. Now when I start up Halo, I'm looking forward to hearing "the chant" and the following musical score by Mr. Marty O'Donnell; all you had to hear was "the chant" and you already knew what was going on. Now though, times have changed as Mr. Neil Davidge steps into the role of composing Halo 4's musical score and it took some warming up before it started to feel right. No more will you start Halo 4 up and hear the iconic monk sounds, instead you are serenaded with a seductively sinister harmony of vocals which help set the stage for the opening act of this latest chapter in Halo. Emotion plays a major role in developing a personal interactive relationship and the music is absolutely critical to get right. There are defining moments of pressure when the bass drum is beating away, driving you faster. There are moments of grand spectacles where fanfares of discovery go ringing through your ears. There are even moments that rock the Halo Universe to its core and the music grabs you and connects on a personal level. You can easily tell that Mr. O'Donnell will be missed by all of the Halo gamers around the world, but what rises from the departed is a musical experience that exemplifies every aspect of Halo 4.
Unfortunately, at the time of this writing we were unable to test the features and functionality of the new Microsoft SmartGlass application with Halo 4. It is currently available for Windows 8 and Windows RT PC's and tablets and some android products. Hopefully this feature will release soon across all platforms as this will help expand halo like nothing we've ever experienced before.
If you've realized that we have omitted everything about the plot, then you'll thank us latter because Halo 4's journey, while a bit short, provides one breathtaking moment after another and is a story that should not be spoiled in any way. In all forms of media there are characters that become more than just an icon, they become legends. Microsoft and 343 have poured their hearts and souls into making Halo 4 into the Halo game we have all been waiting to play, and it shows. The wait is almost over my fellow Spartans, we may have finished the fight but the war is far from over and because of that, Halo will never be the same again. Join the millions around the world on Nov. 6 2012 for the next installment of one of the greatest video game adventures that we will ever experience, Halo 4.
END TRANSMISSION
Cortana: From what I can tell Chief it seems that while Microsoft and 343 have given you all this help, surviving the Forerunners seems like a losing bet. How can you even expect to win this war?
(Loads battle rifle)
Master Chief: Stack the deck.
Overall Score: 9.8 / 10
Resident Evil 6 
Here you are, fighting your fight against a seemingly insurmountable force. Nothing but death and destruction surround you while the shroud of corporate evil blankets your eyes from the truth. Every turn could be your last, and every door could spell your very doom. The nightmare that you thought was at an end has only thrown you deeper down the rabbit hole. Continuing the story of the world's most destructive virulent outbreak, Resident Evil 6 will take you on a dark journey of terror by bringing to life horrors that were once only our worst nightmares. This adventure is not for the faint of heart and it's an adventure from which your sanity may not return. As you wipe the sweat from your brow, calm your heartbeat, and steady your grip on your pistol, your hope for salvation intertwines with your quest for resolution and blinds you from the fact, that you have only two bullets left. Welcome to Resident Evil 6.To uncover the reality behind the mist of deception, in your attempt to awaken from this nightmare, you will take part in multiple campaigns which consist of multiple chapters. Before you take your first steps you are offered the chance to alter various settings from: difficulty, which range from fluffy pink bunnies to pray to God; to co-op options involving Xbox LIVE connections or split screen, infinite ammo, and more. Now that the stage is set, and the players are ready, it is time for this hellish quest of horror and death to unfold.
The once herald king of survival horror games has had a very roller coaster lifespan. There were times when the game to play that will make your bladder lose control, your heart pound in your chest, and your forehead drip with sweat, was a Resident Evil game. Since its acclaimed "golden years" many have argued that Resident Evil has gone downhill in an attempt to become more modernized. Issues of the past include camera controls, movement and combat, and even with the horror element itself. Capcom has put forth extensive effort in an attempt to bring the undead horror series back to life, but like almost all zombies, all it takes is one good shot to the head to put it out of its misery for good.
When you play through the different chapters of each character, you will notice distinct differences that act as a double edged sword with this game. There are a couple of characters, whose story and gameplay bring out the classic Resident Evil feeling, however, there are also moments that will have you cursing the game itself. The plot behind the game requires you to play through the different campaigns while trying to piece everything together to complete the biggest puzzle of Resident Evil 6, the story. While it's nice to see a different take on Resident Evil's story, you can't help but think that Capcom could have done a better job with the delivery and not subject gamers to repetition. It's sad to say, but gone are the glory days when this game would make you wet yourself. Instead you will have your massive cinematic moments of shock, combined with a healthy dose of QuickTime events and after that, solve puzzles, shoot things in the head. While the play controls do differ in between character playthroughs, that doesn't mean that all of them are a success. It also means that Capcom has immediately subjected Resident Evil 6 to a massive, unavoidable fault, and that is no one will be happy. Back when you had the quality of the previous Resident Evil games, you had three types of people. Those that love the way the game played those that hated it, and those that thought it was ok. While that seems like a simplistic breakdown, ultimately, in the end, it's the truth. Now though, if you like only part of the game, then you run into the realization that you paid full retail price for a game you only like part of. This is unfortunately, one of the biggest draw backs of the entire game.
While there may be some major issues with Resident Evil 6, some of the biggest strengths can be found in the beauty of all the depraved horrors. The character textures and animation are painstakingly done to all the monsters which bring terror to life like never before and the lighting effects are done brilliantly throughout every moment and every level. Even though Resident Evil 6 is a graphic milestone for the series, it does pose some problems. Some of the character modeling of the monsters and your characters look purely terrifying, and even the new J'avo characters pose a threat that while deadly, turns out to become yet another disappointment within the game. The J'avo are able to use weapons against you, however, as you progress you will find yourself going into massive gunfights with multiple enemies and that is when Resident Evil 6, departs from a Resident Evil game, and becomes a mutated demon spawn that takes you away from one of the defining core characteristics of Resident Evil. Sure you may be witnessing all of this hellish action within stunning environments coupled with brilliant lighting, but when you turn a survival horror classic series into a 3rd person shooter, that's when you have a recipe for disaster.
You can't have a good horror game and not ensure that the sounds and music live up to the mark. Throughout the history of the Resident Evil games, the previous traits in regards to sound were: 1) Have ominous background music throughout the scenes to help build tension leading up to climatic events. 2) Have inevitable, "cheese" style character dialogue that plagues throughout the entire game. Now when we turn our focus to the new Resident Evil 6, your ears will be treated to more of the same. When you traverse each and every level your ears will be treated to a symphony of sound designed to do one thing only, and that's scaring the ever loving **** out of you. Then after you make it through these event scenes, you get rewarded by listening to corny, overacted, voice dialogues that immediately drop the tension and replace it with anguish.
Even though there are some massive issues pumping through this game like a raging old school T-Virus, some of the other modes such as Mercenaries bring new life into this undead franchise. Mercenaries mode grades you on your performance and will allow you to earn skill points which in turn, you use to upgrade your characters with such factors as increased melee damage or more health and allow you to even utilize them during your main campaigns. While Mercenaries mode brings forth some enjoyable replay value, the new Agent Hunt mode takes it right away. Using an almost direct knock off game mode, Agent Hunt could be classified as Capcom's Resident Evil twist on Left 4 Dead. While Left 4 Dead has managed to pull off this aspect brilliantly, unfortunately you can't say the same for Resident Evil 6.
When you get done taking in everything that Resident Evil 6 offers gamers, you realize that you are not playing a "true" Resident Evil game. While there are aspects that still remain from the franchise, when the core gameplay changes from what the series has always been about is a fault that absolutely cripples this game. There are some positives about the game, but they are overshadowed by continental sized failures and that's a shame because the gaming world is begging for Resident Evil return to their roots of delivering a terror experience that should come with health warnings pasted all over the box stating that playing the game could shorten life span, change mental state, or anything similar. Why Capcom has decided to evolve a classic survival horror game into a mere shadow of what it used to be is probably the biggest puzzle yet to be solved.
Suggestions: Please go back to the roots of what made the Resident Evil series the king of survival horror gaming.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Dishonored
There are men whose hearts are pure and find salvation in upholding justice for others while vanquishing evil, and then there are men whose hearts are blackened and poisoned by thoughts and actions of undermining those who would oppose their rise to ultimate power. The Empress holds her own council and trusts them to assist her in comforting and assisting her people during this dark time of death and decay. My name is Corvo and I am a high ranking official within the Empress' bodyguards. I have been dispatched on a mission of peace and aid from the neighboring lands, and upon my return, my world is turned on its head. I have been falsely accused by the Empress' advisers for the murder of the Empress and the abduction of her daughter! Send me away on a false mission of aid for our suffering people, and upon my return, they dare accuse me, Corvo, of killing the Empress and abducting her daughter, when the truth is that I'm made to be the scapegoat of their conspiracies for their own coup! Those traitorous, deceitful, conspiring officials! Now the townspeople of Dunwall are faring worse and the land is in the midst of a plague that is killing hundreds every day, and no cure has been found yet and some believe that there is a darker plot behind the curtain that has yet to be revealed. All I know is that the Empress' little girl has been abducted, and now it is up to me to find her and seek vengeance on those who were behind these horrific tragedies. It is time for me to make my own freedom, to silence those who played a role in constructing these events. My choice is my own; however on my path will I won't be alone. I once heard "To every man his choice, to every man his fate" and these vile, corrupted persons of power have taken away my choice, so now I will decide their fate. When Bethesda sets off to create a world of deception, assassinations, stealth, and more, they look to some of the stand out qualities of other titles in an effort to combine everything that once was good and make it great. Dishonored possesses qualities that are reminiscent of other top tier games and magically infuses them together to create a world where your choice determines your fate, and the fates of others as well. Keeping to the viewpoint of first person, Dishonored, in a nutshell, combines the stealth of Deus Ex, with the brutality of assassinations from Assassins Creed, the character depth and beauty of Elder Scrolls and the innovation of gameplay choice where you control your own fate. With regards to the stealth aspect of Dishonored, you are given multiple paths to explore as you traverse the city on your way to your objective. This can range from scampering across rooftops, to navigating alleyways and back avenues, to even swimming under water through sewer systems. These alternate pathways can also grant you items to pick up such as health and coin, and can even give you some surprises. The stealth aspect of Dishonored is so open, that it is even possible to go through the entire game and not kill anything, not even boss characters. If however, you do get detected, it's time to dual wield weapons and powers, and fight to win.
In Dishonored, fighting is always an option and if you fancy yourself some dismembering confrontations, then Dishonored is happy to oblige. With the press of one button you can bring up a quick selection menu where you can chose what power or weapon or both you wish to fight with. As well you have the ability to hot key these weapons and powers to the D Pad which allows you to select them on the fly. When it comes time to fight blocking is your savior and counter attacking will lead to a cinematic death that would have even Mortal Kombat cheering away. Controlling your character is very responsive at times and everything you do in the game is fairly straightforward so getting used to running and sliding and traversing obstacles to climb to new heights is very easy to do.
There are some innovative tweaks to the character development system that allows Dishonored to make the experience more interactive. There are multiple types of character enhancement items that you can find throughout the city and every one of them allows you some form of enhancement or upgrade to your character's skill sets. For example, there is an ability called Blink which acts as an instantaneous, user teleportation power. When you charge the power up you will see an icon as to where your character will land, and even if your character will climb up when teleported. This allows you to scramble up onto higher levels and rooftops of the city and avoid detection from the guards, dogs, and traps patrolling below. This ability and other upgrades can be purchased or enhanced through the finding of Runes. Runes can be rewards from side quests, or scattered throughout the many areas of Dishonored, but once found act as a sort of spiritual currency which allows you to purchase new abilities and upgrade existing ones.
Every power grants you a surface benefit, but how it's applied in situations can determine whether or not you get a hidden bonus, let me explain how that works. There is a power called Bend Time which in its first level will allow you to slow time for a short while, and then when you upgrade it you can stop time completely while your movement isn't affected at all. Now on the surface this makes infiltration and assassinations much easier, but if you apply it in combat, you gain the ability to stop bullets in mid-flight and even collect them out of the air and put them into your inventory. Other character enhancements you can find throughout Dishonored are the Bone Charms. These small artifacts can bestow either good or bad things upon your character. Originally only a small amount of Bone Charms can be used simultaneously, however, like almost everything else for your character, the ability to hold more active Bone Charms is also available, for a price. Not only will you find health items, coins, and a massive amount of empty bottles while on your quest, but you can also stumble across blueprints that will enable your character access to future upgrades that normally would not be available.
One of the biggest innovations of Dishonored is how the game itself will adapt to your play style and base how the game unfolds on your Chaos rating. While Dishonored contains a moral choice code, the Chaos rating is based off of factors such as collateral damage and deaths that you cause, violent actions, and more and it's this rating that will determine mission outcomes and how the game unfolds before your eyes. This is where your choice ultimately effects everything about the game so when you play your game, you are really playing your game and not a scripted set of predetermined events and outcomes. This also plays a major role in how the game handles and manages its many optional quests. While some are off the beaten path and away from prying eyes, there are some that are built within the main missions as well and how you chose to approach these will also determine the future of your game in Dishonored.
The setting for all of this corruption takes place in the city of Dunwall which could be compared to London during the Black Death. The city is divided into those fighting over power and those fighting to survive and hope has all but been forgotten by the city's residents. Even though there is misery, suffering, and death all around you, Dishonored takes advantage and utilizes the Unreal graphics engine into producing what could be called an interactive piece of art. You really get a sense for the suffering when you witness acts such as guards throwing wrapped dead bodies off the bridge and into the water while people are begging for some form of salvation, and it's this visual connection that really immerses you into the peril of the city and the distinct differences between those with means, and those that are meant to suffer.
A key aspect to a stealth focused game has to be the sound. Not only must the ambient music make you feel like you are in the environment, but it must also cause an emotion throughout the game to help tie everything else together. Dishonored takes all these aspects and goes above and beyond how sound are implemented in the game. For a successful seize of control, one must have power, and knowledge is power. As you traverse the many avenues you will overhear guards talking which will gain you valuable information, providing you haven't killed them already. This is where the sound really plays to its strengths as you will uncover new quests; learn new ways to achieve your goals, and more. So not only do you have a score that makes you feel like you are right there with everyone, but it's through other areas of sound that you gain more options and knowledge of your surrounding environment and quest missions.
In today's world gamers are treated to countless sequels of preexisting, successful games. Usually when companies are struggling to develop something new, they can find quick cash by going back and releasing classic games with a slight upgraded feel. Bethesda though, continues to develop new and innovative games, and that attention to quality and detail shines through in Dishonored. There are very few games you can buy today that offer so many amazing aspects from other top tier titles while innovating new elements to provide a brilliant combination that depends on one thing only, your actions. What choices will you make? How will your actions be perceived by others? It's time to end the corruption, silence the crooked tongues of deception, and uncover the truth to the mystery of Dunwall's sorrows. The choice is yours to make, welcome to Dishonored.
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
Jet Set Radio
There seems to be a habit forming amongst the video game world and that habit is releasing old games with an HD makeover. Sometimes this has paid off well and other times you think to yourself "what were they thinking?" Sega has stepped into the fray this time with the release of an old classic, Jet Set Radio. Originally when the game released it was plagued with many, many faults, however an almost cult following developed for the game and it quickly became one of those titles that you either loved or hated. If you have never played Jet Set Radio before, you should consider this like a more arcade style skater where you skate around different areas and spray graffiti on various objects and targets all the while avoiding law enforcement and trying to make your mark against other gangs. While this was innovative for the time, the game still suffered from lack of quality controls and with other skating games doing better in terms of quality, Jet Set Radio has always faced an uphill climb. Let?s take a look at the new Jet Set Radio HD remake for the arcade and see if Sega has either granted a gift to the loyal fans, or created something just so they can generate some cash. As we kick of this review, the first thing that you will notice is the HD remake of the graphics. Jet Set Radio has always been cel-shaded to add a more feel and from the very beginning you will see that Sega has gone to great lengths to improve upon the graphics for the HD release. While the original Jet Set Radio was a graphic innovation in its own right, when compared to this latest remake, the difference is night and day. Make no mistake, every graphical facet of the game has been improved upon but sadly that can't take away the fact that this game still contains a lot of the faults of the original.
Back in the day, Jet Set Radio suffered from a control scheme that was supposed to be simplistic but ultimately in the end fell flat on its face when compared to other skating games. The main reason behind this failure in controls stemmed from the lack of a user controlled camera. In this latest release we find that Jet Set Radio has finally implemented a user controlled camera, but while this has helped somewhat, the control issues of past have come back to haunt gamers in a bad way. There are still issues with the camera (even though you can control it) and your skater still feels like he's a semi-truck skating on ice. Sega had a chance to deliver a classic experience and improve on the issues of the past, but unfortunately it only seems like Sega was interested in only improving the graphics.
Over the years we as gamers have had the luxury and benefit of innovations and improvements in all forms of gaming, however, in today's day and age we have come to expect that gaming companies who decide to release these classic games in HD provide the public with a wealth of improvements to enhance the joy and entertainment we all remember having. Sadly Jet Set Radio seems like a partial attempt to recreate a fun and enjoyable game, but the even more depressing news is that this game wasn't very fun to begin with and when you couple that with the fact that the game only offers minimal improvements but still suffers from the original poor control scheme and camera issues, Sega is betting that you don't remember how mediocre this game was to begin with and pick it up. If you're a fan, this should be a no brainer pick up, but only when it's discounted on sale. If you're not a fan, or have never played Jet Set Radio, do yourself a favor and avoid this game like you would avoid the police.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Kung Fu Strike
Remember classic Kung Fu movies from back in the day? They usually had a plot line that was less in depth than a story on the back of a cereal box and you could find better acting from homeless people begging for money, but one thing that these movies did very well was provide intense action fight scenes that quickly became the highlight of any film. With other fighting games found on the Xbox Live Arcade, Kung Fu Strike tries to cement itself as a serious contender for the fighting crown. So can this $10 arcade fighter go the rounds and fight off other competition such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Soul Calibur, and more? Well let?s find out. Round 1..... Fight!The first round begins and already Kung Fu Strike is starting out behind the eight ball. By providing limited to no story, Kung Fu Strike gets caught with a roundhouse to the gut as it fails to keep the gamers caught up in the reason for all this fighting. There are no stories about having to defend your temple and honor against an onslaught of Kung Fu competition, no stories about rouge fighters and their love interests that turn into revenge. Instead you get a story that is so poorly developed that removing it completely would actually benefit the game entirely. There are storyboard style scenes that precede every level, but there is nothing that makes you shout at the TV about defending your honor or even care that you're playing this game to begin with. How nonexistent is the story? Well here's a better example of a good story line:
"Fighter's house burned to the ground, family died, he's the sole survivor on a quest for revenge, fighter finds very tall building and has to fight through various rounds to reach the top, fighter reaches top, big brawl ensues, fighter wins and avenges family, the end."
That story right there would be a better fit to this game instead of the limp wristed experience you do get to play. To put it plainly, Kung Fu Strike's story is about as exciting as watching paint dry. So as we end round 1 of this fight, Kung Fu Strike is already shaping up to be like its old school movie counterparts in the plot category.
Round 2 begins and this time Kung Fu Strike comes out with fists of fury by implementing a very simplistic fighting style gameplay. At your disposal you have only a few buttons: X - attack button (this is the button you will mash over and over again for hours), A - jump attack (if you find yourself pinned against a wall or corner, this could be the only thing to save your life), B - Deflect (think of this as a parry and stun defensive move where if timed right you can increase your health). With such a rudimentary system for fighting, your thumbs will be beating the absolute s*** out of the X, A, and B buttons so put your controller on notice; if you have buttons that have suffered years of abuse and heavy gaming, then putting it through its paces with Kung Fu Strike just may be the knockout punch that kills your controller. As round 2 ends, Kung Fu Strike's very straight forward fighting system shows that this game won't go down without a fight. Now let's take a breath and head into the start of round 3..... Fight!
As the bell sounds for round 3, we notice that Kung Fu Strike tries hard to incorporate iconic image scenarios from past movies. You have your temple fights in the courtyards, monasteries, and more. Unfortunately these tend to lack in any sort of substance and with other fighting games hitting with harder punches in the graphics and sound category, Kung Fu Strike tries hard but ultimately in the end falls flat on its face with a lack luster performance. This also exposes just how similar to an old Kung Fu movie this game really is. All the sound effects sound almost identical, just like the old movies. All the poor dub work doesn't really play into account, since there really isn't much if any spoken words. And while movies can take you to exotic landscapes and fighting arenas, Kung Fu Strike takes to you constant enclosed areas of mediocre graphics.
As the final bell sounds for the end of round 3, Kung Fu Strike is in a lot of trouble. Not only has the story actually hurt the game, but right before the bell sounded to end round 3, Kung Fu Strike got hit below the belt with the lack of online multiplayer. Do you have friends that like classic Kung Fu movies? If you do, make sure that they come over to your house, otherwise you will forever tread down the path of the lone warrior. Now the results are in, and after this intense battle does Kung Fu Strike stand strong? Not a chance. You can find more interesting stories on cigarette packages and better graphics in first grade art class. The controls are simplistic, however that means your controller will be abused harder than Tina Turner. It looks like Kung Fu Strike needs a few more years of training if it wants to compete for the fighting crown because as of now, the competition just beat Kung Fu Strike senseless.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Dead or Alive 5
The soul of a warrior may take upon different forms and lead one down different paths, but the fire and passion for victory that burns within is a constant reminder that every warrior must fight in order to achieve their goal. Tempered with both beauty and humility, there are very few moments in time when you can truly experience the unbridled fury of a warrior's spirit. Over the past decade many warriors have taken us down paths of both glory and despair, however, the time has come for one of the most iconic fighting games to return, Dead or Alive 5. Throughout history, very few fighting games have provided the strength and execution to deliver an unforgettable experience both inside and outside the arena and this time, Team Ninja have trained hard to ensure that Dead or Alive 5 will triumph over the competition and rule as the undisputed champion of the fighting game genre. Many fighters rush into battle, and are over eager to prove themselves in battle. Ultimately, in the end, this proves to be their downfall, however after seven years since the fall of DOATECH, Dead or Alive 5 is finally ready to show the world why good things come to those who wait.One of the largest factors that will determine whether or not a fighting game can stand on its own two feet or get knocked out cold is the play control. Some games offer a direct system for controls, so if I were to say to you, "Perform a sho-ryu-ken" or "Do Scorpion's spear attack" you would instantly know what to do thanks to a very direct fighting system. Then there are those games that offer such an in-depth system of movement, fighting, and more that mastering such techniques requires almost as much discipline as mastering the actual martial art, and this is the category that composes the control of Dead or Alive 5. Early on, Dead or Alive 5 will be quite simplistic to just pick up and play, however, if you want to prove you're the best, then you must devote weeks, if not months (and maybe a controller or two) to the stick breaking training you will need to navigate in order to prove your worth in the DoA ring.
Such complexity can even be found in single categories within the controls, for instance, if your opponent does a high punch you have a couple of options for a counter. One option is to push back and press the hold button, but if you want to do more damage you could press forward, up and hold. It doesn't stop there because some holds will allow you to transition right into a combo hold where you can instantly turn the tide of battle in your favor and unleash unholy amounts of damage. All of this though, has to be done within tenths of seconds so this is where all your training will come in handy. Mastering the arts of all the warriors at your disposal will be your greatest challenge of Dead or Alive 5.
When a good fighting game comes out, it usually only carries with it enough content to be considered a worthwhile purchase. When a great fighting game comes out, it usually has a ton of characters and content that will keep gamers hooked for months and hopefully years to come and is considered a first day purchase. Dead or Alive 5 needs to be almost in a class of its own and considered a must have, for any fighting game fan. The amount of content is simply staggering. For starters you have multiple options to begin with. You have your fight menu which allows you to train, fight in time attack or survival mode, and fight either versus or in the arcade. After those five options in the Fight menu, you have your online gametypes which consist of: Simple match - this mode is your basic quick match. Ranked match - where you go when you want to get serious. Lobby match - This is where you can start hosting "winner stays" style tournaments and while the old lobby system is gone, you can still view each fight while waiting and the interface is much cleaner and more efficient.
Then you have your almost required Leaderboards, and to wrap everything up you have a new option which is the Fighters List. The Fighters List is a way for you and your fellow warriors to connect together easier when fighting online. You can add people who actually destroy you in a chance to beat your rivals, or add the person you just annihilated before for easier wins. Another new innovative feature is the inclusion of a spectator mode where you can view past replays of fights and during this you can actually take and save photos of events throughout the fight. If all of that wasn't enough, Dead or Alive 5 consists of a story that doesn't involve (on avg.) between 12-16 fights as we would normally have in a fighting game, but instead the story mode for DoA5 involves over 60 fights! Make no mistake, Dead or Alive 5 truly brings a continental amount of content and that alone would make any fighting game the biggest dog on the block, but there is so much more.
When you go through the story and you fight what seems to be an unending stream of fights, your eyes are treated to one of the best qualities that Dead or Alive 5 boasts, and those are the breathtaking graphics. A short, very beautifully done movie starts and finishes every fight, and sometimes these gorgeous movies can last for over two minutes which not only gives your heart time to return to normal beating, and your adrenaline to filter back into your body, but it also gives you a chance to see true beauty unfold right before your very eyes. Each fighter is rendered to look incredibly life like so every muscle, every strand of hair, every piece of clothing seems to have its own physical effect in the environment and all of this makes fighting with each and every character a joy all in its own right.
If the characters becoming almost life like aren?t good enough, every level you fight on is done in such a way that you can sometimes feel yourself losing focus as your eyes switch to the background and you miss your opponent flying in with a kick aimed right at your head. Always known for having multiple levels of stages, Dead or Alive 5 doesn't break this tradition, and instead offers more destructible environments than ever before. Now there are multiple paths to destruction that you can take, and even generate more carnage than you ever thought possible, and all the while seeing every second of splendor in smoothness unseen before in any fighting game. If Kasumi's sword doesn't take your breath away, the graphics of Dead or Alive 5 definitely will.
For fighting game fans, playing a game that provides a mountain of content while displaying it in a beautiful graphical art form and adding in an enjoyable, straight forward online gametypes, and topped off with an incredibly deep control scheme is a must have. We have seen years of pretenders, and very few contenders, but in Dead or Alive 5 we get our first glimpse at what truly makes a champion. For those who want to experience a fighting game, pick up something else, but for those who want to fight, and fight to win, without question you must own Dead or Alive 5.
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
Counter Strike: Global Offensive
One of the biggest markets in the world of video games is first person shooters. They have been around about as many years as I've been alive, and every one of them has tried to jockey for the top spot. Today we have our Call of Duty, Battlefields, and Halos attempting to not only drain your wallet dry, but ensure that you forget your pets, neglect your job, and never see the sun again. While all this present day flash is fun at first, it's only a matter of time until some annoying prepubescent child takes over the mic screaming obscenities about your family lineage; you can't forget that some of the best first person shooter games come from the past. Oddly enough one of the biggest influences for first person shooters didn't come from this decade, and it wasn't a multi gazillion dollar budget blockbuster either. Instead it was a simple mod for an existing game that was called Counter-Strike that ended up taking the world by storm and holding many gamers hostage to their pc's for many years to come. Since inception, Counter-Strike has sold numerous sequels and millions of copies, but now Valve has decided that the next installment of this iconic series is coming to the Xbox Live Arcade and it aims at sticking to the phrase, those that don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. Well this should work out perfectly then, hopefully.There also seems to be a trend growing where some companies will listen to the public and release classics that have been practically demanded for years. Some companies don't listen (are you listening Microsoft, where's Killer Instinct 3?) and end up infuriating a large margin of gamers who want this classic legendary gaming experience back again. Then there are the smart companies who listen and have achieved gaming glory by releasing a classic game with a new twist on an original successful formula. Granted yes, Valve has the public practically beating down the doors clamoring for the next Half-Life but for now Valve has released a game which is a remake of what was once heralded as a titan of first person shooters, Counter-Strike: Global Offenike: Global Offensive (CSGO) was launched with the intention of bringing one of the most popular first person shooters to life on consoles at a budget price to allow more gamers an opportunity to experience a piece of video gaming history, but has it worked out? Well for starters almost all the first person shooting glory of the old Counter-Strike returns, and that?s a major plus.
Still heavily focused on team based actions, CSGO almost requires you to communicate with your team to win, and while that's terrific it also lends itself to a massive problem and that is, rogue immaturity. Imagine your team is working on arming or defusing a bomb, you only have a few seconds to make things work and your team is all in position to support you. You think "hey this is going to work out" and that?s when some immature rogue gamer will set off on his quest of independent dominance; leaving your team behind, outnumbered and greatly decreasing your chance for survival. So in a way, you could say that for the best experience get a few other friends together to secure your future.
Other classic qualities also return but this time there are some new twists. For starters in the Ranked tier of game play you still get the old school system of purchasing items, weapons, and more in between each round. This in game currency is won by killing opponents, securing the objectives, or just winning the match. On top of also being ranked, you get the traditional feel of the game by having to put up with friendly fire, so be careful where you aim, you could put someone?s eye out. Another bonus of going Ranked is that CSGO offers gamers a type of skill ranking system to try and balance good players with other good players. There is a new twist though in the form of casual playing. This mode not only turns off the need to spend your cash between rounds, but it will also turn off friendly fire so you can just hold down the trigger on anyone you see. Now this is all very simplistic but then it is over 10 years old and the gaming community has grown accustomed to many new innovations in first person shooters. All of that however, is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only do you get some of the classic, old school Counter Strike maps that are redone beautifully, but you also get brand new maps as well, the downfall though is that every map allows you to choose between 1 of 2 different game types. Either you're going to be neck deep in the Defusal mode where one team tries to plant and detonate a bomb while another team tries to stop it from going boom. Or you may have to bring out your inner Jack Bauer and save some lives in Hostage Rescue where one team is guarding hostages and it's up to the other team to save them.
There are a few other features involving gameplay that show an arthritic touch on a title that started off over 12 years ago. For starters forget about being precise with your shots, for in CSGO the only weapon that you can aim with a scope is the sniper rifle, everything else is just pray you hit the target. The ONLY way to increase your accuracy in the game is to crouch and that doesn't do well when you have a team of opponents running and jumping all over the map. While you do have a wealth of weaponry at your disposal, not being to aim down the sights is a pretty big drawback given today's standards, but that?s not always a bad thing, and let me show you why. In other blockbuster first person shooters we have a plethora of various bonuses and items that will assist us and can turn the tide of battle in an instant. For instance you can choose to have a massive scope, or a red dot sight, or you can choose between flight or a personal shield. In CSGO however, none of these exist and the game all boils down to how good you are with your thumbs. While not being able to zoom in on your targets with other weapons outside the sniper rifle, you'll find yourself spraying mountains of ammunition while trying to avoid being shot in the face.
If you were or are a fan of the original Counter-Strike, then Valve has gone through great lengths to try and rekindle the spark that was once there with Global Offensive. The classic fit and feel are all there and they have even added just a miniscule amount of content to make the experience feel fresh and new after over 10 years. Sadly though, the marriage between Counter-Strike and the public has gone stale over the past decade and trying to include a very minute amount of new content is sort of like taking your wife of 10 years on a weekend bed and breakfast trip to try and put that spark back in the relationship, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. For 1200 Microsoft points however, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive does come up a bit limp.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Dust: An Elysian Tail
When gaming companies set out to create games most of the time the games are made with a passion for their idea and the game companies will spare no expense to guarantee that millions of other gamers get to enjoy it as well. Sometimes you get games that are predeceased by stratospheric levels of publicity that turn into rock bottom levels of disappointments. Sometimes you get games that are, from start to finish, flat out terrible. Sometimes you will have game companies that spend hundreds of millions on development across multiple teams in multiple cities around the globe, and the game tanks. Then, like the Marines, there are the few that provide a truly breathtaking experience from start to finish. I'll let you wager a guess as to which category Dust: An Elysian Tail fits into. When we talk about Dust however, we're not talking about a billion dollar global corporation that just shovels money by the ton into creating public spectacles that can be seen from space. When we talk about Dust, we're talking about one man, Mr. Dean Dodrill, the sole designer of Dust. It's it without a doubt one of the most challenging experiences any one person can manage to tackle alone, but Mr. Dodrill somehow managed to provide gamers with a truly magical adventure filled with RPG elements, a lengthy story, tons of side quests, platforming traits, intense combat and a whole lot more. From the very beginning Dust opens itself up to you in a visually orgasmic experience. Without question this game is beyond beautiful and what a fantastic way to start your extensive side scrolling 2D journey. You assume the role of a character, aptly named Dust, who awakens to find he is the possessor of an ancient sword called Ahrah, and it is up to Dust to solve the prophecy of the sword and uncover the secrets of his past to solve the problems of the present and preserve the future. While the scripting at times can become a bit dark, the overall writing for the game is absolutely brilliant and sets the stage for one of the most enjoyable experiences you will find on the Xbox Live Arcade. While the tone of the plot may be darker at times, right from the beginning you are greeted by your brand new companion called, Fidget who acts as a source of humor (sometimes bad humor) throughout the game. This really helps enhance not only the story but the overall experience as well.
As we stated earlier this game is a 2D side scrolling adventure game and the gameplay mechanics of Dust are incredibly smooth and the ease of use makes Dust a game that you can quite easily pick up and play. You have your basic light and heavy attacks but you will also gain a Dust Storm attack where you can not only rack up insanely high combos, but you can also call upon Fidget and have this flying fox/bat thing launch 3 projectiles which turn into dozens more that will seek and attack enemies on the screen. There will be abilities you earn and learn along the way which will require you to backtrack to previous areas if you're the type of gamer that has to explore every area and obtain every treasure. The wonderful thing though is that even when you backtrack, you're still passing through untold of beauty with the environments so you don't really mind doing it.
One of Dust's major accomplishments is the integration of RPG elements throughout the game. You will find materials which can be sold to stores so they can stock them for you in the future, so a small investment now can pay off big down the road. Throughout your adventure you'll also come across blueprints for artifacts and armor that, with the right materials, you can craft and either equip or sell the items themselves. When you also take into account the heavy amount of side quests and all the items you will acquire from chests and boss fights, you will quickly realize that you will never be short for loot of any kind.
Already you've been reading praises of the beauty of Dust, and to be honest, calling it beautiful is like saying the Mona Lisa looks ok. If you have ever wondered what an animated Disney movie would look like with strong references from the time period of feudal Japan and science fiction, then Dust would be the outcome. The backgrounds of every area look like a vibrant, stunning painting and the areas themselves look like interactive masterpieces of art. Even the in game weather effects add to the ambiance of every level and add a great graphical balance to Dust. The character models are done spectacularly well and all of this remembers is thanks to one person. One nice surprise is the quality of the dialogue between characters. The retro style cut scene conversations resurrect a golden era of gaming and proves that you don't need hundreds of millions of dollars and a global workforce to get things right.
Dust is without question one of the best Xbox Live Arcade games to ever release. You could easily put this up against Trials, or even the current king of the arcade, Minecraft and Dust will go the distance due to its quality and overall brilliance. This is a perfect example of when passion and desire mix and produce something that the global gaming community will forever be thankful for. If for some reason you decide not to pick up Dust, I actually feel sorry for you b/c you're shorting yourself from one truly amazing experience. 1200 MS points for Dust is a lot for an arcade game (though $15 doesn't go that far now), but it's worth every point. Take a bow Mr. Dodrill, for you have truly created a gaming masterpiece.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Hybrid
During the draught of summer blockbuster games, Microsoft's annual Summer of Arcade is determined to keep you indoors and make you forget about this rumored artifact called the sun. With that goal in mind, we turn our attention to one of the recent releases of the Summer of Arcade, Hybrid and find out if 5th Cell has propelled its way to the top in some Olympian style fashion, or if they've crashed and burned at the bottom in a massive pile of bullets, guns, and armor. When an arcade game comes out, one of the first things people decide is if they are going to spend their Microsoft Points and purchase it. Hybrid is one of the more expensive games on the Xbox Live Arcade, with a price tag of a whopping 1200 MS Points, but is this game worth it? Let's have a look inside and see what we can find shall we?On the surface we see a graphically smooth combat arena where teams fight for control through various combat scenarios in an effort to gain control over Dark Matter and thus turn the tide of war in their side's favor. You will also notice a plethora of different weapons at your disposal from sniper rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, grenades, and more. Upon further inspection you will also notice a wide range of abilities for your character which range from infinite ammo, high impact rounds, shields which deflect some damage, and more. Now this sounds like Hybrid has included a lot of content that should complete the recipe for a good shooter game, but it doesn't stop there because Hybrid introduces the innovation of flight. So now instead of running from cover to cover in hopes of extending your life, you light your jet pack up and blast your way forward.
The controls thankfully are fairly straight forward, and that?s a very good thing because it allows you to focus on the combat and helps remove some of the frantic actions found on other shooter games. Here's how it works out. Your character starts behind cover inside the combat arena, then using your sticks you select the next cover you wish to fly to, press one button and he's off to the races. While you're flying to the next cover you can aim and shoot your gun, fire off grenades, or even call in a warship to help assault your foes. Upon landing your character will automatically duck behind cover for safety and it's from here you can fly to another cover point, attack any opponents in sight, or retreat if you want to your previous point. This setup actually works surprisingly well because you don't find yourself fumbling around with mechanics and instead you find yourself focused on the battle itself.
As we can see Hybrid seems tick all the right boxes for a fun, action packed, third person shooter, but don't be fooled by the outside glamour of jet packing perfection, because Hybrid does pack not only a few problems, but a rocky history as well. Take for instance the story of Hybrid. There isn't one. All you get is a few second introductions as to why the world is split into two dividing forces on a quest for power, and that?s it. The story is supposed to tie into the so called meta game inside Hybrid where you get a world map and apparently can go through different regions in order to play different gametypes to further the cause of the side you choose to play as. Is it confusing? Yes. Is the story next to nonexistent? Yes. Does any of this help you enjoy the game in any way? Ummmm... no. I've read more in-depth stories on the back of cereal boxes.
On top of the notecard story line, Hybrid also is painfully slow when it comes to finding multiplayer matches. You will spend more times watching the "Searching for Lobbies" and "Populating Lobby" screens than you will actually playing the game. You could pop in Hybrid on New Year?s Day and by Thanksgiving you will give thanks that you have finally found a match. Gamers who enjoy shooters almost require a fast load time in between matches because it helps keep the fluidity of the game and with load times of over 2 minutes in between matches, Hybrid's speed feels about as fast as those motorized chairs that go up and down stairs.
This major problem though stems from issues in Hybrid's past as well. Upon launch of a game you would expect developers to have connectivity issues ironed out, especially when your game is based off of multiplayer combat. Well that wasn't the case for Hybrid. Upon release the game suffered such game breaking problems with connection issues to their servers that Microsoft pulled the plug and actually removed one of their Summer of Arcade games from the marketplace until such issues were resolved. This didn't bode well for the arcade game given so much promotion was put behind the game. The issues have now been resolved but it almost feels too little too late. The reasoning behind it is because if your game is primarily based off of multiplayer, then your company HAS to ensure that multiplayer connection issues are relatively nil and that isn't the case with Hybrid. It's like making a car and forgetting to put the steering wheel on, then saying "oops, we're going to recall everything and put steering wheels back on because we forgot to in the first place."
With all these issues you may be saying no thanks to Hybrid, but before you close the door all together on this game, you may want to take a closer look at what Hybrid brings to the table. The real beauty behind Hybrid rests in the staggering amount of combinations for your character. When you combine all the armor, weapon, and ability traits you can truly create a character that will fit the feel of how you want to play. If you want to charge in, grab yourself something devastating like a shotgun, and equip a shield and go to town. Like picking off your competition from a distance? Then arm yourself with a sniper rifle and start looking for the head. There are tons of different character combinations so the choice on how you want to play is literally in your hands.
Another nice touch is the bonuses you get from your kill streaks. If it goes high enough you can start calling upon various robots to assist you in your time of need. These range from small maneuverable vehicles, to heavy warships, to even an assassin. While these may be devastating to opponents, one simple Data Hack grenade and the tide turns instantly where the robots turn on their hosts like some bad 70's science fiction film. This is where Hybrid's combat really starts to shine as all of this combat becomes as smooth as glass.
So despite all of the negatives that Hybrid regrettably has, it does provide very in depth, customizable combat showcased on very fluid colorful graphics that will make every game incredibly intense and provide countless hours of "on the edge of your seat" entertainment. Yes this game may have some issues and yes this game has had a troubled past, but does Hybrid bring a fast and fun third person shooter game? Yes it does. Is it worth 1200 MS points? Absolutely not.
Suggestions: Provide a better story and please work on the connection issues with this game.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Darksiders 2
Would you sacrifice the souls of generations at a chance for redemption? When your soul awakens and finds nothing but darkness, fear not that you are alone for the reaper always walks with you. My past is filled with death, destruction, and holy wars, but my destiny has not yet been written, but I will hold my own council as to its outcome. I have been called many names in many languages but you will know me as Death, one of the four riders of the apocalypse. My brother War is innocent of the holy crimes for which he is accused of, yet the Charred Council remains blind to the truth. Many tales have been told by crooked tongues and it's time I cut the veil of shadow to expose the truth to the light. Therefore, since the Council refuses to act War's only hope of salvation rests within this tormented body of mine. It is time to answer the call that we all made when we became riders, but this time, I play by my own rules. It has been many years since the story of the Horseman War and there are many questions that have yet to be answered. My quest will take me too many lands but I will go through hell and back again to prove my brother's innocence and destroy the Corruption. To prove innocence though, I must erase the crime, I must bring back humanity. From Death, there will again be life. Come to my aid Dust and Despair, for now is the time for Death to ride.In order to reach my goal I must venture into foreign lands of angel, demon and more to uncover the truth behind this deception and restore mankind. To do this I will need to draw upon the power of some of the most powerful celestial secrets that govern over the powers of life and death itself. I know that my adventure will take me to faraway lands, and places of both unimaginable beauty and horror. Worlds such as the Forge Lands will provide my soul with mixed areas ranging from tree, grass, and water, to rock, stone, and fire. My journey will also ride me deep into familiar territory as well. It has been a long time since I've ridden into the darkness. This quest is bound to be littered with traps, puzzles, enemies and more, for there is a reason to keep these secrets locked away in the first place. To accomplish this adventure it is time to stretch my legs and to bring upon the battlefield the full power of Death. I shall bring forth skills and abilities unlike any told in the scriptures. Various powers such as Deathgrip, will allow me to traverse wide gaps previously unavailable and to ascend to new heights, or the Phasewalker power, which will allow me to teleport between portals and when upgraded, even time itself. One power however, Soul Splitter, will allow my spirit to tear itself into two spiritual copies of my physical form to allow me to be in two places at the same time.
While these powers will aid me along my path, heaven and hell will both quake at the witnessing of the power of my upgradable skill trees. What the Charred Council doesn't know is that I possess skills that can shield me in battle, increase my strength, or even reveal my true reaper form and annihilate any surrounding onslaught. Throughout my tasks I will gain knowledge that was previously hidden to me, and through this sacred knowledge I will unlock new powers and abilities. Each of my many skills can be called upon in a flash and when I truly reach my full potential through the acquisition of experience, I will unleash a whirlwind of spiritual torment from which, Death will be the only salvation. My powers alone however, will not grant me passage onward in my quest. For that reason I must rely on the blades, armors, and treasures of the lands to provide me the equipment I seek to reach my goal. These items however are not mere trinkets and toys, but magical items that bestow different gifts to the bearer. Qualities such as fire damage, frost damage, and more can be found frequently on various weapons; while strength, health, defense and more can be commonly found in armor. One interesting piece of information, relating to the items I will find, is the existence of possessed weaponry. These are far rarer but can consume other pieces of equipment to adopt other magical properties. These can be turned into massive holy weapons against the oncoming darkness. I know that there are others who are going to share in my journey so therefore I will be able to aid them as they would me, and that is by sending weapons and armor to them directly via Serpent Tomes. This ensures that no matter what enemy I may face ahead, I will always have the weapon I need.
I wonder what beauty lies before me on this spiritual adventure. I have heard tales of moving mountains in the plains of the Forge Lands, desolate wastelands that blanket the Kingdom of the Dead, and beautiful waterfalls cascading from angelic towers. From what I gather, this adventure will allow me to explore vast areas while keeping me focused throughout the trying times. It has been so long since my eyes have seen such things both horrific and beautiful. I've been advised that I will face demons that are more ferocious than an erupting volcano, giants who can block out the sun, and lingering dark spirits of power whose anger and hatred has manifested itself into pure unbridled evil. I do recall War's recollection of his time on Earth and the tales he told are a sight I hope my eyes will see one day. Maybe there will come a time that this soul sees peace but there are so many twisted roots of evil that have taken hold over so many realms, thankfully the beauty of the adventure will never grow old to these eyes.
While my eyes long for the time when they behold the beauty of creation and life, my ears desire to hear a song so sweet that it's very melody will purify the most corrupted soul as its tones haunt your very spirit. Though my experiences in life may weigh heavy with battle, but that does not mean that the concept of music is lost to me. My ears have heard songs from the far-away lands and their harmonics sound like a choir of angels blessing mankind. When my soul weighs heavy with the celestial burden I must bear, these heavenly songs lift both my spirit and my blade. It has been said that trumpets will blow upon the End of Days, but until that time I could not think of a better thing to listen to, than the sounds that permeate every facet of my quest.
While the focus of my journey is to aid in my brother War's freedom, I have heard whispers of a land far away called the Crucible. This land is apparently where the best warriors from both heaven and hell go to prove their superiority in numerous rounds of combat. I believe if there is some time to spare, my blade shall enter this Crucible so that I may showcase my true power so that both angel and demon may fear this rider. As I progress on my path, I must gain all the knowledge I can and for that I must assist the creatures I meet along the way. I know by helping to earn their trust that they will entrust me with information that I require.
So now the time has come, a time where listening to falsehoods proclaimed by demons is at an end. Now is the time for my enemies to cower in fear. Now is the time that their blood is spilt in the name of truth. Now is the time that my wrath come crashing down upon this unholy mouth and silence its tongue. Now is the time not to cut off the head of the demon, but purge its very soul to judgment. I remember a tale that said: "When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come and see!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him." Now is the time. Time to ride.
Overall Score: 9.7 / 10
Deadlight
What memories do our souls repress? Memories that linger in the back of our minds like a sliver of anguish that becomes the cross that our souls must bear. This is a brutal reality of Tequila Work's latest Xbox Live Arcade hit, Deadlight. If you are unfamiliar with Tequila Works, it is a team which brings together amazing talent from other companies such as: Blizzard, MercurySteam, Sony, Triumph Studios and more. This team has toiled extensively to bring Deadlight to the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade and if you enjoy a twisted 2D post-apocalyptic puzzle action games, then this game must be on your radar. Priced at a hefty 1200 MS points, Deadlight rises from the grave to attempt to compete in a very saturated survival horror market. Now let?s see if its bark is as big as its bite.Firing from the start Deadlight makes excellent use of all the experience at Tequila Works by providing a tremendously demented story involving a law enforcement officer turned survivor named Randal Wayne and his quest to find his friends and return to his family who were on their way to the city of Seattle's "Safe Point". Along the way you will witness twists and turns in the story as you piece together the past in order to preserve the future. As you progress through the games three acts, you will have to solve various puzzles by manipulating certain objects and you will have to survive against a sea of seemingly unlimited undead creatures called shadows. One of my biggest enjoyments of Deadlight was the fluid and responsive control system. For instance there was a time when you approach a building that is about to break down and collapse and you must tackle through a door, then quickly sprint and jump over a gap, then sprint through a path in the building with a collapsing roof to a broken down wall, which you must wall jump off of backwards to reach a climbing ledge so you can jump back to the broken down wall higher up and jump over it, roll out of the jump through the small opening on the other side of the room. All of this has to be done without stopping for one moment and thanks to the fluid gameplay, can be done fairly easily.
Don't get me wrong, not every obstacle is like this and thankfully you will get unlimited retries and you will have very frequent checkpoints so when you do pass on, you will have lost very little progress. This bodes well for the game since you can literally take as many tries as you want to try and figure out different puzzles and obstacles. Figuring out puzzles is only part of the experience as the other half is filled in with you literally killing anything that moves in a psychotic plot full of twists and turns. To do this you will have three different weapon choices:
1) Fireman's Axe - The tried and true fireman's axe provides Wayne a devastating melee attack that can either push back an enemy to prevent them from attacking at close range, or take off a shadow's head in one swipe, or can be used to execute a fallen enemy by a performing a mighty wood splitting movement to the head.
2) .38 Revolver - A fast and accurate weapon that holds six shots and more in reserve. This weapon is aimed using the Right Stick and when the red target is on the head of a shadow, you know what to do. Reloading the .38 is rapid with multiple presses of the Left Bumper but the main drawback is the scarce ammo. One shot headshots are almost demanded of you so you don't waste all six shots trying to bring down one enemy.
3) Shotgun - What would a survival horror game be without a tried and true, rib-splitting, shotgun? Aimed and controlled the same way as the .38 however the main drawback is this gun's ammo is far scarcer than the .38 but at close range this thunder stick can remove the heads of multiple enemies in one trigger pull. The shotgun is a waste when one on one, but essential when it's 30 on one. Whatever is in the front of the shotgun when you pull the trigger won?t be there when the smoke clears. 'Nuff said.
While all of this amazing gameplay and puzzle solving will leave you highly entertained, a major factor to remember is that all of this is helped along by Tequila Works' amazing usage of the Unreal engine. 2D side scrolling action in a post-apocalyptic society done to an eerie backdrop of blacks and shadows with various run down color usage throughout all the levels. This game is strikingly good but some of the issues faced as you progress is that when you get into a mix of shadows who are all trying to kill you, you will find that your character is the same color, height, and almost shape as a shadow making it very hard sometimes to find your character in the middle of a mob. Think of it like "Where's Waldo", except under extreme pressure where if you fail, you die. Deadlight's cut scenes are also done in a comic style way where different screens show transitions from one act to another, but there's one bit of graphic work that stands out and those are the dream sequences.
These are sequences of Wayne's mind that come back to haunt, torment, and guide him throughout the game. This is where the twisted and psychotic mind of Wayne comes into play by taking him through some dramatic mental turns with his wife and daughter. There is only one more part that helps turn Deadlight into a must have game and that is the soundtrack. Haunting your ears from the title screen, Deadlight sets the stage for a demented journey down the path of the insane. As you progress through the levels you will hear a minimalistic score backed by ambient noises, shouts, screams, and more to help raise the suspense and leave you wondering, "If I charge this door, what's waiting for me on the other side?" You have heard the cliché that when things are quiet, they are "too quiet" and that is when you really must be on your toes. The only downfall for the audio would be the voice overs as they are not great but good.
With the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade in full swing, Deadlight is priced at 1200 MS points, and in my opinion is a deal and a half. The quality of content is amazing, and when you combine the psychotic storyline with the fluid gameplay and top it off with amazing use of the Unreal engine for graphics and a soundtrack that will drive suspense deep into your soul, Deadlight is easily one of the best Xbox Live Arcade games to come out this summer or arguably this year.
Suggestions: Please make further games with longer stories that are as amazing as Deadlight.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Jeremy McGrath's Offroad
In the world of off road racing on the Xbox 360, there are few games that standout as iconic staples that produce years of success, and days and months of enjoyment. Retail games such as DIRT aim to provide the most realistic off road experience and have worked hard to do so. Now though, there's a new driver in town from 2XL Games and they decided their game should be a downloadable arcade title instead of a retail release, and on top of that, 2XL Games decided to slap on the name of a racing legend, Jeremy McGrath. So is this new game for the Xbox Live Arcade, Jeremy McGrath's Offroad, worth the 800 MS point price? Well let?s start our engines, buckle up, and see what highs and lows befall this latest off road racer.Now throughout this review I will be throwing in actual quotes from the official "review guide" given to reviewers of this game. You may ask yourself, "why would I do that?? well you're about to find out. Going into the game I was excited as I enjoy off road racing games (secretly I'm a huge F1 and WRC fan) and the more I progressed through this game, the more I wanted to stop, and let me explain why. In normal off road retail games they provide a vast selection of tracks and areas to race on, and in Jeremy McGrath's Offroad, you don't even get a handful of tracks. This tends to make the entire weight of the game fall squarely on the shoulders of these limited tracks and it may just be a bit too much. Throughout these limited tracks you'll find yourself racing through desert terrain, jungle forests, snow covered mountain paths, and a bit more, but what the game does is break up the same few tracks into different segments thus trying to make it feel like you're racing in more than one track in the same region. Now this works up to a point because after constantly covering familiar ground you start to become very bored with the game, and that?s not something that bodes well for this off road racer.
There is another problem though with the racing environments. The "Official Review Guide" for this game says: "Environmental obstacles, such as breakable fences, falling trees, massive rock slides and more, you?ll have to be quick with your thumbs to avoid disaster on the tracks." The problem with this statement is that all these obstacles do absolutely nothing to destroy or ruin your race; instead they just simply slow you down from say 95, to 90. This is where another big problem lies within the game for you would think that hitting a boulder the size of a small house would be the defining moment of a bad day, but instead you can actually push this said boulder. Oh I have to mention that all of this damage does nothing to your vehicle in terms of affecting handling and overall performance. So I ask you dear reader, what is the point of trying to stay clear of these obstacles? Just put your foot down, power to the max, and since nothing is affected negatively outside of speed, fly into it without any regard to your own safety. Oh and it gets better.
According to the "Official Review Guide" it states: "More than just an arcade racer, Jeremy McGrath?s Offroad features some deep RPG elements as well with four categories of vehicular upgrades and an experience-based leveling system. Take names on the course to improve your rig to fit your exact needs and driving style!" I'm sorry to burst your bubble dear readers, but saying that this game has "deep RPG elements" is like trying to lose weight by being of a diet of only McDonalds. The upgrade system involves you earning XP by performing various tasks such as passing, clean laps, big jumps, high speed overtakes, 1st place laps, and more. Then you take your newly acquired XP into the garage and upgrade your stats such as handling, top speed, acceleration, and braking (this one is pointless in my opinion because proper throttle control is all you need, and in most cases you can just keep your foot pinned to the floor constantly). If by upgrading statistics makes your game have "deep RPG elements" then by that standard 98% of all games provide that too, so there's nothing really special in saying "hey we're doing something that everyone else already does." That?s like saying "Hey look at us, we have a title screen!"
That?s not to say however, that Jeremy McGrath's Offroad is a complete failure. The racer does look beautiful and the courses themselves are done to pristine condition. Waterfalls, foliage, sun sets, and more look breathtakingly gorgeous and incredibly smooth when it's running at 60fps. Your eyes will enjoy all the scenery as you blast around corners at 100+ mph and launch over crests that will send your car flying hundreds of feet through the air. While the graphics of this arcade racer feel stunning, the audio does not. The load times are fairly long, but the most annoying part of the game's audio is in fact McGrath himself. Have you ever stopped to notice loading screens before on various games? Most of the time we are inundated with text that provides tips, hints, and various other messages on how to perform better in the game. Jeremy McGrath's Offroad is no different, except for the fact that that the messages are only a few that gets recycled quite often, and the fact that they are spoken to you. So now you're waiting through this load screen and you'll hear roughly 4 audio messages BEFORE EVERY RACE. Here's the last thing that stood out for me. On the "Official Review Guide" it states as one of its key features: "Name Recognition: Featuring arguably the sport?s most well-known champion, Jeremy McGrath?s Offroad is the definitive offroad title and the only game featuring seven-time Supercross champion Jeremy McGrath." Let me tell you that it took every ounce of strength I had not to put on my headphones and listen to music instead of Jeremy McGrath constantly talking and repeating all five text messages on the loading screens.
So let?s recap what we've got so far. We have a racer that looks beautiful on the outside, but inside is littered with pointless mechanics, fabrications of dangers that haunt your cars, imaginary RPG elements, and a lack luster feel for what an off road game should be. There are plenty of other games that offer you a tremendous off road experience, and unfortunately Jeremy McGrath's Offroad isn't one of them. If you're really looking for great off road racing games, pick up a copy of either: Dirt, Dirt 2, Dirt 3, or scrap the cars and go for quads in Pure. Any of these games I just mentioned provide a better off road experience than this 800 MS point hole in your wallet. If you're a fan of off road racing, pick this game up if it's under 600 MS points, but it makes about as much sense to pick up Jeremy McGrath's Offroad for 800 MS points, as it does trying to skydive without a parachute.
Overall Score: 6.5 / 10
Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown
Welcome my student. I summoned you here because I have obtained news that a new challenger to the fighting game crown has emerged. For years now the battle has waged between games such as Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and more to compete for the crown of "Best Fighting Game" and now Sega has stepped forward and issued their own challenge with Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. Not to be taken lightly, this Xbox Live Arcade fighting game is mammoth in size and beautiful in its execution. Come now my student, walk with me and let me give you some more details on what could quite possibly be one of the best fighting games available.In the fighting game genre there is one paramount that must be upheld to the highest regard and that is play control. You could have a beautiful game but if the controls are sluggish, or unresponsive, then the game itself will suffer greatly. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown taps into the souls of its ancestors and delivers an incredibly in depth fighting system which is executed with more precision than a samurai's blade. Do not underestimate this opponent because Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown utilizes one of the most complex fighting systems ever conceived by man. With support for arcade stick and a fully customizable play control system, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is quickly becoming a contender to be reckoned with.
One of the biggest strengths of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is its size. Instead of some $59.99 retail fighting game that boasts an install size of over 3GB, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is 1200 MS points and delivers more content than some other retail games in a size under 2GB. This reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies: "Look at me, judge me by my size do you?" All this heavy hitting knock out power stems from Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown, showcasing 20 characters, including a brand new character Jean Kujo, and Taka-Arashi from Virtua Fighter 3. On top of that, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown also provides 20 beautiful stages for which you can fight to the finish, but that?s not all. Unleashing the final blow for Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown are all the eleven game modes it provides. With modes such as Arcade, Training, and Online matches becoming the standard, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown allows you to create a user created room where you can set the rules for combat. The transitions into matches are a little lengthy, but overall the online performance of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is exceptionally well done and honed to a razor's edge.
While you may be focused on delivering a beating to your opponent?s soul, you may find yourself distracted by the beauty around you. This is due to Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown providing 20 incredibly stunning, high quality interactive environments and characters. From cascading waterfalls, to waves crashing amongst the beach, to a caged arena surrounded by screaming supporters and fight enthusiasts, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is an absolute beauty to behold. One weak spot in the game however, has to be the music. While your eyes may be blinded by the beauty of the graphics, your ears will be bored and eventually annoyed by the sound. Granted you can't expect some grand soundscape when you talk fighting games, but I was hoping for a more dynamic soundtrack than just a few scattered techno loops. I understand that Sega wanted to make sure that the sounds of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown feel like they were injecting you with an overload of adrenaline, but alas, that was a punch that completely missed its target, but thankfully though you'll be too caught up with everything else that is amazing about the game to even notice it.
In the fighting game world there are originators, imitators, duplicators, and haters, but one thing is for sure, the fighting game crown will always be up for grabs as challengers line up for a chance to dominate an entire genre of gaming. Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown has thrown down its challenge by providing an Xbox Live Arcade game that delivers more content than some retail fighting games. To put things into perspective: Let's say you spent $59.99 on a brand new retail fighting game, then add in the DLC on top of that and you could easily be spending in the realm of $75 (and that?s not including the online pass option), or for $15 (1200 Microsoft Points) you could snag yourself a top contender for the fighting game crown that packs more content and delivers a better fighting game experience. Think of all the DLC you could purchase for the $15 to equal the amount you spent on just one retail game? This is why for fighting games on the Xbox Live Arcade, Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is hands down one of the best values you will ever find, but enough talking for now. Think you have what it takes to step into the ring against such a heavy hitter like Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown? Your arena awaits my student, prove yourself.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Mad Riders
Fresh off the massive success of Trials Evolution, Ubisoft has attempted to catch some serious air by doubling the amount of tires, ramping up the horsepower, and unleashing massive amounts of turbo boost in their latest release Mad Riders. In the racing world, there are some games that define a genre, for example, games such as Forza 4 provide one of the most realistic experiences behind a wheel to date and games such as Trials Evolution and Trials HD deliver a fantastic experience that will leave you hooked long after the game's release. On the flip side of the racing coin, you have everything else which turns out to just be a pile of horrible racing titles and a waste of your hard earned cash. So you could say that games in the racing genre are much like life, or a real race for that matter where 2nd place is the 1st place loser. Let's grab our helmets and vault into the sky as Ubisoft attempts to take the checkered flag in hopes that Mad Riders delivers a victory.From the beginning Mad Riders offer crazed race heads a fun and entertaining experience taking their ATV and buggy vehicles through high flying jumps in the blink of an eye. Innovation isn't found in high amounts in Mad Riders, but if you're following a winning formula for making extreme off road racing games, then you don't need to reinvent the wheel. The general mechanics are somewhat standard where you have your steering via the joystick, gas and brake are operated by the Left and Right triggers, and being that this is an arcade style game, boost as well by holding down the X button, however the trick though to properly manage your boost is found in the air born stunts. By performing multiple stunts and landing them, you will be awarded with not only added boost to your gauge, but you will also earn XP for your character.
This is all part of the character development system that Mad Riders implements. As you progress through your game and winning races, challenges, and trials, your character will be awarded XP which accumulates and thus levels your character up, which then in turn will unlock different vehicles, riders, paint schemes, and more. Some of the challenges that lay ahead of you are: Race, Ghost Challenge, Stunt, Arena, and more. Each of these competitions has their own standards for rules and winning those grants your character unlocks for future races.
Mad Riders provides a beautiful backdrop that goes flying past you as you ignite the rocket underneath you, hold on tight, and pray you don't go through the pearly gates on fire and backwards. Lush terrains from varying environments such as a rainforest, or the islands of the pacific become a highly entertaining stage of high speed enjoyment. For the fleeting moments that you do get to enjoy the view, it's absolutely amazing. While the game itself looks gorgeous in a lot of areas, the soundtrack to the game doesn't seem to fit quite right. The music comes across as a hard edged dub step track which loops over and over again and becomes more of an annoyance than an enjoyment. A nice benefit though is that most of the time you will only be hearing the sounds of explosions going off as you seemingly never let off the boost.
Ubisoft has a lot going for Mad Riders, and thankfully it's going in the right direction. After all is said and done, and our vehicles are finally out of gas, we stop to think, "Is Mad Riders a game that will conquer the Xbox Live Arcade and take over the top spot?" Probably not. While the execution is solid, there are a few blemishes that separate it from the leaders of the pack. With that being said, is Mad Riders worth a purchase? If you enjoy racing off road through extreme courses on ATV's or a buggy, then absolutely.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Jam Live Music Arcade
Welcome ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages to one of the most innovative, complex, rewarding music experiences you can find on the Xbox 360! That?s right folks, your twisted audiophile Symmetric has been let out of his cage to bring this review of JAM Live Music Arcade to you! I'm normally a very calm, rational XboxAddict, but when I saw JAM Live Music Arcade through my cell's bars I knew I had to escape custody to try and get my hands on this. The days of Guitar Hero, DJ Hero is done and Rock Band is painfully trying to tread water by constantly trying to release DLC. Consider this your wake up call to music games for you will not find a better audio production game on the Xbox 360. Let's explore more of Jam Live Music Arcade and let's figure out if this strikes a chord with the music crowd.JAM Live Music Arcade's interface is fairly straight forward and looks simplistic on the outside, but once you dive into it, you may feel a bit overwhelmed at first. For those who are not savvy in the world of music production and remixes, the learning curve is significant at first, then once you think that you have it mastered, JAM Live Music Arcade amps up your options and opens up a whole new world of music for you to explore. The console where all this magic happens is split into five different banks of music (Guitar, Drums, Vocals, Piano, etc.) and each bank contains five trigger buttons, that when activated, generate a selected sound. Once however you feel you have gotten a feel for the 25 trigger layout, JAM Live Music Arcade ups the ante and brings in at most two more soundbanks giving you up to a total of 75 different sounds you can trigger for your music. Now this is where it really gets to be exciting. Let's say there's a song and you don't like the bass line, well switch a soundbank and now you can change it up in real time. JAM Live Music Arcade was created with support from a guitar accessory, however, if yours is broken, sold, lost, or otherwise out of reach, you can still use every feature of JAM Live Music Arcade on the Xbox 360 controller.
JAM Live Music Arcade is separated into two categories of gameplay: 1) JAM - A relaxed, musical session filled with creativity and enjoyment, and 2) Arcade - This could easily be argued the most intense and challenging music arcade mode ever conceived by man. In Arcade mode your song plays out for you and it is up to you to trigger the corresponding sounds by pressing the required button when the circle reaches the top bar. This is pretty straight forward and something that anyone who has played Guitar Hero or Rock Band will visually feel comfortable with. The real challenge of Arcade mode lies within the soundbanks. There are times throughout the songs that you will be required to not only activate multiple soundbanks at one time but also change them as requested by the song itself. This can be incredibly hard and frustrating, and since there isn't an easy difficulty to start out on, it's like taking your first swimming lesson by being thrown overboard off a cruise ship. You will try many times, and you will fail many times, however, when your ear tunes in and you hit that point in the learning curve where everything falls into place, JAM Live Music Arcade delivers a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that few games today can match.
This is more than just pressing a button when the colored icon hits the trigger line; JAM Live Music Arcade is training your ear to "hear the music". For most people, they hear a song and if they like it, they find enjoyment out of it, and if they hate it, it gets dumped. JAM Live Music Arcade however, trains your ear to hear and interoperate music on a deeper level than you probably never thought possible. Think of JAM Live Music Arcade as a tool that allows you to dissect music songs into various pieces that allow you to remix and develop the song piece by piece. Without question JAM Live Music Arcade provides the most in-depth and challenging music experience you can find on the Xbox 360.
While it does take a while to overcome the learning curve of the interface, the satisfaction achieved when everything finally "clicks" is something rarely found in video games today. Sure there are successful games where you can run around, shoot people, explore dungeons, and take you on a fantasy adventure, but there is no personal development actually happening. JAM Live Music Arcade actually helps you develop your hearing through a musical interface that you can control. This amazing software is easily worth the 800MS price point it's asking and if you enjoy music or music games, then it's a must have addition to your gaming collection.
Suggestions: A few things would have made a big improvement on the score such as being able to select different sounds from different soundbanks and allowing you to switch soundbanks while still maintaining the original sound you wanted. So if there was a bass line in soundbank (A) that I loved but in a different soundbank there were synths that I wanted to use in soundbank (B), instead of changing everything when you switch soundbanks, allow me to keep my bassline from (A) when I switch to (B). Maybe a user interface similar to the programs of Logic, Ableton, and/or Reason to truly create the perfect music production game for the Xbox 360.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Fable Heroes
Albion is a setting of adventure and love, of battles against mitigating evil, and more. As your character traverses the fields, mountains, hills, rivers, dungeons and castles, you are whisked away on a grand adventure where promises of fortune and fame await on the horizon (most of it though is just smoke blown up our rears by the now departed Mr. Molyneux). If you believe Fable Heroes from Lionhead Studios has any of that wonderful fairytale b.s. that I just talked about, then you my dear reader are the sucker at the poker table, seriously it's amazing how little Fable is actually in this game, other than the title. Fable Heroes is Lionhead's attempt to release another generic, and this time, incredibly annoying tie in, but this time it's tied to their new upcoming game Fable: The Journey. Now Mr. Molyneux is now gone from Lionhead and has no involvement with Fable Heroes, so let's find out just what happens when you get a few bored developers who are apparently mentally unstable and have an unquenchable thirst for the hatred of chickens.What if Fable was laid out in a demented board game style where mundane action and disappointment are the frequent emotions felt, and the drudgery of completing various areas and bosses is only compensated by a dash of Fable influence here and there? What if this Fable game came with horrible camera work and controls that were unresponsive and made you feel like breaking your controller? What if this Fable game had mammoth potential to be a great standalone plus add-on game, but instead became something so grotesque that it tarnished the name of Fable? The sad thing my dear reader is that the new Xbox Live Arcade game, Fable Heroes from Lionhead can answer all these questions and more, and you're not going to like the answers you find. This side scrolling cartoon adventure, hack-n-slash board game features characters from Fable in an over embellished cartoon puppet style and lands that have only a scattering of Fable influence. Familiar names such as Millfields, Bowerstone, Mistpeak and more appear as areas in the board that you can explore, but do little to inspire the areas themselves in the Fable universe.
If the depression hasn't sunk in by now, just keep reading, it only gets worse. One of the issues that has plagued other Fable games in the past is the camera, and in Fable Heroes you will quickly discover that the camera is back and back with a vengeance, so much so that you have zero camera control so when in single player the camera follows you around in a fixed distance and sometimes varies the angle of view. The camera even gets upset at you when in multiplayer and distorts the total view to a smaller stretched size so that if you have thoughts of running ahead and opening chests or collecting loot, keep dreaming.
This gets really frustrating given that there are multiple times when the enemies attack from such a wide area that you find it hard to get the camera to work in your favor. I'm telling you, Lionhead's camera system hates you, and it doesn't care what you think. If you trudge through the horrific camera system, you're greeted with an incredibly unresponsive control system that has you lumbering around the levels like either a drunken puppet or a puppet on rich, mountain grown, Columbian... coffee. You will find yourself rolling around to change direction quicker than using your control sticks and this does us no good when combined with the next disappointment and that are the puppets themselves.
In Fable Heroes each puppet takes up "space" in the game environment, which means you cannot walk through other puppets, instead you must walk around them. In a VERY NARROW side scrolling environment, fighting multiple enemies can become such a hassle when you realize that you have three other puppets that you have to maneuver around with this unresponsive control scheme. Plus when you take into account the fact that every enemy follows suit, then when you have a bunch of enemies plus your team on the screen and you're caught in the middle, there's no way out, and given the camera has already sealed your doom, unless you button mash and swing like crazy to hopefully hit and kill something, then you're pretty much s.o.l., and that?s a shame considering the high hopes that many gamers have been festering for this title. As you clear each level you will be taken to a Monopoly style board game (yes a board game within a board game, please someone make the pain stop.) This is why collecting gold is so important because it's here in this new game board you will unlock new abilities, weapons, characters and more and if you progress far enough on multiple levels and unlock some achievements, you will unlock square tiles on the inside of this new game board. These squares offer you bonuses that are good for one level use only but can help really increase the cash flow.
Speaking of the characters, there are some pretty iconic Fable characters such as the Jack of Blades, Reaver, Lucien, and more and each puppet is done in an over embellished cartoon style where everyone is apparently happy. Even familiar enemies such as Hobbes and Balverines almost give the feeling that this in fact a Fable game, alas such hope is but a fleeting moment in time, then the reality sets in. The levels themselves are done in a very generic cartoon feel, however, do very little to make you feel like you're playing a Fable game. The cartoonish sounds that you have come to expect in a Fable games are there, but instead of focusing on a score that fits the feel of Fable, your ears are treated to music you would expect from a demented carnival attraction. This is supposed to help you with the fact that you are controlling puppets with an unresponsive control system while trying to cooperate with a camera system from hell and the key word in all of this is "supposed."
The old Fable games were filled with promises of amazing adventures, and sadly most of them never came to fruition. I guess that?s where the final nail in the coffin rests because instead of trying to achieve lofty goals and falling short, Fable Heroes doesn't even try. For 800 Microsoft points, is Fable Heroes worth the purchase? Well if you go into this thinking that it's a great Fable adventure, then no it's not worth it.
Suggestions: How about allow the user controlled characters to "pass through" any AI controlled characters, or have the ability to turn off any/all AI controlled puppets. Give the user camera control. Oh one last thing, make it better than this pile.
Overall Score: 4.8 / 10
Awesomenauts
If ever there was a game on the Xbox Live Arcade that was a great marriage of Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), 2D side-scrolling action with a vintage play on classic Saturday morning cartoons and party games, then Awesomenauts is it. There was some question as to if this game was going to actually be released on the Xbox Live Arcade, but thankfully they pulled the trigger and put one right on target. Awesomenauts on the surface looks very easy to play, but once you get into battle, there more than meets the eye. Right from the beginning you're treated to a classic cartoon episode style introduction that gives you the feeling that your back in your childhood and you're watching one of your favorite cartoons on Saturday morning. I'm not talking these new CG styled cartoons; I'm talking about when G.I. Joe was "A real American hero", He-Man was "Masters of the Universe", and Transformers were "Robots in disguise". A gang of compiled hitmen, thieves, robots, soldiers, and more wage war in a traditional Red V.S. Blue style battle where your character fights the opposition for control of Solar (the currency of the game).
Obtaining Solar is only half the story though because Awesomenauts delivers a very expansive character upgrade system in which every character has different abilities such as cloak protection or self-destruct and skills such as launching dynamite or mechanical jaw biting, and more. All of these new skills and abilities will help them destroy any and all opposition. This adds a ton of enjoyment and replayability to Awesomenauts as you find yourself striving to unlock these better options. One of the biggest things that Awesomenauts has going for it is the overall feel of the game which is formed mainly by the character types which are done in a blatant, over-the-top, stereotype and it does this without any hesitation or shame. In fact one character is a space cowboy outlaw even named, (prepares Dark Helmet voice) Lonestarrrrrr. The execution of this type of unique feel makes Awesomenauts an instant hit.
Given that Awesomenauts is heavily focused in the nostalgic cartoon feel, the graphics definitely feed into this charisma. Consider the graphics a futuristic, sci-fi, Castle Crashers cartoon style where the battle arenas are laid out in a very straight forward way and all the characters are over exaggerated cartoons that fill the arena with intense battles. One of the big surprises we discovered in Awesomenauts was the music. You can't make a great classic cartoon feel without a catchy tune that sticks in your head after you're done, and you'll definitely find a few of those in Awesomenauts. Just turning the game on made me reminisce about the days when I was young and singing the Thundercats' theme song waiting for it to start my Saturday morning cartoon block.
Now we come to answer the big question, is Awesomenauts worth the 800 Microsoft Price point, and the answer is yes. Awesomenauts provides a mammoth amount of depth to its character builds, a tremendous amount of intense, fast paced, battles, a pure nostalgic theme which gives it its own unique soul, so ultimately in the end there is no real reason not to pick up this game. If you are the type of gamer who loves an action packed game that you can just pick up and play and enjoy every minute of it, then Awesomenauts is for you. If you didn't know before, now you know, and as a famous 80's quote reminds us "Knowing is half the battle".
Suggestions: Thank you for releasing this game.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Deep Black: Episode 1
In today's gaming world we are treated to those arcade titles that innovate, entertain, and provide hours upon hours of enjoyment (I'm calling these games "Type A"). You know the type of game I'm talking about, and for the most part if I asked you to name some, you could fire off a list off the top of your head. Then there are the games that are so poorly made that you feel like your Microsoft Points have been swindled away from you under the guise of a game that looks good in a couple of pictures (I'm calling these games "Type B" in which "B" stands for, well you know). So now we turn to 505's Deep Black Episode 1 which is priced at 800 Microsoft Points and find out if this game is Type A or B.On the outside the game looks inviting. Screenshots of underwater battles, massive gunfights, and cool looking weapons and gear lead one to believe that this is a solid purchase. Once the game starts though, your experience comes plummeting downward like a meteor hurtling towards Earth and you know once it hits, it's game over. The premise of the game is solid. That?s about the only good thing you can say about this game as you realize that the game itself looks to have deliberately ripped off elements from other games and produced something that will leave you demanding a refund of your now spent 800 Microsoft Points.
As we begin, our main character looks as though he was pieced together from other titles. The helmet looks as if you combined either the CQB visor from Halo 3 or the visor from Time Shift, with the helmet from Mass Effect and the armor looks like it was a combination of Dead Space and Mass Effect. Now pathetically combine elements of other popular third person shooters such as Gears of War and more, and what you get is this monumental failure of a game. The controls are straight forward and generic but very clunky and your main character even has a roll feature which perplexes me as to why it was even included since it's never essentially needed.
The underwater elements of Deep Black Episode 1 is the only innovation you will find throughout the game and while the aspects of maneuvering and fighting underwater are somewhat entertaining, this is simply a case where a game cannot produce enough positives to balance out the overwhelmingly large negatives. While the bulk of your gameplay will be underwater, when you get out it feels as though all the enjoyment gets washed down the drain. The character modeling is very generic and the level design is extremely linear which forces you to constantly put your character in a "cover, then fire" position and to repeat said process throughout the entire game. Speaking of your enemies, you will also find a tremendous inconsistent feeling when fighting them. Since you have no real visual clue as to how close you are to dying you may find yourself thinking you have more health than you really do which will cause you to engage more enemies, and thus die a lot more frequently than you would expect.
If the overall horrid gameplay still isn't enough to push you away, the sounds and graphics of Deep Black: Episode 1 just might be the tipping point. Your enemies are incredibly generic and either takes tons of ammo to eliminate or just one shot and when they pass on, they die in a very comical, over emphasized way. Think of it like a three year old screaming and trying to re-enact the death in Hamlet. This is amusing at first until you realize that they ALL DIE IN THIS OVER-EMBELLISHED WAY. So throughout your entire adventure you will have to endure and hear this overacted dribble constantly. The voice acting in general for this game is sub-par at best and there is very little redeeming quality when it comes to the music and sounds. We also talked earlier about the level design being very linear, while some games can make their levels detailed and beautiful, Deep Black Episode 1 however make their levels bland and uninspiring.
With so much of this game directly ripping off aspects of other popular titles and publishing pretty pictures and promising grand adventures full of action, one would venture to guess that this game is a solid pickup at 800 Microsoft Points, and you would be completely wrong. There's so much that is wrong with Deep Black: Episode 1 that even contemplating purchasing the game should warrant some form of gamer punishment, like instantly red ringing or locking you out of Xbox live temporarily so you can't be tempted to buy stupid worthless crap. There is no reason that you should ever spend your points on a game that had the blueprints of what made a good third person shooter game, and failed on every single aspect.
There is one hope though and it rests with the title of the game (Deep Black: Episode 1), and that is they make the next episode better, but that is almost a guarantee since this game is starting neck deep in, ummmm... quicksand. I say almost because the company already had prime examples of quality work they could have sampled if they wanted to do a good knock off, but they failed to do even that with this game. I can think of so many other things I'd rather be doing than playing Deep Black: Episode 1, things such as having brain surgery, or for instance, going to jail. Both these options are more enjoyable and they'll save you Microsoft Points, or you could do the logical choice and just not buy it.
Overall Score: 4.0 / 10
Minecraft
In today's gaming world, the innovation of a dream and proper execution mean everything. You may have a tremendous idea, but if you can't accurately portray your vision, then your game falls short of your goals. Not all games though miss their visions of becoming reality and some still surpass all our wildest dreams by taking our imagination to new heights and allowing us to be our own artists and our own creators. It is the legendary gaming tale of an idea that comes from out of nowhere to become a cultural staple of innovation and creativity and instantly captivating generations of gamers, this is the foundation of the one and only, Minecraft. From its early days on PC to being released on the Xbox Live Arcade, Minecraft has brought millions of gamers around the world hours upon hours of amusement, and showcased some amazing talent that was once hidden from the world. Now without further adieu, we here at Xbox Addict welcome you to the world of Minecraft on the Xbox Live Arcade. Minecraft is a massive sandbox game that allows the gamer total control over almost everything in the world and allows you to create almost whatever your imagination can dream up. For those who have never played Minecraft, you take control of your character and it is up to you to explore the world on a quest to reach a realm called The End and confront and conquer the infamous Ender Dragon. In order to do this you gain the ability to craft multiple items from tools, decorations, food, weapons, building supplies and more. From the outside Minecraft looks to be a very simplistic game, but when you dive deep into the catacombs you will quickly realize that there is much more under the surface.
Players interact with different blocks by digging, mining, chopping and more and each of these acts as a building block for future dreams. For example if you wished to build a Crafting table that allows you the ability to craft better items, then it's up to you to chop enough wood (via an axe which you must originally create) to craft four wooden planks. If you wanted to craft a Furnace which gives you the ability to smelt ore and other materials into ingots and higher quality materials, then you must first create a pickaxe (which requires you to craft it out of wood at first) and mine eight pieces of cobblestone. Items can be crafted in various levels of durability and range from wood being the weakest to diamond securing the top spot, but every tool has a certain number of uses which are determined by the quality grade that you craft. Wood items have roughly 60 or so uses while diamond items can be used over 1500 times!
The reason durability is so important is that every time you use your tool, which counts as a use for the item, and for example, if you use a shovel to chop down a tree, then every use of that shovel counts twice per swing since it's the wrong tool. Once the tool's durability has been exceeded the tool cannot be used and another one has to be crafted. This durability aspect also plays a major role in the construction of weapons that can do massive damage and armor that can take on an army. The crafting aspect of Minecraft is a spectacle of innovation and execution that provides a solid foundation that no pickaxe can mine.
The depth of Minecraft is mind boggling and this attention to realism boils over into your character management as well. Your character starts out with ten hearts which can be whittled down by taking damage from things such as monsters, falls, lightning and more but can be brought back by restoring health through eating food so you should always make sure to have a furnace and food ready to go if you run into trouble. Another tip would be to have a shelter prepared to go to with beds because once the sun goes down the enemies come out and if you're not careful you could find yourself face to face with some serious danger that will ruin your day. If you take the difficulty to any level above peaceful, then your character will also have to account for hunger. Yes even when mining and farming and digging your character expends energy and will eventually start draining health until you chow down on some food.
Originally we said that Minecraft is a sandbox style game but what we didn't explain is how the beauty lies in the simplicity of the world. The graphics are a direct throwback to the olden days of video games and provide a massive nostalgia feeling to those who date back to the NES days and beyond. Sure this game doesn't have hyper realistic graphics, and ultra-mega super amazing physics, but the beauty of it, is that Minecraft doesn't need them to be amazing. If Minecraft has found a way to take beauty out of simplicity in terms of graphics, then the same can easily be said for the music. Harmonic melodies float from the speaker and coat your ears in a soothing blanket of comfort and relaxation and provide a calming atmosphere throughout your adventure. The melodies give the feel of a classic old school game rift, but the atmosphere it creates is a sonic marvel.
Lately there has been a drought of great retail titles and so the focus has been placed squarely on the shoulders of the Xbox Live Arcade. There have been some games that are horrible rip offs that offer nothing but an excuse to be robbed of your Microsoft Points, but then there are the games that stand alone as iconic masterpieces of work that provide gamers with countless hours of enjoyment. It's very rare to find a game that perfects the minute details of simple actions and turns it into a work of art. What?s even more shocking is that there have been games that have been in development for over ten years that don't even come close to the quality of this game, and it's an arcade game at that. Granted it may have a high price point, but if you think about other amazing works of art such as: A Ferrari, a Renoir painting, fine champagne you'll discover that beauty of that caliber pays top dollar. Minecraft possess all the qualities of a masterpiece, and a top tier price tag to compliment it, but one thing is for sure, it's worth every penny.
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
Bloodforge 
Deep within the ancient tales of gods and men, there is a story in particular that needs to be told. For it is said that the tapestry of fate is already woven for us all and that tapestry cannot be broken or changed, however this would not be the case for the Celtic warrior named Crom. This is no ordinary tale though my dear reader, for this tale depicts the battles, lies, and war between the gods and man, and the battle for one man to write his own fate. Interested in how the story goes then are we? Then walk with me down our path dear reader, and let us uncover the myth, the legend, the tale of Crom and his quest through Bloodforge.A warrior's pain is one that lasts until the end of his days. Recounting the battles over and over again inside his mind, seeing the faces of each and every foe whose blood blankets your blade in a red glow, hearing the screams of pain and suffering just as clear as if they were happening right in front of his eyes. All this pain is a warrior's burden and such leaves scars throughout the mind and body and each day the scars of that pain grow a little larger in size. This is why a warrior who is scarred by battle seeks refuge and solace so that they might find peace. This my dear reader is where we start our tale and find our warrior Crom has chosen to find a life of peace and family, but as all tragedies go, this was a peace that would not last forever. Our beloved hero returns home to his family after a day of hunting only to find that his house is ablaze and the gods have sent their warriors to end Crom's suffering. The wife escapes inside the burning house as Crom fights to protect the peace he so desperately wants. Upon entering the house, the gods disguised Crom's wife as an enemy and as she approaches Crom, his blade runs through her with ease. The gods laugh and break the spell allowing Crom to witness the destruction he caused at his own hands, and come face to face with ultimate pain and suffering as his wife dies in his arms. At this point my dear reader, one thing is clear and that is Crom will have his revenge.
The path is clear and now Crom sets out to right the wrongs, claim his vengeance, and finally find the peace that is now but a faint memory. It is here where we learn about the biggest challenge that Crom will face throughout Bloodforge and that is "The Camera". I understand you being confused my dear reader, but let me be crystal clear on this point. No enemy in Bloodforge is more difficult than the camera. Not only is the feel of the camera very sensitive, but when entering combat, it becomes such a pain in the @$$ to control that a lot of times you will find yourself either swinging away at air, or lost in the middle of a pile of enemies, or even getting attacked from off screen. The second part of that plays a big role in the lack of quality in the combat of Bloodforge. While the combo system provides some flash to go along with the bloody and over the top cinematic kill sequences and magic spells; controlling the camera when you're surrounded becomes such a hassle that you start to question your sanity of purchasing this steaming pile.
There are some reasons that contribute to the colossal failure of the camera and combat system, and one of the main reasons lay within the graphics of Bloodforge. It can be taken with a grain of salt that the artists were going for a heavy inked style for the scenery, however you will find that all the enemies (even though very generic, repetitive, and unoriginal) will also be draped in similar dark grey skins with slight variations to the character model. What this means to us is that when you are in a group of five enemies, it will be immensely hard to try and find your warrior out of the group, esp. when you're trying to control the camera from hell. Even though the levels have tints of baby crap blue, vomiting puke green and eye irritating red, you'll still be traversing an environment almost completely black and grey, with touches of lighter grey scattered about. With the growing list of things that are wrong with this game, it almost becomes a self-inflicted punishment to play it.
Not only are the enemies, levels, combat, graphics, and camera a big negative against Bloodforge, we have to also add the category of sound to that infamous list. Apparently Crom doesn't know how to use his inside voice a lot as he tends to shout almost everything to the faces of everyone. While this may seem to fit the character, when you're four hours in this becomes more of a laughable stereotype of a character. When you add that the overall music of the levels and boss battles do very little to enhance the experience of Bloodforge what you get as a result is a mediocre audio experience that will quickly grow old. The list of triumphant failures for this game just keeps on growing longer, and longer, and longer.
There have been plenty of great and iconic hack-n-slash titles from which Bloodforge could have based its foundation upon, however, after trying to steal top quality aspects from other top tier titles, Bloodforge looks like a bastardized demon spawn child of a game that should have not been released. The big question that should be asked is how could a company that wanted to make a good quality hack-n-slash game, completely ruin almost every aspect of it, and then release it at a premium cost? It's almost as if they were handed blueprints of what made great hack-n-slash games and said "we'll take these aspects and make them our own" and thus begins what I'm calling the George Lucas syndrome. I know George Lucas doesn't fit into this review, but you could say the same about everything in Bloodforge.
I cannot stress this enough, Bloodforge is a game that could have been absolutely amazing and could easily have been a contender for the top game on the Xbox Live Arcade, but sadly this title gets ripped limb from limb with everything that is wrong with it and then it gets impaled on the massive 1200 MS price point and has nothing to help it recover. Yes you read correctly, this massive steaming pile can be yours for only 1200 MS points. So asking yourself, "This or Trials Evolution?" is like asking if you would rather skydive without a parachute, or enjoy the rest of your life? So my dear reader we have come to the end of our horrific journey through undeniable failure and hardship, and if you still want to play Bloodforge, then stop reading this review and seek immediate psychiatric help.
Suggestions: How about a target lock on feature to help improve gameplay? Maybe make the enemies different than the main character to help us find our character in battle? How about improving on the camera and making a statement with good camera controls (I'm not asking for great, but anything better than this abomination).
Overall Score: 4.2 / 10
World Gone Sour
We've all played our share of puzzle platforming titles in our days, however, in World Gone Sour we are treated to the unknown world of some of the most vicious and hateful enemies yet, pissed off Sour Patch Kids. Imagine a game where a Sour Patch Kid decides to go rogue, bent on a quest for vengeance because you accidentally dropped and forgot him and ate his friend instead. Now this candy will traverse the dangers of counter tops, movie floors and more just to get to you and show you why you shouldn't neglect your candy.At first glance one may ask themselves, "What was Capcom on when they thought that World Gone Sour would be an entertaining idea?" Upon playing the game though, you quickly realize that whatever Capcom was on, that you got some too as you realize that this game is a fun guilty pleasure. To start things off, the humor in the game is more situated to crazy drunk bar laughs where you can't believe what is said all the while laughing all the way.
The announcer who is the Creed Bratton from "The Office" talks at various points throughout the game adds a sense of humor that is a nice blend of offensive humor with comments such as "bounce, yeah that?s right bounce for me baby yeahhhhh" and other times poking fun at other video game titles by comments such as "jump on it, you know like a little mushroom character". Even though the humor is more adult oriented the main focus behind the game is the platforming which takes its cues from other popular platformers, but with a little sluggish feel to the controls you can find yourself cursing the most simplistic levels simply because the controls don't respond quick enough to help you navigate levels that some require split second timing.
Another aspect that has to be talked about in direct relation to the control scheme is the camera. Sometimes the camera angle can be your friend by showing you secrets that are hidden throughout each level, but other times you can have the entire screen blocked off, preventing you from getting an accurate judgment of what needs to be done to solve a puzzle, or part of a level. Even with the control scheme not as perfect as other platforming games, there is still a lot your character can do. Your basic jump and smash the ground move, wall jumping, grapple swinging, double jumping, and more are all included, however, as you progress you will come across other stranded Sour Patch Kids that will follow you and assist you in solving puzzles or even growing larger or smaller to solve some of the puzzles you will find throughout the levels. By rescuing other stranded Sour Patch Kids, your character can utilize them to become bigger which will allow you to defeat larger enemies and bosses, or you can shrink your character as well so you can fit in those tight spaces. In World Gone Sour you'll bear witness to the answer of an age old question and that is, size does matter.
In a platforming game the control scheme is the most important, however some titles squeak by with surprisingly good graphics and sound, and unfortunately this isn't one of those games. The level designs are done adequately, however as you traverse the levels you'll see that nothing really stands out as exceptional when compared to other arcade titles. While the game World Gone Sour does little to impress graphically, Capcom tried to make the sounds and effects of the game entertaining and enjoyable and they got it half right. If you're a fan of Method Man, then you're in for a treat as his song "World Gone Sour (The Lost Kids)" graces the game, but that unfortunately is where the star power sound ends. The other sounds and sound effects you will hear are generic and almost sound as though they were taken from other games.
Is World Gone Sour worth the 400 MS point price that Capcom is asking? Yes and no. While the controls, graphics, and sound are all marginal at best there is still something sadistically enjoyable about watching computer animated Sour Patch Kids get dismembered and impaled on various traps. You could say this is right up XboxAddict's own mindset and you would be right. If you do enjoy platforming games that won't give you diabetes and give you hours of sadistic fun, then World Gone Sour is the game for you.
Overall Score: 6.9 / 10
Anomaly Warzone Earth
Over a year ago, 11 Bit studios braved the digital world of videogames with their release of Anomaly Warzone Earth on platforms such as the PC and iOS. The game was a massive success and public eyes shifted towards this talented group with one question in mind: "What's next?" Now 11 Bit Studios has answered the question and in a big way by taking the next big step in bringing this amazing game to the Xbox Live Arcade. Now let?s find out if Anomaly Warzone Earth is worth the 800 MS price point!One of the big changes that 11 Bit Studios overcame was the adaptation for controller usage instead of touch screens. This originally bode well for the company as the PC and Mac versions were compatible with controllers so when bringing this game to the Xbox Live Arcade, a perfect roadmap was already in place. Controlling your Commander is a breeze with the analog sticks and allows pinpoint precision of ability placements such as: smoke screen, air strike, healing, and decoy. Bringing up the abilities menu instantly pauses the game, as well; pushing the Y button brings up the map and allows you to adjust the route you want your squad to take. Along with this solid gameplay, you have the ability to purchase various units, upgrade them, and decide their placement within your squad. Without question this new tower offense style game allows seamless coordination between your Commander and your squad at all times.
Originally at launch, Anomaly Warzone Earth provided multiple stages set in the city of Baghdad. An alien force has invaded earth and you are humanity's last hope for survival. It is up to you to take control of the Commander and build and direct your squad how you see fit to accomplish the missions at hand. In the Xbox Live Arcade version you are treated to a whole new city, Tokyo. One would think that the gifts would stop there, but there are also three bonus squad assault levels, which require you to dispatch unholy justice on waves of enemies in a required amount of time, and six new Tactical Trials that demand a well thought out plan from the start and put you against increasingly hard challenges. The game is an improvement over the other platforms but when the action heats up it's hard to focus on your squad and your Commander. As you progress through the beautiful alien towers, blowing them all to hell, you will be treated to a lot of audio vulgarity in the forms of your troop?s celebration of survival and domination. This tends though to become a bit overdone and after a while can become slightly annoying, but most of the time you have so much action going on that your eyes are glued to the screen and you're not paying attention to your squad saying "F**k yeah!"
Ultimately without question 11 Bit Studios has done an amazing job releasing Anomaly Warzone Earth on other platforms, but their expansion into the Xbox Live Arcade with more content just goes to show what a company can do when they care about quality. Is this worth the 800 MS points? If you enjoy tower offense style games, or want to experience the new city, the harder challenges, and other content, then the answer is unquestionably yes.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Defenders of Ardania
Deep in the magical fantasy world of Majesty, a dark magic has emerged that threatens the safety and security of your realm. It is your quest to gather what alliances you can form from Dwarves and Elves and more from across the lands to combat the cause of this evil force. Ready your towers and prepare your army because it's time to fight back. The battle lines have been drawn, now it's time to go to war in the tower defense game, Defenders of Ardania!As we begin our journey we have to give mad respect to developer and publisher Most Wanted Entertainment for their new take on tower defense games. By a simple innovation of incorporating a tower offense into Defenders of Ardania, they have taken the traditional tower defense games to a whole new level. With this new innovation of tower offense comes a steep learning curve that has to be accounted for. Now when you combine your units, towers, and magic the wealth of options increases exponentially and thus, so must our adaptation to the new gameplay. Since we briefly mentioned the depth of this game we have to point out that there are a total of 24 different units that range from fast moving assassins to giant eagles that fly overhead on their way to wipe out the enemy base. With so much to control, build, and manipulate, sometimes the action can get a little bogged down and very confusing. Let me explain.
The layout and levels of Defenders of Ardania are done quite well. There's nothing ground breaking or earth shattering, but they do look very good for an arcade title. One of the main issues however were that a lot of the structures looked similar when built aside from a different color. This brings to mind a classic scene from the movie Grandma's Boy where the great idea was to render the character a different color. Something simplistic like that would help you find your towers amidst the landscape and other buildings. There are some variances but unfortunately they are few and far between. Another issue in Defenders of Ardania is the incredibly boring storyline. There are many levels to go through in single player, however, as mentioned before, mastering the learning curve of this game will determine if you enjoy it or not.
While the single player story falls very short to just spamming quick rush attacks on the AI, the heart of this game lies in its multiplayer. Supporting up to four people in an Xbox Live match, you will be able to challenge your friends and more on all 18 campaign levels. This is where the hybrid RTS combines with tower offense to create some spectacular battles online. If you don't have a lot of friends, it doesn't matter because you can also throw in some AI to fill in the empty spaces. The multiplayer also offers some benefits such as you can actually talk and hear other people instead of the generic 'bad Sean Connery' impression and other generic voice acting. The script itself has some light hearted moments but the overall audio quality is marginal at best but it is better than just reading blank text.
With so many options at your command, Defenders of Ardania tries to overcome some shortcomings by incorporating some new innovations, and while this works somewhat, the fact that these shortcomings exist does hinder the overall enjoyment of this game. Priced at a hefty 1200 MS points, Defenders of Ardania wouldn't be considered an instant buy, but if you're a fan of tower defense or RTS style games, then wait for this to hit the 800 MS point mark before you pick it up.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Ninja Gaiden 3
Gather around my fellow sons and daughters of the night for there is knowledge of great importance that I must bestow upon all of you. You have served your family honorably and have brought respect and prosperity to our clan, but now that fortitude will be tested in Tecmo's latest release, Ninja Gaiden 3. Make no mistake my children, the challenges that lie ahead of you are ones not to be taken lightly. Every ounce of your training has led you to this moment and I have taught you all that you need to know to battle the darkness and honor your family. Take up your blades honorable warriors of the night for now is the time that we unlock the secrets behind Ninja Gaiden 3.Ninja Gaiden 3 is the latest installment in the series from the sharp minds of Team Ninja at Temco. This was a rocky road to fruition and one must take into account that this Ninja Gaiden title has no involvement with Itagaki. While his departure from Tecmo and disappearance to the world originally sparked controversy, it also brought a sense of mourning as the future of Ninja Gaiden was undecided. Tecmo though choose wisely and formed a new Team Ninja to begin work on Ninja Gaiden 3 minus the world famous game designer. Let's examine the hard work of the new Team Ninja and see what ninpo secrets we can learn.
One of the foundations of the Ninja Gaiden games has always been the insanely hard gameplay. Many times you will find yourself cursing the game and Tecmo, and blame them for breaking multiple controllers of yours. Ninja Gaiden 3 does allow a marginally easier gameplay experience but don't expect that to mean it's going to be a walk in the park. This is not only due to the environment and level design but also due to the overwhelmingly powerful enemies that stand in your way. Many of times I would get caught off guard by an attacker who would do some sort of power move and drain at least 90% of my full health bar, then five seconds later I would watch as the remaining 10% disappeared amidst a bloody red haze. What adds to the challenge is the ever troublesome camera. Camera control has always been an issue with Ninja Gaiden games and unfortunately it remains just as big an issue in Ninja Gaiden 3. During intense battles you often will find yourself trying to adjust the camera so you can keep an eye on the rest of the oncoming attackers. The solution that I have found as a semi fix is to press in the right control stick which will focus your camera on not only the right path to take but also enemies as well so you can consider it almost like an instant 180 degree turn.
That?s not to say that all the gameplay is a cumbersome. Some new innovations include wall climbing and rope traversing each offering new options for combat as well as gameplay. Now with the use of the left and right trigger you can scale certain walls with ease and even perform a stealth kill with the push of one button. This is a perfect way to transition into the next big gameplay innovation for Ninja Gaiden 3 and that would be QuickTime events. If you love them, then it's time to celebrate, if you hate them, then this might be one to avoid because they are everywhere. From traversing the levels to combat against foes, you will find QuickTime events littered throughout the entire game. While this allows for a more cinematic approach it also takes away from the feel of Ninja Gaiden 3.
Ninjas have been known to adapt to their surrounding environments and work together to achieve victory in their mission. This fundamental truth is the foundation of the new multiplayer experience in Ninja Gaiden 3. Now you can customize your own personal ninja and you can unlock various cosmetic upgrades and special moves to truly make the ninja you want. The first offering of the multiplayer experience are the Ninja Trials where you have the option to tackle multiple combat scenarios either alone or with a friend. There are also multiple difficulty types with a massive 100GS achievement for completing the three Ultimate Ninja Trials. By completing these trials you unlock experience to raise your ninja's overall level and based on your efficiency with your weapons, you also will unlock other armor and increase your sword mastery and ultimately unlock Ryu's Dragon Sword. While the trials are a great way to hone your skills, the 4x4 Clan Battle provides the real action for multiplayer.
Throughout the Clan Battle's very limited levels your team will go blade for blade in a race to rack up as many kills as possible within the allotted time limit. These offers up some new ways to kill such as the ghost kill where your ninja will cloak and be invisible to others, but to do this you must walk very slowly and that will be hard to do when you have swords being swung, arrows being shot, and shuriken being thrown all around you. If you remain calm and manage to get within striking range of a target, one button press and you lunge out, running your blade straight through your opponent in a ghost kill. Originally we talked about Ninjas being able to adapt well in the Clan Battle mode, one of the contracts that will randomly pop up can literally swing the entire game in one move. Randomly the rules of Clan Battle will change and sometime you may get a contract of betrayal. This is more than just a basic team kill, now if you are successful you will actually switch teams and all the kills you had acquired for your old team will transfer over to your new team whose contract it will be to keep you alive as now everyone on your old team will be sent to kill you. Beware who you decide to stab in the back.
While the gameplay may have received some new innovations that alter the feel of what we know of a Ninja Gaiden game, the same can be said for the graphics. Always known for providing beautiful backdrops and stunning character models, Ninja Gaiden 3 offers a gorgeous graphical experience that never gets old. From iconic moments such as Ryu removing his mask, to running your blade through an enemies' torso, every second of Ninja Gaiden 3 is done in spectacular bloody perfection. Since ninja's are supposed to be silent, that poses a challenge to create a good soundtrack for Ninja Gaiden 3, and unfortunately only some of it is good. The character voice acting is done adequately well, however, the overall music does very little to bring the game to life. This bodes well for the limited and not very appealing story, but unfortunately not for the levels themselves.
Without question this is a new age for Ryu Hayabusa and the Dragon Ninja, however, you get the feeling that something is lost and they are trying to overcompensate for the game's natural shortcomings. While playing the game you often find yourself thinking, "Would Itagaki approve of this", and ultimately I feel the answer would be no. Even though Ninja Gaiden 3 is still a relatively good game, with all the setbacks such as the high amount of QuickTime events, marginal design layout, and more, nothing pains me more than to say that Ninja Gaiden 3 is not the best game in the series. It's a shame too because like many of us, we have come to expect amazing work from the people of Tecmo and Team Ninja, but we can hope that this new team learns from this and grows the series back into greatness.
Overall Score: 7.9 / 10
Shoot Many Robots
Hi there, my name is Really Important Personality Operational Functioning Friend. You can call me RIP OFF for short. I'm here to tell you about allllllllll the wonders you can find in the new Ubisoft arcade title Shoot Many Robots! We've got lots of guns, and even more bigger guns, plus we've got more armor clothing to sell and all at discounted prices. Well maybe not discounted but the prices are low, well not compared to anyone else but to us they're rock bottom! Some call me a copy of something called CLAPTRAP but I think they're just jealous. Follow me as we dive into the twisted and violent world of Shoot Many Robots and remember, if you have any questions, we don't care. In Shoot Many Robots you'll play the role of P.Walter Tugnut a deluded redneck who believes that robots are taking over the world so he decided to stock up on two essentials: Beer and ammo. Upon watching your faithful truck become a fond memory at the hands of merciless robots, Tugnut decides that the robots have crossed the line and sets out in his RV of death to kill every robot he can find. This is where some of the new innovations come into play as you can purchase more explosive gear as your character levels up. Weapons such as M16's are nice, but a massive alien laser beam is even better. Remember these are on sale for a limited time! Well, not really limited time because there is no sale. Not only can you upgrade to some more lethal firepower, but you can also upgrade your clothing to provide more protection against the never-ending onslaught of violent robots (unless you chose to wear fishnet stockings and a cowboy hat, but hey we don't judge).
While some may say that the graphics are a styled copy of some game called Borderlands, I like to think that they are artistically unique. The scenery is laid out in competitive arenas where you side scroll across 2D levels and each level contains multiple stages set in a cell-shaded-cartoon feel. The sounds themselves I?m sorry to say leave a lot to be desired but who needs good sound when you're blasting away hundreds of vicious robots right? Even though this may become mundane and a bit boring, that?s when it's time to team up with three other robotcist rednecks and beat the ever loving s**t out of some robots.
When explosions and gunfire are going all over the screen, that?s when you know you're having a fun time! Even though all of this may be fun and entertaining there are some drawbacks that take away from the overall quality feel. For starters you can't upgrade your weapons, armor, or even aiming, so your crazed nonstop assault will just be that but as you progress the explosions and gunfire will be bigger. Since you can't upgrade your aiming there will be some times when you really won't know what you're aiming at given that robots will be attacking you from all sides.
To say that Shoot Many Robots is a cheap copy of Borderlands is kind of unfair because of what our game provides. We provide hundreds of different types of weapons, hundreds of different types of armor, fluid cell shady cartoony style graphics, and a gazillion robots! See? No similarities at all! For 800 MS points, we're also cheaper! If you are into games such as the classic game Metal Slug or other 2D side scrolling massive carnage action style games, then listen to RIP OFF and purchase Shoot Many Robots!
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
I Am Alive
Hello... Hello, is anyone there??.... I'm in need of your help! Oh thank God you've come... Please, I need to get this information out there! There's a lot of new information about a new game from Ubisoft called I AM ALIVE, and XboxAddict has gathered a wealth of intelligence that could quite possibly save the rest of mankind! I would deliver this knowledge myself but after that last earthquake my leg is broken and I can't move. I was on my way to my daughter's birthday at the stadium shelter when the quake hit and sent this metal I-beam down on my leg. Please, you're my only hope.... I need you to take this information and make sure that others are prepared for survival, and if you should make your way and encounter my wife and daughter, tell them that daddy will always love them. Please you must hurry; our survival now is in your hands.... Thank you....(Turns the playback button on the video recorder and notices someone sitting behind a desk with a file in his hands reading out loud)
If you are watching this video, then "The Event" has happened and you are one of the few survivors of mankind. We don't know if there is a way to bring back mankind but if you are in possession of this video recorder than there is still a hope for salvation. Ubisoft is a company known for making great platforming and adventure retail games, now they have turned their sights to a new release to the Xbox Live Arcade called I AM ALIVE. In a world after "The Event", mankind's survival stands upon a knife point where the balance between salvation and ruin is always volatile and ever changing. Mankind is forced into scavenging for their future and through your efforts you decide the outcome of human existence.
Your quest will take you through city streets, subways, run down and destroyed buildings and more as you traverse the dangers and fight for survival. When we talk about survival, take note because this game is a challenge and a half. I AM ALIVE boasts two difficulty challenges: Normal and Survival which should be renamed: Good f***ing luck and God be with you. The reason this is so challenging is that in normal mode you have a very small number of retries before you have to start over from the last chapter save. You can gain more retries by helping other survivors or by searching and exploring every inch of the city. In survival mode, you have no retries and should you die, then you're reverted back to the last chapter save. Make no mistake, I AM ALIVE will definitely be a challenge.
Your own survival rests in the proper use of your stamina bar. The reason we mention this is because almost every action you do in I AM ALIVE uses some stamina. Actions such as running drain a little stamina every second, but if you repeatedly strike the run button, your stamina will drop very, very rapidly. Climbing also takes a little stamina every second; however, if you have to jump while climbing then expect your stamina bar to take a big hit. Due to this overwhelming focus on your stamina, your character will be forced to find whatever they can to stay alive. Items such as water bottles, cans of soda, canned fruit and more will replenish your stamina and using rare items such as a riposte will grant you an instant stamina refill. Should you be brave and decide to chance it all and not refill your stamina, you run the risk of losing health and if you are climbing and you lose your stamina completely you have a last ditch effort to make it to safety, failure to do so results in instant death. Consider this your warning.
The challenges you will face in I AM ALIVE are not just in managing your stamina and the environment, but in facing life and death situations. Confrontation with other survivors is inevitable; however, not all survivors will be hostile. There will be some that require your aid, there will be some that are just trying to survive, and there are those who try to bully their way into power. Resources are scarce after "The Event" and while scavenging for items for stamina and health are important, finding ammo for your empty pistol is just as critical. While some confrontation can be avoided, those with bullets in their gun become the ones with power. They will bully you and push you around but with the quick press of your machete you can instantly drop the attacker, but even this choice comes at a price. Normally you will find these bullies with bullets accompanied by other followers who will try to avenge their fallen assailant and this is where fear comes into play. Even though you may not have ammo in your weapon, the others don't know that so if you use your empty gun properly you can actually persuade lower level enemies to back up and leave you alone, but try it too often and they'll test you.
One of the core features of I AM ALIVE is the climbing and platforming. You will scale buildings, pipes, ladders, and more as you traverse the ruined city of Haventon. There is a slight issue with this as the controls for climbing feel very sluggish and not crisp and clean like you would find in some Assassin games. This can be frustrating when you are trying to climb your way up a side of a building or trying to escape the dense cloud of lethal dust that plagues the street levels of the city. As you make these massive climbs you will notice that I AM ALIVE looks absolutely beautiful, well beautiful for a post-apocalyptic era city. This game without question gives off a Fallout vibe in terms of graphics and the scenery, and the these high-rise buildings looks incredible when you scale them. All of this gets wrapped together in a realistic sounding environment. Pipes creak and break, rocks give way, and the human voice interaction with the characters is done very well. There is nothing that feels over the top and everything from the graphics to sound fit and feel like they should which makes the atmosphere of I AM ALIVE seem more surreal.
Originally conceived in 2008, I AM ALIVE has undergone major redevelopments over the years and a lot of gamers were wondering if this game would ever see the light of day. Well as the saying goes: "Good things come to those who wait" and I AM LIVE is a shining example of this. If you like a challenging post-apocalyptic platforming adventure game, then line up your 1200 MS points because this game is worth every penny. Will you overcome the trials and obstacles in your path or will you succumb to the death and despair of the aftermath of "The Event", the choice is yours, but remember that amidst the ashes and rubble that I AM ALIVE.
(End video playback....)
Overall Score: 8.7 / 10
Mass Effect 3
Throughout mankind's history when we observe the stars and heavens above, our imagination and curiosity run wild. Thoughts emerge such as "Are we alone?" and "I wonder what's out there?" and our quest to explore the heavens is born. Millions of galaxies spread wide across the emptiness of cold blackened space; it becomes apparent very quickly that our little drop of water in the overall cosmic ocean may just not be alone. Ever since BioWare first released Mass Effect, our passion and desire to explore other galaxies, discover new races, and ultimately preserve existence of sentient life as we know it, has erupted like the fusion induced furnaces that power the stars themselves. Now as we begin our journey across the galactic sea, we set our focus on Mass Effect 3 and the qualities that make this entry one of the best in the series. Hold on tight readers because we're about to send your imagination through a mass relay of information that will amaze and astound. Set your course, fire up your engines, raise your shields, and lock and load all weapons because now we are thrown into an intergalactic war for survival, not just for mankind, but for every living being in the universe. It is time to launch Mass Effect 3.In order to understand the future, one must understand the past and in Mass Effect 1 and 2 you determined the outcomes of the past. Your character was fraught with moral dilemmas and choices to make and every action your character made, had direct or indirect repercussions on the outcome of your game. This was the core of the story for both Mass Effect 1 and 2 and thankfully this hasn't changed in Mass Effect 3. Your choices can still be felt throughout the galaxy, like ripples in a pond, given that your character can be carried over from Mass Effect 2, so all your actions and decisions you have made over the course of the past still hold true to the effects of the future. With the story of Mass Effect 3 in your hands, it is up to you how you wish to shape the future. This is a quality of gaming that BioWare is known for incorporating into their stories and in doing so, grip the adventurer from beginning to end in a tale so stellar and grand that we experience a wide range of emotions throughout our journey.
There have been some improvements as well when it comes to all aspects of Mass Effect 3. For starters your ship, the Normandy, is now more streamlined for enhanced functionality but it still keeps to its roots and brings about everything we have expected since the original Mass Effect. One of the most enjoyable improvements is the new planetary scanning system. In the original Mass Effect we got to physically explore planets, however, that didn't last as Mass Effect 2 implemented a new scanning system that became more of a pain to endure instead of increasing our enjoyment. Now though Mass Effect 3 has changed the scanning system to include a more precise method for scanning various planets. This system has been completely overhauled and now even incorporates a ranged sensor transmission where you can search for various items and objects of interest from your ship's overview while it navigates different solar systems. Other gameplay enhancements as well include the new cover kill where if your character is in cover, one press of the button and any enemy that is standing directly across from your cover will be dragged over and put out of its misery. While this may not be as groundbreaking as some of the other innovations, when you are trying to tackle a group of enemies, having a one hit kill option can definitely turn the tide of war in your favor.
While we're on the topic of innovation, it goes without saying that Mass Effect 3 provides some of the best innovations to make this game the pinnacle of the Mass Effect trilogy. One of the biggest innovations for Mass Effect 3 is the Kinect integration. This could be considered the perfect gaming application for Kinect because it doesn't make the Kinect equipment the focal point, but instead makes it an optional enhancement for your game as is. It does this by making the emphasis on voice command controls. Since dialogue is one of the main critical aspects of Mass Effect 3, BioWare has made it so that you can verbally control the dialogue entries via Kinect. While this isn't something that some will enjoy, the fact that it's optional is a plus. There thankfully aren't any hand gestures where you have to stab an imaginary enemy to use your Omniblades; instead the combat aspect is controlled, in real time, by your voice. For instance if you are pinned down and you can't get a shot off, you can use your voice and say commands such as "Liara warp" and you will watch as your teammate Liara uses her warp and shreds the opposition. This feature is not just devoted to your team of followers; Shepard himself can switch his weapon just by your voice command. Say "shotgun" and if you have a shotgun with you, Shepard will equip it. This keeps the battle fluid and allows you to make real time decisions that will either make or break you. You can also use Kinect for various mundane tasks such as "Gather" or "Open" if you wish to progress through a door. While this may not be a popular feature, it does allow a fresh new experience by adding more innovation.
Another groundbreaking innovation for Mass Effect 3 is the new inclusion of multiplayer and multiplayer character development. Very rarely can a game noted for being a spectacular single player experience successfully infuse an equally as good multiplayer experience. For starters you can have multiple different multiplayer characters to play as. There are your standard male and female characters, but there are also some unlockable familiars that can allow bonuses to be applied to your character. The multiplayer game mode itself is similar to game modes we'd find on other AAA titles and could be considered a firefight/horde style experience where you battle through various waves of increasingly hard enemies. While this may not seem innovative as we have experienced this before, the fact that it's in a Mass Effect game and done very well, is the innovation. Your options for multiplayer allow for teams of 4 to venture out onto one of the six levels in one of the three different difficulties, and against one of the three different enemy types. Your character though would be less enjoyable if you didn't get to develop your skills as you would in the single player story, thankfully BioWare has you covered. Now in the new multiplayer you have the ability to upgrade various classes and various powers within each class. If all this innovation wasn't enough, BioWare gave us a cherry on top with the new multiplayer shop. Here you can use your in game credits that you have earned to purchase various levels of equipment boxes and each filled with a wide range of random tools that range from making you an intergalactic grim reaper, to items that will bring you back from death's cold grip in space.
As before in the past, Mass Effect 3 truly brings the stars and heavens alive in a way that can only be described as a piece of galactic art, where we paint our journey how we see fit. Every aspect that our eyes bear witness to is draped in uncompromising beauty. The character models are much more lifelike and when you combine their independent character interactions and voice over work, BioWare has done a masterful job in bringing the characters of the universe to life. The scenery and environments you will encounter throughout your voyage are breathtaking to behold. Even the loading screens are done with beautiful video which make waiting to load different areas a joy to behold. No longer will you have a static screen with a loading icon, now for instance, if you are in the Citadel, your loading screens showcase a panoramic view of the Citadel grounds w/ traffic moving about, water spouting from fountains, lush beautiful landscapes and more. With every moment of your journey in Mass Effect 3 taking you through the expansive universe and throughout various galaxies, BioWare has delivered an ocular sensory overload by bringing you the closest you will probably ever come to voyaging amongst the stars.
While all these new innovations and improvements are wonderful, none of these would be worth mentioning without a phenomenal musical score to support all of this. With a wide range of sweeping stellar soundscapes this is one game where the volume must be turned up. I found myself in the beginning just listening to the opening opus of music that seemed to mesmerize me with its minimalistic qualities. That?s not to say though that every musical track is a tranquil blend of harmonics, when faced with a monumental moment of choice, that?s when the soundtrack takes a more regal approach where the music provides a feeling of epic proportion. When the action heats up so does the music and you feel your heartbeat pumping to the beat of the in game music and that?s when you know that you are ready for war. While the soundtrack itself is a milestone accomplishment for Mass Effect 3, the voice over work as well shows that BioWare pulls no punches when it comes to ensuring it's done right. By utilizing some big name Hollywood actors/actresses who know how to project various emotions and feelings through their voice, every character interaction seems genuine and independently amazing. Through Mass Effect 3's audio, our ears are given the gift of a true sonic marvel, and one that will stand the test of time and set the bar, when it comes to audio, to a level almost unreachable.
When we as gamers find a game that can enrich our lives through its story and allow us to interact and shape the outcome, we find ourselves face to face with a masterpiece of quality gaming. BioWare is a company known for producing games that move our hearts with pure story telling emotion, blind our eyes with their graphical brilliance, soothe our souls in spectacular sound, and most importantly bring our imaginations to life. Without question Mass Effect 3 has now become the new pinnacle entry into the trilogy by introducing a plethora of new innovations and improvements on already solid aspects. Let us take to the stars and let our imaginations be our guide. Let us shape the future how we want; Let us be the ones that ignite the fires of the stars. The interstellar heavens call to our souls, now let us answer that call through our adventure in Mass Effect 3.
Suggestions: Thank you for all your hard work, it is through your efforts that our dreams come true.
Overall Score: 9.8 / 10
Gotham City Impostors
Greetings new gamer recruits, I'm batman, and he's batman too, and over there, see that guy up there, well he's batman too, and um... actually we're all batman. Welcome to our secret training facility and lair located 20 minutes outside downtown Gotham on the I-68 off the 3rd exit next to the Wendy's. We work hard in helping batman get rid of the goons and villains and we do that by ensuring our secret identities constantly; isn't that right Jerry... oh.. wait, forget I just said... ummm nevermind. The joker seems to have his own loyal following of crazies but none of them are equipped like we are and we definetly hold the edge in technology when the car will start. Now I know what you're saying, isn't the real batman the one who should be doing this work, but the truth is, he can't be everywhere so that?s where we come in! Let?s get you suited up with your new roller skates recruit because it's time to take back Gotham, Batman style!Gotham has been overrun by the Joker and his goons and in this beta we will see a constant battle between good and evil where we are the good guys and the joker and his baddies are the, well bad guys right? There are multiple different game modes to vanquish evil in, or if you're sick and demented, multiple different game modes where you can fire round after round of ammunition into the heads of wanting do-gooders. The controls are fairly straight forward and comparable to other first person shooters so figuring out the controls will be a breeze, but knowing how to grapple and use various items around the level will separate victory from defeat. The stages themselves are not massive war zones, but more strategic environments that allow for intense fire fights and lots of fun.
While this is only a beta, Batman Gotham City Imposters delivers a first person shooter game where there actually is customization. For starters you have your choice of multiple load outs which can be improved or customized to a degree however, that?s not something we haven't seen hundreds of times before. While the environments were done well the overall feel of the graphics isn't anything to set this game apart from the rest. There are times when the wise cracks fit the feel of the game, however, don't expect amazing results in the audio department either. Let's get something straight as well, this game will set you back $15.
While this is a new twist on the Batman line, it does make you think that they are trying to cash in on the success of Arkham City. The controls are generic and easy to learn and that is a plus, but everything we have witnessed has already been done multiple times over and for cheaper; and with the exclusion of the Dark Knight himself, there literally would be no difference if the characters were dressed in army gear than homemade batman costumes. So to sum everything up: We have a Batman game without a Batman, we have generic first person shooter gametypes and controls, average graphics, below average sound, and no real feel that makes you think you're fighting crime like Batman. I know why I'd contact Batman, and that would be to pursue the criminals who took my $15 for this game. They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery and if I were Batman, I'd be incredibly pissed off.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Soulcalibur V
The fates and destinies of every soul are interwoven into the threads of time. Always starting and ending but constantly evolving and moving, the only control we have is how our destiny will impact those around us. We all have a choice in our involvement: whether to wield our influence for destructive purposes in order to obtain our goals at any cost, or we chose to be a beacon of light; helping those and using our powers to better the lives of all around us by eliminating the shadows of evil. While our souls each have a choice, the one undeniable truth is that each choice presents a challenge which is why we must fight and fight to win. The task at hand of choosing your destiny is always a daunting one, however, there are tools that you can wield to help you achieve victory and those are the Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. These swords are locked in a constant battle for eternal supremacy and rely on the will of its owner to tip the scales of balance in its favor. Come with us as we walk the ribbons of time and space and uncover the destiny of the latest chapter in this holy war and find out the fate of Soul Calibur V.Before we begin our quest let us take notice that Soul Calibur V boasts a hefty fighter roster with a wealth of brand new weapons, fighters and fighting styles. Some of the older characters' descendants apparently make their first appearance such as: Natsu who is a student of Taki and must learn to confront and control her inner demons to harness her power, Xiba who resembles the infamous fighter Kilik, and Patroklos and Pyrrah who are the children of Sophitia. There is one new addition to the fighter roster that fits the feel of Soul Calibur V and that warrior is the Assassin himself, Ezio Auditore. This Assassin's close and ranged combat combined with fluid striking movements make Ezio born for a game such as this.
Different fighting stances and styles blend perfectly with the weapon combat and deliver the smooth and fluid combat that has been the backbone of the Soul Calibur series. Button mashers will have an ease about picking up the game and going toe to toe utilizing the revamped Critical Edge attack, but for those who have the determination to reach into Soul Calibur V's core, they will find a complex and brutal fighting system where mercy is but a theory and total domination is guaranteed. Soul Calibur V takes what has been great about the series and improves every aspect of it while introducing some new innovations that rekindle the fire that burns within each of our souls.
When talking about unraveling the story and history of each character the bread and butter behind the single player experience is the story mode. This mode is one of the game's biggest thorns in its side as you are stuck using one fighter named Patroklos who could be considered an arrogant spoiled brat and without any warning, guidance, or instruction you are thrown into battle after battle and forced to pray for salvation as you fight through 20 stages of opponents in a quest to reunite your family and end the Malfestation. While the story had a good foundation the execution of this makes you pray for an Astaroth axe to the face. To complement the single player experience, Soul Calibur V brings to the table various modes such as Quick Battle where you can earn new titles and other character customizable items, Arcade mode which is essentially a six round time trial, and the seemingly impossible Legendary Souls mode where the warriors do everything possible to prove you worthless in the ring.
Facing this adversity head on, Soul Calibur V delivers some major improvements and innovations that really add to the overall quality of the game. For starters, the character creation makes its return but now in enhanced to deliver a truly customizable warrior. If you wanted a fighter who was tiny like Yoda but had tons of muscle mass while wearing a chain mail shirt, a head of a horse, and the loin cloth of Conan, then by all means seek immediate professional help, but you could easily do this. New titles and customizable equipment can be won either online, or via single player modes. Almost everything can be changed, altered, or um... enhanced which allows you to truly create a unique fighter. Some of the other new innovations include improvements to the multiplayer aspects by introducing a lobby where you can view ongoing battles, register for a match, and more. Given that the core of Soul Calibur games is the multiplayer experience, the new streamlined interface and new innovations breathe new life and power into this stunning fighting game.
While we know Soul Calibur games to deliver a smooth and fluid fighting system, we have also come to expect amazing things in realm of graphics, and without question Soul Calibur delivers a knockout. While there are some very tiny flaws with some of the clothing, every visual aspect of this fighting game is breathtaking. The character models, cinematic sequences, the fighting arenas and even the combat itself look as though a piece of art has come to life. Even though the graphics are beyond beautiful, the sound however is something that doesn't bear much contribution to the game. The ring announcer becomes very tiresome as you progress through multiple matches and rounds and the stage music itself does very little to make a big impact on the combat itself.
If you want a fighting game to be a success, then nothing can be held back and all punches must be thrown. Soul Calibur V does take a couple shots that would normally stagger and cripple other fighting games, but the spirit will always live on as it brings gamers smooth, beautiful combat combined with a strengthened multiplayer system to provide hours upon hours of enjoyment. What destiny will you choose? What will history say about you? Time to draw swords and step into the ring of Soul Calibur V.
Suggestions: Please work on developing multiple quality storylines for the characters and quality sound. Make the next entry in the series feel like an epic impact on the fabric of time.
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
Trine 2 
Tales of fellowships overcoming obstacles and adversaries in order to achieve a monumental goal has been the source of many popular forms of media. From video games, to movies, to books, and more, this is a time tested successful formula for producing amazing pieces of work and thankfully Trine 2 delivers on all accounts. With a bond between a wizard, a knight, and a thief gamers are whisked away to a beautiful magical realm and must combine the skills and traits of all three adventurers if they wish to solve the puzzles that lie ahead of them. It is time to see how the Trine has bound our three companions together for this quest and uncover the truth behind the mystery of Trine 2. Let us begin....For those who have not enjoyed the original Trine, Trine 2 is a similar side scrolling puzzle adventure game where you must utilize the qualities and characteristics of each of your three companions to overcome obstacles and defeat your enemies. The wizard Amadeus can summon crates and boxes which can allow other companions to jump on top and access parts of a puzzle that were once unreachable. Zoya is the thief of the group and can launch a series of arrows towards enemies; however she can also use her grappling hook on certain surfaces to gain a better vantage point or even help unlock some very tricky puzzles. The last member of our group is Pontius the knight. This character is a master of combat and can wield a sword, shield, and hammer and stands as not only the best offensive weapon, but also allows attacks to be blocked with the shield and even fell some walls that stand in your path. While this collection of adventurers may be enough for the challenges ahead, Trine 2 doesn't stop there as it implements a character level up system that allows you to access new abilities such as flame and ice arrows, shield bashing, and more. The controls are fairly straight forward which allows you more time to focus on the puzzles and the overall game itself. Some of the puzzles are quite simple, yet some are very complex and all bring to life Trine 2's new physics engine which helps immerse you even deeper into platforming bliss.
While the original Trine was a success, a great new innovation to Trine 2 is the inclusion of local or online co-op. No longer are you subjected to overcoming these trials and tribulations alone for you and two other friends can venture your way through the complex levels that lie ahead. While this innovation is a blessing for this game, the same has to be said for its graphical prowess. Every level is beautifully detailed in stunning colors and provides endless hours of striking visual beauty. There is one level where you will witness the sunset on a tropical beach that not only will halt your gameplay but it will take your breath away due to the beauty you see on the screen. While these wonderful qualities are the strength of Trine 2, unfortunately the same cannot be said for its audio. While the characters themselves are voiced fairly well, the game leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the soundtrack. There are times where the music doesn't seem to fit the feel of the game and there are other times still that make your ears wanting more.
While the original Trine proved that a great side scrolling puzzle platformer can still be every bit as enjoyable as most games today, Trine 2 takes those wonderful qualities and injects new innovations and enhances the strengths of its predecessor. While this adventure comes to an end, we can only hope that this series will continue to develop and grow with the same high quality experience we now know to expect. If you are a fan of side scrolling, platforming, and puzzle solving, then without question Trine 2 is worth every MS point and then some. It's time for you to download this title and see what future and fate the stars in the heavens hold for you.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
All Zombies Must Die! 
In today's gaming world, blowing away zombies has quickly become a popular choice of developers and gamers around the world. There are games like Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, and there are even zombies making appearances in the Call of Duty and Halo game types. Then we have this title, All Zombies Must Die for 800 MS points on the Xbox Live Arcade. The tale of this game is nothing we haven't experienced before; a group of individuals must survive a zombie outbreak and live to talk about it. While this seems to be the basic premise of almost all zombie games, lets dive into All Zombies Must Die a little bit more and see just what lurks deep within the shadows.From the beginning, one thing is made very clear, and that is this game is going to be filled with numerous grinding gameplay. The controls are fairly straight forward with the left stick assigned to movement and the right stick used to aim your firepower towards the nearest zombie's head. There is an upgrade system in this game that allows limited customization of your weapons so that you can apply fire, sonic, or even mutative properties to your weapon of choice. The top down view allows you to survey the area, plan your pathway through the mobs of zombies, and search for collectibles that will help you eliminate more undead zombies than you can fire your shotgun at. Throughout the game you will find yourself going through the same areas multiple times, and each time you seem to be looking for something new and it's this grinding, fetch style gameplay that will become very old very fast.
If you're looking for stellar graphics then this isn't going to be the game for you, as they are somewhat cartoonish and outdated. It almost looks as though you are playing a bunch of cartoon characters in their young teens battling a massive amount of cartoonish zombies. The same can also be said for the sound of the game which leaves a lot to be desired and leaves you thinking "why did they even bother" with such a mediocre approach to the graphics and sound. While that is a major disappointment, the biggest kick in the pants has to rest with the fact that there is no online co-op so if you want to game with friends you better make room on the couch. This is a massive disappointment because even though the game is not one that will be a benchmark for other titles, the fun factor really goes out the window when you can only play local co-op.
For 800 MS points All Zombies Must Die does provide some entertainment, however with the absence of online co-op play, lackluster graphics and sound, this is a game that will become very boring very quickly. With other great titles on the Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MS points that offer a lot more enjoyment and online play with others, All Zombies Must Die is a perfect example of how something that could have been very good gets turned into something very generic and boring. Should you spend your 800 MS points on this game? If you like wasting your points then by all means download away.
Suggestions: Seriously no online co-op when you release a game that is on a console with a heavey online multiplayer feature? Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to go.
Overall Score: 6.2 / 10
Choplifter HD
In the 1980's there was a wealth of outlets that allowed young gamers a chance to play, what could be categorized by today's standards, classic games. These games were very simplistic to operate and provided hundreds of thousands of hours of enjoyment to the masses, and one of those titles to do this is the classic game, Choplifter. With a growing trend of gaming companies releasing classic games with updated facelifts but maintaining the same generic gameplay, one must ask themselves if there is any reason why someone would pay 1200 MS points for something that used to be on the Commodore 64. To put things into perspective, you could spend 1200 MS points to purchase Choplifter, or you could spend 1200 MS points to purchase games like Trials HD, Battlefield 1943, Shadow Complex, and Portal: Still Alive, and more. Let?s take off on a mission to see if Choplifter is worth 1200 MS points because ultimately in the end, that is the question that needs to be answered.For those who haven't played the original Choplifter back when it came out in 1982 on the Commodore 64 or Apple II, the game involved you flying back and forth while dodging and eliminating enemies with your helicopter, and in the process rescuing helpless civilians from certain doom. When Choplifter HD released it tried to be as innovative as its predecessor, however, this is where the issues begin with this game. When the game released it was heralded as a masterpiece of the time and while that may be the same cannot be said for this latest version release. The controls of the game are fairly straight forward and while that is a plus, you will find yourself trying to find the optimum route through the side scrolling missions while confronting increasing amounts of enemies in your search for survivors. The main problems though with the gameplay controls are the sluggish and unbalanced feel. While your enemies seem to be able to instantly pinpoint your helicopter and let loose tons of rounds of ammo your way, your chopper doesn't have the ability to do the same. Targeting and lock on features are very slow and when you combine the innovation of trying to hit enemies in the foreground while flying to rescue civilians, then there are going to be some major issues.
While the major control issues of the game would be enough to warrant a pass of this title, even the "HD" upgraded graphics are not all that good. We have seen previous titles release for a cheaper price with a better "HD" facelift. Most of the time the graphics are average, however, when the camera zooms in you get to see a great example of a factor of a game that was on a great path but got sidetracked or shot down and was just left alone. The same can also be said for the audio of the title which provides little enjoyment or contributions to the overall feel of the game. Instead of the audio helping bring this game to life, the wise cracking jokes from the pilot are all you will get to try to bring a smile to your face. When you take into consideration that both the graphics and sound do little to enhance or even improve the quality of Choplifter HD, things start to go from bad to worse.
While the game in its essence is a side scrolling adventure, the frustrations of combining poor gaming controls with a lackluster HD graphic remake and next to nothing audio work make the 1200 MS point price tag an undisputed rip off of the gaming community. If the game was priced at 400 MS points or below it would be something that I would recommend caution in purchasing, however when you have a game that is done so poorly and at a price of 1200 MS points, this is a game that should be avoided at all costs or until the greed has subsided and a more reasonable price point has been established.
Suggestions: If you want to keep the challenge high then do so, but don't lose the fluid nature of the title by shotty game controls and poor music. Oh and make sure you don't charge 1200 MS points for a title that is barely worth 400 MS points. It will damage the rep you're trying to build and you will witness a decline of gamers purchasing your titles.
Overall Score: 5.8 / 10
NCIS Game
In the videogame world there are some detective games that provide amazing amounts of enjoyment and fun, and then there's everything else. What I mean by everything else is "something that should be avoided unless you are completely bored and with nothing else to do in your life". I love a good detective game, which is why I love L.A. Noire, so when NCIS arrived I thought that the people of Ubisoft would have taken their cue from the previously mentioned blockbuster, and apply it with the NCIS writing staff to create a celebratory smash hit. Then I started playing and that is when this whole thing went down in a fiery crash. As we decipher why this game is so bad, I'll just give you one quick sentence to save you the time of reading this, then you can go and do something more entertaining, like watching paint dry; or you can read on. This game is mini game madness. A very few different mini games and massive amounts of repetition. That?s it folks, review is done, enjoy the rest of your day. But for those who wish to read on (what a brave soul you are), get ready because this is going to be like a crime scene, not very pretty.
For starters let me just clear something up, and that is I have never watched one episode of NCIS, I'm more of a 24 fan. For some reason it never struck me as a must watch show. None of the cases looked interesting and I?m not a big fan at the entire cast, so naturally I passed on it. I don't know if that makes this review a tad biased, but right now I don't care because this game is bad on a good day. NCIS delivers four independently written episodes to play through. All the cast is in the game and you go from crime to crime investigating murder scenes and gathering evidence for examination latter. After all the hard work of almost doing nothing is completed, you get to close the case and move on to the next one. While this description already sounds boring to me as I'm typing this, it's the truth, that?s all you do.
NCIS delivers a show like performance, but unfortunately falls short in doing this well. The cutscenes feel like you are watching more of a storyboard with different images in semi animation and do very little to make you feel like you are watching a television show. Now I'm no technology expert here, but isn't the technology out there to do something like this? Why would Ubisoft cut corners and deliberately deliver a game that is supposed to be like an interactive television show? Now we turn to the game itself and find that things haven't taken a turn for the better. Maneuvering you character around the crime scene is not only boring but extremely cumbersome at best. You do not get any camera controls, instead it is a "point and click" system of movement which is absolute rubbish when you think of all the faults of the gameplay could easily be helped if you got to actually control the camera movement.
Now that the fact that the gameplay is only slightly more fun than getting kicked in gentleman area has been confirmed, let?s move on to the mini games that you will be playing over and over, and over again. All the mini games are mindlessly easy and unless you have the mental capacity of a tree, then everything should be very simplistic and straight forward. There will be games where you match fingerprints and ballistics; as well there will be games that require you to trace cell phones via taking a circle and making sure that you stay on the red dot. Let me explain that a bit more. When you have to trace a cell phone, you see a red dot on your computer screen. Then using the control stick, you maneuver your intercept circle to be in contact with the red dot, then follow it while the progress meter fills up and after a few rounds of that, you're done. Sounds simple right? You wish.
When you have to control your circle, you will find that following the red dot becomes more of a frustration than anything. Upon completion, the only satisfaction you will receive is the fact that you won't have to do that for a few more minutes, when you'll have to repeat that same action again. To say getting through this game is a struggle is a fair representation. While this is only a 5 hour story, that doesn't mean that any of it is good. But we've talked long enough about the undeniable train wreck of gameplay, let's move on and see how this game is graphically.
The character models are made to look like the characters in NCIS, and thankfully they come close. I'm not saying they're stupendous, but they do at least look like the people from the show. And yep, that about does it for what is good about the graphics. Honestly, there isn't much innovation, enjoyment, or quality when it comes to the graphics. The crime scenes differ sure, but when you actually are in the crime scenes, none of them stand out and make you think oh wow, something big happened here. Instead you get to deal with mediocrity when it comes to every other aspect of the graphics, outside the character models. You get the feeling that the majority of the budget was used on getting the NCIS characters to look and sound like they should in the show and everything else was just thrown in there to make a game. The same can be said for the sounds of NCIS. There isn't some dramatic musical score that echoes in our minds and takes hold of our souls. Instead there?s the intro tune for the episodes, but other than that there's absolutely nothing of interest musically in this game. While the characters sound the way they should, that?s about the only audio accomplishment that can give some credit to this game.
So let?s see shall we, the plus sides of the game are that the NCIS TV characters look right, sound right, and act right. The bad..... Well everything else actually. I actually feel sorry for taking your time to read this; it's minutes of your life that you can't get back. The control scheme needs a complete overhaul, and the non-existent camera controls make playing the game about as enjoyable as getting in a high speed car accident. This is unfortunately not a good detective game, nor is it a good game period. But there is a good side to this; hopefully studios will pay attention and learn a lot from this game by learning what not to do.
Suggestions: In the name of everything that is holy and sacred, please give us at least some camera control and a different character movment system. If that small thing can't be agreed upon, then please don't make another NCIS game.
Overall Score: 3.4 / 10
Worms™: Ultimate Mayhem
If there is one arcade series that has combined over the top style destruction with cartoonish style humor and characters, it is Worms. The once 2D side scrolling turn based combat arcade series is back in Worms Ultimate Mayhem, and this time it packs a serious wallop, but it has a lot to live up to in the series history. Let's march onward and see both the good and bad that Worms Ultimate Mayhem has to offer.If you are new to the Worms? series of games let us give you a very brief overview, you command and control a group of worms and armed with a bounty of weapons and destructive toys your goal is to blow up, shoot, or otherwise destroy your opponents before your team is eliminated. This is done by managing your over the top arsenal which include weapons such as concrete donkeys that you drop on your opposition, sniper rifles, bazookas, and more. To do this you must maneuver your worm during its timed turn to get into position to deal out the death and destruction, and this is where the first fault of the game comes into play.
The camera system of Worms Ultimate Mayhem is beyond horrible. In an environment where you may have to jump or even walk around, the camera system feels not only clunky but sometimes unresponsive and when you have a short amount of time until your turn ends you'll find yourself spending a great majority of it just trying to maneuver the camera so you can see what you're doing. Now granted when you move from 2D to 3D environment, you will undoubtedly have some camera issues to contend with, however, when it bleeds into the control scheme of the game, that is when it becomes a serious issue.
That?s not to say however, that all of Worms Ultimate Mayhem is a total write off. The game itself does deliver a ton of content in the form of a lengthy single player story, multiplayer battles, challenge mode and more. Worms Ultimate Mayhem also brings a ton of customization options for your violent worms such as changing out sunglasses, hands (yes in this game worms have hands), hats, and more. While all these features are interesting and slightly entertaining, there is one fact that can't be denied and that is that Worms Ultimate Mayhem is almost a direct combination of Worms 3D and Worms 4.
There are other issues as well in terms of the AI of the game. To call the AI intelligent is laughable; however, to call them a poor shot is insulting. It's amazing how this dumbed down AI manages to maneuver throughout the level and then hit these impossible shots on you. While we are on the topic of impossible shots we have to touch base on another annoying aspect of the AI. Wind and terrain affect your weapons and their ability to hit their target, however, for the AI it seems like it has no effect at all. You could have a 20mph wind blowing left to right and the AI will be launching weapons your way and almost always manage a direct hit. You unfortunately don't have that luxury, you don't even have a reticle that will show you where your weapon will hit, and it?s just hope for the best and pull the trigger.
While Worms Ultimate Mayhem tries to deliver a fun and entertaining way of destroying invertebrates, there is just too much going against this title that could justify a purchase of any amount other than free. There is a bunch of content, however the camera system is just too broken to allow you to enjoy the game, and when combined with the AI and other aspects, Worms Ultimate Mayhem should be one that gets passed over.
Overall Score: 5.3 / 10
Orcs Must Die
The ancient home of the orc mob, Dead World has been closed off to the other realms for their protection, but the fears of many have now become true as the orc mob is determined and hell bent on destroying the protective rifts and entering these other realms in hope of glory and plunder. Our only hope rests in the hands of the Order, a strong cadre of War Mages and their apprentices whose sole objective is to maintain the security of the rifts and to fend off any and all advancing orc forces. This task sounds immense and to add to the challenge all but one War Mage, myself, and apprentice has survived. Now the bad news, I was badly wounded in a battle defending a Rift, and I fear that my time is not long for this world. Now the really, really bad news, the apprentice of mine is way too impulsive, unintelligent, bold, and did I mention impulsive? Upon my demise this will be your guardian for any hope of opposing an onslaught of orc warriors set on one thing, destroy the Rifts. I fear for your safety because unless my apprentice can prove his worth and ability as a War Mage, you're all screwed.The Rifts themselves are setup as strategic levels of tower defense where you will be armed with various traps, aids, and abilities to ensure the destruction of the rampaging orc mobs. Items such as spiked walls, burning hot coal pits, elven archers, paladin knights and more will help you overcome the challenges ahead and spells such as the wind belt and flaming gauntlets will easily disperse an angry charging mob of demented orcs. Each of your traps and aids can be upgraded to enhance their potential and even your War Mage himself can speak to the two weavers of steel and magic and upgrade the characteristics of either his traps or his elemental damage. Proper placement of your traps is critical and be wary War Mage, for once you lose a trap like an archer, they will be gone until the first break in the orc horde.
Every Rift is different so every strategy you use must adapt to the way the Rift castle is laid out. Since you will be slaughtering your way in a 3rd person perspective you must be mindful of your surroundings for falling to your death only increases your chance of failure and the doom of millions. There is some light though amongst the ravaging stream of orcs and that is the sound of the light hearted humor you will hear as you go through your bloodshed. Comments like "Don't crossbow me bro", "can I be the good guy now", and "can I get my parking validated" will echo through the halls of the Rift as your sword, arrow, and traps pierce through orcs one after another.
Orcs Must Die will let your inner devious side come out and play as you utilize various traps in combination with your own abilities to decimate every orc mob you can find. As far as tower defense style games go, Orcs Must Die is one of the best available and will find you literally glued to your seat trying to overcome the challenging story mode for hours upon end. The time has come, spend 1200 MS points and prove once and for all that the faith of millions rests in the capable hands of the last standing War Mage. I feel that Aragorn said it best when he said, "Let's hunt some orc", too bad he isn't here, I'd prefer him to this clumsy wanna-be War Mage and his dances of victory.
Overall Score: 8.1 / 10
Metal Gear Solid HD Collection
Bringing back the nostalgia feel that we as gamers have had concerning great titles has become more recent as of late. There have been resurrections of certain titles and series that have strived to bring those amazing moments of gameplay back into our lives and while some have fallen flat, Konami has knocked us all out with Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (MGSHDC) and we couldn't be happier. For those gamers who have not had the option to enjoy the previous Metal Gear Solid titles, now is the time to enjoy one of the best video game series ever made. I must admit I am a BIG fan of the Metal Gear Solid series and being a devout Xbox 360 supporter, this gives me a chance to relive some of the greatest moments in gaming and also experience some new ones for the first time. With today's economy and people wanting to know what games they should spend their hard earned $50 on, MGSHDC offers us one of the best gaming for value experiences we could ever hope for. This amazing collection of titles starts us off with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Originally there was much controversy over this title as its attempts to innovate the Metal Gear Solid series found gamers a little put off. With the series' introduction to Raiden and some lengthy cut scenes it almost feels as though you are playing an iconic interactive movie, gamers were taken back, but that didn't stop this title from producing some amazing moments in gaming. With MSG2 being the first game in the HD collection we have to remember that this title is from a last gen console. While the HD touch to the graphics adds a lot to bring new life into the game, there are moments where you know that this is last gen. Thankfully MGS2 is more indoor, closed room style and so the HD graphics really help to show off the environment.
This isn't just your basic releases of classic titles as this release of MGS2 provides the whole "Substance" package which brings gamers a vault of various VR challenge missions as well as the "Snake Tales" which provide Snake's perspective of how everything goes down in the Big Shell. On top of all of these aspects, gamers also get the enjoyment of hearing the iconic music and tones ring out in remastered glory. While the sound effects and lip synch animations may be a bit off, the musical score alone is enough to pump a ton of adrenaline deep through your veins. Love it or hate it, MGS2 is a great addition to anyone who enjoys the types of games that rely heavily on stealth.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is the second title in this amazing collection from Konami and really stands out as a last gen title that really cleans up well. The new HD graphics really help display this game as one for the ages. Massive boss battles, twisting storylines with all sorts of surprises, and multiple tactical options when it comes to combat and stealth are all some of the amazing innovations that were compiled to produce MGS3 and with this new HD collection, all of these aspects really make this release stand head and shoulders above its previous release. With MGS3 showcasing earlier events in Snake's life, the story behind this game is one of the best you will ever play. With such depth given to the gameplay and a lot of innovations that have yet to be duplicated by even some of today's top titles, MGS3 should be a must have for any gamer, thankfully it's included in this collection.
The final addition to this Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. This game offers a unique experience; however, this is what could be considered the thorn in the side of this collection. Originally developed for the PSP, Konami has gone to great lengths to try to convert it to a bigger screen connected to a gaming console. Now originally the screen was small for Peace Walker, now when you stretch it onto a 40+ inch HDTV, you can see how this game doesn't quite "fit". Peace Walker though in all honesty shows the best improvement with the new HD graphics. While most Xbox users that have not picked up a PSP to play this title will enjoy it, the game focuses more on the ability to establish an army via segmented missions while you uncover the truth behind Big Boss. Another thing to take note is that the control scheme of MGS Peace Walker and how the adaptation seems to have missed its mark transitioning between the handheld and console systems. Overall though it is an enjoyable game so that?s some good news.
An amazing addition to the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection rests on the shoulders of MGS Peace Walker as it includes online multiplayer in various gametypes including Co-Op and Versus Ops. While this feature is great to include, there are some aspects that didn't quite make the cut, and that?s a little disappointing considering that they were part of the original releases. While these are minor dings in an overall phenomenal gaming package, you just find yourself asking "if they could include this years ago, why not now".
For those who have only owned an Xbox 360 or for those who consider PS2 to be an antique, then you may not remember these titles due to their age and the fact that they were a Sony exclusive, but not anymore. If you haven't had the chance to play these titles or if you are a fan of amazing stealth gameplay with fantastic storytelling, amazing new HD graphics, with iconic music, then Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is a must have. It has been a long time coming but Metal Gear Solid HD Collection is the next best value for gaming since the Orange Box. Get ready to experience a legendary series in gaming like never before in Konami's Metal Gear Solid HD Collection.
The Boss: Isn't it beautiful? It's almost tragic. When life ends, it gives off a final lingering aroma. Light is but a farewell gift from the darkness to those on their way to die. I've been waiting, Snake, for a long time. Waiting for your birth, your growth, and the finality of today. (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)
Overall Score: 9.1 / 10
Bejeweled 3
Over the years Pop Cap games have been focused on bringing gamers a peaceful yet frantic experience throughout its Bejeweled games. Think of it like an interactive Yin and Yang experience where the cycle between relaxation and intensification are in a harmonious balance that are constantly in motion and all the time highly addictive. Bejeweled 3 offers gamers a wealth of content that will constantly satisfy your craving for destroying shiny gems over, and over, and over again. The ultimate goal of any videogame (arcade or retail) is to provide gamers with an experience that they will enjoy and that will keep them playing for years to come. While some companies have tried and failed at this philosophy, Pop Cap understands this all too well.Providing multiple gametypes adds a lot to the replay value of any game and in Bejeweled 3 you get a total of eight gametypes:
1) Classic - This is the original untimed version of Bejeweled that we all know and love. Just keep smashing gems until you run out of possible moves!
2) Lightning - Think of this like a version of Bejeweled Blitz where you can smash time gems to increase the duration of the game. While it's not Blitz mode, it does offer some of the similar enjoyment.
3) Zen - An endless game without any time or move limitations. Just sit back, relax and watch the hours just melt away.
4) Ice Storm - A frantic race against time as you watch multiple pillars of ice race to the top of your columns in an attempt to freeze your progress. Your only hope, smash the pillars before you're frozen.
5) Diamond Mine - A twist where you use your gem matching ability to dissolve the ground underneath your gems and uncover gold and treasure below. Combined with a timer that replenishes somewhat after each round and you have a very frantic yet explosive gametype.
6) Butterflies - A thinking twist to the Bejeweled games. Different colored butterflies will work their way to the spider at the top, so you must set them free by combining the right colored gems.
7) Poker - Keep making same colored matches and build a hand ranging from one pair to flush. This is one of the weaker points of Bejeweled 3, but we'll get to that here in a moment.
8) Quest - 40 unique and challenging puzzles from all different gametypes and all containing some form of goal that must be achieved to progress onward.
While Bejeweled 3 does offer a lot in the form of types of games, a couple of them stand out to me in a detached way because they don't feel like a Bejeweled game. Poker and Butterflies both require a more tactful approach where you must start to think moves ahead in order to plan your way to victory. That seems a bit out of the ordinary for a Bejeweled game since most of the time you are frantically flying around the screen destroying everything in your path. While some of the other modes are more addicting, Poker and Butterflies games don't seem to fit and in the end seem more like they were put in there just to give more value to the game.
One component that I thought would have made this game go from good to great would be the inclusion of multiplayer. Unfortunately for some reason unknown to us, Pop Cap has decided not to include any multiplayer at all in Bejeweled 3. This sort of takes away a core that was widely used in other previous Bejeweled games and makes the game feel like it's missing it's other half. Another exclusion is the Blitz and Twist modes. I would have been happy had Poker and Butterflies been replaced with these two modes, but then again I didn't make the game.
Is Bejeweled 3 worth the MS points? Well if you enjoy a great puzzle game by yourself then yes, but if you would rather play with others online then no. Even though there is a ton of content in this game, it's all singleplayer. It almost seems like Pop Cap could have done more with this title and maybe they will, but with the exclusion of multiplayer and some of the more popular modes of Bejeweled, Pop Cap's Bejeweled 3 is something to pick up, but wait till it's on sale.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Goldeneye 007: Reloaded 
There are characters in literature that become so iconic that they provide amazing stories and adventures for decades and James Bond is one of those characters. An international super spy with A License to Kill, James Bond delivers one spectacular mission after another and now his mission will take him deep into Russia as he tries to uncover the secrets of GoldenEye. When GoldenEye first came out it was on the Nintendo 64 and it immediately solidified itself as a standard setter for future games to be, unfortunately for us that the following re-releases of GoldenEye were more like BlackEye. It almost felt like developers were trying too hard and in the process taking something that once was great and making it mediocre. Gamers for years have been demanding a GoldenEye game for the current generation consoles that delivers the same quality enjoyment that everyone remembers finding back in the Nintendo 64 era. Now with GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Activision sets its target on re-kindling the spark that has been lost; but with GoldenEye Reloaded being a beefed up re-release of the version on Nintendo Wii, does it hit or miss on the Xbox 360?
For starters there is something that doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it's become I still have the image of the GoldenEye movie and the N64 version, but if I'm not mistaken didn't both the movie and the game showcase Pierce Brosnan as 007, but in GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Daniel Craig is James Bond. On top of that Alec himself is now a different character than who we remember. There are some other familiars in the voice acting however there seems to be a tremendous deviation from the original source material. While there are some events that pay homage to the original, it just doesn't seem to feel like GoldenEye.
GoldenEye 007: Reloaded dishes up three gameplay modes which are:
1) Campaign mode - A relatively short campaign that alters from the original source material, but does provide an entertaining experience but unfortunately is not something that would keep someone coming back. Even though there are some changes to the campaign there is the inclusion of a new 007 Classic mode that gives you the original heads up display and read-outs that we all remember from the original.
2) Mi6 mode - A series of arcade missions that are separate from the campaign and all allow you and your teammate to tackle multiple objectives in one of four different gametypes:
* Elimination (take out so many enemies as quickly as possible)
* Stealth (avoid detection at all costs as you make your way through the level)
* Defense (protect and defend an objective against waves of assailants)
* Assault (lock and load and go in guns blazing against an enemy base)
The Mi6 missions are new to Goldeneye Reloaded and do offer a challenge as you progress trying to get certain rankings off of each mission type. The easiest way to explain this mode is Spec-Ops in CoD. It's almost an exact copy but with a James Bond feel to it.
3) Multiplayer - This is where the main crux of the game can be found. How many of us who remember the original GoldenEye, remember staying up for hours with tons of people waiting for their turn in multiplayer? Well with Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, the multiplayer surprisingly packs more content than other big title releases by sporting 14 new multiplayer maps (4 of them are brand new maps) and 13 different multiplayer game modes such as Bomb Defuse, Escalation, Data Miner, and more. With a wide variety of multiplayer game types and levels that range from the wide and expansive, to the close quarters, the multiplayer aspect of GoldenEye Reloaded will be where the majority of the players spend most of their time.
While GoldenEye Reloaded tries to inject more content than the Wii version, the one thing that does stand out is the graphics. Now on the Xbox 360 we get to see some major improvements in the graphics as the action seems to flow uninhibited, but to say that GoldenEye Reloaded pushes the Xbox 360's graphics isn't necessarily accurate. You can definitely notice a difference between the Wii and Xbox 360 versions in the terms of graphics, but if you're expecting some mammoth graphical powerhouse of a game, then I'm sorry to say that you're going to be disappointed. While a 60fps rate at 1080p resolution is a great improvement, you will progress through the game thinking that they could have done more and that?s a shame when it comes to the fact that all GoldenEye fans have been anxiously awaiting a great successor to the original GoldenEye.
Even through there are some tremendous deviations from the original source material some of the more familiar aspects reside in the sound category. The voice acting is done surprisingly well and GoldenEye Reloaded does do a good job trying to blend both the original material with today's twist on the new James Bond. M still sounds frosty as ever and while the opening sequence is different than the movie, the opening score is still the same. In the James Bond movies/games there have always been an action packed score and thankfully this fact applies to GoldenEye Reloaded as well. This is the best quality of GoldenEye Reloaded and could quite possibly be one of the few saving graces of this title.
Ultimately while GoldenEye 007: Reloaded is loosely based off of the original source material, the big question is, should you part with $60 to pick up this game? If you are looking for a beefed up version of the Wii title, then without question as you will find a lot to enjoy with GoldenEye 007: Reloaded. However, if you are a purist then unfortunately you will not find this game filling that void. While this game is enjoyable, there just seems to be too much holding it back that could make this the true GoldenEye sequel that we all have been demanding for years.
Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
Assassins Creed Revelations
Benvenuto il mio compagno Assassino fratelli e sorelle del nostro capitolo finale. Siamo stati insieme per molti anni, ma ora è giunto il momento di scrivere l'ultimo capitolo della vita di Altaïr ibn La-Ahad e Ezio Auditore da Firenze e la testimonianza delle meraviglie della conoscenza e del potere che diventa svelato attraverso la verità. Come si opera attraverso le ombre per servire la luce, cerchiamo di scoprire l'assassino del Credo splender rivelazioni così che le nostre azioni per servire l'umanità migliore. Il nostro cammino sarà lungo, irto di pericoli e di sorprese ma, se è vero che i tre principi e mai perdere la fede nel Credo, poi ci sono gli assassini hanno la sapienza abbiamo bisogno che ci guida verso la meta. E' tempo, preparare voi assassini! Welcome my fellow assassin brothers and sisters to our final chapter. We have been together for many years but now the time has come to write our last chapter in the lives of Altaïr ibn La-Ahad and Ezio Auditore da Firenze and witness the marvels of knowledge and power that becomes unveiled through the truth. As we work in the dark to serve the light, let us uncover the splendor of Assassin's Creed Revelations so that our actions serve mankind for the better. Sharpen your blades assassins for our lifelong journey has finally arrived at its conclusion and it is up to us to uncover the truth of life. Our journey will be long, fraught with dangers and surprises but if we hold true to the three tenets and never lose faith in the Creed, then we assassins shall have the wisdom we need to guide us to our goal. It is time, prepare yourselves assassins!
Throughout mankind there have been a few constants, but none more highly contested as the acquiring of power. Wars have been fought, alliances have been deceptively destroyed, and countless lives lost all in the name of obtaining power. Our Assassino ancestors have pledged their lives to maintaining a balance and order to the struggle for power and to see that the exploitation of mankind does not occur. In Assassin's Creed Revelations we find ourselves on a quest in a race against time to uncover and decipher the secrets our ancient Assassino ancestors and protect them against those who would wield destructive power to control mankind.
In Assassin's Creed Revelations Ubisoft has taken the already amazingly innovative control scheme core of previous Assassin's Creed titles and added some slight new innovations and polish to create one of the most addicting and enjoyable gameplay experiences in the Assassin's Creed lineage. One of the major innovative changes to the gameplay is the introduction of the Hookblade. This multi-tool of death offers some upgraded changes to enhance the control mechanics on multiple levels. Now if you are leaping from beam to beam and you come across a hanging grapple point, instead of leaping to it and going around the corner, by holding the B button you can use the Hookblade to propel yourself forward in a longer leap which will enable you to reach other areas and provide other tactical options when confrontation is necessary. Not only will the Hookblade assist you in your ariel movement, but it will also assist you greatly when it comes to scaling obstacles and monuments. When you are climbing a monument it used to be a long process where you had to find the correct route to reach the top. This is where the Hookblade shines because now with the push of the A button you can jump up, grab a hold of a ledge above and slingshot your way up, thus dramatically shortening the time it takes to scale buildings and monuments to the top.
While this one innovation affects gameplay on numerous levels, one of the main issues we have found involves the new Eagle Vision. In the previous Assassin Creed games you could use your Eagle Vision to scout targets, find hidden secrets, and more, but now Eagle Vision has become somewhat of a hindrance. The main issue behind Eagle Vision is that it takes away from the flow of the game by requiring you to remain absolutely still to access it. After that you are free to move about as normal, but in a game that prides itself on the free flowing movement of the character, forcing them to come to a complete halt just to start to use it takes away from the fluidity of the game's natural mechanics and therefor doesn't seem to fit the feel of Assassin's Creed.
Assassin's Creed Revelations also brings in some other innovations in the form of den defense mini games that also seem to take away from the feel of the game. The way the den defense game works is if you draw too much attention of the Templars, then one of your assassin's dens may come under attack and until you complete the defense game and the nearby shops will close down to you. When you go through the defense game you will have the ability to place assassins and defenses that will hinder the oncoming waves of enemies as they set out to destroy and reclaim your den. While this is a new innovation for Assassin's Creed Revelations, it doesn't mean that it's a good one. The feel is very simplistic and in the end does very little to increase the enjoyment we all find in the Assassin's Creed games by taking you once again out of the free flow gameplay.
One constant of all Assassin's Creed games have been breathtaking viewpoints showcasing a vast beautiful city beneath your boots, and in Assassin's Creed Revelations we find all of that and more. Hidden crypts and ancient tombs are more menacing than ever, and even the guards themselves look and feel more realistic in their looks and interactions. While there is nothing really new and innovative about the graphics compared to Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. With a powerful history of delivering amazing graphics, Assassin's Creed Revelations keeps to the bloodlines of the Assassino and delivers one stunning moment after another.
When you hear the call of the Assassino it sounds like an eagle's cry from the heavens signaling a rebirth of order and justice. Assassin's Creed games have always penetrated our souls with their music by delivering that compels our spirits and guides our blades as we move in for the kill. Assassin's Creed Revelations provides wonderful music combined perfectly with various high quality sound effects and very good voice acting to deliver an audio experience that will make your ears rejoice.
When Assassin's Creed Brotherhood was released, we were finally treated to some of the most innovative multiplayer experiences ever. Normally a great single player focused game does not have the ability to pull off a balanced and enjoyable multiplayer, but Assassin's Creed does. With multiplayer challenges to complete, EXP to earn and level up our multiplayer characters, along with new weapons, items, and characters to unlock, one thing was for sure, the gamble paid off and all of us bear witness to how innovation and quality can revitalize a, once before, non-existent element in your game, and in doing so take the next step in the evolution of the Assassin's Creed games.
This belief holds true now more than ever before in Assassin's Creed Revelations. Now there are not only new modes, but more characters and a big new innovation in the formations of user created guilds. Now not only can you customize your characters appearance and weapons, but now you can create your own assassin's coat of arms for your guild. Now the higher you go up the multiplayer ladder, the more information and knowledge you gain about our good friends at Abstergo Industries. Knowledge is power my fellow Assassino and we must never tire of our vigil to obtain more of it. A new twist to the multiplayer is that there no longer is a compass pointing in the direction of your target, instead a picture of your target is in the upper right hand corner and it will glow blue when you are in the line of sight for your target. While this takes some getting used to, it ultimately creates more of a balance throughout the entire multiplayer experience and that is what the Assassino are about right? Creating some form of balance?
While it's true that there are a lot of similarities to be seen between Assassin?s Creed Brotherhood and Revelations, that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. Assassin's Creed Revelations delivers on a lot of great qualities that has made the series a success and innovates and evolves what was good into great. As we mentioned earlier Assassino, this is our final chapter of our story and while others may take our place in time, we assassin will never be forgotten for it is our ancestors that help us write our futures. Always be learning and evolving Assassino and never forget the Assassin's Creed: We work in the dark to serve the light. We are Assassins. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Battlefield 3
Oh well look who we have here. We have a worldwide threat pertaining to weapons of mass destruction and instead of sending me another battalion like I asked for, they send me you. When we get back I?m going to give the boys in Washington holy hell but for now soldier keep your eyes open and your mouth shut because what I'm about to debrief you on is recently declassified intel from XboxAddict and what you learn could just save your life out there. We have been fighting this war for a long time but now things have become more dangerous than ever before, assemble your team soldier, and prep for the fight of your lives. You may have fought in other wars, but nothing will prepare you for this solider. Welcome to Battlefield 3.[...Transmission Broadcasting...]
What we've learned over the years is that DICE and EA go through painstaking efforts to deliver the most realistic military FPS experience. They strive to achieve this goal by delivering some of the best graphical representations we have ever seen, combined with amazing physics, sound, and innovation. Creating a military FPS that not only guarantees a high replay value in the multiplayer, but also offers a suspenseful campaign, co-op missions, and a wealth of upgrades to almost every aspect of your soldier is no easy feat but DICE has a radar lock on bringing all of this to you in Battlefield 3. The world's stage is set in chaos as the threat of Nuclear War becomes more and more of a viable threat and your team have assembled to be the guardian angels of mankind by gathering any and all intel on possible weapons of mass destruction, and to confront and expunge the enemy on every level. Now that we have unveiled the overall assignment soldier let's discuss how you will maneuver your way through the warzone and achieve your success.
As you will be deep behind enemy lines and in constant engagement with hostile forces you will have to use everything at your disposal to obtain victory and come back home alive. There will be a lot of times where you will need to vault your way over obstacles then shift almost immediately to a prone position so play it smart, keep your head down, and then flank your opposition and use your abilities to drive the forces back and eliminate them.
As you become more familiar with the war soldier, you will gain perks that can not only affect you, but your entire squad as well. This is the start of a very in-depth customization that will give you every opportunity to play this war just how you want to. Your team will have many weapons at their disposal and each weapon will have three customization points that range from updated optics, bipods, laser sights, flashlights and more.
Not only can your weapons be customized, but your soldier themselves are granted multiple customization options as well. At your command you can customize your soldier to employ a wide range of accessories such as mortar launchers, remote control robots, spawn deployment points, c4 and more. While the ability to harness these customizations is important, victory can only be obtained if you successfully utilize the heavy armaments that will be provided for you. The controls may seem a bit touchy at first but once you learn the mechanics of the jets, helicopters, tanks and more, your squad will become an unstoppable force.
In terms of what you will expect to see when you hit the ground running, prepare yourself to see war like you have never seen it before. DICE brings war to life in iconic settings with the new Frostbite 2 engine. Every map of every mission is done with such meticulous detail that for the first time in a long time we get to experience the true physics of war. Buildings will collapse, explosions will erupt, and all of this will leave your eyes one amazing optical experience after another. Physical details such as the debris pattern after a breech or the small cloud of dust that comes off of a wall that gets hit with rounds of gunfire all help add that last push that sends the graphics of this game from great to flat out stunning.
While there is nothing like seeing a war unfold in front of your eyes, hearing the sounds of war itself is haunting in its own right. With multiple settings for the sound output, Battlefield 3 is an auditory gem in the world of military FPS games. The music score alone does not do this experience justice as you will note when you combine it with the sounds of incoming tanks, sniper fire, frag grenades exploding and more. There isn't really a greater sensation than lying prone undetected behind cover while you hear and feel an enemy tank moving right beside you and hearing the enemy chatter as everyone is on high alert and hunting you down.
While the singleplayer storyline is highly engaging, the true backbone of Battlefield 3 is the multiplayer experience. Acclaimed for providing gamers with a phenomenal multiplayer experience in the past, Battlefield 3 sets a new standard for military FPS. Be ready to encounter 24 player battles that range over the land, sea, and air while encompassing all the new technology and vehicle combat. Enjoy multiple gametypes such as what has been called the true Battlefield experience, Conquest, and a returning staple from Battlefield 1942, Team Deathmatch. Vehicles play a large role in the Battlefield games and that is truer now in Battlefield 3's multiplayer. Using customizable aircraft, helicopters, and other heavy armaments, teams will constantly wage war to see what side will triumph. There is more though behind the scenes of Battlefield 3's multiplayer though with the ability to search and select individual dedicated servers and filter your results based off of a wide variety of criteria such as lobby size, map, gametype, region, connectivity, and more. What this means to gamers is now they have a guaranteed way of locating the best possible Battlefield 3 experience for them. Another massive innovation to Battlefield 3 is the Battlelog. Think of this as an online record of all your Battlefield 3 actions from across the entire game. Here you will be able to do a variety of actions such as check on your unlock progression, form a platoon with your friends, and more.
While all this innovation and amazing gameplay are breathtaking, Battlefield 3 does suffer some shortcomings that would have made this title stand out as the premier military FPS game. For starters, since launch, Battlefield 3's multiplayer has been pegged with server issues. While other random glitches and bugs such as squad management, player loadouts and more can create some annoyance, having your entire multiplayer server connection interrupted frequently is like ripping out someone's backbone and seeing if they can stand upright. The core of the replay factor for Battlefield 3 lies in the connections gamers make to the multiplayer servers. If they can't connect and enjoy the game, then out it goes from the console.
The main story is surprisingly short and the online co-op consists of only six missions, and when you combine that they offer very little replay value, your multiplayer aspect becomes even more vital. Thankfully, the servers have become somewhat more stable and it goes without saying that DICE, EA, and Microsoft are working hard at correcting the issues. This year has some amazing releases and the ability to deliver a product that, will not only standout amongst the top during this year, but for years to come, is of the upmost importance with Battlefield 3. While this game does deliver some amazing gameplay experiences, there are multiple times when you sit there thinking that this game could have been better. That doesn't mean however that Battlefield 3 doesn't deliver at all; it means that gamers will just have to be patient as DICE and everyone work out all the details to deliver the Battlefield 3 experience we all know is out there.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 
Good day young adventurer, I don't mean to be a bother but if you have a few moments to spare with an old man such as myself, there is a tale I would like to tell you that may help you find what you seek. There is something inside me that tells me you play a vital role in the coming days ahead, I don't know quite what it is, but I have no doubt that there is something special about you. So please sit with me a while and let me tell you about the land, legends, and lore of the realm of Skyrim.The Elder Scrolls have foretold of events in Skyrim and I pray you heed this information as it may shape all of Tamriel itself. The High-King of Skyrim lay dead at the hand of an assassination and a struggle for power has ensued between the Stormcloaks and the Empire which threatens the stability and prosperity of Skyrim, but that is not the worst part of this, by heavens no. With Skyrim on the brink of a civil war, it has been foretold that this will bring about the return of the dragons themselves, lead by Alduin, the Nordic God of Destruction. If these actions transpire and everything foretold in The Elder Scrolls become real, then Skyrim is in need of a hero, and for some reason, I believe that hero to be you.
Not all of the fabled prophecy of The Elder Scrolls is bad though, mind you there are some rays of light in these dark times and it is through the legend of the Dragonborn that we must place our hope of survival. The tales go back for ages, back to the time of Akatosh and the blood of the dragons, and even Emperor Tiber Septim himself, for it is said that those who possess the blood of dragons have the ability to commune with the dragons themselves and even wield the power of the beasts as well through the use of multiple shouts. It is said that the Dragonborn will help mankind by vanquishing the dragon threat should it ever arise. This leads us to Skyrim for it is rumored that Alduin is back and that the dragons have returned and all of mankind is now in danger.
The hope of salvation is high for it is said that the Dragonborn has a new innovative menu and control layout that allows more focus on the environment around you and provides quick and simplistic access to everything you will need when fighting dragons, exploring dungeons, and confronting the Daedric Gods themselves. With the push of one button you have access to everything and the ability to select almost anything to a favorites menu for quick selection.
Managing Dragonborn's character has also improved and offers a very deep character development system. When you level up your character, you have the option to increase your magic, your health, or your stamina (which effects how much you can carry) and you gain access to the constellations in the heavens above that allow you to customize, improve, and develop your skills with bonuses.
Another innovation that Skyrim brings to light is the ability to actively dual-wield multiple options at the same time, all the while improving your character's skills. For instance you could have a lightning spell in your left hand, and a sword in your right and you will be getting experience in both your destructive spells and one handed categories. Getting to know the land of Skyrim is critical and thankfully the map system allows Dragonborn to easily find the destination of his quests and discover majestic new areas. With both a world overview and close up map choice you will always find your way as you traverse the mountains and lakes of Skyrim.
The province of Skyrim allows for many adventures, quests, and tasks that can range from the mundane, to the vital, but all are important and all offer insight into not only the lands of Skyrim, but its people as well. You may hear of a blacksmith that may have to shut their doors because they can't fill orders fast enough, so that gives you the ability to step in and use the weapon forge to create or improve weapons and armor. Forging however means you must have the right materials to create your item, and in order to do that you may have to mine ore for it.
There are other tasks such as cooking where you create your own food through learned recipes which can restore health and offer bonuses when consumed. Alchemy and Enchantments play a big role as well since almost everything in Skyrim can be infused to either create different types of potions or magical items that offer character bonuses as well. While performing tasks such as forging, sharpening, cooking, mining and more seem rather tame when compared to fighting dragons and exploring dark dungeons, however, it is through these actions that we can often obtain the items we need to be successful in our quests.
Innovation of your character development is one thing, but when you talk innovation of Skyrim's quest structure, that is when the heart of Skyrim opens up and reveals the dynamic structure that will leave you playing this game for years to come. Utilizing a technology in the new Creation Engine called Radiant Storytelling; Skyrim records your actions and deeds and will alter and change things in the world accordingly. Not only will it alter things in Skyrim but it will also adjust characteristics of Skyrim, such as the game difficulty depending on your skills and will even change up points in quests such as different outcomes that are determined by your actions in Skyrim.
Along with the innovative Radiant Storytelling, there is more innovation in the way of the new Radiant AI. This gives NPC a real sense of purpose as they perform a wide variety of tasks throughout Skyrim, but the beauty is not how they interact with the land, but with you. Now characters will develop feelings for you based off of your actions and words and your relationship to them. An example of the dynamics of this would be if you save someone's daughter from bandits, it goes without saying that the daughter's family will find great favor with you. Not only are your interactions with the citizens of Skyrim important, but also your interactions and choices with the various factions such as the Thieves, the Dark Brotherhood, Stormcloaks, and more. This is the core of Skyrim itself and it's through this new innovation that delivers one of the best single player games ever conceived.
You have heard me talk of the land of Skyrim, but until your eyes first behold the snow covered mountain ranges, the vibrant lakes, or the dense foliage of the mighty woods, words will never do them justice. By incorporating a new innovated technology called the Creation Engine, every characteristic of the lands of Skyrim are constantly shifting and altering, whether it be through the changing of the seasons, to the precipitation, or even the changing of flora. This means that every moment your eyes will understand the legends of the beauty of Skyrim. Not only are the lands of Skyrim beautiful but the creature and character models are looking more stunning than ever. Your eyes will be in amazement when you observe a mammoth dragon, hovering and circling around you in the sky as you try to scale a snow covered mountain while in the middle of a blizzard.
New creatures will present themselves as challenges for you and while some are more your size, dragons are not the only massive dangerous creatures in these lands. While a giant for instance may be slow moving, they are quick to anger and strike without mercy and in one blow can knock you halfway across Skyrim itself. While the lands, temples, and caves may be beautiful in their own right, you must always be cautious of the creatures of that environment.
From the very moment you start your quests through Skyrim, your ears will be treated to a symphonic masterpiece from start to finish. Melodic and tranquil songs will eerily pacify your soul as you navigate through the different towns and explore the vast wilderness that Skyrim has to offer. When danger is around that is when your ears will hear the drums of war start to beat and that is your cue to prepare for a fight. The voice acting in Skyrim is done very, very well as the character voices seem to fit the legends and lore that we all know and love. There is never a moment of auditory boredom or disappointment in Skyrim, in fact it has taken all the high expectations, that I have personally placed on the sound, and surpassed them all. The sounds of this game will haunt your spirit as Skyrim delivers what could arguably be called one of the greatest works of audio in the video game world.
So there you have it my brave adventurer, I have told you all I know about the legends and lore of Skyrim and what to expect. I hope you have listened and learned from my tale and that you find your path to your destiny. Every aspect of Skyrim is done to pinpoint perfection and has the makings of a game that will be played and enjoyed by millions for years to come.
Before you set out on this grand adventure, please remember to never lose faith and hope in the Dragonborn for it is the sole hope of salvation and peace for the troubled land of Skyrim. Like I said before, I'm sorry to be a bother, but this old man sees something in your eyes that burns bright with the hope of the Dragonborn. Could you be the one that the Elder Scrolls prophesied about, are you him, are you the hope and salvation of Skyrim, are you Dovahkiin, are you the Dragonborn?
Suggestions: Thank you.
Overall Score: 9.7 / 10
Lord of the Rings: War In The North
Chapter IWar in the North.........pg. 1
Legends have told the tale of Middle Earth and the quest to destroy Sauron and The One Ring. Where a fellowship banded together under a banner of brotherhood to undertake a quest that held the fate of every living thing in Middle Earth. While these tales are popular and widely known, there is a part of the story that has almost slipped away from the legends of lore. This is a tale of a new trio of comrades who join together to prevent Sauron and his forces from commanding the realms to the North under the leadership from Sauron's Chief Lieutenant Agandaur. While Frodo, the fellowship, and The Ring venture southward on their quest towards Mount Doom, the trio of Eradan the Dunedain Ranger, Andriel the Elven Loremaster, and Farin the Dwarven Champion must assemble what forces they can and fight back against the shadow that grows in the North. It is time for us now to play our part in these events and not to forsaken the fate of Middle Earth.
Fellowship is the core of Lord of the Rings: War in the North (WitN) and it is through this understanding that your success or failure will be determined. Each member brings with them unique skills and abilities which must be harnessed properly if any hope is to remain for Middle Earth. Eradan brings archery and swordplay into the fray, Andriel uses her magic for both offensive and defensive actions that can be applied to just one individual or the entire party, and Farin brings an onslaught of melee skills designed to destroy any and all oncoming foes. While the fellowship of these three is strong, they will need the assistance of others to ensure their victory over the darkness that grows in the North. One of their greatest supporters throughout the game is Beleram one of the Great Eagles. After Beleram agrees to support your fellowship he becomes an invaluable ally as he has the ability to destroy heavy mounted crossbows, multiple enemies, and even take on a massive troll. How you use his abilities is up to you, but use them wisely or you may lose him forever!
War in the North..........pg. 2
One of the most in-depth characteristics of WitN has to fall on the shoulders of the character customization. There are thousands of pieces of armor and weaponry for all three characters that can be utilized to not only alter your players' appearance, but provide bonuses to various skill sets allowing for more character enhancements. Some of these weapons, pieces of armor, and items can be found in various places from hidden treasure chests, looted from fallen enemies, traded with other players online, or bought from shops and vendors. Not only do the weapons, armor, and items seem to be without end, but the skill trees of each member of the fellowship offers up new abilities and skills to learn which can be proven to be invaluable during the heat of battle. For instance Eradan can use one branch of his skill tree to focus on evading detection from enemies, one branch to focus on combat with dual wielding weapons, and the last branch to focus on abilities and attacks with the bow. To upgrade your character's skill tree and stats you must gain XP by either completing side quests, killing enemies in battle, or progressing on with your main story. There are ways as well for each character to earn XP bonuses by performing well in battle by executing kill moves, saving your other teammates, and going into hero mode where your character deals more damage and increases their XP multiplier with each successful hit. With each branch of the skill tree offering multiple options for character customization and development, and the combination of the vast array of weapons, armor, and items; WitN boasts a very large and comprehensive character development system that makes this action RPG shine.
Enjoying Lord of the Rings: War in the North by yourself is a very rewarding experience, especially if you are a fan of the lore that Tolkien created. However, the real enjoyment comes when you have two friends connected either via Xbox Live, split screen, or system link and the three of you decide to fight for Middle Earth and confront Sauron's Chief Lieutenant Agandaur. Along your multiplayer quest all characters will be able to partake in loot drops which mean that you don't have to abandon your friends just to be the first one to reach the treasure chest. Included as well, players will also be able to trade weapons, armor, and more with each other online and any/all weapons you accumulate throughout the multiplayer adventure will carry over to your single player campaign.
War in the North..........pg. 3
The sounds of Lord of the Rings: War in the North has been put in the capable hands of Inon Zur. While the name may be one you're not familiar with, some of the games he's credited for are: Baldur?s Gate II, Fallout 3, Prince of Persia, Crysis, EverQuest, and a slew of other AAA titles. Bringing Inon onboard to do the soundtrack for WitN was a brilliant move as every moment of the game sounds and feels as Lord of the Rings should. When the action tenses up during a massive battle, the symphonic score picks up the tempo beautifully and adds the right amount of dramatic flair to help accent every swing of your blade, every bolt from your staff, and every thump of your hammer. While the score itself is fantastic, unfortunately the same cannot be said for the voice acting. Some of the voices don't seem to fit the main characters and while that in itself is bad, some of the dialogue seems rushed and overacted when it was recorded. It's a shame too because of the fact that you are with these characters the entire game, you get to listen to this overacted dialogue constantly.
Lord of the Rings is noted for some of the most identifiable scenery in literature. The Black Gates of Mordor, the White City, Moria, and more are all areas we all have envisioned and in WitN we are treated to a massive map of travel locations scattered all throughout Middle Earth. Not only do these areas offer places of exploration, treasure hunting, and more but they also offer challenge missions that you can chose to participate in. Throughout your adventure you can unlock certain epic battles that you can lead your character into such as Osgiliath and more. Each area is unique and done with fine detail so that you really get a feel for what it would be like in Middle Earth. The detail of the character modeling is done very well and is even customizable to a degree. Every weapon and piece of armor is made to look like it came from Tolkien?s world and even the shields themselves have a very finite detailing to them. Not only are the main characters and items detailed, but the same can be said for the enemies you encounter in battle and even the Black Riders themselves look as fearsome as ever.
War in the North..........pg. 4
The lore of the Lord of the Rings is without question a font of characters, quests, adventures, battles, and most importantly, imagination. Venturing into new lands, engaging new enemies, making new friends while staying true to the canon and intertwining with events of Lord of the Rings, WitN sets out on a quest to deliver us one of the best action RPG Lord of the Rings experiences we have ever had. While a few things could use some revision work, overall this game is a masterpiece for Tolkien fans and shouldn't be missed. There's nothing like fighting through a massive battle in an iconic location to finish part of a quest and in the process find some amazing weapon or piece of armor that makes your character an even bigger threat against Sauron's forces. Prepare yourself to play a part in actions that will shape the history of all Middle Earth and all its inhabitants, prepare yourself for Lord of the Rings: War in the North.
Overall Score: 8.6 / 10
Batman: Arkham City
Why hello there kiddies, it's your ol' pal Uncle J here! I hope you've missed me as much as I've missed you! Yes, yes, I know it may be a bit surprising hearing from me, given that our pointy eared friend left me for dead after our last battle, but I'm back to show bats that even though what he did to me was wrong, I'm still going to kill him with kindness. I've always pegged batsy for a real loaner, but what do I know right? Guess now Batman went to some super freak social network site because now I'm hearing rumors that he's got a girlfriend who also dresses up like a cat, hahahaha can you believe it?!?!? And they call me psychotic. So I don't have a cape, or a tight leather body suit, what I do have though is a better taste in fashion because I dress to kill. But enough about me, let's get to the punch line and talk about Batman Arkham City shall we? Between you and me, that flying rat won't know what hit him this time! Hehehehe, we're coming to the end batsy ol' boy and when you see what I've been planning all along hahahahahahaha you'll just die; so welcome Batman to Arkham City!Now for those who haven't heard, and shame on you for not paying attention, Arkham Asylum has expanded! Thanks to the actions of Dr. Hugo Strange all of your much loved sociopaths, psychopaths, and downright crazy inmates have decided that we were in need of a change of scenery. So we thought, since we loved the citizens of Gotham so much, we'd move right in! Just like the in-laws from hell hahahhahaha! Now unlike the bat, we villains know how to play nice with each other, Freeze has frozen over Gotham PD, the Penguin has the museum locked down, and I've managed to open up my new fun house! However, I've heard rumors that our good Doctor Strange has something in store called Protocol 10 that will change this city forever. What is it you ask? Well to me it sounds like a new hemorrhoid cream, but I could be wrong, but if it is, I could really use it because Batman has really become a pain in my ass. hahahhahaha!
Now I ask you, how fair is it for batsy to fly around without touching the ground, confusing my own men, and then dive attack them while freezing them with his new freeze blast weapon? Why it's not fair at all! I've always played fair, I may not have played nicely hahahahaha, but at least I played fair! All these new upgrades for different combat combinations, gadgets, and even his suit make me think that it's time I do the same with my guards! So I've outfitted these bozos with state of the art weaponry, laser sights, and even new detection modes to keep our winged friend from cheating! Sure, sure, Batman has his improved free flow combat system, but I've got something better, lots and lots of guns; hahahahahaha. What other tricks does bat brain have in store for little ol' me I wonder? He may like to have an ace up his sleeve, but I always love that Jokers are wild. hahahahahaha
I hate to admit it but in Arkham City I'm not the only one looking fabulous. These new graphics have really made Two Face's new suits look very sharp and Freeze's spaceman type outfit thing sends a chill up my spine hahahaha but what about our old friend Batman? Someone's got to tell him that this cape and cowl thing is sooooooo last generation, but I got to admit you age really, really well, what?s your secret? Age defying bat spray? Some special Lazarus Pit Oil? A sample of Dick Clark's blood? hahahahahahaha. If you think I look good, you should check out Arkham City! You should see how the streets and buildings are decorated by your favorite psychopaths and delusional misfits! Poison Ivy definitely has that whole "home and garden" look going for her and I've FINALLY managed to reopen my new fun house, wait did I say that already? I wanted to celebrate the occasion so I went all out ya know? Guns, guards, I even hung streamers and balloons so to make it a real festive occasion! hahahahahaha!
How could we make this experience in Arkham City any better I wonder... hmmmmm... wait I know, let's throw together a very dramatic and ominous musical score to go along with the pitch perfect voice acting! Kevin Conroy is back doing the voice for Bats himself, and yours truly is voiced by Mark Hamill in what could possibly be his last and final Joker performance, oh how sad if that is true! Oh well, at least they can say I had the last laugh after all! Hahahahahaha Arkham City does provide a phenominal dramatic soundtrack, but there's nothing like hearing it blend with a mix of psychotic tortured screams echoing through the alleyways. Really, it's quite relaxing, you should try sleeping to it sometimes, and it always brings a smile to my face. Hahahahahahaha
So now the stage has been set, the characters are all in place, the battle lines drawn, and Batman is up against his greatest challenge yet. With all these new side missions, challenges, and riddles to solve, I hope you don't keep me waiting long batsy hahahahaha. Do you have what it takes to take on Gotham's greatest villains? I know we don't have a lot of time together batsy but I got a joke for you, and this one is a real killer! hahahahahaha! Batman visits his doctor. The doctor says "I have good news and bad news. The bat says "what?s the good news?" The doctor says "you have 30 hours to live". The Batman says what could possibly be worse. The doctor says "I got the blood tests in yesterday and I forgot to call you." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Suggestions: Twinkle, twinkle, little bat... watch me kill your favorite cat! Hahahahahahahahaha! XD
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
Crimson Alliance
Welcome adventurer to the world of Byzan! We are a mighty empire on the edge of the Dead Sea, but we were not always this way. Please come and sit down and I will tell you a tale of seduction, betrayal, honor, friendship, love, and loss. Maybe hearing the old tales will help guide you on your way to fame and fortune in search for our land's treasures? A long time ago there was a young corrupted princess named Asturi who used her beauty to seduce the powerful wizard Magus. Through this deception this dark princess gained unimaginable power and ended up seizing the throne and out casted Magus and left him for dead. During this reign of demonic evil horrible things happened, there was experimentation on sacrifices, dark magic, and even raising the dead. Times were bleak as the empire that once flourished was torn to pieces and teetered on the brink of extinction. This is when out of chance our greatest heroes emerged to bring this empire back to greatness. Magus, the once powerful wizard that was cast out to die, survived and while his memory may have been temporarily blocked his passion for this empire has never expired. Upon his journey he gains the support of two unlikely allies, Gnox, who is a mighty warrior and one of the deadliest mercenaries alive, and Moonshade, who has the reputation of being the most elusive assassin and one not to be taken lightly. These warriors all bring their own specialties as the wizard Magus focuses on ranged magic attacks, Gnox is a master of close quarter combat, and Moonshade offers a little of both. Together these three adventurers set out on a quest to banish the evil from the land and restore the great empire of Byzan.
During their quest, our three heroes came across sacred treasures from across the great land and they even came into artifacts that assisted them in their journey. Tales of blades that were made of fire, shields which were born of lightning itself, and magic so powerful that no enemy could resist it's force, reached the ears of the surviving humans and stoked the fires of hope and encouraged the desire to overcome this demonic evil. Legend tells that they came across items such as remote turrets, monster bait, throwing axes and healing totems that when used properly greatly assisted our warriors as they tackled the evils of the land. Using tactics in battle such as normal and strong attacks combined with stun attacks and dashing abilities this group of three had all the skills necessary to overcome any obstacle that stood in their way.
I'm sure now you are wondering what ever happened to our three brave adventurers and what happened that made the kingdom of Byzan the way it is today. That my friend will have to come at a price. Journeys start with a single step and if you wish to know more and how the story ends, then it is up to you. Is it worth 1200 MS Points? When you and your friends join up to discover the treasure and mystery that abounds in these lands, then it is a steal. So what do you say adventurer? Care to make a deal?
Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
Crysis
Listen up soldier, we got 30 seconds before your insertion into the warzone and once you're there we can't guarantee successful radio contact so pay attention! All information is on a need to know basis son and all we know right now is that the CIA has sent in a scientific research team to the Lingshan Island, and after their arrival the Koreans have sent in a large militarized force and have taken the research team captive and are apparently very interested in their work and findings. We don't know why they would need to dispatch such manpower to this remote island, or what their interest is in our scientists, but we do know whatever it is, they want it bad. We are flying blind up here son, but what we can tell you is that our scientists have uncovered something groundbreaking that could be one of the biggest discoveries in human history. We have declassified XboxAddict's records in an attempt to help you so brief your squad on the intelligence and prep for war! Be forewarned that this aggressive action could be considered grounds for the next world war soldier. We need you to rendezvous with the research team and extract them to the LZ and retrieve any and all data possible. Your team is needed now more than ever to prevent this worldwide Crysis. Godspeed. Before we drop your squad into the warzone we need to bring your team up to speed on the Crysis that we find ourselves in. Developed by Crytek and released four years ago, Crysis was acclaimed for its graphical prowess and the physics engine that brought the island of Lingshan to life and we'll discuss that here shortly. Originally nicknamed the PC benchmark, Crysis set the bar for graphics and physics in a video game that to this day leave even the top companies scratching their heads wondering how this marvel was accomplished. Unless you were sporting some serious graphic hardware in your PC, the full potential of Crysis remained a dream, until now. Crytek has given the gaming community a gift, for now that they have released the original PC benchmark game Crysis on the Xbox Live Games on Demand section. Now gamers on the console have the chance to finally enjoy one of the most influential games that has ever been released. You know that your game sets a bar when graphic card companies continuously run the catchphrase "Yeah, but can it run Crysis".
Now listen up soldier because now that we are in a serious Crysis, it's time to learn your surroundings as survival is critical to you completing your assignment and making it out alive. Originally Crysis was made using the CryEngine 2, but now things have become more spectacular as Crytek decided to use the infamous CryEngine 3 and oh how blessed we are. The island of Lingshan has come to life like nothing we have ever witnessed before and every aspect of Crysis from the water and sandy beaches, to the underground caves are done with pinpoint precision that every moment will take your breath away and give your eyes one stunning scene after another all the while incorporating the shifts in the time of day ranging from midnight to noon and back again. Watching the rays of sunlight peek their way through the upper foliage of the trees through your sniper scope while maintaining cover upon a high rocky ridge is just one example where you will find yourself taking a moment just to examine the beauty that this game brings.
With your squad up to speed on the island and all its beauty it's time to become acquainted with your gear and know how to handle it before you go rushing off to death's doorstep. You and your squad have all been provided with experimental nano suits and learning how to manage it properly will mean the difference between coming back alive, and coming back with a toe tag. Your suit has many abilities and the two main functions for it are an armor mode which will make you almost completely bulletproof, however that doesn't mean you can stand still and take a direct shot from a rocket launcher. Think of the armor mode as a last ditch effort to ensure your survival. You won't be very mobile, but in a gunfight it will allow you to take more damage than your aggressors. The second primary focus of your nano suit is a built in cloaking device which will allow you to elude oncoming forces from a distance, however, if you get too close then you will be in trouble as your enemies will be able to detect you, so be wise soldier when you decide to use these features. It should be noted as well that if you are cloaked soldier and you decide to get into a gun battle, you will instantly de-cloak and your suit power will drain to empty even if you had a full power level before you started shooting.
Your nano suit while providing these abilities cannot maintain the necessary power levels for long, so while these features may be a gift, they are only temporary so plan to budget your power supply accordingly and make sure that it has time to properly recharge before advancing on your enemies. The last thing you want to do is engage in a firefight only to find out that your suit has no power to protect you and save your life. Besides granting you and your squad these new enhancements, you will also notice that your nano suit will give you the ability to run at very high speeds, jump to new heights, and give you strength that most men dream of having. All of these enhancements use power as well soldier so be prepared and use your suit wisely.
While you and your team use your eyes to visually take in everything around you and your squad manages their resources with their new suits, one thing that they will need to really pay attention to soldier is the sounds of war itself. The island while beautiful by all accounts are filled with ambient sounds that can not only help you detect any oncoming threat, but also alert your enemies to your location. Through your adventure on the island you may come across various security patrols which you can hear them communicating with each other so that will help you pinpoint their location so you can determine the best course of action. However, the ambient sounds can also be your demise. If you decide to sneak in to your objective be wary of startling the wildlife as a spooked chicken could be all that is needed to draw your enemies focus and their gun barrels in your direction.
Now that you have all the information we can give to you son we hope that it will be enough to help you and your team succeed. Arm yourself and load up on munitions because there's one thing we can guarantee and that is you are about to face a fierce and mammoth military force and you must overcome this if you want to come back alive. You have all the help we can provide at this time soldier, now lock and load because your deployment begins now. Godspeed to you and your team for you are the only hope that mankind has in this time of Crysis.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
Attention all pilots, attention all pilots! Scramble all aircraft immediately! Bogeys have been spotted on an attack course to the city! All pilots to their planes! Your mission is to intercept and engage the enemy outside of the city and provide protection to the citizens. Ground forces are starting to advance on the city's perimeter and it looks like a major attack is just moments away! We have radioed in our situation; however any further air support will not be ready for at least 30 minutes. You will be briefed in the air by our records at XboxAddict on what to expect out there. Failure is not an option here people, this time we fight back. Protect the people of this city and eliminate the enemy threat at all costs! Pilots to the skies!As we scramble to takeoff let?s start with your intel so you will be familiar with what you will see when you take flight. Ace Combat has consistently held its crown as arguably the premier flight game and in the next installment from Project Aces, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (AH) sets a target lock on eliminating the competition and proving once and for all that they have earned their wings. In the past Ace Combat games have taken place in fictional settings, but now in AH, the areas are real life places such as the city of Miami and more. You will be in command of U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Bishop as you co-lead your 108th Task Force with your wingman Captain Jose "Guts" Gutierrez. Your squadron designation is Warwolf and after a NATO witnesses the deployment of a new weapon of mass destruction, the orders come down from above to protect life by destroying the evil that takes it.
This new Ace Combat game offers a wealth of options and innovations that will make even the most experienced Ace feel like a rookie. For starters there is a heavy emphasis on the new innovations in air to air combat. In the past pilots would hear a lock on tone, see their screen go red and then bank and twist their way free, but what would be difficult was the ability to reacquire your target or even to pursue your attacker. These frustrations however, are now removed as you gain the ability to loop backward and position yourself behind your target. Now when your enemy is in pursuit you will have to triangles that signify your enemy's position to yours. By breaking or accelerating your job is to get the triangles to match, by doing this you lock your plane into a position to perform an aerial loop that will end with your plane now behind your enemy with your sights locked in on him instead. Remember though, that these new aerial control maneuvers can also be done by the enemy so now, more than ever you must be aware of every aspect of your combat.
Not only is your defensive capabilities improved upon, but your offensive capabilities have also been enhanced. In this latest installment of Ace Combat, when you have a target locked on and you are in close range you will have a circle appear over your locked target, this is your sign to go in for the kill. With the push of two buttons (LB+RB) you will engage your opponent in a new Dog Fight Mode where the name of the game is to keep your target locked to the best of your ability; and in doing so, ensure that not only your missiles lock onto the target, but your gun barrels as well. While the innovation in the gameplay takes center stage, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon delivers a wealth of new aircraft to dominate the skies. Now we get to experience the amazing quality of Ace Combat in other vehicles such as AC-130 gunships, Apache Longbow helicopters, and more! Each vehicle has tailored controls and equally matching firepower which means that Ace Combat: Assault Horizon delivers one amazing mission after another.
While you hone your flight skills in your singleplayer campaign we can't forget the multiplayer side of Ace Combat. Ace Combat: AH goes full throttle and brings a megaton bomb of multiplayer ranging from Co-Op mode where up to three players can tackle a total of eight Co-Op missions that range from dogfighting, bombing runs and more. Another multiplayer innovation is the inclusion of Domination mode where two teams fight over capturing objective points to secure what is being called Occupation Points, first team to reach the point limit wins. Finally there is Capital Conquest where two teams have to go in and destroy the opponents? bases in cities such as Washington D.C., Paris, Dubai, and more. There are some tough choices you will have to make when considering your multiplayer plane of choice.
Choppers can literally fly under the radar and have full 360 degree movement; the downside to this is that they have literally next to nothing when it comes to any type of armor. Fighters are great against other aircraft and they can enter Dog Fight Mode, but are weak against ground targets. Attack aircraft will allow you to find a balance of strength on both ground and air attacks and can enter Air Strike Mode where your plane will travel along a projected path while you lay waste with your air to ground weaponry, the bad side to this is if you're up against fighters be ready to fly for your life because while you may be good at air targets in an Attack Aircraft, Fighters are better. What would multiplayer in Ace Combat be without bombers? These massive sky fortresses are incredibly slow and not that agile, they can take some damage but need to be protected otherwise they are just big sitting targets. The plus side of a bomber however, is the ability to wipe out an enemy's base in a blink of an eye. So while we may want to be our own rogue pilot out there, working as a team will def. have its advantages.
Ace Combat has always been known for the wonderful graphics that we get to see as we look out of our visor, however when it comes to beauty Ace Combat: AH steals the show. As you scream through the skies in an attempt to knock out the opposition, get ready to hold your breath as now some of the terrain is destructible. Cities such as Paris, Miami, Dubai and more are beautifully laid out in full detail and when in dog fight mode you can be led through chases that will require you to think fast as you dodge between buildings and under bridges as you watch the beauty unfold around you at 800mph and your radar lock going crazy.
All of this intense beauty and combat would be for naught if the music didn't back up every moment of your aerial combat. Moments of the classic Ace Combat theme comes blasting into your ears as you're fighting hard to keep your enemy check in your sights and your radar locked onto target, however, throughout the various missions we get treated to new symphonic sounds that range from the heart pumping intense, to the brief moments of melodic relaxation, to the climatic fanfare of triumph.
As we approach the engagement zone, we are treated to one undeniable truth and that is Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is the premier flight game for the Xbox 360. There are a ton of new innovations packed in every area and aspect of this game and with the included support of the Ace Edge flight stick, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon is the king of the skies. Now marshal your talent and focus pilots for it's time to fly.
Overall Score: 9.2 / 10
Resident Evil Code: Veronica X
Some could compare video games to fine wine. Some get better with age and provide us excitement and enjoyment even after almost 10 years. Recently, Capcom has released two new Resident Evil games to the Xbox Live Games on Demand section for $19.99 per game (Resident Evil 4, and Resident Evil Code: Veronica X). Now while Resident Evil 4 offers up some exciting new innovations and breaks from some of the traditions that made the Resident Evil series, the king of survival horror games, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X unfortunately falls flat in its attempt to secure a great place amongst the other titles in the series. There?s a lot that takes place in Resident Evil Code: Veronica X (RECVX), however walk with us as we show you why RECVX is more like an old wine that was kept improperly and only holds a hint of its former glory.First and foremost, the story is quite good in RECVX, however it is really short. What do we mean by really short? Well RECVX is the type of game you can easily run through in less than six, yes that?s right, six hours, and in fact rewards you for beating it in less than four hours and thirty minutes. So let's be clear on this, you're spending $19.99 on a game that rewards you for beating it in under five hours. While it may entice you with its plot twists and turns, having a storyline less than five hours long is far beyond enjoyable. Originally released on the Dreamcast back in 2000 (God now don't I feel old), Resident Evil Code: Veronica marked the first time a Resident Evil game didn't debut on a Sony console. However, after some updating to the graphics and the inclusion of some new cut scenes sprinkled about, RECVX was finally released in 2001.
Resident Evil games have always been providers of some great gameplay and in RECVX we see the same semi fixed viewpoints that made the series an industry leader in survival horror. The real breakthrough of this title was when you would use weapons such as the Sniper Rifle and the Linear Launcher as the camera angle would shift to a first person viewpoint. Weapons though were almost the same however there were a couple new weapons such as the crossbow and anti-B.O.W. rounds that you could get for your grenade launcher. In respect to the weapons, RECVX does allow for dual wielding pistols that allow you to target multiple enemies at the same time, granted there will be a few times where this could come in handy, but it's there anyways if you wish to use it. RECVX also sets a first in the series by forcing you to control the two heroes, Chris and Claire Redfield however, one at a time. For the first half you are forced to use Claire and then switch up to Chris at the half way mark. While the innovations of RECVX do show progress in the series, it's minimal at best.
Way back when in 2001 when RECVX originally released, people were amazed at the graphics as it was the first Resident Evil game to fully utilize 3D backgrounds instead of pre rendered graphics. Now Capcom has released RECVX to the Games on Demand section of Xbox Live and with claims of HD graphics. While this got us very excited, the graphic improvements were not what we were hoping for. First we have to discuss the full motion video sequences as they seem to have been completely ignored and for what reason we have no idea. Given the fact that you can skip these cut scenes, if you have played RECVX before then you are probably better off doing so as watching these untouched scenes adds game time to your run-through and when combined with the horrible voice acting which we will chat about latter on, these should almost always be avoided for fear of losing your own sanity. Some aspects are done nicely with a cleaner feel though, the water effects look a lot better and some of the character modeling look ok at best, but coming from a last generation this title this is a game that we wish was remade instead of remastered. True the character modeling looks a little better, and some of the water and lighting effects look a little cleaner and crisper, however don't be surprised if you are unimpressed for your $19.99 investment.
While there is some improvement with the graphics, the sound quality however, seems to have remained the same and in today's day and age of epic quality soundtracks, voice acting, and sound effects, RECVX showcases another reason why this game is a last generation title. Some of the voice acting just makes you almost want to skip every cut scene just so you don't have to hear how horrible it is by today's standards. Maybe that?s where we got it wrong, but it really goes to show just how amazing the development of not only graphics and gameplay, but sound has evolved throughout the years; and while this is only $19.99, the voice acting and soundtrack leave a lot to be desired. Sure the ambient noises and sounds add a lot to the feel that you are playing a Resident Evil game, however, with the natural evolution of games today you can't expect miracles from a game that is 10 years old.
While Capcom has decided to release Resident Evil Code: Veronica X to the Games on Demand the bottom line of it is that this is a last generation title that has had some minor improvements, however, since not everything was improved upon you can still notice the fact that you are playing a game over 10 years old. Some games have aged well, and some are better left to the fond memories we had of them in the past. What category does Resident Evil Code: Veronica fall into? If you have $19.99 in your pocket, a Dreamcast system in your home, then spend 1/4 of your money and pick up the original and enjoy it. If you purchase Resident Evil Code: Veronica X thinking you're in for a treat of amazing new graphics, sound, and gameplay, then we also have some Prozac for you to borrow because you will need it to raise your crushed spirits.
Overall Score: 6.4 / 10
Resident Evil 4 HD
Leon, can you hear me? We have a situation that needs to be address immediately and your name came up as the "go to" person to get this mission accomplished. We know about your past with Raccoon City and to put things simplistically, we need the best for this mission. As you are well aware, the President and the U.S. Government has tried to shut down Umbrella, however, now we feel that their reach extended further than we ever thought possible. To be blunt Leon, the President's daughter, Ashley Graham, has been kidnapped and we are sending you to Europe to get her back. We need you to bring her back alive and safe Leon; failure is not an option. We are transmitting the details of the mission to you now from the confidential files of XboxAddict to help aid you on your way. Good luck Leon, we are all praying for your successful return.Throughout the years the Resident Evil series has been well known as a classic staple in the horror game genre and while we have already seen the release of Resident Evil 5 on the Xbox 360, Resident Evil 4 has now been released in the games on demand section of Xbox Live and offers gamers a trip down memory lane with this classic title. The development alone for Resident Evil 4 was a trial all in itself as it had gone through various changes and complete overhauls before it ever landed on consoles back in January 2005. Now though, Resident Evil 4 has arrived on the Xbox 360 and for those who haven't played many Resident Evil games, this is a great offering of anyone who enjoys horror games.
The Resident Evil series originally provided a fixed camera system that allowed gamers a wide perspective of their surroundings and allowed the character to move freely within them and created some pretty terrifying experiences. Unfortunately though, this classic style that a lot of purists loved was ditched in Resident Evil 4 for an over the shoulder camera angle. While this is a major change for the Resident Evil series, the biggest change involve the enemies themselves, for you are no longer fighting and killing zombies, but humans infected with a parasite that allows them to be controlled and henceforth being known as Los Ganados or "The Cattle". These changes and more, while drastic were to try to reinvent the Resident Evil series to be more action oriented, and while purists wish for the return of what they have always loved, sometimes our wishes don't come true. That?s not to say that all changes are bad though as Resident Evil 4 marked the first time your character can have direct context-sensitive controls with the environment such as knocking down ladders, jumping out of windows or even trying to dodge an incoming assault. Resident Evil 4 also marked a first for the series incorporating what we know now as "QuickTime events" and while we all have an opinion of what we think of them, Resident Evil 4 boasts a lot of firsts for the series, and while some may be bad, some are groundbreaking for the series.
The overall quality of the gameplay may take some getting used to as your left analog stick is used for not only forward and backward but also is used for turning side to side. Your right stick controls your camera and can feel very touchy at times which can lead to a lot of intense situations when you find yourself amidst a ton of enemies barreling down on your position. Conservation has always been one of the main characteristics of the Resident Evil titles, and in Resident Evil 4, the tactics change slightly. Now when you decimate your enemies, there is a chance that you will find not only gold, but ammo for various weapons, and even healing items. While this slightly negates the whole conservation theory, with a limited inventory case that can only hold so many items, combining items to save space does play a crucial role. Another innovation that Capcom provided it's fans is the inclusion of minigames, the largest being called "Separate Ways" and focuses on a character Ada Wong who has been in the Resident Evil series since the beginning and has had various confrontations and relationships with the main character of Resident Evil 4, Leon. The Separate Ways minigame primarily revolves around Ada and her involvement in Resident Evil 4, but more importantly, her connection to Albert Wesker and the actions that Wesker is plotting. While not an essential part of Resident Evil 4, Capcom does do a brilliant job shining the light on other characters that many gamers have had questions about from previous entries in the Resident Evil series.
Resident Evil 4 has also received a great new facelift in the form of an HD overhaul. Now before you start getting excited, remember, that this game is over six years old and while the pre rendered graphics for backgrounds are gone, it still looks and feels like a game that is six years old, however, that doesn't mean that all of it should be trashed. The cut scenes are done very well and there are a lot of instances where you will notice a dramatic improvement upon the original release. Not only are the environments and cut scenes improved upon, but the character modeling also looks smoother and more defined in this HD remake of Resident Evil 4.
One of the main ingredients to the success of any horror game/movie has to be quality in the sound department and Resident Evil 4 continues the long line of prestigious work in the survival horror gaming genre. While the game itself unleashes a hefty 62 compositions, all of them help Resident Evil 4 provide one amazing scare experience after another. You will hear generalized conversations that the Ganados have with each other as you traverse the environment careful not to disturb the locals, but if spotted you will hear the cries of the plague infected as they seek you out with one thing in mind, to end your life by any means necessary. One of the biggest accomplishments that Resident Evil 4 has going for it is the voice dialogue. Every character excels in their role and makes every moment more believable than the last and when you combine the voice acting with the musical score, Resident Evil 4 delivers an incredible punch of sonic beauty to your ears.
With a price tag of $19.99 from the games on demand section of Xbox Live, Resident Evil 4 is more than a bargain for anyone who loves the survival horror genre. The story is well done and when combined with the updated graphics and the impeccable quality of all the audio, Resident Evil 4 stands head and shoulders above even most of today's survival horror games and should not be missed. Grab your handgun, turn out the lights, and let?s dive head first into the terrifying world that is Resident Evil 4
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Dead Island
Have you ever had a bad vacation? Ever take a trip that you wish you hadn't in the first place? If a little garden gnome ever wishes to offer you a trip to the Island of Banoi, you tell him where he can stick that pointy red hat of his. Banoi is the setting for the action game Dead Island and offers you some of the most beautiful scenery you will ever see. Sure it's beyond gorgeous that is until you wake up after a wild night out and discover that you are smack in the middle of a mysterious virus outbreak that has turned most of the civilians into body devouring zombies. Get your bags packed as XboxAddict leads you through the lush, blood stained environment, and trust us, we don't bite.Dead Island is an action based story with RPG qualities taken from some of the most popular games that we have seen today. In the beginning you assume the role of one of the four main characters who are apparently immune to this viral infection:
1) Xian Mei - who is an employee of the Royal Palms Resort who dreamed of seeing the world outside her homeland, but without zombies of course.
2) Sam B - A one hit rap artist trying to recover the stardom of his lost career, but something tells us he's never come across zombies at his after parties.
3) Logan - a former NFL star player who had his career cut short due to tragic choices he made, but redemption is something he's looking for, even if it's among the undead.
Or
4) Purna - an ex-cop turned bodyguard for hire after leaving the police force. Do you suppose she's used to dealing with a hoard of the undead? Not likely.
As we stated earlier, when you start out on your journey, you awaken from a hard night of partying, only to find out that all hell has broken loose and it's up to you to progress through the story in order to discover the secret behind the mystery of this virus and see if it is possible to save these people, however, like the classic literature line goes, sometimes the best laid plans...
As we pick up our bags and head into this amazing island resort we must get accustomed to the gameplay involved with Dead Island. As we will be up against an island full of ravaging zombies we need one thing to guarantee our survival, weapons, weapons, and more weapons. Throughout the game you will obtain a variety of death dealing items that range from melee weapons to firearms and more. There are varying classes of weapons that range from the generic to rare and all can be used at your disposal to destroy any and all undead that impede your progress, but where the twist lies with this, is that your weapons will need to be repaired over time.
This is where Dead Island offers up a taste of its RPG offerings. If you use your weapon of choice a lot it can become damaged, and then broken which significantly reduces the pain you can dish out. Trust us, there is nothing like having a knife break in the middle of fighting multiple zombies at once and forcing the decision of "fight or flight" right into your face. Dead Island doesn't stop with weapon repairs though, each character has a multi skill tree that can be upgraded to not only enhance your own character, but provide key upgrades in various fields that can unlock new abilities. The way you unlock these new abilities is by earning EXP by doing side quest missions, but more importantly, killing everything that isn't human. The side missions are optional, however, they will allow you to explore more of the island and provide you rewards such as items, cash, and weapons.
When we say that the Island of Banoi is beautiful, what we mean is that this game is graphically amazing in every way. The water effects are done beautifully and the weather system brings the island alive and makes every moment a sight to behold, but where this game really shines is in the lighting department, not only with the rays of sunshine, but with the depths of darkness itself. Armed with a trusty flashlight when the light goes out, it's up to you to make the best use of any and all light that might shine through such as moonlight, the flickering light of a distressed work lamp, and more. Just remember, as breathtaking as the island is in the daylight, when the light goes out the island's beauty can be very deadly. Who knows what lurks in the dark corners, but it's up to you to find out.
Exploring the island can be a very peaceful experience that is until you hear the screams and cries of multiple zombies starting to charge you from all different directions hell bent on having you as a meal, or the pounding on a door of a zombie ready to burst out and separate your head from your body. The ambient sound is where a lot of Dead Island draws its potential from as you will hear waves crashing, birds chirping, and even wind blowing through the trees. All of this adds up to certify your horrifying zombie experience like never before as you will only sometimes hear suspenseful music and the vast majority you will have to keep an ear out for any outlying danger that may be right behind you and charging fast.
To be fair, when Dead Island shipped, it did have a fair share of issues, and to be honest some of them were game breaking, however most, if not all of the issues, have been resolved and Dead Island is shaping up to be a sleeper hit of 2011. From the incredible story, to the addition of the RPG elements such as individual character skill trees, weapon combining, and more, Dead Island proves that not only is the Island of Banoi a really poor choice for a summer vacation, but that Techland can deliver one of the best zombie experiences you will ever enjoy. Grab your boarding pass, your wits, and whatever weapon that?s within arm?s reach because my friend, the island is calling..
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Gears of War 3: Brothers to the End
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO yeah motherf***ers, the train is back and it's on like Donkey Kong! Grab your pair and hold on tight 'cuz baby this train is bringin the official review of Gears of War 3 straight from XboxAddict to your front door! You think that those pieces of $hit Locust were done, well so did we until these ugly @$$ Lambent creatures decided they wanted a piece of the train! You know what I think? F**k that $hit! It's time that we put the final nail in this b!tch and send her @$$ packing! You got a pair? Then grab your gun b!tches and let?s go hunting!Gears of War 3 from Epic games is the final story of Marcus Fenix and his fellow COG team. The humans have been decimated and mankind is now riding a knife's edge, teetering between victory and extinction, and it's up to you to ensure that humanity sees the light of day and prevent the total annihilation of every last man, woman and child on Sera. Gears of War 3 will start you off like a rocket, launching you right into the action, and it never lets off the gas. Your only hope for survival is to shoot everything until it dies then hang on for dear life as the story screams you through it in one amazing moment after another. A journey that started years ago is finally coming to an end and what a ride you're about to have.
The Gears of War series has set benchmarks for its gameplay and thankfully Epic games has decided to take everything that it's community has been asking for and inject it with tons of steroids, smack it in the face, stomp on its toes, and then unleashed it to the world. A new innovation that will change the way battles and wars are won is found in the new cover system for Gears of War 3. Before in Gears of War we were limited to just blind firing or peeking around corners or over obstacles to hit enemies, but not anymore though. Now when you are in a standoff with an opponent on the other side of cover, you now can leap over the obstacle which causes your character to do a sliding melee move which knocks your opponent back, stuns them, and opens them up for a close range lobotomy. No longer are you safe under cover for now your cover can gain you a tremendous advantage in combat. The same active reload system that we all know and love remains and now every weapon gains additional bonuses by executing a perfect active reload which range from faster fire, more powerful rounds, increased range, and more.
To say Gears of War 3 is beautiful is a gross understatement and one that should immediately get you sent to the eye doctor for an exam. Epic really took their time and used it wisely in this field as every aspect of this game is done to perfection. The level layout, attention to the smallest detail, and even the total environment completely immerses you in the world of Sera and does a wonderful job portraying the last dying prayers of mankind. Pausing for a few moments to take in your surroundings can be some of the most satisfying moments you have in the game and your eyes won't believe the quality that this latest and greatest Unreal Engine 3 provides. Every turn brings your eyes another visual orgasm and every moment shows why Gears of War 3 is one of the best looking games we have ever played.
While the visuals are breathtaking and every moment is optically stunning, they would be for nothing if it wasn't for the sounds of Gears of War 3. Deep ominous cellos make for surreal and uncertain moments while fast paced drums, trumpets and more help raise your heart level while facing the Lambent in epic storyline instances. In the opening level you find yourself on a ship that is being overrun by the Lambent, and while that is going on the music is pumping fast and furiously and you have the sounds of the commander shouting over the intercom trying to direct you to where you need to go to provide assistance and to eliminate the Lambent threat. All of this drives and pushes you farther and faster as you scour every inch trying to save everyone on board, and just when you think everything is finally under control, then the music bursts through, something big happens and all hell breaks loose, get ready to hear what is coming next.
While the single player story delivers one of the best experiences we have ever played on the 360 console, the core of Gears of War 3 is its multiplayer. The multiplayer of Gears of War 3 is everything we have come to love from the series and it adds a wealth of improvements and innovations that exemplify the high quality of gameplay that will leave you playing for days, weeks and months at a time. For starters your loadouts now are what you want them to be. Instead of locking into a loadout and being forced to switch out weapons from dead enemies, now you can switch after each death to ensure that you have the weapon you want, when you want it. The levels that you get to enjoy in multiplayer vary from the beautiful, to the industrial, to the downright nasty and offer a variety of avenues to explore, fight, and gut the opponents that stand in your way of victory. One of the greatest innovations in Gears of War 3's multiplayer is the introduction of credits and new game types named Beast and Horde 2.0.
In the multiplayer gametype Beast you take on the role of the Locust as you try to eliminate as many human opponents as possible and in doing so earning medals, ranking up your character and even earning credits. What do we mean by ranking up your Locust character? Well the short and sweet of it is that the Locust is divided up into tiers of characters and all range in various malicious forms. First tier starts you off as a wild ticker, but if you do well as a wild ticker you can become upgrade to a regular ticker, then wretch, savage drone, then finally for tier one, a massive butcher. Don?t fret though because there are more tiers that offer more destruction and more gut ripping power to tear into the humans. Second tier consists of enemies such as a Kantus, Bloodmount, and Mauler. Third tier is comprised of a Giant Serapede, Savage Corpser, Savage Grenadier, and the infamous Boomer. Fourth and final tier of Locust include such enemies as a Berserker, Armored Kantus, and the mighty Savage Boomer. Get ready to tear limb from limb in an effort to put an end to the human resistance once and for all and in the process earn tokens, medals, and even credits.
One of the other iconic multiplayer modes makes a triumphant return in Gears of War 3 and that is Horde 2.0. To say you're getting paid while knee deep in the sh!thole would be a really accurate description as now fortifications become your best friends (aside from your teammates of course). Throughout Horde 2.0 you will get options to upgrade various defenses such as decoy dummies, laser grid tripwires, turrets, and more. How do you upgrade these defensive saviors you ask? Why kill everything you see and earn credits of course. As you progress you will earn credits which will enhance various fortifications that will allow you a brief glimmer of hope before the all-important "Boss round" where death is an almost certainty. Credits though can be used for more than just upgrading and fortifying your position, they can also be used to buy your way back into the game if you should happen to meet your maker at the underside of your opponents boot. Should you feel generous, you also have the ability to give your teammates credits as well thus helping the team as a whole and showing everyone that you're not a stingy motherf***er.
Weapons are essential to determine whether or not your @$$ meets angels in the clouds or victory amongst the dead in Gears of War 3's multiplayer, and this time we come loaded to the teeth with classic weapons and some new ones as well. For starters our classic lancer returns along with our favorite gnasher and pistol, however, now we have new weapon choices such as a retro lancer where instead of a chainsaw, you sport a dirty and vicious bayonette blade that is perfect for taking the heads off and impaling your nearest foe. Also included in these new weapons is a lovely and deadly sawed off shotgun which should really be called the paste maker because any opponent you hit with it will become just that, a bloody smear and a memory. One of our new favorite map based weapons has to be the "Oneshot". Its name says it all, just line up your cross hairs on your opponent, pull the trigger, and watch as you vaporize them in a violent and explosive death. Oneshot, one kill, no exceptions.
Hands down Gears of War 3 is going to bring you not only one of the best stories you ever went through, but one of the best and most addictive multiplayer experiences ever to hit consoles. If you haven't played Gears of War 1 or 2, then do yourself a favor and play through them first because to jump right into Gears of War 3 first is robbing you of one of the greatest gaming journeys you will ever have. From the amazing story, beautiful graphics and sound, to the innovative new multiplayer, Gears of War 3 has not only set the bar, but turned it sideways and shoved it right up the competition's @$$.
Overall Score: 9.4 / 10
El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron
Welcome heavenly spirits to God's holy light. We have been truly blessed here at XboxAddict to experience the wonders of God's actions in El Shaddai. The conventional translation of El Shaddai is "God Almighty" and in this game we see the full range of God's will. Take a moment and walk with us on the path of the righteous as we attempt to guide you through the trials and tribulations that plague mankind and attempt to lead you to the salvation of God's eternal love. For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.In El Shaddai you take command of Enoch who is believed to be a descendant of Adam and the only descendant of Adam who God loved so dearly that instead of facing a mortal death, God took Enoch into the heavens where he is appointed to become the guardian of all the celestial treasures, chief over all the archangels, and the immediate attendant on God's throne. Enoch, armed with the support of all the angels, fulfills whatever God commands by executing his decrees. Not only is Enoch noted for all of this but his is also believed to be the inventor of writing, and the teacher of astronomy and arithmetic thus identifying him as the Metatron, or the angel which communicates God's word. This theological interpretation can be seen from the very beginning as we are introduced to Enoch who in the heavens is surrounded by endless mountains of books, and is busy writing away into another book. Ancient scripture describes Enoch after returning to heaven to serve God: "This Enoch, whose flesh was turned to flame, his veins to fire, his eye-lashes to flashes of lightning, his eye-balls to flaming torches, and whom God placed on a throne next to the throne of glory, received after this heavenly transformation the name Metatron".
Theology is the soul of El Shaddai and through the game we bear witness to the beauty of God. Your eyes will be amazed at the beautiful graphics that depict stunning backgrounds that resemble heavenly paintings in motion. Such paintings as the Creation of Adam and the Altarpiece of St. Michael showcase the same heavenly glory that you will see in every aspect of El Shaddai's graphics. Not only are the levels beautiful but every aspect including the character modeling of the archangels, the demons you will fight along your way, and even the fallen angels themselves present to you such an epic piece of beauty that every moment of El Shaddai is a heavenly celestial experience that should not be missed. Some people have said that nature is the painting of God, well in El Shaddai you will be truly blessed by all the heavenly wonders you will see.
The premise of El Shaddai is based with heavy roots in various interpretations of Enoch and theology. When angels go against God's wishes by either disobeying or rebelling against God, they are henceforth banished from the kingdom of heaven. In the religion of Judaism there is an account from the book of Enoch of 200 rebellious angels or "Watchers" that left heaven to come down to earth to marry human women and have children with them. All of what I just said can be experienced throughout the entire game as your quest as Enoch is to purify 7 fallen angels and bring them to God so they may be judged. While on your quest to fulfill God's decree you will have the support of the archangels which will help grant you new abilities to aid you on your holy quest. Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. Not only will you contend with the fallen angels, the children of them, but you will also go face to face many times with a being that some have once called God's favorite angel, Lucifer. This is a truly spiritual quest that is presented to Enoch and one that must be fulfilled for it is the word of God. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
As you traverse throughout the various beautiful levels you will be treated to various music that will range from adrenaline pumping chants and beats, to heavenly chords that will sooth and relax your very soul. Harps, choirs of angels, and more will sing their holy praise to the heavens while cellos, baritones, and more will signify that you have indeed entered the realm of a fallen angel from heaven. The music itself is a beautiful accompaniment to the graphics and the storyline, and sounds as though came from the heavens above.
Since your journey will not be an easy one, the gameplay of El Shaddai will attempt to assist you in every way possible. As we have already learned through theology interpretations, Enoch does not die, but rather is brought to heaven by God, and in El Shaddai, we see examples of how this theology will take shape. When confronted in battle Enoch's heavenly armor can be destroyed and Enoch himself afterwards can be taken down, however, with rapid pushes of any button you will see the white eyelid that once was closing on your screen reopen to show Enoch in essence reborn in spiritual light and love. As God loves all his children, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his steadfast love endures forever and so must Enoch if he is to complete God's will. A great new twist to the game as well is how the game varies from 2D side scrolling, to 3D adventures make even transitioning between levels not only enjoyable, but very in depth with knowledge that you may learn throughout the timeline of the game. The demons and enemies you face along your path grant Enoch the chance to "purify" their weapons and use them as a tool to do God's commands.
As we kneel before the throne of thrones we realize that we are truly blessed to be able to enjoy such an amazing and beautiful game as El Shaddai. We may not know what path in life our souls will take, but we do know that God himself will never deny us his love and compassion so long as our souls repent our evil in hopes of granting salvation from God. This game is a game of beauty, of love, of loss, but most importantly this is a game that showcases every aspect of El Shaddai, or God Almighty.
Suggestions: Not really suggestions but more like words of praise that this game has seen the light of day and has been released so that all may enjoy and revel in the beauty of this game.
Overall Score: 8.9 / 10
Moon Diver
It's 2081 and the day has come. Humanity is faced with its own annihilation. However, while the death and destruction reign over all of mankind, our salvation may rest on the shoulders of brave ninjas called Moon Divers. Allies Seyfert, Hitori, Tolby, Ourion are summoned by their Shogun to embark on a quest to save humanity from a demonic devil named Faust whose sole purpose is to ensure the death and destruction of planet Earth and everything and everyone on it. It is time to sharpen your swords, hone your magic abilities, trust in your brethren, and complete the mission from your Shogun for the hope of mankind rests but on the edge of your blade. From the creator of the iconic video games of the Strider series, follow us now as we lead you through Square Enix's latest Xbox Live Arcade hit Moon Diver.Saving humanity will not be easy, or quick, but it is a task for which you will not fail. Moon Diver offers us a wealth of content and focuses on the strength of your brothers instead of rewarding lone wolves. To start our journey we focus on the story mode which could be best described as very long and involved. The story mode however is unfolded through cryptic messages in between stages which does very little to help educate gamers as to what exactly is going on. This proves to be a major setback as you spend most of your time trying to figure out "who is that person?", "why is this going on?", "what am I doing here?? The story mode however isn't lost completely as you traverse over 10 levels of intense, action packed stages. Each stage however is broken up into multiple stages and some with more than one exit which provides gamers different paths to choose. Another great feature of Moon Diver is that you have the ability to upgrade your character and in such, upgrade three different stats for your player (HP, MP, and Power). This adds a complete customization element that allows gamers to develop a character their way, instead of being locked into company decided presets. Throughout the story mode you will also come across various spells which all have multiple levels as well to progress through. With over 40 different spells that range from invisibility, healing, shooting fireballs, and more, each player can chose their own 4 spells to bring into battle with them, and having the right magic can mean the difference between saving the human race and game over. There are other modes as well such as keeping your kill chain high, survival modes, and even four player multiplayer both online and off. Remember that you are stronger together than apart.
Throughout the years we have all seen Xbox Live Arcade titles that offer some impressive graphics. Granted they are few and far between but Moon Diver is the next entry on that prestigious list. The 2D side scrolling levels seem to fly by in such a fluid pace as you are dodging enemy fire, jumping crevices, hanging and climbing up walls and ceilings. The enemies are well detailed however leave little inspiration. You will witness the basic progression as you have a regular grey enemy, a more powerful yellow enemy, and an even more powerful red version of the same enemy. In essence, the color of your enemy determines their strengths, abilities, and xp. The main graphical focus of Moon Diver rests solely on its fluid combat, multiplayer, and magic. The fluid combat acts as a way to deliver tons of beautiful explosions and flying enemies all over your screen like a violent play. The multiplayer and magic tie in hand in hand but one of the innovations that are spectacular to witness is the new multiplayer MoonSault combos. These special attacks take two to four players to execute, are easy to pull off by pushing the B button, and fill the screen with graphical combat beauty.
In the realm of music, Moon Diver is surprisingly bland and annoying. The menu music is your basic mix of electronic rock/techno tunes that are blended together to try to create an exciting and adrenaline filled 5.1 surround sound experience. The saving grace to the music is that it ties in beautifully when you are neck deep in hundreds of enemies, fighting your way to salvation; or when you are going toe to toe with a boss that towers over you. While there are moments where the music fits, most of the time the music becomes repetitive and unfortunately does very little to support the game itself.
Ultimately you have to ask yourself if this is worth your 1200 MS Points. If you are looking for a great 4 player side scrolling adventure then look no further. Sure it may not be as iconic as a Castlevania game, but Moon Diver delivers a lot for only 1200 MS points, and once purchased they even offer some free DLC and more DLC for only 80 MS points each! Great character structure, classic upgrade scheme mixed with a wide variety of spells and all blended in a fluid combat system make Moon Diver a must have in any Xbox Live Arcade library.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Red Faction: Battlegrounds
EYES FORWARD GRUNT! I'm going to level with you, we need the best soldiers around, and your name crossed our desks. So you think you're the next great soldier to join up with Red Faction? Before you start to get that ego inflated, XboxAddict.com is going to put you through the tests of Red Faction Battlegrounds to see if you are even worthy of our vehicles. If you really are as good as you boast, then not only will you join the elite ranks, but you will also be treated with some goodies, but that's if you make it out alive. Your objective today is to download the intelligence of THQ's Red Faction Battlegrounds, and report back on what you find. Now is the time to show us what you're worth, good luck! Now that we are en route to your target, it's time to get you familiar with THQ's Red Faction Battlegrounds. We are not going to throw you blindly into war, but pay attention because this Intel could mean the difference between victory and defeat! This arcade title is much more than just a simple stand-alone game. Red Faction Battlegrounds provides intense vehicular explosive action in various arenas, and this is how we separate the men from the boys. You will take control of multiple vehicles, and each of them varies in terms of armor, speed, and firepower. This is where the balance will be critical and your victory will be gained. Throughout these trials we will be subjecting you to various situations and all of them will be timed. You will face challenges such as survival, speed, and destruction, and all of them determine whether or not you make the cut. Included in all this explosive goodness is a highly volatile multiplayer gametype that allows you and your friends to throw caution to the wind and commence raining shells down in a fast paced explosive demolition derby from hell. It's time to ride.
The gameplay controls of Red Faction Battlegrounds are pretty straight forward and easy to learn, which is good when you are trying to race through an obstacle filled arena, dodging enemy fire and explosions going on all around you. There are multiple fire control schemes such as using the RT or the RS which allow you to control the style of your play. Another great treat that THQ throws your way is that they have included the amazing physics of THQ's previous title Red Faction Guerilla. This means that every exploding tank, every falling building comes to life like nothing we have seen before in an arcade title. There are even power ups that you can obtain and actually reconstruct the entire level for even more destructive enjoyment. Pay attention grunt, because if you get lost in the beauty of that, it's game over.
Not only is there beauty in the gameplay, but there is beauty in the graphics as well. This is a double edge sword because if you spend your time fixated on the beauty around you, you won't notice that tank barrel pointed right at you. The real stars of the graphics are the arenas and the explosions. Each level is done in high detail and offers a wide array of explosive materials scattered around, so watch where you go power sliding or you may be sliding your way through the pearly white gates. Focus on your objective soldier and trust in your skills, the real beauty is in the victory.
We hope you have been paying attention because now we are going to debrief you on something that does tend to hinder Red Faction Battlegrounds and that is the sound. The sounds that you hear during your individual missions are not bad, but they aren't exceptional either. Outside of the explosions, there really isn't anything that stands out as amazing, and that is somewhat disappointing because it had potential to be great. As you traverse the various arenas, the overall music does little to get you into the game itself, and instead becomes more of a repetitive loop that changes with the levels.
Now listen here grunt, we have told you all that we know, and if you were paying attention you would remember that we said something about you being rewarded for making it out alive? Well a nice bonus of Red Faction Battlegrounds is that you can unlock material to use in the upcoming game Red Faction Armageddon.
When you weigh out everything that this game offers for the single player, and then add on a great multiplayer experience, the one question you have to ask yourself is: "Is this worth 800 MS Points"? The answer is maybe. The reason it's not a resounding yes is because it is a bonus you get from pre-ordering Red Faction Armageddon from GameStop! Red Faction Battlegrounds offers something for everyone, but if you wish to cash in the best way possible, then pre-order Red Faction Armageddon and pick up your free copy of this intense and amazing vehicular combat game. Trust in THQ to deliver a great quality complimentary game to their blockbuster hit, Red Faction Armageddon. Now it's time to see what you're worth grunt, victory is yours!
Suggestions: Keep going with the arcade tie-in titles and make sure you keep them free for pre-order bonuses. If possible, please allow for different camera views, but that could tie into a new standalone Red Faction retail title? Great multiplayer, keep up the great work!
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Mortal Kombat
Welcome elite warriors of the world to your ultimate test of Kourage, strength, and wisdom. You are about to embark on a perilous quest from which none have returned, yet where they have failed you must find a way to win. You have been selected to save mankind from obliteration by Kompeting in Warner Bros. Interactive latest resurrection of the deadliest tournament ever conceived, Mortal Kombat. Prepare yourself warrior for the challenges that lie ahead of you with this review from XboxAddict, for this information could hold the key to your very salvation. As we spearhead our way into this latest installment of Mortal Kombat, NetheRealms Studios has heard the prayers, wishes, and dreams of their public who have been screaming for the Mortal Kombat series to get back to what it has always been known for, an intense and gory side scrolling fighting game. Thankfully NetheRealms Studios has granted every wish we could have ever hoped to ask for. Gone are the days of shallow fighting games as Mortal Kombat is packed with more innovation than any of us could have ever hoped for. This is a Komplete overhaul of everything that made Mortal Kombat great in the past Kombined with amazing new innovations that guarantee this Mortal Kombat a shot at the title as one of the best fighting games ever made.
The key to making a great fighting game is to ensure that your gamers get some amazing gameplay control, and in Mortal Kombat that is exactly what you will get. No longer will you have complex days of pressing 20 different buttons to perform a flashy combo or fatality, instead a more streamlined approach has been taken to appeal to a broader audience. This makes it very easy to pick up and play; however, there is more than what we see on the surface. There are basic three button Kombos that you can execute, however, the Mortal Kombat fans will rejoice at how Komplex and deep the fighting system really is. One of the most notable innovations is the inclusion of the character's special meter. Taking damage, executing special moves, and more all will fill parts of your special meter, however as you use these abilities your meter will drain. This is nothing really new; however this is one area where you will see the depth of innovation come to life.
Freezing for a moment we have to explain that your character's special meter acts in three different parts. The first part will add enhancements to your special attacks, so if normally you would shoot one fireball you now will shoot two. The second and third parts however can be Komplete game changers. The second tier of your special meter allows you to perform a Kombo breaker which is easily executed by pressing forward and RT after the first hit of a Kombo. This can quickly shift the momentum as now the roles are immediately reversed and your opponent will now be wide open for an attack. This makes every round feel like a game of both physical and mental chess as you try to outwit, focus, and find out when is the Korrect time to use your meter. The third and final tier of your special meter unlocks the infamous X-Ray mode. Konsider this to be the perfect example of the ultimate risk vs. ultimate reward. When you use your X-Ray mode you will launch an attack aimed to deal as much damage as humanly possible, however you will also be completely exposed should you miss. If you manage to Konnect with your X-Ray move, then you will be treated to a very brief and very brutal cut scene where you will see everything from your actual eyes being stabbed out, to your internal organs being ripped out, to even blades being slammed into your skull. Make your choices carefully, for they may be your last.
The graphics of Mortal Kombat is a mix of the good, and the great. Since Mortal Kombat is all about the actual Kombatants, then it is imperative to have a tremendous attention to detail of the character models. Mortal Kombat fans around the world will rejoice that NetheRealm Studios did a tremendous job at bringing your favorite characters to life like never before. One notable graphic innovation is how your characters will actually maintain the damage they receive throughout the duration of the fight. This is a nice touch because it lends itself to a more realistic approach to a fighting game. Not only will you see your own character's damage, but you will also see the blood of your opponents splatter upon you as you fracture jaw bones, explode stomachs, and rip limbs apart and more. The graphics of Mortal Kombat offers us such much more than amazing character models. The stages of Mortal Kombat have always been in iconic settings and in this latest rendition we are treated to not only new stages, but our favorite classics as well. Levels such as the Pit, The Living Forest, Goro's Lair and more have all been redone with such high caliber that when you are fighting on these stages, you will feel the spark of enjoyment reignite as you realize that this is the way Mortal Kombat should be.
Mortal Kombat has given us many great lines that all of us know by standard today. Phrases such as "Finish Him" and "Get over here" have become such an iconic tag of Mortal Kombat that you would expect the same attention to detail in the sound, unfortunately though you would be wrong. To start things off the voice overs go from tolerable to absolutely horrible at a very early stage. This could be somewhat forgiven however if the audio recordings of the voices were produced better, but they're not. In one scene you will be in the iconic monk stage of Shang Tsung's island and you will hear people talking just fine, however, when Shang Tsung speaks it sounds like he is literally thousands of miles away. I found myself having to turn up my surround sound just to hear what he has to say in the story, only to hear muffled horrible voice over. This was easily fixed however by lowering the volume to a normal level and just turning on subtitles. To be honest if it wasn't for subtitles you would have a next to impossible time trying to hear every line of dialogue. The sound effects are good, but nothing that can save the audio of the game entirely. This is one area that needs to be addressed if there is going to be a sequel.
A cornerstone factor of every great fighting game has always been a balanced and enjoyable multiplayer aspect, and NetheRealm Studios has gone to great lengths to deliver just that. Now instead of one generic lobby you have the option to create your own individual fighting lobby which you can make into a multitude of various multiplayer types from 1v1, King of the Hill, Tag Team, and more. The user interface is very simplistic and konnecting to matches could never be easier.
Some of the statistics you will find are your win/loss record, the number of times you have disconnected from a fight, konnection strength and more. This is a great filter because now if you get a challenge from an opponent who has a lot of disconnects, then you know ahead of time that this may not be the opponent for you. Having the ability to see the type of opponent you are going up against makes the multiplayer system of Mortal Kombat very stable.
Everything that has been talked about means nothing without innovation, and NetheRealm Studios has packed a tremendous amount of innovation into Mortal Kombat. Instead of just having a very long and deep single player campaign and a rock solid multiplayer system, NetheRealm Studios has graciously listened and brought back Test Your Might to Mortal Kombat. While this alone would be enough to make any Mortal Kombat fan smile, the innovations don't stop there. Now you will get to experience the thrills of Test Your Sight, Test Your Luck, and more. All of these mini games give you Koins that you can use to unlock the secrets of the crypt which will grant you things like new fatalities, costumes and more for your characters. Another innovation is the new Challenge Tower where you will have to face off in specific situations and succeed to progress onward. By Kompleting these challenges you will unlock more levels in the various mini games as well as earn Koins to spend unlocking more wonders of Mortal Kombat.
As your moment in the tournament draws closer, your fate becomes clearer with each passing moment. Mortal Kombat boasts an impressive depth fueled by massive innovations and is poised to take the crown of the undisputed champion of fighting games. Now is the time to bear witness to the resurrection of an iconic gaming series. Now is the time, to prepare yourself for Mortal Kombat!
Suggestions: Please work on the character voice overs and the overall sound of future releases.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Battle: Los Angeles
Normally I would try to tie this review in some way to drive excitement, however with Battle: Los Angeles all I can do is question the sanity of those who purchase this. With Microsoft recently releasing quality Xbox 360 Arcade titles for their "House Party," Konami has thrown their hat into the ring with their latest first person shooter Battle: Los Angeles. Ok first things first, there are a lot of first person shooters on the XBLA and so right off the bat Battle: LA has its work cut out for it. Also with the release of some major retail titles, it's easy to see that this could be passed over. Does Battle: Los Angeles deliver an experience that makes you think to yourself thank God I bought that game? Sadly no. We here at XboxAddict take pride in making sure you don't waste your valuable Microsoft Points, and sadly Battle: Los Angeles should only be picked up if it's on sale for 400 MS Points or lower, and you are really looking for an easy 200 gamerscore.
That all being said you're probably wondering why would Konami bring out such a cheap knock off of a mix of CoD and War of the Worlds? We wonder the same thing. To start things off the story is done in cell shaded comic cut scenes, which aren't so bad, but the voiceovers are so bad that you could possibly make a claim for torture.
The story itself is laughable as you fight these onion headed lumbering aliens who are apparently attacking Los Angeles. On top of all this goodness the story itself is ridiculously short. It is quite possible to complete the game from beginning to end in less than 30 mins. The only benefit of this is that it makes multiple run throughs very quick considering you will need to since the difficulty achievements do not stack. Right now I'm just hanging my head b/c Konami forces you to play through the same horrible nightmare multiple times. Now that we have established that the story is not only short, but limp and weak as well, let's turn our attention to this gameplay.
For those who have kept reading this review, I applaud your diligence and I do hope you are learning why this game needs to be avoided like the plague. In first person shooter games you would naturally think that hit detection would be something that should be focused on, maybe though the person at Konami in charge of that was sick or something. In Battle: LA the only weapon you really need is the sniper rifle. With this overpowered cannon you are able to take out enemies with one shot to the head... sometimes.
Let me give you a couple of scenarios: 1) You are a few feet away and right in front of your enemy, you take aim with the sniper rifle and you send a round through the eye and the enemy lives. 2) Same situation but you hit next to the eye and the enemy dies. To compound this frustration it becomes next to impossible to kill the enemies while they are moving. You can unload multiple rounds from the sniper into a moving enemy and accomplish nothing. Oh I almost forgot, have you ever heard people who exercise say "I've hit a wall" when they feel that they can't continue? Well in Battle: LA, you almost literally do. Your character can sprint however, as soon as his sprint is over you almost stop dead in your tracks. This is very disorienting as it literally makes you feel like you've hit a wall every time you end your sprint.
We here at XboxAddict want to take a moment to say something nice about this horrendous failure. The graphics are decent. There's probably the one nice thing you can say about this game, because you can't say it has multiplayer because it doesn't. Yep that makes sense to deliver a first person shooter without multiplayer and instead just give you a pathetic first person campaign right? Why Konami ever did that is a question we would like to have answered. The sound of Battle: LA does have moments, but they are few and far between and unfortunately the negatives far outweigh the few moments that your ears don't bleed.
We here at XboxAddict want to apologize for literally taking minutes away from your life by reading this. This is a game that Konami should never have released and if you are like us and have a positive opinion of that company, and then don't download this because it will taint your impressions of the company. The gameplay is horrendous, and the whole lack of multiplayer makes Battle: LA absolutely worthless. I can't stress enough how the only redeeming quality of this title is that there are achievements (that don't stack). Remember what we said earlier about buying this when it was on sale for 400 MS Points? Forget that, wait till it's free.
Suggestions: Konami, this is something that should have been developed more before being released as it is. Even though this is a triumphant example of garbage, we still have faith in you.
Overall Score: 4.1 / 10
Swarm
On a far off savage planet filled with dangers and traps that would drive fear into the hearts of the bravest men, we find one of the dumbest creatures in the video game world, the Swarmite. Ok now we don't claim to be the smartest group alive, but why would you trust the future survival of your race with a group of the most incompetent and worthless members of your species? When you think of advanced alien races, maybe you think of things like Predator, Alien, or Yoda. When Hothead Games thinks of alien races, they think of incompetent creatures the size and color of Smurf poo. We understand it's for humor, but honestly you will feel your I.Q. drop 10 points just by buying this game. Originally Swarm was a contest winning idea from the Great Canadian Video Game Competition, hereby Hothead Games received a nice check for $300k to further develop this sadistic failure.
The basic story behind Swarm is that an alien race needs to survive so this mammoth glob of jelly lands on a planet and drives a tentacle deep into the planet's many layers. No we are not talking about a hentai game here, but it is through this tentacle that your Swarmites are... well... ejected. These Swarmites must venture through death dealing obstacles in a quest to collect various DNA strands that it must feed back into "Momma". By rinse and repeating this method you will successfully save your alien species.
Ok now to keep the story somewhat entertaining, Hothead Games decided to try their luck by adding humor to the game, but unfortunately that didn't go over so well. While the humor of the story is initially funny, it wears off very fast and quickly becomes more annoying as you progress. The same can also be said for the Swarmite interactions with the traps as they quickly become very repetitive. So this is what wins $300k in Canada, eh? Right, moving right along...
The gameplay of Swarm is pretty innovative and quite possibly one of its strong points. By utilizing various button combinations, you will be able to direct your Swarmites to do your bidding. Multiple actions such as: creating a tall thin tower of Swarmites, a spread out a field of Swarmites, forming a tight cluster of Swarmites, and more are all available to help you solve the forthcoming puzzles. Your Swarmites though are not without the ability to attack, when pushed, a group of Swarmites can become like a violent "Who" mob and dash forward at the target, taking it out. While the gameplay is innovative and fresh, it is outweighed by the other sub-par or below qualities of this game.
When it comes to sound, you have to make sure you deliver a pleasurable experience to compliment the graphics and gameplay, and does Swarm do this? We're sorry to say, but no. The sounds you hear from the Swarmites become so vastly annoying that you find yourself pleading with the game to end the level so you don't have to hear any more. You would hope though that things ended there and that all is well with the rest, well you would be wrong.
The main soundtrack that fills each level is so annoying that it will begin to drive you absolutely up the wall, but we here at XboxAddict.com are problem solvers so what we recommend is playing the game with your sound on mute. You quite honestly don't need to hear anything anyways so why deliberately subject yourself to unnecessary pain?
Swarm does produce some decent graphics, but nothing I would put in the plus category. There are some times when the action does get hectic and your screen fills with colorful explosions complimented with blue paste from your exploding Swarmites, but even these moments can become very annoying by almost blanketing the screen to prevent you from seeing anything. The really only significant plus in the graphics would be how the Swarmites interact with each other. With each Swarmite having its own intelligence it's just a recipe for disaster.
Hothead Games has really gone out on a limb here by creating a more sadistic twist to what is essentially a psychotic lemming game on steroids right before a week long bender. Now we do understand that $300k is not a lot to develop a quality title, however the last blow hits us below the belt and I?m talking about where you put your wallet. You see if you want to lose weight, don't go to the gym, but buy Swarm instead because your wallet will be lighter by $15. Yes, that?s right we saved the best for last. All this wonderful goodness can be yours for the low price of $15! How do you say ****ing rip-off in Swarmite?
Overall Score: 6.6 / 10
Crysis 2
So you're the new big gun everyone on the field is talking about. Walking in with your shiny new nanosuit thinking you're going to just waltz in and save the day right? Well Alcatraz, before you go off laying waste to The Big Apple with your new found toy, take a minute and get debriefed about XboxAddict's review of what we got right here, Crysis 2 because those who do not learn from the past, are doomed to repeat it. Originally Crysis took place on the Lingshan Islands away from the US, but now the danger has stepped over our welcome mat and kicked down our front door. You're an elite soldier of war Alcatraz. You're a Force Recon Marine, and mankind's only hope for survival. Welcome to New York, hope you brought a miracle.
In the original Crysis, we brought the fight to the aliens. We sent in an elite squad called Raptor Team (Nomad, "Psycho", Aztec, Jester and Prophet) and they were comprised of the best we had to offer. I believe you met one of them already. It took an entire team effort just too barely make it out, now though, the whole thing rests on your shoulders. Armed with your new nanosuit and a bunch of other toys, you'll need a prayer as you take on The City that Never Sleeps, the apparent "Manhattan" virus, oh and this little alien invasion we have by the Cephaloids. Be careful who you put your faith into Alcatraz, for it may doom all of mankind if you fail. Now pay attention for some details before the war on Crysis 2. I pray you succeed Alcatraz because we have no one left.
Make sure you got that nanosuit worked out because when it comes to gameplay, Crysis 2 delivers such a wealth of innovation that it not only raises the bar, but throws it through the ceiling and smashes it to pieces. To start off the innovation eruption we have to shed some light on the nanosuit. This super hero style combat suit is not only your biggest weapon, but also your biggest supporter throughout the entire game. By utilizing either the RB or LB buttons you can make your suit hard like tank armor, or go Predator style and cloak your way through danger. The suit though does more than just give you options as to how you would like to play, but it also offers a wide range of visual aids as well.
For starters with the push of a button you can call upon your suit's visor to help you locate and mark key locations, enemies, weapons and more, and it can do all of this through walls, floors, and ceilings making your visor absolutely critical if you wish to survive New York. The visor however, isn't finished yet because it offers you a tremendous bonus by allowing you to switch to thermal view as well so you can track fast moving aliens with ease.
Another great innovation of the suit is the ability to customize it. Throughout the game when you kill the alien enemies you will obtain material needed to upgrade a lot of the suit's many functions, as well open more of the suit up for you. You can gain such improvements as an armor upgrade to ensure you make it through the gunfights, tracking incoming fire to help you designate where the threat is, stealth upgrade so you can stay cloaked longer and allow you the time to gain that critical flanking position, and more. This alone would make any title an instant classic, but the innovations of the gameplay continue.
One of the most major innovation changes in Crysis 2 is the control scheme. As Crysis was only available on PC format, the controls this time seem more streamlined and simplified so that the game could run on consoles. This not only makes the game feel more streamlined, but easier to pick up and play for those who haven't played the original.
Crysis 2's innovation however also spills out into New York itself by allowing you to choose how you want to play. You can opt for the more straight forward "spray and pray" or "run and gun", but instead of just throwing you into such a linear level bottle neck, Crysis 2 offers gamers multiple ways to handle any situation. Most of the time the decisions will be simple, however, there are times when the right choice may not be running straight in blasting away.
You can customize how you play, you can customize your own nanosuit, and to wrap up the customization Crysis 2 allows you to customize your weapons. By upgrading to items such as extra-long magazines, under barrel shotguns, silencers, sights and more, Crysis 2's gameplay truly lets you customize and play how you want. To say that the gameplay of Crysis 2 is perfect wouldn't be true, to say that the gameplay of Crysis 2 is one of the best we will ever see is dead on accurate.
When Crysis originally launched it was inundated with acclimations of fame for their graphics and their physics. With Crysis 2, it's safe to say that the mantle better be ready because more awards are coming. With consoles being very limited compared to a PC, Crysis 2 delivers a phenomenal graphical performance on the Xbox 360. Without question this is one of the most beautiful games you will ever see on the 360. The lighting coming in between the buildings, the smoke coming up from the fire, water running down your visor, and a lot more of these amazing little touches have all been combined to deliver one of, if not the best graphical experience you have ever had on the Xbox 360.
One of the key staples to Crysis's fame is the physics. With the original being herald as some of the best physics ever produced in a video game, Crytek had more than its work cut out for it when it came to Crysis 2. With the setting being the major metropolitan city New York, Crysis 2's physics set an industry standard as you witness buildings collapsing around you, windows shattering from gunfire, cars exploding into the sky, and more. Get ready to experience one of the best looking games we will ever see on the Xbox 360.
The sound of Crysis 2 is quite honestly one of the game's weakest points. While the soundtrack does little to bring New York to life, one of the bigger issues is the sound effects and voice overs. The soundtrack is relatively flat and offers a marginal success, but the sound effects and voice overs just drag this game's audio experience straight down. They seem laughable at best, and that is seen esp. at the end of the levels as you hear nothing but annoying voice overs trying to guide you to your next objective. Granted it's a fault, but if as much attention to the visuals was put into the sound, then this game would be an unquestioned icon.
When it comes to first person shooters, a lot of the game's credit resides in its multiplayer. Thankfully Crysis 2 has taken some of the best aspects from other successful multiplayer gameplay and incorporated those winning features into their own multiplayer. Crysis 2 offers a bounty of player upgrades through its player progression system which if we're honest does feel a lot similar to CoD. In Crysis 2 however, you cannot change how your player looks; however, you can upgrade things like weapon loadouts and suit modules which bring you new weapons, attachments, and more.
Crysis 2 offers up six multiplayer options which are variants of classic multiplayer gametypes such as team deathmatch, CTF, and more. Each round your character will earn xp which can be used to upgrade your suit and weapons, so it will seem that every round brings you one game closer to that new weapon upgrade, or that new suit ability. With a solid multiplayer foundation and a more than ample player upgrade system, Crysis 2 is poised to become the king of FPS on consoles.
As we reload and prep for re-deployment, we have to easily classify this as a game of the year contender. Crysis 2 offers quite possibly the best graphical experience you will ever find on the Xbox 360. On top of that, Crysis 2 delivers unparalleled physics and a very solid and deep multiplayer experience. Great new gameplay innovations and a redesigned control scheme, mean that it's easier to pick up and play. Crysis 2 is a phenom of a game and many factors have already become an instant industry standard. Now Alcatraz, go bring humanity another fighting chance!
Overall Score: 8.9 / 10
Torchlight
Welcome young adventurer, you are chosen to be the salvation of a town and its people. You are chosen to be the vanquisher of evil throughout the depths below. You are chosen to aid those throughout your quest. You are the chosen savior of the town of Torchlight. Here in Torchlight you will find many things to aid your quest from different swords, staffs, bows, to magical items such as different embers and rings. Take heed though young adventurer, the depths of Torchlight are not to be taken lightly. Grab your weapon of choice, stock up on your potions, and say a prayer as we delve head first into the XboxAddict review of Torchlight.Torchlight is made by the team at Runic Games and brings a very deep and advanced dungeon crawling experience to the Xbox Live Arcade. Originally released back in October 2009, Torchlight has put Runic Games on the map due to the high quality title developed seemingly out of nowhere from a company no one really heard of. Now almost a year and a half later, Microsoft decided to grant the wishes of many gamers and release as part of their house party promotion this fantastic arcade title. The big question when it comes to arcade games is: "Is this worth my money/Microsoft points?" Throughout your reading you will see why not only is the answer yes, but you will also see why this could easily be the best arcade title we see this year.
You will start Torchlight by selecting your character from one of the three available and each specializing in either melee attacks, ranged attacks, or magic attacks. All the characters have their own special abilities that they can learn and develop which gives Torchlight amazing character depth. After your character is created you are ready to start your quests from the villagers of Torchlight. There is a main quest you can follow which will lead you throughout the depths of the dungeons ahead, however, there are other villagers who require your assistance in completing missions of their own and in doing so will reward you with fame, gold, items, and xp. There are shops that are scattered around the town that offer various services and goods, but one that stands out is the Transmuter. The service that the Transmuter offers is the ability to combine items and embers to create new magical objects which can drastically change the tides of war in your favor. Now that you have your character all prepared it's time we venture down into the depths and explore some more of the crypts of Torchlight!
Torchlight offers a very simplistic, yet complex gameplay experience. Sure you can just walk around and press one button to attack, but Torchlight offers so much more in the range of magic and abilities. You can have multiple ability menus that you can cycle between with the push of a button which means that your gameplay experience will be incredibly unique to how you want to play.
A nice innovative touch is the addition of a pet that offers gamers a wealth of new options. For starters your pet can learn spells such as fire, ice, and more, and all of which will aid in your battles. Another role your pet can be used for is storage. This will prove invaluable throughout your quests as you can send your pet back to town to sell the goods it carries and bring back the value in gold. Another one of Torchlight's great gameplay additions is retirement. Once your character has leveled up sufficiently, you can choose to retire your character and in doing so grant specific perks and benefits to a newly created character. What this essentially means is that you can play through this game for many months and still be working towards perfection.
The graphics in Torchlight are a multi-colored treat to behold. Each level offers an environment that is simplistic, beautiful, and deadly. You will traverse environments such as rocky dark crypts, fiery lava pits, murky deep swamps, and more as you push through the 30+ levels of Torchlight. The combat sequences are beautiful and when the action gets frantic and epic you will see some vibrant colored explosions engulfing your screen. The overall graphics are smooth and the character models are very detailed for an arcade game, however with almost two years since its original launch, you get the feeling that they could have done more with the graphics.
The sound of Torchlight is truly a diamond in the rough. Runic did a brilliant move in gaining the assistance of Matt Uelmen who is the composer and sound designer for iconic game Diablo. The score of Torchlight itself is a masterpiece and it is complimented beautifully by amazing sound effects. Everything from spells being casted and swords clashing, to guns shooting wildly and bombs exploding combine with the music to produce one amazing auditory experi you have to ask yourself: "Is this game worth my money/Microsoft points?" The answer is undoubtedly yes. Rarely will we see an arcade game that can keep you playing for well over double the amount of hours as some retail titles. Rarer still to see an arcade game that can do all of this with such amazing quality and innovation. By offering up one of the best dungeon crawlers since Diablo, you already know that Torchlight is a must have for your arcade library.
Suggestions: 1. Bring Torchlight 2 to the Xbox 360 platform with multiplayer.
2. Update the graphics
Overall Score: 8.2 / 10
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
TA-DA! Who dares summon the master of glib, the deliverer of one-liners and the shogun of sarcasm? Oh wait, it's just the loyal followers of XboxAddict probably looking for their stolen review of Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. Well let me tell you something, Deadpool lives by the phrase "finders keepers", and since my plans got foiled in an earlier review of a spidey game, so I took my revenge and now the review is mine! hahahahaha... wait, the cameras weren't rolling? Ugh... Ok kiddies gather around and uncle Deadpool will tell you a story of combat, of overcoming obstacles, of triumph, of failure, of ME! Now earlier when I said stole this review, what I meant to say was that XboxAddict let me ummmm.. borrow.. yeah that's it.. borrow this review so that I may educate you on why I'm the greatest, or at least what the good and bad points are in this game. MvC3 is the third installment into the MvC series and this highly anticipated title has many reasons to rejoice, and sadly has areas that need some improvement on.
However, one problem uncle Deadpool has that I have to mention straight away is that I was promised a character in the game 40 feet high with lasers coming out of his hands that could take out anyone and anything and did Deadpool get it? Noooooooooooo, in fact Deadpool isn't 40 feet tall and have laser beams shooting everywhere, in the game Deadpool is made out to be a short guy with a small bulge. Is that fair? I say no! Instead they give it to this guy who apparently eats planets and has a tuning fork for a helmet. How is that any better? (Deep breaths....) Ok now back to the game.
Our story begins as Doctor Doom and his team of evil baddies attempt to join forces with Albert Wesker to unite the worlds and conquer both. As usual, nothing goes according to plan and during this great debacle some great big purple planet people eater comes out of nowhere and tries to eat the planet. Well yours truly isn't going to let some big guy with munchies take over and win so that's when we all team up... to fight each other so... we can fight him. Simple, yes?
One of the staples of the MvC series has always been the graphics and how MvC games have always been incredibly fast and over the top with their quality. MvC3 sets a new bar in this series just in graphics alone. The new character modeling is amazing and provides some of the best graphics we have seen in a fighting game. Most of your favorites return and everyone has a new and improved look, including uncle Deadpool! Seriously though, you have any idea how hard it is to find a joint that'll serve a guy in a mask and bandolier? They won't even let me into Taco Bell! Fluid graphics is what would make or break this game in the graphics category and in MvC3 your eyes will be amazed as you witness the many graphically impressive special moves fly all over the screen in the blink of an eye.
Something though didn't sit right with uncle Deadpool and that was you could only play a few stages and that there was hardly any stage interaction at all. The stages that they do have are done beautifully, however, with all the different characters you would think that one thing that they had a lot of were stages right? I did. Also with all these new improvements to the graphics, why couldn't we have any multi stages or stage interaction. I can tell you now that I'd get a kick throwin that grumpy maple leaf wolf through that big spidey balloon hahahaha. One of the things that make the MvC games a classic success is the music.
The MvC series has always prided itself on producing music that delivers the final shot of adrenaline to your heart as your slam down the buttons to attack and I'm happy to say that the tradition continues. During the matches you will hear individual character audio themes that will help bring your blood pressure up as you prepare for a wuppin. This is perfect as MvC3 gives you some remixes of the classic tracks throughout the series with a sprinkle of new audio gems. Something that surprised uncle Deadpool was how they have the characters give some audio voice overs that are varied between taunts and generalized statements of superiority. They even stole some of my best one liners! The voice acting along with the sound effects are done very well and adds a little cherry to the top of this audio cake.
The gameplay in the MvC series has always been easy to just pick up and play, but incredibly difficult to master. In MvC3 they have added a new twist to the control scheme by completely remapping the buttons to a light, medium, heavy, special attack scheme instead of sticking with the famous two punch and two kick style. What this means is that Capcom has decided to try to tone down the learning curve by completely changing the controls around. Is that fair?? Oh and if you are still having trouble mastering the controls the people at Capcom have installed a new control style called "simple". So now not only can you execute moves and special attacks easier, but you feel like you have to wear a dunce cap while you play.
The gameplay though is incredibly smooth and has included new additions to enhance the experience such as air juggles where now you can switch to your other team members by pressing any direction on the pad and your special attack button. There's more to it though as your opponent can counter that if they push the same direction on the pad as you do, so be smart or it could turn out badly for you at the end. Oh and did I mention how all this wonderful gameplay blazes through your screen at lightspeed? Yeah this game is amazingly quick. While some of the new players to the MvC series may see this game's gameplay as a good thing, hardcore fans of the series may feel that Capcom dumbed down the controls.
There are some issues that did get uncle Deadpool hot under the collar. For starters the roster has almost been cut in half from 56 playable characters down to 36 and four of them are locked. I think for a game that is trying to stand out and excel, dropping the roster by 20 and cutting some of the iconic figures like mega man, venom and more was a mistake. Who's going to argue against Deadpool right? There are some new characters and some of your favorites do make a return, however despite the slash of the roster the game still feels balanced.
Another issue that hurt this game was the feeling that they could have done more, but for some reason hadn't. Over the years the Capcom Vs series have implemented some amazing innovations, yet for MvC3 they seem to have come up short. MvC3 could have easily brought us a survival mode, a spectator mode where we can view the matches ongoing online, alternate endings, extra stages, more characters, but for some reason none of these things are included.
Ultimately MvC3 offers an amazing experience for your eyes and ears, however, with the new mapped control style and absence of many possible features and additions, this game is an example of something that could have been great, but now is just ok. For a fighting game to stand out it has to capture the wow factor and has to find a way to maintain it, however while MvC3 delivers the wow with the audio and graphics, the vast majority of hardcore fans will see this as half the game it should have been.
There are some aspects that make Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds great, however, with some of the other choices out there in the fighting game genre, one would be hard pressed to say that this one is the best. It's quite a disappointment though, because when we all got to see this game from its beginning stages we thought that we were witnessing the birth of what could have been one of the greatest fighting games of all time, instead we are left with a shell and something that will probably be milked for its DLC add-on's. Is this a resurrection in the Marvel Vs Capcom series? Unfortunately no.
Suggestions: More characters (that are not paid for by DLC), more stages (that are not paid for by DLC), more features such as survival mode, spectator mode and more. A 40' high Deadpool with laser beams coming out of his hands and a blonde supermodel at his side.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Bulletstorm
Well, well, well... What do we have here? You must be our new recruit that signed up to join our $^@#ing crew. Do you have what it takes @$$clown to make it in our group? Quit f$%@ing talking because we will see if you can dish out as much $hit as your mom can talk. Plug your gun into any enemy hole you can find and let loose all that steamy hot lead and get ready to unload a title wave of ammo and unleash your... well leash as you get your skull thumped in this latest game from People Can Fly and Epic called Bulletstorm. Earlier, Xbox Live gamers got a treat as a demo of Bulletstorm went live and gave us a taste of what it's like to shoot someone in the balls, then kick their f$%^ing head right off. The full retail game delivers much more than the demo and the crew at People Can Fly have a truly Epic hit on their hands. Now we here at XboxAddict are going to show your ignorant @$$ what the f#$k is really up as we take you by the hand and lead your baby nuts through all the aspects of this gory, and hilarious shooter. F$%k a helmet, here's a cup, get ready.
To start things off one of the great aspects of a game is the story. The demo thankfully didn't do anything f#$%ing stupid by leaking critical points, and that is one of Bulletstorm's biggest surprises. You take control of the main bad@$$ named Grayson Hunt and follow his adventures on a crazy alien planet with one of his crew named Ishi, not sushi @$$hole. You are a leader of a group of elite Confederate soldiers, or assassins if you want to be technical, and right from the beginning you are thrust into a world of $hit as everything gets turned upside down and craps on your head. The story goes on and the adventure you partake in delivers an amazing and hilarious experience that should only be experienced by those who have gone through puberty. Bottom line, if your nuts have dropped and you feel like you can handle a stiff challenge for yourself, then unzip because in Bulletstorm, weak @$$ b!tches need not apply.
Graphically the game is one of the most beautiful games you'll ever see on the Xbox 360. The geniuses at People Can Fly and Epic have stuffed this game's glory hole with so much f$@#ing beauty that your eyes will be climaxing with every f$@#ing turn. The background and settings are better than we could ever expect and the detail work on the textures are done so masterfully that Bulletstorm does a wonderful job immersing yourself into this strange and f$#@ed up alien planet. The character modeling is another great surprise as you can see every little detail in the faces and bodies that you shove your boot up into. Watch as you literally kick the f#@$ing teeth right out of your opponent as your boot crushes it's jaw and sends him flying right off the cliff, screaming all the way down like a little b!tch. The environment is not only beautiful but it's one deadly son of a b!tch, and if you're not careful, you won't be the only thing being called a prick.
The sound of Bulletstorm relies heavily on its dialogue. The music alone is average and I think one of the weakest points of the game. That's a big f$#@ing disappointment coming from an audiophile @$$hole like myself. The music you hear throughout the game varies between generic melodic music that you have come to expect, to a more intense action sequence that is sampled over and over and over again (until you defeat all the enemies, then it's back to square one again). The main enjoyment throughout the audio of Bulletstorm like we said, is the conversations you have throughout the game. The humor is something that will either make you feel disgusted, or if you're not namby-pamby, make you laugh and enjoy hearing everything. I do wish that Bulletstorm incorporated a voice over for the different types of kills. I'd rather hear a deep sadistic voice boom over the speakers and yell "GANG BANG", other than just reading the pop up that comes up on the screen. I didn't make the game so oh f$#@ing well.
Play control innovation in a first person shooter is something that is critical to set you apart from the other games in the genre. Bulletstorm; I'm proud to say does come from the "Duty free" store and offers some Epic innovations that solve the not so fresh feeling that we get from generic copies of sequels. For starters, yes you have the generic aim and shoot buttons, you can switch weapons, so you may be asking yourself now "what the f$#k is so innovative about Bulletstorm?" Well for starters @$$munch, to help keep things fluid you are given a sliding boot kick which will help keep your @$$ out of the line of fire as you zip your way to your enemy and ultimately knocking the ever loving $hit out of them. This is a very useful tool as you can slide between cover and shove your boot up an enemies' @$$hole. The targeting is generic and does offer a snap feature which will allow you to quickly lock onto a target and have your way with them, which in a heated gunfight can be the difference between living and becoming compost. Another great innovation is the energy leash. Just like the nightmares you may have of getting your hands rapped by a nun's yardstick for mouthing off, the leash constantly grades your performance and will reward you if you do something right, but punish you if your showboating falls short of success. You can use your leash, not only on enemies, but on the environment as well which makes this multi-tool one of your most dangerous weapons in the game. Not only can you just whip it out on some enemies, but you can also upgrade your leash to deliver a womping thump to the ground which will send all enemies and explosive elements in the area flying into the air where you have multiple options to deal out death. One drawback of Bulletstorm is that the levels are very linear, so exploration of this beautiful planet is highly limited; however, this allows you to focus more on making another hole in your enemy than searching for something completely pointless. In the end though, it's not so bad of a trade off, if you're looking to explore a vast planet, then go buy yourself some diapers, a bottle, and a different game, if you're looking to prove to everyone that you are a lead slinging, ball grabbing, mother f#$%er, then this is for you.
Another great aspect of Bulletstorm is the multiplayer. If you're lucky enough to have friends (besides your mom), then Bulletstorm offers some entertaining and amazing co-op action. Finding its way into is a pseudo horde mode called Anarchy which will allow you and 3 other friends to form a 4 person group of sheer annihilation. Wave after wave of different enemies and even mini bosses will appear to make sure that you have a really $hity day. Leveling up is the name of the game and there are achievements to unlock for you gamerscore whores out there so make sure you work together as a team, otherwise you'll be punching your pud solo and that will only lead you to a quick trip to the clouds. Echo mode is basically a watered down version of the campaign so if you wish to be a dumb f$%#ing piece of monkey spunk, then by all means play Echo mode first. Throughout Echo mode you are graded not just on how big your balls are with your killing skills, but how fast and efficient you can traverse the levels. Take your time and you'll be completely worthless, speed through it and you'll become a bad@$$, it's a simple concept to understand, even if you ride the short bus. If you're done with pre-school, you'll be able to rack up thousands of points and bathe the screen red with your target's blood.
This game has a lot of good things going for it but one jewel that has to be mentioned are the skill shots themselves. Throughout the game you'll experience tag lines such as "Gang Bang", "Topless", "Pricked", "Shocker", and one of my personal favorites "Ejaculation" (this happens when you send an enemy out an airlock). You do have your basic headshot skills but let's face it, headshots are something that everyone has experienced before in a first person shooter, so the real fun comes from you trying your hardest to think of creative ways to send your enemies to their maker. If you want to see who is the biggest d!ck out there, the scores from the kills in your game will dispel any fantasy thoughts. Your score from the various skill shots will add up and just like life, size does matter.
Bulletstorm offers a great innovative fresh perspective on how to deliver a fantastic first person shooter title. While sticking to the foundations that we all grew up on, Bulletstorm drags us from the breast kicking and screaming only to find out that we get a bottle of Jack to suckle from now on. Bulletstorm caters to our darker sadistic side which we all have wanted to let out. You won't find any bull$h!t tangos and by the end of Bulletstorm you'll be saying "Chief this." Bulletstorm is a must have for anyone who has ever wanted to shove a gun up an enemies' @$$hole, whisper in their ear "Go F$@k yourself", then shoot their load deep inside till they are pasted all over the ground. Now the only question is, why the f$#ck are you reading this and not playing Bulletstorm?
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Dead Space 2
(Church of Unitology announcement coming through your earpiece)"Welcome brothers and sisters of Xbox Addict to the Chapel of Unitology here on The Sprawl.... While you stay here please take a moment to".... (heavy static)... (Voice override) "Are you there??.... ARE YOU THERE??"... (heavy static)... "and under no circumstances should you ever"... (heavy static)... (Voice override) "Damit, increase signal
NOW!! Listen, you are in grave danger! Look here! In EA's latest installment into the survival horror genre, Dead Space 2, you will see that Isaac Clarke returns to this very location, not only to survive and stop the outbreak, but to seek the truth to a lot of questions...
Quickly, you must hurry, read the truth for yourself!!!... Seek out the... yourself... and always remember... (signal lost)...
Visceral games and EA have once again sent out minds into the depths of madness in Dead Space 2. Our famous engineer, Isaac Clarke returns after a horrific experience aboard the Ishimura, only to find that his troubles are far from over, and this time, he not only confronts necromorphs bent on killing him, but Isaac Clark must confront his own mind and try to decipher what really is the truth before his own mind plays a trick that even Isaac won't survive.
To make a triumphant return, Visceral made sure that Isaac had a massive lethal arsenal of weapons at his disposal. The infamous Plasma Cutter returns as well as the Ripper and more, but in Dead Space 2, Isaac gets some new toys to play with such as a Javelin Gun where one shot will literally send a necromorph off its feet, and impale them into the surface behind them. This is especially handy as it ties into a great new innovation from Visceral and EA, windows that can be blown out. The reason this is so innovative is because now you actually get to feel like you are in space. Now when you destroy a window to the outside, you will find yourself being sucked out just like all the enemies, and here is where your nerves will have to be like ice as you must shoot the controls above the security door to close it, or it's bye bye Isaac. Sounds simple, but when you have multiple necromorphs and flying debris to help push you out the window, you only have a few seconds before it's game over.
Not only does Isaac return with a vengeance, but the horror does as well. Dead Space 2 delivers a soul chilling horror story that will keep you gripped from beginning to end, and they do this by manipulating your greatest weapon, your mind. One of the biggest shoes that Dead Space 2 has to fill is the story. The story of Dead Space was very original, innovative, and produced brilliantly, and in Dead Space 2 Visceral and EA spared no expense to bring you a story that will make your heart explode, every nerve stand on end, and your mind blown away.
Visceral brings the iconic horror game to life by giving us some of the darkest, twisted, and dementedly beautiful graphics that we have ever seen. Your eyes will praise this game as you take in all the detail of The Sprawl and notice how every inch of this game is blanketed with such a feeling of pure terror. Some areas will seem familiar and even similar in some aspects to the original, however, these areas are few and far between and when compared to the overall detail and beauty of The Sprawl, they become a fleeting memory. The character modeling in Dead Space 2 is some of the best you will find in any survival horror game. Visceral has done an amazing job bringing terror to life and it's shows in every necromorph you encounter, as you see every little vein, tooth, and drop of bile ooze from your unfortunate victims.
A key component in any survival horror game is the lighting. In Dead Space 2, your eyes will behold some incredible lighting effects that accent the game's beauty and will drive every nerve ending in your body to stand straight up. Get ready for one of the most beautifully detailed and demented survival horror games of all time.
An aspect that will either make or break a survival horror game is the music. Dead Space brought us an acoustic gem that drove our ears and minds wild as we hear various noises echo throughout the halls of the Ishimura. Dead Space 2 delivers improvement in all the sounds and music that made the original such an iconic hit. We are treated to a little more orchestral soundtrack, however, when the ambient sounds get combined this time, Dead Space 2 unleashes a sonic marvel that will drive your heart rate up, make your hands sweat, and torment the very inner workings of your mind. Every aspect of Dead Space 2's audio has been taken into account and improved upon and your ears will hear every moment of it as you progress through your nightmare. You will hear crackling announcements warning of danger, panic stricken survivors running for their lives, security agents screaming as they are torn apart, even the inner thoughts of Isaac's own mind. Hearing a baby cry while witnessing
violent hallucinations screaming through your ears are just a sample of some of the psychotic sound combinations that permeate every facet of The Sprawl. All of these audio factors and more play a very intricate role in creating one of the best survival horror games you will ever play.
The gameplay of Dead Space 2 is simplistic in theory: Take what was good from the original game and improve it, take what was bad and innovate it into something good. You still get the same third person point of view, and you still get the same movement and gun control feelings but in Dead Space 2 everything seems more polished and natural which only adds to the realistic nature of the game and increases the horror immensely.
Some of the great new innovations that you have in Dead Space 2 would be the inclusion of a more Advanced Navigation system. Now when you use the navigation system by pressing in the RS, you can push up or down on the direction pad and generate different colored lines which signify store locations, save points, and work benches. This is an innovation which I found very useful as I spent time wandering around looking for work benches and stores in the original game. Now, within seconds, you can instantly search for nearby point of interest other than your checkpoint.
Another massive improvement is the zero g controls. The original game's zero g felt clunky at times, and this has all been improved upon by the addition of flight control thrusters built into the suit along the shoulders and feet. Controlling Isaac in space now is much more fluid and simplistic as you can steer in multiple directions by using the LS as a guide. Another improvement in the zero g gameplay is the ability to re-center your view to the ground with the push of one button. This helps should you try to navigate vertical twisted areas (there's a hint).
There is a new innovation in Dead Space 2, and that is the innovation of multiplayer. Normally games that are terrific single player games do not do well when it comes to multiplayer because you are trying to make a single player game into something that it originally is not. Dead Space 2's multiplayer takes similar cues from a game called Left 4 Dead. There are two teams, one of them humans and the other are the necromorphs. The humans will play Isaac like characters and try to work together to accomplish and achieve goals, the necromorphs are there to make sure that does not happen. Dead Space 2's multiplayer works hard to deliver a new experience, but some could argue that this should have been a feature that wasn't included until it was fully developed.
As we end our journey through The Sprawl, we wanted to deliberately leave out any information on the story because that is the heart and core of Dead Space 2. The story is one of the best you will ever experience, and every moment of it makes you feel like your heart will explode out of your chest.
To follow an iconic game like Dead Space, Visceral and EA had a monumental challenge ahead of them with Dead Space 2, and they set the bar for the competition at almost unattainable levels. When you have the combination of innovative and improved gameplay mixed with sounds and screams of unholy terror and a story that will haunt your mind and ultimately destroy it in the end, then you have one of, if not the best survival horror game ever, you have Dead Space 2.
Suggestions: Improve the multiplayer and then this will be flawless.
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Benvenuto ai miei fratelli all'assassino ufficiale Xbox Drogato riesame dell'assassino del Credo: Fraternità. Welcome my Assassin brothers to the official Xbox Addict review of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Roma is calling us back to continue the adventure that started many years ago. Many new innovazioni have been included in this latest titolo from Ubisoft which rekindles the fire that burns deep within our souls. Grab your blade assassino and join us as we answer the call of Roma, the call of the Assassins.One of the many highlights of the Assassin's Creed games, has always been a very well developed story, and in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (ACB), Ubisoft brings us back to the Animus to hopefully answer some very important questions. If you haven't had the chance to enjoy the previous Assassin's Creed games you will not feel lost, because the very opening of the game includes a brief synopsis of AC I and AC II, so when you start out you will be up to speed. Ubisoft has done a very good job in answering a difficult question, and that is "how do you start a story for someone when they are coming in towards the end of the story?". Even though you will get a synopsis in the beginning, I would only recommend playing this if you have played through the previous Assassin's Creed titles so that you can enjoy the entire story. With such a strong focus on ensuring a very deep, well developed story, ACB leaps ahead with mammoth new innovations, all the while delivering both an epic single player campaign, and now a very innovative multiplayer game mode. One of the core qualities of the AC games has been amazing gameplay control, and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood delivers another dagger as we get some new controls with the carismatico assassino, Ezio.
In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Ubisoft has taken the already amazing gameplay and injected some amazing new innovations that take your experience to a whole new level. One of the first new innovations you will come to enjoy is the inclusion of horse combat. Now Ezio can draw his weapon, lock onto targets, and even run enemies down on the fly. The innovations continue with horse combat as Ezio has the ability to not just attack someone from a horse, but now you can assassinate your target from a horse. When you assassinate an enemy on another horse, Ezio leaps from his horse and in one swift move, mounts, assassinates, and steals the horse. A great time to use this technique, for example, is when there are multiple armored foes on horses, and if you time it right, you can make Ezio jump between multiple enemies and drop the entire squad without raising any alarms. One thing that you must remember though is horses do not blend in. A good assassin blends into their environment, and riding on top of a horse while in town puts a bigger target on your back. Another amazing innovation brought to life in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is the ability to train your own brotherhood of assassins.
By rescuing villagers that need your aid, you can recruit them to your fratellanza. Once recruited you can send them off to perform various jobs all throughout Europe and more. Once the mission is complete you are rewarded with gold, and your assassin is awarded EXP and can level themselves up by increasing armor and weapons as they work their way through their way up to the top and become an assassino. This new innovation offers you a whole new level of gameplay as now you can create your own army of assassins which if they are not on a mission can assist you in times of need. If you have a small army in front of you, call upon your fratelli to unleash a storm of arrows that clears the way. On top of all the wonderful new innovations, the core gameplay returns with a polish that makes Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood a free running, rooftop jumping, eagle diving epic experience from beginning to end.
Europe comes to life in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and with the new landscape you are treated to wondrous new landmarks, detailed new cities, and new tombs and treasure to discover. There are moments that will leave you dazed in delight, such as climbing the Colosseo and overlooking the city at sunset, to exploring an ancient tomb to discover its treasure. Every facet of the graphics has been touched upon and all of this added effort shows off as you traverse through the various levels and cities. While the graphics do look very similar to AC II, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood improved the best, dropped the rest, and developed a breathtaking setting that your eyes will enjoy from sunrise to sunset. Not only has the environment received a beautiful polished touch, but the character modeling has also been given this gift. All the characters are shown with a very high attention to detail and when you see the characters interact with you and with one another, it's amazing how the citizens literally seem to come to life. Just like the paintings you can buy in the game, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a fast and fluid, beautiful piece of art.
In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood your ears will have a feast of beautiful sounds as you traverse the city and progress through the story. Different environments will produce different music that can leave you speechless, such as hearing a haunting melody of strings as you climb a viewpoint to open up more of your map; or drive your heart beat as you get ready to unleash death from above on an unsuspecting guard as you infiltrate a castello.
The voice acting in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is a showcase of quality from the very beginning moments. The voices combine with the character animation to make every encounter more believable than the one before it. Ubisoft also brings the cities to life by bringing your ears the sounds of the cities to add a layer of realism and allow your ears to enjoy every aspect of your avventura. Another audio treat that you will receive are great detailed combat sounds. All the sound effects from arrows bouncing off heavy armor, to swords clashing in the heat of battle have been painstakingly produced to help immerse you deeper into the world of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and from start to finish your ears will be thanking you.
One of the biggest worries for great single player games is always the inclusion of multiplayer. Since the beginning, Assassin's Creed games have always focused on giving you one of the best single player experiences you will ever find in gaming, however Ubisoft brings a highly innovative multiplayer experience in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Multiple game modes are available, however the innovation comes in the form of how to play. You have a target locater in the bottom middle which will fill up the closer you get to your target, but here is the key, make sure you find the right target. When you're the hunter, you're stalking, observing, and waiting for that right moment to strike. When you're the hunted however, the game becomes one of survival. Finding places to blend in can be the difference between living to fight another day or finding a knife pierced through your back. Finding your prey also involves a lot of observation as you can unlock perks such as disguise and morph to help you slip amongst the crowds. If you were wondering if Ubisoft could develop an innovative and amazing multiplayer mode for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, then wonder no more.
Lets sheathe our blade for a moment and regroup and decide if Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood hits the mark, or misses it completely. One question that needs to be answered is, "is this game AC II.5, or would this be better as DLC for AC II, or is this game so developed that it could be considered a standalone title?". Ubisoft has taken the time to develop a massive amount of innovations which help bring the already epic story to life like never before; and while ensuring an epic single player experience, Ubisoft put one right between the eyes with their multiplayer gametype. With all of these new innovations, a very in-depth story, and a great multiplayer gametype, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is one that you must have in the collection. Listen to your calling assassino for Roma is waiting for you to answer. Your brothers are here with you, we will not fail.
Overall Score: 9.1 / 10
Vanquish
....Incoming communiqe from the General, please stand by....Welcome back soldier, we could really use your help. We have intercepted data from XboxAddict on the Sega title Vanquish. We want you to decipher the details regarding Vanquish and decode any intel you may find in regards to it's strengths and weaknesses. Time is critical soldier and this is a mission where failure is not an option. America is with you, make us proud....
....End communique....
Suit up and get ready to boost your way into Sega's latest third person shooter, Vanquish. From Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, Vanquish brings speed and power with deadly accuracy. XboxAddict has declassified all available intel on Vanquish to give you a complete picture of the game. Toss that smoke, grab your weapon and get ready to run soldier because in Vanquish, if you blink you may miss your only opportunity for victory.
To start things off with a bang, we have to address the fact that in the world of 3rd person shooters, the competition is fierce. When you have mammoth AAA titles like Gears and more, Vanquish is coming out of the gate with something to prove. Platinum Games brings a story that takes place on an United States massive orbital space station titled, Providence, and as you will find out early, has been taken over by a Russian extremist group called the Order of the Russian Star. In an effort to save country, the United States launches their entire fleet which includes the main character Sam Gideon.
In Vanquish you play the role of Sam Gideon who is a chain smoking, adrenaline junkie, one man wrecking machine. Sam is a member of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and he brings with him some mammoth firepower in the form of assault and sniper rifles, rocket launchers, a lock on laser rifle and more. All of the weapons from your basic assault rifle to your heavy hitting rocket launcher can be upgraded multiple times and each time increasing stats such as accuracy, range, and power. This adds a great innovation to work on as you truly begin to unlock all the potential firepower. All this arsenal though would be relatively less effective without the best weapon Sam has to offer, the ARS (Augmented Reaction Suit). The ARS is a great innovation in Vanquish as it allows Sam to boost at high speeds via jets on the arms and legs, perform lightning fast hand to hand attacks, and even slow down time itself.
The fast paced gameplay of Vanquish is this game's standout triumph. In Vanquish you will experience time control like never before as you control your boost at lightning fast speeds to flank your opponent, then when you are in position, instantly make time stand still as you pinpoint your shots on various targets. Make no mistake, when we say that Vanquish is very, very fast, so having total control over time at both ends allows for some insanely fun combat. Another innovation that your ARS brings to the gameplay is that when Sam takes too much of a beating the ARS will slow time to a crawl and allow Sam some very valuable time he needs to boost to safety. The rest of Vanquish's gameplay is very solid, but the innovations other than the ARS suit are few and far between. Vanquish itself is divided into 5 various chapters, and each chapter contains between three to eight sub chapters to complete. The levels you will go through are all fairly linear, but when you are trying to take out a small army, the action never stops and is constantly adapting, which forces you to adapt on the fly. In Vanquish you will have a lot of cover that you may use, but beware for the enemies will use your hesitation against you.
The graphics of Vanquish are a sight to behold. Providence comes to life and brings with it beautiful settings and a phenomenal attention to detail. Each chapter your eyes will see levels unfold at blinding speed, and witness some incredibly polished character modeling that combine to make one epic ride from start to finish. Vanquish showcases an uncanny attention to detail which is amazing when you take into consideration just how fast this game is. From the lighting effects, the environment, all the way up to the intricate detail of your ARS, Platinum Games has done a great job in bringing gamers a visually striking game in Vanquish. The most impressive quality of the graphics, hands down, is the frame rate that Vanquish brings. With so much going on during the battles, the amazing graphics and the sheer speed of the game, Vanquish's biggest accomplishment is that it brings all of this to you without missing a beat.
While you are waging war at break neck speed, Vanquish pumps in some high energy techno music combined with some heavy metal inspiration. This is a great touch as it adds to the sense that the world is flying by you at blinding speed, and when in combat, brings the feeling of a truly fast paced war to your ears. During iconic moments of the game, the tempo will change and you realize that this is the calm before the storm. Once the action picks up though, hang on because the soundtrack will push you faster than you thought possible.
As we pause to let our jets cool down, there is a major point of this game that should be noted. Vanquish is not easy. While normal difficulty will pose a challenge, Vanquish's hard mode should only be attempted by those who want the smallest margin of victory. Another aspect that makes Vanquish a tough fight is the fact that boss characters do have an instant kill attack. This can become very frustrating, and on hard difficulty becomes insane if you do not use time to your advantage. When you combine the difficulty with the blinding speed of Vanquish, you have a true challenge to overcome.
Vanquish though does have its share of drawbacks that really hold this title back. For starters the game is very fast, but also very short. Vanquish can be completed in about six or so hours and offers no multiplayer and very limited replay ability. On top of that Vanquish's plot is very under developed which is a shame when you take into account its only a single player game. The character interaction is amusing, however, their development throughout the game is little to non-existent.
Vanquish was on target to make its mark in the third person shooter world and came very close by bringing very fluid, beautiful graphics, a gameplay style that was fast paced and innovations that set the bar for future titles to follow. Unfortunately, Vanquish's under developed story, limited character development, lack of multiplayer and a very short story with little to no replay ability, all add up to a game that should have been better. If Vanquish can return with more of a focus on the story and development, then it will have its sights set firmly on being one of the best third person shooters to date.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2
When it comes to anime, very few can last the ages, however Naruto is one of those that stands above the rest. In Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, Namco Bandai set their sights to deliver not only a beautiful game, but one that is true to the essence of Naruto and gives gamers a chance to play out some of the most pivotal fights from the show. Has Namco Bandai got a hit with this latest Naruto title, or does this need to get a little more training before it can master the ninja arts? Get ready to charge your Chakra my fellow ninjitsu students because XboxAddict is taking you deep into the world of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2.In this latest installment of Naruto, you have multiple choices such as online fighting and the crux of the game, the Ultimate Adventure mode. The online fighting is something that Namco Bandai have worked hard to polish, but after attempting a few battles you can see that they have made a fighting system that is very simplistic and easy to pick up and play, yet hard to master. The reason this is so intriguing is that for the fighting sequences you have 4 basic buttons: melee attack, ranged attack, jump, block. Also you can use different items while in battle as long as they are mapped to the directional pad as a hot key. Now here is where it gets interesting, you can use your Chakra to create new moves and ultimately turn the tide in battle. Given the fact that you press one button (B) to do melee attacks, you will end up mashing that button a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a LOT. How this all ties together is the fact that with different directional pushes on the left stick and combined with both Chakra and melee, you can make Naruto perform some pretty flashy and effective moves. Also in the fighting you now have a partner that can be used in multiple ways to either help you by saving your life, or by adding his/her own power into your own attacks to increase damage and length of your combo.
The gameplay, while innovative, does have its faults. One of the biggest gripes I could find was the constant walking through a very limited version of the Hidden Leaf Village. Pre-set camera angles mean that your Ultimate Adventure is nothing more than running through an already defined layout of mini map area, after mini map area. This can, without question, become very, very boring very, very quickly indeed. Throughout your adventure you will come across different shops which can not only sell you various items, but will allow you to in essence, make items by ordering them. This however requires you to gather material, and how do you gather material you ask? In order for Naruto to gather material he has to constantly travel areas and stop to examine certain items or flowers that stand out in the map. This takes away from a lot of the fluidity of the game, and this leads us into the next drawback, the text reading.
In Naruto you will have to read a LOT of voice communications as you talk to different people throughout your journey. This is extremely time consuming and really makes the gameplay slow down till it almost becomes dull. When combined with the constant travel to the same areas over and over again, all the while trying to scavenge for some material, and the preset camera positions, would normally make this game one to pass on, except for believe it or not, QuickTime events.
One of Naruto's biggest strong points are the graphics. The background images are done in beautiful detail in an almost watercolor style artwork. The characters all come to life in very fluid animation and detail, and Namco Bandai is making sure that the fans of Naruto enjoy every visual moment of the game. What really sets off the graphics in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 are the over the top crazy anime graphics of the boss battles. It really is the diamond in the rough because you trek your way through countless linear maps, spend almost half the time reading text from other characters, and put in all this boring effort to get to the boss battles, which I have to say are epic. These battles are what make this game enjoyable and each of them happen during a quick time event. To say more about them would to give away the best part of the game, however, when your strongest factor going for you are quick time events, then something is amiss.
In Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 the music offers us a beautiful piece to bring us to the main menu, and from there it all goes downhill and fast. During your adventure your ears are treated to a generic loop of music that plays over and over again. Granted there are times where you hear different music, such as boss battles and different levels, but most of the time you will be listening to a loop of music playing again and again. Now with that said, the music does offer various instruments within these loops such a flute and piano to help bring certain emotions through. This entry into the world of Naruto does not offer a wide, diverse soundtrack. Instead it offers up a limited amount of music (which is good) with a bunch of loops added in.
Now that we have covered the good and the bad, does this Naruto title do the anime justice? The answer unfortunately is no. With previous titles offering a better quality Naruto experience, this is not an Ultimate Ninja but more like a ninja-in-training. When you boil it down to the bottom line, the hours you will spend not only hearing repetitive music loops, but also trudging through repetitive linear maps with a fixed camera, far outweighs the beauty of the brief quick time moments. We're sorry Naruto, but the master is not pleased.
Overall Score: 7.6 / 10
DJ Hero 2
Welcome back ladies and gentleman to one of the greatest shows on earth. The DJ is in the house and is on track to crossfade some information regarding the blockbuster hit DJ Hero 2. We are going to take you on a literary journey through the melodies, bass drops, and more to show how DJ Hero 2 scratches its way to being a top contender in the world of music games. Put your hands up and get ready to drop the beat because your party just started, and your fans are all waiting for one thing, you.First and foremost we need to touch on the equipment of DJ Hero 2. With other music games producing more equipment for us to purchase, DJ Hero 2 already takes a step forward by allowing you to utilize the original turntable equipment from DJ Hero. This goes a long way to saving you money and for those who are new to DJ Hero, there are multiple equipment options which range from one turntable, all the way to two turntables and a microphone to help create an amazing party and one unforgettable experience from the first beat, to the last.
Graphically speaking, DJ Hero 2 aims to put you right in the middle of some beautifully created clubs and venues placed in iconic locations such as London, Ibiza and more. Get ready for an over-the-top experience like you have never had before as you travel to different venues all the while subjecting your thousands of screaming dancing fans to some of the best music found in music games today. One cool innovative feature is that in DJ Hero 2, unlike other music games, you can actually use your avatar as an in game DJ character. This is a great innovative touch as it makes the experience feel more personal, instead of just a pre-made characters to perform with. Throughout your performances your eyes will be treated to some mammoth eye candy as you see massive animated visuals on big screens, strobe lights flashing throughout the club, and even bright colored lasers beaming overhead that pierce the dark venues and give your screaming crowd something to reach for besides your autograph.
In DJ Hero 2 you are given multiple gameplay types that allow you to take control of the music like never before. To start things off there is a quick play mode which is what the name suggests. It's a mode where you can instantly pick your mixes and instantly start the party off right. Not only can you just pick up and play in this mode, but you can also create, edit, and save multiple playlists so depending on the type of party you're throwing, you will never be short of music to perform with. Next on our tour we are going to be jetting over to the Empire mode. This is where the bulk of your fame and fortune will come as you travel through the story mode performing at different locations and clubs where everyone is waiting to hear what type of music you will play. Included in Empire mode you will have the opportunity as well to battle against some of the top DJ's in the world to prove you are a top talent DJ and a not just a flash in the pan imposter. Get ready to bring your "A" game to the tables as these battles will test everything you have learned and developed throughout your Empire career.
Another great mode that is offered in DJ Hero 2 is the party mode. This will allow you have the game itself play through its mixes and get the beats flowing until you or your friends decide that you want to jump in and take the party by storm. Xbox Live multiplayer makes its return in DJ Hero 2 and allows you to strut your stuff as you showcase your DJ talent and prove to others why they are opening for you and you are the real headlining act.
Also available is the DJ Hero 2 battle mode which enables you to tackle some of the best DJ talent in the world in an effort to prove once and for all, who is the best DJ around. Unlike other music games, DJ Hero's battle system is done in various ways. There are battles that judge how accurate you are in between checkpoints in the mix, battles that judge how many stars you can get, battles that will test how much you can make your streak grow and more. There is also the introduction of friends' challenges which throws down a challenge to see if anyone can step up to the tables and compete on your level.
Also included is the megamix mode where you can take on multiple mixes, perfect your skills, and get your groove on like never before. It goes without question, DJ Hero 2 allows an epic selection of different game types which means that there is literally something for everybody.
Included in all these modes are some brilliant new innovations that DJ Hero 2 provides that help solidify this game as one of the best music games available. First off, one of the new innovations is the addition of a freestyle scratch section where DJ Hero 2 gives you total and complete control to scratch the way you want to, how you want to. Before you were limited to pre defined scratches that were laid out in the arrangement, however, now the control becomes yours.
In DJ Hero 2, you not only get control over scratching, but you also gain control over your crossfading. In certain areas of the mix you will have the ability to crossfade in between two different tracks allowing you to now mix how you want and truly develop the track as you want to. This is a great new innovation because before you had to go by a pre determined crossfading path, well now the control comes back to you, the DJ. There is no way to be punished by losing your multiplier in this new freestyle crossfading section so feel free to go wild with your music and crossfade however you wish. Another great new innovation comes in the form of something that DJ Hero originally lacked, but now is back and better than ever, true audio sampling.
In the original title you were limited to various sound samples that you could trigger. While this was innovative, the sound sampling was limited to just five presets and in most cases did not fit the music playing. This has all been given a mammoth overhaul by now making the sound samples that you trigger actual pieces of music from the two tracks being mixed. Now when you hit the sample sections you are free to tap out a sample of the track playing which adds to the realistic feel and makes every mix sound better than before.
In DJ Hero 2 you now have ability to add a new layer to the mix in the form of a vocal track. Included in the party pack is a microphone which gives you the ability to put your musical prowess to the test by testing just how well you know your music. You may know how the lyrics go to the songs, however, the DJ is in control here and you will have to think on your feet, especially with features that the DJ can use such as crossfading and the infamous rewind feature. One of the great new developments with this new feature is that if you DJ'ing and someone is having trouble with the vocal track, you can still save the show.
With the focus of DJ Hero 2 being music, a lot of effort and attention has been put into the music score. The last DJ Hero game won numerous awards for its music which adds to the pressure of producing a sequel that not only lives up to the previous standards, but sets the bar higher than ever before.
In DJ Hero 2 some of the top talent in the world comes to life at your control. Iconic DJ's such as: Tiesto, Deadmau5, David Guetta, The Prodigy, stack the deck, and with such talent as Lady GaGa, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Janet Jackson and more, DJ Hero 2 brings every aspect of different music genres right to your fingertips for your ears to enjoy. Your ears will be treated to classic hits such as "groove is the heart" and more modern iconic tracks such as "Just Dance" by Lady GaGa, which all when compiled together gives your ears a beautiful eclectic mix that spans not only different genres but different decades and makes DJ Hero 2 a musical powerhouse, and with more music to be available via DLC the musical strength of this game is truly limitless.
As our record winds down let's review what makes DJ Hero 2 such an iconic staple in the world of music games. Massive new innovations to the mixes by allowing you to control both the crossfading and scratching as you wish make DJ Hero 2 the closest thing most of us will come to being a real DJ. Also when you combine the immense amount of game types with an updated epic tracklist, you now have tons of ways you can enjoy your favorite mixes the way you want to, after all, you are the DJ. With all these improvements and more, over the award winning original, DJ Hero 2 and Activision have set the bar for the competition and claimed itself to be the undisputed king of the wheels of steel.
Suggestions: For the future release of DJ Hero 3 Activision should include a DJ Hero mixer which includes all the crossfading and sampling functions while allowing a new way to control the individual levels of each track and allow two turntables to completely crossfade and mix just like a real DJ would. Activision could sell the mixer seperately for those who already have two turntables and for those wishing the complete package, they could package the mixer with the two turntables and microphone for a complete DJ experience.
Overall Score: 9.1 / 10
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
Welcome back my apprentice. It has been some time, but I knew that you would return for the truth. The Force is strong with Xboxaddict, and it's time that the review for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (TFU2) is finally revealed. This game reminds me of what a gold protocol droid once said: "How did we get into this mess..... I really don't know how". Kneel my apprentice and see both the light and the dark side of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.If ever there was a game where it had a great showing of light and dark, good and bad, its Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. This game has been greatly anticipated and focuses to be a staple in the Star Wars Universe. Does this fulfill it's destiny and bring to life a legendary Star Wars experience? As the Emperor would say: "It is you who are mistaken, about a great many things". The Force Unleashed II does deliver in some aspects which we will cover, but ultimately in the end, this doesn't feel like a quality Star Wars video game, much less story. In Force Unleashed II, Starkiller is back, or is he? This is one of the ongoing questions that lingers throughout the entire game, and it's conclusion is up to you to decide.
Graphically speaking Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II at times is as Darth Vader would say "Impressive... Most impressive". Some of the levels such as Kamino and Dagobah are done in such beauty and detail that it helps bring you deeper into the Star Wars Universe unlike almost any other title. Not only are the environments a beauty to behold, but the character modeling is far more improved and with the introduction of some new Sith enemies to fight, it really provides an eye pleasing time. Also in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, LucasArts brings some new tech toys in a new digital molecular matter, which brings more realistic physics and physical reactions unlike anything we have seen before. Another great graphic innovation for The Force Unleashed II is the inclusion of Euphoria which is a bio-feedback artificial intelligence system, which brings gamers one amazing experience after another throughout the entire game.
This however, is not to say that The Force Unleashed II does this a lot. In total there are four original levels (Kamino, Cato Neimoidia, Dagobah, and Salvation), and each of them are broken down into different parts or sub-levels. This means that Kamino, for example, is a beautiful level, however, out of the game's nine levels, three of them (1/3) are staged in Kamino. Looking forward to enjoying a stroll through Dagobah? In all fairness so were we, however Dagobah is a beautiful 15 second walk down a path where Yoda greets Starkiller in front of the cave that Luke entered in Empire Strikes Back. Starkiller has no idea who he has just encountered and there is a dialogue about five lines long between the two, Starkiller enters the cave, cut scene, Starkiller exits the cave, says his goodbyes and leaves. That's it, in the time it just took for you to read that description you could have run through the one... yes one.. level of Dagobah. Another one of the game's many disappointments was that our jet packing bounty hunter Mr. Boba Fett himself was teased as being in this game, well he is, for a 20 second cut scene, and that's it. Search your feelings and you will see that a lot of the graphic potential has been slashed in this game.
The gameplay of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II has been improved upon from the original. Your favorite Force powers are back with a vengeance and they bring with them a new Force power, the Jedi Mind Trick. When combined with Euphoria, the Jedi Mind Trick brings a unique experience as you will see your enemies attack one another, and sometimes even throw themselves out a window or off a ledge. While this is limited to only effecting some enemies, the bulk of your enemies can be under your control, and if you upgrade the Jedi Mind Trick, you will be able to manipulate more than one enemy.
Be careful though, the effects of the Jedi Mind Trick, are short lived. Another nice innovation of the gameplay is the introduction of a target lock feature, which was missing out of the original. This greatly helps in your camera position and camera control when you are in battle against multiple enemies and you are on a small platform. Your Force powers aren't done yet though, in The Force Unleashed II you can combine your powers on either enemy or object. For example, you can grip a stormtrooper, throw your saber at him and impale him, then shock him with lightning, and to finish it off, toss him into another enemy or object. Doing that will actually net you an achievement, but it's a great example of what you can do when you combine your powers. One of my personal favorites would be to grab an object, charge it with lightning, then toss it and it becomes a Force Lightning grenade.
Who can talk about Star Wars without mentioning the music. Throughout the game you will hear some music influence taken from the prequel movies, some original work, but most importantly, John Williams' famous score rings throughout the game bringing classic moments back to life and makes us all remember the great quality that used to be. All the music has been remastered however one great feature is when the game calls upon you for certain fights, you will hear certain iconic music that helps immerse you deeper into the Star Wars Universe. A great attention to detail has been put into every aspect of the sound of The Force Unleashed II. When you are blocking stormtrooper blasts or dodging lightsabers, every sound has been carefully constructed to bring audio bliss to our ears.
Star Wars: Force Unleashed II does however have its drawbacks, and unfortunately they are huge. We have already mentioned the levels in Force Unleashed II, however, we have to point out that this game is one that can be beaten in about four or 5 hours. To put things into perspective, it takes you longer to watch 2 of the original trilogy movies than to complete one play through The Force Unleashed II. This is a major disappointment because fans of the games and movies were hoping for an epic Star Wars adventure, but I'm sorry to say, this is not it.
This game had huge potential to develop the story of this more with the additions of classic iconic characters such as Yoda and Boba Fett, but after watching the scenes that they are in, you wonder to yourself, why did they even put this in the game? You can find my lack of faith disturbing, but in the end Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II has a lot of failed potential.
When you are a game that has to only focus on a single player story, then you have to make sure that your story is not only epic, but developed properly and without major holes. Unfortunately the story of The Force Unleashed II is far from epic, and even contains massive plot holes even in one of the endings. There are a lot of faults with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, but the short, badly written storyline has to be the number one factor that prevents this from being a great title.
As we wrap up our adventure through the Star Wars Universe, it's important to note that this game has some amazing aspects to it, but in the end, it's the core story that disappoints most. A wise Jedi master once said: "That is why you fail", and unfortunately because the story does, the overall score fails as well. Clear your mind and search your feelings and decide for yourself if Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is worth a purchase. May the Schwartz... I mean Force Be With You.
Suggestions: A more in depth, epic Star Wars story with proper character development, and a well written plot.
Overall Score: 7.5 / 10
Fallout: New Vegas
Dean Martin said it perfectly: "I go to sleep and keep, grinning. If this, is just the beginning. My life is going to be, beautiful.." Welcome my friends to a place where your wildest dreams can come true, where you can amass such fortune and wealth you become your own legend, welcome to America's Playground, welcome to the Entertainment Capital of the World, welcome to New Vegas. Bethesda and Obsidian have teamed up to give you a wild ride through the wastelands and desert city in Fallout: New Vegas, and we here at XboxAddict take aim in bringing you details surrounding one of the most anticipated games of the year, and remember, the house always wins.Now to kick things off with a bang, we have to note that this is not Fallout 4. Fallout: New Vegas is a totally new storyline based in the wastelands of New Vegas. The game is constructed using the Fallout 3 engine which goes to show proof in the old' phrase, "if it's not broken, don't fix it". With that in mind, Fallout: New Vegas sees your interest and raises you a full house worth of important innovations and adjustments to bring you a truly epic story where you get to shape every aspect of it.
Graphically speaking, Fallout: New Vegas brings Sin City to a light that we have never seen before. Famous iconic landmarks such as the Hoover Dam, the New Vegas strip, and more have all been brought into such detail, that you feel totally immersed into a whole new world of lies and sin. A lot of the objects that you will find in New Vegas you will remember from Fallout 3 (desks, file cabinets, etc..), however, the detail of your entire environment has been orchestrated masterfully in an effort to give gamers a very unique, deep, and amazing journey. Obsidian and Bethesda have worked hard and bring to the table an amazing version of The City of Lights.
One of the main aspects that make the Fallout games so great is the user defined, in-depth storyline. Fallout: New Vegas offers gamers not only new factions, but sub factions as well that will definitely tilt the scales of control, and these faction's opinions of you. This is where your decisions make a great difference as you try to figure out who is bluffing you, and who has the nuts. With these different factions, and different power grabs, you may think to yourself that New Vegas should be yours instead, well in Fallout: New Vegas it can be. Now not only do you have option A and option B, but you can also opt for option C - total chaos and anarchy. How you play is up to you, but just remember that everyone wants that top spot.
The play control is something that a lot of gamers hoped that Obsidian and Bethesda could improve upon, and they have listened by giving us not only an updated control scheme, but they have made their infamous perks system a major success. One of the many new introductions in Fallout: New Vegas is the Hardcore Mode. When you are in Hardcore Mode, the game will monitor how much you drink, how much you sleep, and how much you eat. All of these aspects and more you will have to pay attention to if you wish to survive the desert city, and cash out in top form. Don't expect to go days without sleep and expect to hit that target in the distance. This is a wonderful new innovation as it introduces a more realistic survival aspect to an already amazing adventure game.
In Fallout: New Vegas you still have the V.A.T.S. targeting system, however, this time the percentage numbers fluctuate greatly depending on the combat situation. What this means is that the V.A.T.S. system takes into consideration, not only the damage your body has sustained, but in hardcore mode, it also takes into consideration how hydrated you are, and even goes further by taking into account the amount of sleep you get. Obsidian and Bethesda have hit the jackpot in creating such an amazing gameplay experience, they could just break the bank. Earlier we mentioned that New Vegas' perks system has become an amazing hit, this is because now when you wish to master both the pistol and the assault rifle, you can now select just 1 perk called guns and that increases your stats with every weapon that uses conventional ammo. This brilliant scheme is set up perfectly to allow every gamer now, a much more focused and user developed character like we have never had before.
Not to cash in too early, Obsidian and Bethesda bring another major improvement to the gameplay of Fallout: New Vegas. Now you can not only use the V.A.T.S. targeting system, but you can truly gain control by aiming down the sights of your gun. This helps immensely as you strive for that all important head shot, not to mention conserves valuable AP points to use when V.A.T.S. is needed. Fallout: New Vegas brings another new aspect into the mix, by introducing the ability pick plants and in essence make food and aid items from them. Another great new feature of New Vegas is the addition to more items and aid you can create. Now you can build your own ammo, make your own weapon modifications, even follow a recipe for food and aid. All of this is done by giving the gamer more areas to make and construct these items. In Fallout: New Vegas you will not only have your new advanced workbench, but you can also come across campfires and more that will help aid you in your efforts. Fallout: New Vegas was betting all in on these innovations and thanks to the effort of Obsidian and Bethesda, they took home the title.
New Vegas is a true ace up the sleeve. Now when you turn on the radio of your trusty pip-boy, you can hear Mr. Vegas himself, Wayne Newton over the airwaves as he fills you in on the latest and greatest in New Vegas. As you take your adventure through the wasteland of New Vegas you will hear sounds and music redone from Fallout 3 which helps put this game in perspective, and also brings a familiar aspect to ensure that we enjoy every moment we can in New Vegas. Obsidian and Bethesda have outdone themselves as they bring a star studded voice cast. A lot of polish has also been applied to the voice over's.
Now as we tally up our winnings, we see all this innovation and all of this amazing detail and the total figure is that Fallout: New Vegas is one amazing game. Now even though it is not truly Fallout 4, so much effort has been put into making New Vegas an amazing experience all in its own. With a major improved control scheme, the introduction of Hardcore Mode, beautifully detailed environments and national landmarks, Fallout: New Vegas is the real Entertainment Capital of the World.
Overall Score: 8.9 / 10
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
Welcome my brothers and sisters to the eternal and epic struggle between good and evil. Have a seat and let your eyes read my tales of love, of loss, of deception, of honor, of light, and of darkness. Light your candles, grab your cross, and say a prayer for your soul as we enter the world of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.We begin our journey through the undead and the wicked with our hero, Gabriel Belmont. Our hero has already suffered greatly at the hands of evil by witnessing his beloved wife Marie murdered by the dark spirits that thrive on death. Twisted and torn between revenge of his murdered wife, and becoming God's savior to the people of the lands, Gabriel must struggle with more than just vampires, ogres, and ghouls, he must battle his very soul and choose his path that will grant him not only salvation, but peace as well.
My dear holy warriors, now you will find that controlling Gabriel through his adventures into darkness and death is relatively easy. Armed with your combat cross, Gabriel has a wealth of different combos and attacks at his disposal. You will have to master your wits and abilities if you wish to survive the darkness ahead, and dethrone the Lords of Darkness. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow also provides you with a multiple selection of various secondary weapons such as dark crystals, daggers, and even holy water to help you dispel the darkness and bring light and hope to a land that has been devoid of both. In this latest installment in the Castlevania series, Gabriel will not only obtain various artifacts to help and aid him through is adventure, but now we are given something very special, light and dark magic. Each offers Gabriel different options and aids from allowing him to heal his wounds while striking in combat, to turning his daggers into explosive weapons of death. This also does a great job showcasing the inner turmoil that, throughout the story, Gabriel must contend with.
Throughout the game you will notice that the camera is in multiple fixed positions depending on where you are in the land. A user controlled camera is not available in this game, and in most cases that would be a complaint, however, in this title, it is a blessing. By locking the camera depending upon where Gabriel is allows gamers the ability to worry less about what they are looking at, and more on surviving the night. This helps the game by focusing more on the interactions with various puzzles, as well it helps by allowing you to focus on the enemies you are fighting. Jumping, climbing, running, and more have been simplified to ensure that not only are the basic controls easy to master, but using Gabriel's more advanced combos become a breeze and add a more fluid aspect to your combat.
Now we turn, my dear brothers and sisters, to the wonderful graphics of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Graphically speaking your eyes will be treated to a wide, beautifully depicted, landscape throughout the game. Every land from the Dark Lord's castle, to the underground sewers, to the forests that you must travel, are all blanketed with incredible detail and beauty. Every level becomes a feast for the eyes as you traverse the wild on your quest to extinguish the darkness from the land. Even the cutscenes provide an amazing visual experience all on their own by showcasing key moments and events with incredible detail and beauty. Not only has the landscape received such beautiful work, but the new character models for your enemies bring new life back into the darkness and add a more realistic touch in combat. A wonderful example would be the new vampire models which most resemble deformed winged demons of hell, armed with incredible speed, powerful fangs, and now dual wielding knives that they use to go for the throat.
Not only will you deal with the undead, but now you must face one of your biggest oppositions in Caslevania: Lords of Shadow by confronting the various titans. In regards to graphics and the character models, you will notice a great attention to the sheer size scale of these massive titans. Standing right next to a titan, while being a first class ticket to the afterlife, will help you understand the sheer size of it as you barely come up to the top of its fingertip. The one downfall of this game graphically only comes when you attack and destroy multiple creatures of the night. The game screen will freeze for a tenth of a second, and while at first this is not something big as you see yourself frozen in mid attack in all this beauty, but it does tend to take you away from the fluidity of combat. This thankfully though does not happen often, and through my experience with this 2 disc game, it has only happened twice.
It is time my fellow vanquishers of the night, to talk about another of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow's great accomplishments; the music. As a personal Castlevania fan, prayers were said that this game not only lives up to the extremely high quality of its history, but surpasses and evolves the series by providing the iconic scores and sounds we have all come to expect from such a quality series. Having listened to the soundtrack and how it ties in with the sounds and the action, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow boasts one of the best orchestral game soundtracks my ears have ever heard. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing a church choir singing a hymn of salvation as you drive your cross through the heart of a demon, or hearing the deep tones of a cello signifying the inner struggle and turmoil that Gabriel must go through.
There are moments as well when you will hear the soundtrack pay its homage to the long line of quality Castlevania titles of the past by incorporating various remixed parts that not only help show off the lineage, but give fans of the series a true taste of what Castlevania should be. The voice acting as well receives high marks as the story is narrated by Patrick Stewart. Not only will you be given an amazing soundtrack, but every voice fits every character perfectly, just like you expect from a Castlevania game. Demons, devils, villagers, and more all shine through in the attention to the voice acting. Even the ambient sounds such as waterfalls, or even a haunting whispering hymn in the background not only add a more realistic feel for the game, but they enhance the already amazing quality overall.
For now unfortunately our tale must come to an end in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. We have refrained from discussing anything in regards to its epic story as this is an experience that every gamer should enjoy and discover on their own. With amazing graphics, an iconic musical score, a fluid movement and combat system, and more means that this title is one that every gamer must have in their library. Always remember holy warrior, that the greatest weapon against the darkness, is the light of God. Ready your cross and say a prayer for your salvation because the darkness of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow has arrived, and you are our savior.
Overall Score: 9.1 / 10
Space Invaders Infinity Gene
Beep... Boop... Beep... Boop.. Yes the infamous space shooter is back with a vengeance in Square Enix's latest remix entitled: Space Invaders Infinity Gene. Square Enix has put this title out on the Xbox Live Arcade for a whopping 800 MS points. Now we will take you through all the little digital enemies to see if this is truly worth your hard earned points.For those of you who consider something like a playstation to be an antique, you may not know about space invaders. Originally Tomohiro Nishikado designed Space Invaders and released it back over 30 years ago (1978 to be exact). Space Invaders was released in Japan by Taito and when it made its across the ocean voyage to the states, it was picked up and sold by the Midway division of Bally. To say that this game was popular is a gross underestimate. After its release in Japan, there was a temporary shortage of 100-yen coins, and by 2007 had earned Taito a mammoth $500 million dollar revenue. To also showcase the popularity of this title, Guinness World Records ranks Space Invaders as the top arcade game.
Now following up on all this history and epic landmarks, Square Enix has decided to be another company in the long line to make sequels and different versions of the game. Let's take a look and see if they blasted their way to a solid title, or is this just another retro arcade classic that should have been left alone.
The gameplay of Space Invaders Infinity Gene is very simplistic. Point, shoot, point, shoot.. there's not really much to be said, however, this time instead of being tied down to the bottom of the screen, your ship now can fly all over blasting away at baddies. Normally in a Space Invaders game you would have just a single blaster and your thumb would smash the fire button over and over and over... well you get the picture. Now though, Square Enix has added a new innovation by providing you with different weapons such as the seeking blaster shot, the straight line shot and more. This adds to the variety as well gives you a fighting chance against what you are up against in Space Invaders Infinity Gene. Another little interesting innovation is that now you can upgrade your weapons by collecting orbs that are dropped by certain enemies. This means that you can start out with a basic line style laser and upgrade it to an almost screen clearing blast with every shot. This helps in driving your combo rate up and in turn allows you to get a much higher score.
One of the interesting features of this game is the way the game evolves through the different game types as you play through them. You have your classic mode which has had a remixed touch to it, but you also have a music mode which takes the music on your Xbox hard drive and applies it to the game. You are also treated to a challenge mode where you blast your way through 99 levels of button mashing goodness. Sadly though, these innovations aren't enough to pull this title out of the fire and into the realm of a classic game remix, as you will soon read about.
Graphically speaking, Space Invaders Infinity Gene tries very hard to pay homage to the origins of the game, however, this seems to fall very, very short. The backgrounds are just fast streaming grids and with everything going on while you're playing, it's very hard to focus on your targets. Also with all these fast moving backgrounds, flashing lights, and just overall mediocre attempt to mesh the old with the new, Space Invaders Infinity Gene should not be played by anyone who suffers from epilepsy. The background graphics are in color, however, that doesn't change the fact that the general graphic design of the game was poorly done.
Now classic games such as Space Invaders were at the time revolutionary with their audio. Now it's time to have Square Enix step up to the plate, and unfortunately I can't say that they hit the mark here. The audio is an attempt to bridge the old and new, so you still have the screeching old sounds, blended with more modern techno loops that do nothing but repeat over and over and over again until you finish the level. After that, more screeching and unfortunately more boring mundane loops over and over again. There was a ton of potential to be had in Space Invaders Infinity Gene, however, if you're looking for decent music (not good, just decent music), then look somewhere else.
Another innovation that almost makes it is the adaptation of 3D. Square Enix tries to transform a legendary 2D classic into a 3D spectacle that I'm sorry to say misses the mark completely. Now some classic games have been able to pull this feat off such as Rez and others, but in Space Invaders Infinity Gene it almost feels like an attempt to duplicate Rez, but it fails to do so. You never get a full 3D experience, so to be clear the 3D segments are very short introductions into the levels, everything else though while you're in the level feels 2D.
Space Invaders Infinity Gene for the Xbox Live Arcade is currently priced at 800 MS points, however, when you compare the quality of titles that are 800 MS points, this title does come up very short. If you are desperate to spend 800 MS points on a lackluster, seizure inducing failed remake, then Space Invaders Infinity Gene is your game. I could understand something like this being worth 400 MS points, and even then you may want to wait till it's part of the deal of the week. I feel like a classic title of such epic proportions has been dragged through the remix mud. I'm sorry to say that this is a title that should be passed on, esp. for a price of 800 MS points.
Overall Score: 4.5 / 10
Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions
*Hmmmm.. let's see the headline on today's front page of the Daily Bugle...*[notices the big front page banner]
Wait... What??!?!?
!!Attention Daily Bugle Readers!!
!!Attention Daily Bugle Readers!!
The Daily Bugle has announced that
Spiderman Shattered Dimensions is
UNDER REVIEW by XboxAddict!!
XboxAddict is bringing an in-depth look at the latest installment featuring Spiderman! You will get a detailed review of all the gameplay mechanics, visual eye candy, and all the bad pun jokes you can thwip your web at. As all of you know our editor-in-chief Mr. J. Jonah Jameson is adamant that you readers understand everything there is to know about Spiderman Shattered Dimensions, so that way you have the full truth behind the man... err...mask.
(More on page A4)
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(Continued from A1)
We all have looked up from time to time to try to catch a glimpse of our city's favorite spider. We have all wondered, at one point or another, what it would be like if we could have the same abilities as he does. In Activision's new release of Spiderman Shattered Dimensions we finally get our wish granted. For the first time we get to experience Spiderman across multiple dimensions; four to be exact. Each of which give a unique perspective and play style that all combine into one story which has Marvel's stamp of approval. Ever wonder, if he has so much power, then why doesn't he perform such amazing moves that clear groups of enemies in an instant? In Spiderman Shattered Dimensions you get to fully unlock all of Spidey's true potential and turn him into the web-slinger we have always wanted to be.
Spiderman's main focus of his combat is fluidity. Every move seems seamless when deep in a 100 or even 200 hit combo, but the real beauty rests in something that has always seemed to be Spidey's downfall... the dreaded camera. Granted Peter Parker does take good photographs of our web-head, but in some previous Spiderman games, we have not enjoyed a good camera system.... until now. Thankfully in Shattered Dimensions we get a new and improved camera system that will allow you to easily track and follow Spidey almost better than Parker himself.... how does he get those great pictures?? Through the new camera system, gamers can enjoy the new lock on feature that makes combat much more easy and allows a greater sense of control by allowing you to auto focus lock and auto center the camera onto enemies, and that is something that is important when you are zipping around tall buildings, or falling 50 stories from one.
There is however a little bit of a learning curve when it comes to managing your camera while you are crawling from walls to ceilings, or vice versa. When you climb to different surfaces it helps to auto center the camera to ensure that you get your right bearings, however, after a little practice and getting the feel of the camera, you'll be moving like true Spidey in no time.
The sound for this game is eerily good. Every single little detail has been taken into account in regards to making this the most authentic Spiderman game...ever. (I know a bit dramatic but it sells right?.. right???) Throughout the different dimensions you will be treated to some classic Spidey voices which personally helps the game a lot. A lot of attention was given to the voice of the spider and that shows by having Neil Patrick Harris (Spidey's voice from the MTV cartoon) play the voice of Amazing Spiderman, Christopher Barnes ('90s cartoon series) voices up the infamous Noir Spiderman, Josh Keaton (Spectacular Spiderman cartoon) brings to life the voice of Ultimate Spiderman, and wrapping up the amazing voice cast is Dan Gilvezan ('80s cartoon Spiderman and his amazing friends) who shines in the role of Spiderman 2099.
The attention to the detail of the music shows in every aspect of the game and is a big reason why this could possibly be the best Spidey game we have ever had.
Visually speaking, Spiderman Shattered Dimensions showcases our hero in various dynamic fashions. Such examples would be: In the Noir dimension you play a more stealth focused role by stalking and taking your enemies out from the shadows, and of course avoiding bullets (seriously I'm allergic to bullets, it says so on my medical bracelet). In the Amazing dimension you are treated to bright vibrant colors and amazing crisp detail. Every boss battle brings (try saying that 5 times fast) forth a true sense of evil as they are brought to life in amazing detail. You'll laugh with Deadpool, cry with... well.. Deadpool, and cheer with... well... never mind you get the idea.
Other bosses thankfully bring forth their own twist on evil. Electro has ditched the green and yellow and now has gone for the no pants pure energy look like he's competing head to head with Dr. Manhattan of The Watchmen, for the best build of pure energy (Even that didn't sound quite right). Spiderman Shattered Dimensions offers a more linear level style of play, but that's not to say it's a bad thing as you'll soon read about.
Most of the level design is brilliantly laid out and innovative. For instance when you go up against the Sandman your level consists mostly of him as a massive tornado that is just destroying the level in front of you and forces our favorite spider to whip from one flying debris object to another (Yes his sand does get everywhere). The Deadpool level brings Spiderman to an oil rig to compete on his own show... yes that's right, I can't believe it either but Deadpool has his own show called Pain Factor. Imagine what a real game of Survivor would be if you were the only one stranded on a metal island with not just Deadpool's mocking, but an army of his heavily armed unpaid interns, by unpaid interns... I mean his fans, and by fans I mean a bunch of crazy thugs with big guns. Some of the new innovative levels also include your favorite web-slinger performing some amazing halo... wait.. can't say that.. umm.. High Altitude Low Opening scenes in which not only do you have to dodge explosions, trains, and cars, but you also get to engage in combat while doing so. So while the levels may be more linear than past Spiderman games, this saves us the hassle of expansive tiresome fetching in a city with a bad camera (yes there are a few fetching parts in this game, but because it's levels are more linear, it makes it a far less annoying feature).
Each level also brings with it a section of Spiderman's web-of-destiny, which are 15 individual mini challenges that Spidey can try to achieve throughout the course of the level. This was a great idea in that it helped add a lot more focus on variety than just swing and punch (I'm a good dancer too). Through your completion of your web-o-destiny thing, Spidey will earn bonuses that will help unlock more abilities in combat upgrades, individual character stat increases, as well as other suits in his multi-dimensional closet (It's got to be that big for all his boots).
(Concluded on page A8)
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As we swing our way home, we must ask ourselves if this game is truly a great Spiderman game, or if this is just another time our favorite spider gets lost in translation? (I really liked that movie) Thankfully XboxAddict can say that this is very close to the Arkham Asylum of the Spiderman world. The level innovations, Deadpool.. I mean boss scenes (he always tries to work himself in somehow), the ease of movement and combat, the wonderful attention to the sounds of Spiderman, and more make Spiderman Shattered Dimensions hands down one of the best, if not the best, Spiderman game we have had the pleasure of playing. If you are a fan of Deadpool... I mean Spiderman, then this game is a must have. We'll see you on the thwip side.
By: Brent Roberts...err...Eddie Brock
Overall Score: 8.9 / 10
Blacklight: Tango Down
[incoming transmission... XboxAddict review of Blacklight Tango Down... Transmission begins in 3..2..1..]With the summer time upon us, the need for good games rises with the temperature. Thankfully the people at Ignition Entertainment bring Blacklight Tango Down to the Xbox Live Arcade. We are going to go through the good and bad and see if this title sets a new standard for XBLA titles, or if it falls by the wayside of games that just fell short.
Ok to start things off; Blacklight Tango Down delivers next to nothing as far as story goes. There is a small story about some form of battle or conflict between the Blacklight U.S. forces and a group who call themselves The Order (who also are a group of ex-U.S. special forces). Sounds interesting, however, none of this is even explained unless you decided to hunt through the how to play menu and read it for yourself. This is kind of a drag, but at least the good thing is that we don't have to sit through a horrible story right?
There are multiple modes in Blacklight Tango Down, such as various multiplayer maps and the Black Ops section. The multiplayer modes are what we have come to expect such as variants of Team Death match, plant the bomb, capture the flag, and more. One of the things that make the multiplayer so interesting is the fact that the game comes with 12 maps! For FPS fans, getting 12 initial maps at release is huge, and this is not a retail release, but an XBLA title.
A wide variety of maps, plus with a total of 8 vs. 8 support means that Blacklight Tango Down will provide hours upon hours of fun. The Black Ops mode can be played via single player, or you can do online co-op with up to 3 other players. Black Ops a more story driven mode, but since the story is next to non-existent, it's just another way to earn XP and shoot a lot of people. You will gain less XP per kill in Black Ops, however, you will earn a XP bonus for completing a Black Ops level. One great feature is that you will be able to level up your character across the different modes.
Visually speaking, this game is amazing. For an XBLA title, gamers will be amazed at the quality and detail that they see put into not only the characters and enemies, but in the environment as well. The levels are big and expansive and gamers will love the fact that attention to detail plays an important role in every aspect of the visuals in this game.
Some of the unique new features are the introduction of the Hyper Reality Visor(HRV) and items such as the Digi-grenade. The HRV plays the role of a gamers' map and provides locations on health and ammo stations, to hack points and incoming enemies. This option though doesn't last forever and needs time to recharge, so use it wisely. The Digi-grenade is a fun twist to a standard frag grenade, instead of exploding it creates a bubble of pixilated interference, blinding your enemy for a short amount of time. One thing though with these new grenades is that if you throw one on yourself, you can be affected by your own grenade so be careful you don't blind yourself right before a firefight.
The sound of Blacklight is done well, but is very repetitive. Blacklight's menu music to me became annoying after listening to it loop over and over again as I browsed the different menus. The music though in the game was good. It's not going to stand out as some amazing piece of video game greatness, and it's not going to be so horrible you play this game on mute. It provides a very dark electro style soundtrack, which accompanies the various intermittent vocals very well.
The gameplay is your standard FPS style controls so you can expect to be very familiar with them from the very beginning. Blacklight Tango Down also delivers a reward system in the gameplay called Weapon Tags. What these Weapon Tags(WT) do is alter the aspects of not only your weapon that you use in the game, but your own character as well. WT's can be used for things like increasing gun damage, to shorten the time it takes to re-heal your character. There are tons of these Weapon Tags and it's a complete random drop chance for you to obtain one.
Along with the Weapon Tags are the weapons themselves. Each one of them customizable with various scopes, clips, barrels, and more, which means that Blacklight brings gamers hundreds and hundreds of ways to fully customize your character.
I guess the big question for gamers is: "Is this worth 1200 MS points?" The answer to that question is yes. Blacklight Tango Down delivers stunning graphics, hundreds of ways to customize your character, 12 multiplayer maps with more mulitplayer modes, plus innovative ranking and upgrading systems. This could easily be a $49.99 retail title, so 1200 MS points to play one of the best FPS on XBLA is a deal.
Suggestions: One thing that I would like to see in a future sequel is the addition of a well written story. Something that makes people want to play a dedicated campaign on top of multiplayer.
Overall Score: 8.5 / 10
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair
*CUE OMINOUS CATHEDRAL MUSIC*The Summer of Arcade is in full swing, and this week we are treated to an innovative marvel of a title in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. Konami has been putting forth a lot of effort in this latest installment of Castlevania for the Xbox Live Arcade which will hit the marketplace like a shattered cross. Come follow me into the depths as we explore the 2D world resurrected to perfection in Castlevania: Harmony of Despair.
From the very opening screen you can see that one innovation of many that stands out in front is the addition of multiple characters. Each one brings to the table their own benefits and has their own individual skills that they can learn which when combined w/ other players enhances the gameplay to a whole new level. The innovation of Castlevania Co-Op Multiplayer makes its first introduction in this Xbox Live Arcade title. With different multiplayer modes, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair ignites a flame in the series that rekindles the desire even more for Castlevania.
You want to take Alucard into battle w/ five other players? Go for it. With a total of six player Co-Op gamers will have to work together more than ever if they wish to scale through the castle and defeat the Dark Lord himself. I know some purists out there will say that "Konami has hurt the franchise with the addition of multiplayer" or they may say "Castlevania is supposed to be a single player game". Well rest easy your worries because there is a dedicated single player mode which takes you through all the adventure you can swing a whip at. Take heed though bold adventurer, for the challenge of Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is not to be taken lightly. After going through this on single player, I cannot stress enough how difficult the challenge is. We won't go into the story so you can experience it for yourself, but be ready for one challenging adventure.
Graphically Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is pure to its 2D roots. As you wander and venture through the different floors of the castle, and experience different rooms, your eyes will gaze upon amazing and colorful detail. Enemies are brought to life with exceptional detail and quality and the surrounding backgrounds are a sight in themselves to see. This however doesn't do the game justice, for as you start your quest and zoom the map all the way out, you will see how every level overflows with beauty and how every inch looks and feels just like Castlevania should. The boss characters have all been designed with amazing detail, and provide gamers with a definite feel of joy when you bring one of these demons down. Everything from the characters, levels, enemies, and even the individual weapons have all been done with precision attention to detail and quality. Welcome back to the world we all love, Castlevania.
How can you do a review of Castlevania and NOT talk about the music of it!? From the opening menu selection screen your ears hear a choir chanting which immediately makes you feel at home in Castlevania. The previous game Symphony of the Night opened with a choir, and this takes it to a whole new level. When you are in the game each level has not only its own dedicated soundtrack, but its own dedicated boss music as well. One cool little innovation that I love was the fact that you can now change up the music by individual level, and you can also change up the boss music accordingly. The soundtrack can be summed up as "CC" or Classic Castlevania. High energy synths erupt out of the songs all the while injecting tons of excitement with each passing moment. Grab your whip and say a prayer because we're not done with Castlevania yet.
The gameplay of Castlevania has always been known for providing hours and hours of enjoyment and Castlevania: Harmony of Despair delivers us one amazing experience that should not be missed. As it was mentioned earlier, this game is a serious challenge. The basic jumping, hacking, and dashing are the core foundations for Castlevania, and you will need to utilize all of these and more in order to breech through the castle and defeat evil. Gamers will be excited when they see that the standard controls are all there, but this time they are enhanced. By simple adjustments to enhance an already proven control scheme, Konami ensures gamers that the core controls remain unchanged, and that gamers are given the option to change up the control style as they see fit. Time to play Castlevania, the way YOU want to. Thank you Konami!
As we put the final nail in this coffin, we look back at the experience and feel a sense of uneasy peace. From the enhanced 2D glory that we have grown up with, the amazing customizable enhanced classic soundtrack, six player Co-Op, to the time tested proven gameplay, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair is an amazing addition into a series already known for quality titles. This is one of the best arcade titles released, and for 1200 points you and your friends can finally track Dracula, and put an end to his evil..... for now...
Overall Score: 9.5 / 10
Final Fight: Double Impact
Side scrolling greatness returns with a bang in Final Fight: Double Impact. Capcom has done it again and this time they have given gamers a wonderful surprise. The title says it all however; gamers will love the fact that they are getting 2 games, yes two games for the price of one! I'm going to break this review up into two parts to cover both games (Final Fight and Magic Sword).For those new to Final Fight the story is very straight forward. Mike Haggar was a professional wrestler who was elected Mayor of Metro City. During his campaign he promised to handle the crime in the city, much to the dismay of the Mad Gear Gang. Enraged by this action the Mad Gear Gang kidnaps Haggar's daughter Jessica to ensure that crime continues. Haggar decides then to take on the gang, however, he makes sure to bring along some help, by enlisting the aid of Cody (Jessica's boyfriend), and Cody's sparring partner and ninjutsu master Guy. Together the three of them are determined to take back Metro City and rescue Jessica before its too late.
Gamers will battle their way through 6 stages of Metro City in their attempts to rescue Haggar's daughter. You'll fight your way through areas such as a subway, uptown, and more. The enemies you will encounter will take the gamer back to a time where the names changed, but only the colors differed between the enemies. This is your basic side scrolling button mashing game that is a perfect port of the 80's arcade title and is a perfect showcase as to why Final Fight was one of the best arcade brawler/button masher games ever made.
Some of the new updates for Final Fight allow gamers to choose graphic modes of "smooth" and "crisp" which will give gamers a more HD look to their title. As well, gamers will have the option to adjust their video display. One of the "classic feel" options given to gamers is that they can play their game in an actual arcade cabinet. This is nostalgia at its best because not only is the monitor set inside the cabinet, but the original artwork is also displayed on the sides to provide gamers the feel like they have stepped back in time.
One feature that takes me back in time is the soundtrack. All the music has been remixed in Final Fight, however, you can still hear the traditional music. This means that the great 80's arcade music still rings loud and clear and is always a sign that Capcom has made sure to not only bring the classics back to life, but improve on them as only Capcom can.
Final Fight: Double Impact also introduces a new feature to gamers which is called the vault. By completing certain challenges which will appear at the bottom of the screen, the gamer will unlock different items in the vault. One thing to note is that there is a heavy amount as well of Street Fighter images and references in the vault. This is due partially because Final Fight was originally supposed to be a Street Fighter sequel, however, this was changed when the game ended up becoming nothing like Street Fighter.
The second game of Final Fight: Double Impact is called Magic Sword. This game takes place on an unnamed planet and is laid out like a traditional platformer. Gamers will side scroll their way through jumps, traps, and tons of enemies that will constantly keep you on your toes. In Magic Sword a "Black Orb" is the source of the evil in the game and is the main quest to either destroy or obtain it.
The graphics again on Magic Sword have the same HD touches that gamers will get in Final Fight, including the same video modes as well. The soundtrack however, has been remixed just like Final Fight to provide gamers a more modern feel to an arcade classic such as this. Your sword swings, magic attacks and more are even enhanced to give gamers an "updated" feel on such a classic arcade title.
Throughout your adventures gamers will play as the barbarian who wields a sword and shield. If a second player joins in on the fun, then they will become a character that wields a heavy axe. One of the many features that make this game great are the additions of allies. These range from a ninja to a knight and more and their sole purpose is to assist the gamer by various powers and abilities, attacks and the levels gamers will gain improved weapons such as samurai swords, broadswords, flame swords and more. Also, Magic Sword will entice you with various magic spells that the gamer will have at their fingertips. From lightning, to fire, to screen clearing glory and more, Magic Sword gives gamers an amazing amount of firepower at their disposal.
Magic Sword takes place over 51 levels of platform enjoyment, enemy slashing goodness. Gamers will start in the bottom of the overworld map which is laid out like a giant tower, and just like you imagine it would, you will have to work your way through the tower to the top. Through these levels gamers will battle their way through fire, ice, and more as they strive to reach the top of the tower and confront the "Dark Lord". Once there the gamer will battle it out for either good or evil and decide the fate of the world.
Final Fight: Double Impact is going for 800 MS points and is worth every penny of it. Updated graphics, sound, and the ability to transform the game into the actual arcade makes this game a must have in any game library. In today's gaming world its rare to see a title that not only has stood the test of time, but has become a benchmark for many of the games we play now. This title will give you hours upon hours of enjoyment as you try to unlock everything in the vault and go for the achievements as well. Strap on your gloves, get your sword and shield ready to go because Final Fight: Double Impact really does make a mammoth impact!
Suggestions: Bring out more of your classics in the Capcom library.
Overall Score: 8.8 / 10
Dragon Age: Origins
Bioware. A company known for making solid gaming titles such as: Mass Effect, Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic, and Baulder's Gate have done it once again. Dragon Age Origins is Bioware's latest attempt at bringing a solid Action/RPG game to the masses; to which we all bow in thanks. Dragon Age Origins immerses gamers into a world where your decisions, actions and even interactions will truly make a difference in your world and your character's lives. This game is filled with moments that make the gamer "feel" connected in multiple ways.From the incredible storyline, amazing character development, beautiful soundtrack, and very deep game play; gamers will rejoice to know that Bioware brings the gamers all of these and more in Dragon Age Origins. This is something that I will explain in greater detail later, but for now follow me through the wonderful qualities of Bioware's "bar setting" Action/RPG game, Dragon Age Origins.
Bioware's classic system of "target and fire" is combined with a traditional party system to lay a solid foundation for a wonderful title. In Dragon Age Origins however, gamers will experience one of the most "in depth" and detailed game play experiences ever. Gamers will have more "choices" or options in each and every battle than your traditional RPG. Multiple battle tactics to learn per character plus the options to fully customize your character so that you can set up your own "pre-determined" actions and bring the gamer to a new level of involvement and control in a RPG. Gamers now have a control system where they are able to designate the type of action that a "non-user" controlled character can perform in the middle of combat.
You can customize almost every single aspect of combat for your entire party in your "tactics" making the gamer feel for the first time like they are in total control over every aspect of every character in their party. A good example would be if you have mages in your party, you can map out your tactics so that while your user controlled character is in battle, you can have your mage not only attack the same enemy as you however, but you can also have your mage automatically heal your entire party when the character's health reaches a user defined mark (i.e.: 50%).
Another amazing feature is that you can also pause the action during the middle of combat which allows the user to automatically redefine what tactics they wish to use which means that gamers will always have the ability to control every single battle throughout the game and designate talents and skills in all aspects of every character in your party. Bioware also implemented brilliant ideas by allowing your parties health to auto regenerate once a battle is over, and if one of your party members has fallen in battle they will come back to life (however, they will receive a stat penalty which can be removed with an injury kit).
Auto saving as well whenever you enter another room or building also ensures that the gamer has the most recent spot to resume their game. Speaking of saves, I have to touch on this one part: SAVE OFTEN. You may have a very powerful party, however, one slip in your tactics or you try to be too brave and bold from the beginning and Dragon Age Origins will have you restarting from your auto save point. I personally save after each battle inside a building to ensure that I do not have to go through that battle again just to get to where I am now.
One flaw of the game play system is not the camera, which normally is a cause for concern with most games (the camera is actually good though not great) but a fundamental "bottleneck" problem. What this means is that if you try to draw your enemy to an enclosed narrow area such as stairs or a narrow hallway you will find your character will still attack your targeted enemy, however, only one of your party, or two if you are lucky, will be able to fit on the stairs which means that if you try to be tactful and utilize a "bottleneck" tactic by funneling your enemies toward a narrow area, the gamer will only be able to use part of their party to attack. Bioware however, has worked around this issue somewhat by allowing each party member 2 sets of weapons which means that using your custom made tactics you can have members who can not reach the battle with a normal melee weapon can switch automatically to a ranged weapon and fire away.
This seems sort of like a partial fix, but doesn't seem to fully address the issue as most of your battles will require you to use some form of tactic decision making and with gamers not always being able to fully utilize a true tactic system due to the fact that your options are far more limited in narrow areas. A minor setback in an overall amazing game play system.
To me this is a major factor in my determination for game of the year. Most games have a generic soundtrack that usually gets blended into the background and becomes unnoticeable. However, it is the music that sets the stage for the game and provides gamers with the emotion and passion that they feel at various points throughout the game. Dragon Age Origins has hands down one of, if not the best game soundtrack that has ever been compiled. From the opening menu music, gamers are blessed with a hauntingly epic theme which spills over into every area of the game. In the beginning for example of the noble hero quest you will be subject to a royal and noble soundtrack that will make the gamers feel like they themselves are of true nobility and an heir to the throne itself.
Gamers will hear the drums of war crying out for a charge on the battlefield, they will hear the soft whispers of a maiden's plea for peace and tranquility, they will also hear the thundering of trumpets as you emerge triumphant in your quests and battles. The voice acting is good at times, however, gamers will still hear the occasional stereotype of a character through their voice. The reason I say occasional is due to the fact that most of the time you are treated to voices that fit the mood and scene perfectly.
You will hear a king's command to attack as the Darkspawn army approaches, you will hear demons whispering promises to you in deserted castles, and more. The soundtrack is only half of the beauty when it comes to sound, as the sound effects as well are wonderfully tailored to match every aspect of every situation.
Case in point if you listen closely you can even hear the "twang" of the bow string as the character launches an arrow towards the opponent. Every aspect of the sound has been painstakingly done to perfection and with the orchestral music to back up the wonderful sound effects. Dragon Age Origins has set the bar for music and sound effects in gaming. If you have the chance to pick up the collectors edition, you are in for a treat as the entire soundtrack for Dragon Age Origins is on there.
The graphics in this game are very good. The general scenery is good, however, it feels a bit empty in places and I believe that was intended to keep the frame rate high. If you are in a field you can see some wonderful backdrop scenery, however also on the horizon you will not see trees or rock formations until your character gets close to them and uncovers the area on the map. The building models look very detailed and when you enter them, the attention to detail is very well done. In castles you will find various touches that show a lot of work went into the graphics such as illuminated torches and lanterns, fireplaces, bookshelves, and more. The character detailing is also very good, however, most of the armor types do look very similar in between sets.
What this means is that a basic chainmail chest piece made of iron looks very similar, if not identical, to one made of steel. While true that individual piece development is very tedious and takes up memory, it also allows a greater sense of individuality for each and every gamer.
The enemy modeling is highly detailed on some enemies, however, not all of them really feel or look that detailed. An example of this would be a wolf, just a basic generic enemy, however when you are in battle, the wolf's attack and animation look just average and the detail itself of the enemy looks ok at best. This however, can not be said for some of the other demons and Darkspawn that you will encounter. Some of the demons summoned by mages look absolutely stunning and hideous at the same time. Gamers will be able to see much more detail out of some of the more advanced enemies than the general ones.
For example, lets say you manage to run into some bandits. All of them will appear to be very similarly dressed even if they are wearing different armor, so don't expect much as far as a variation there, however, get your party near a spirit door and battle some mages and you will see that attention to detail stand out almost everywhere you look.
In summary; Bioware has delivered a title that will delight gamers for years and set the standard for other companies to follow. Bioware never disappoints in delivering a story that is unparalleled in its quality, a soundtrack that will stand the test of time, and an overall brilliant game play experience that will always excite and never disappoint.
Every aspect of Dragon Age Origins from start to finish combines high attention to detail and an unending love for providing some of the best gaming experiences. I would say that this is an essential part of any Xbox 360 collection.
If you are looking for a game that will keep your attention for days and months at a time, envelop you in a story that is all based around you, provide you with an amazing soundtrack and sound effects, and ultimately give you a gaming experience you will never forget.... pick up Dragon Age Origins.
Suggestions: Maybe figure out how to make the frame rate high while upgrading the graphics a bit. I wouldn't touch the sound quality, gameplay quality, or anything else except a tweak or two of the graphics.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Dead Space
Overall: Overall this game surp@!%#*!es my expectations on many levels. I can not rank it a 10 due to the fact that in my opinion there is no "perfect" game. This does not mean however, that it is a bad game by any means. Dead Space not only meets and exceeds expectations in multiple fields of gameplay, audio, and visual joy, but it also delivers something that I haven't seen in a long time in a video game.... an amazing story.There is also a treat for gamers of this game in the fact that there is an animated movie (which gamers can download from the marketplace) that provides an AMAZING prequel story to the game itself. Gamers who decide to view the movie (which is broken up into multiple parts on the marketplace) will be treated even more to a very rich and involving story line that leads up to the events of the game itself. Gamers who decide not to watch the movie will not experience any loss or diluted storyline; so think of the movie as an "extra bonus feature" that is not essential, but it does add to a deeper story.
From its innovative gameplay, to the eye popping visuals, and a soundtrack and effects that will curdle your spine, Dead Space offers a truly unique experience in that it will set gamers on the edge of their seat from beginning to end. There is also a high replay value with this game for those who wish to get achievements so if you manage to miss and achievement or two on your first play through, then not to worry because once the game is over, you WILL want to experience the story again.
Like I have said I can not rate this game a 10 because I do not feel that there will ever be a "perfect" game, however, Dead Space takes the bar that I personally feel was set by Bioshock and not only goes over it, it takes the bar and smashes it to pieces. I know that it's a big comparison given that Bioshock won game of the year from a lot of different reviewers, however, if Gears of War 2, Fable 2, and Fallout 3 were not being released this year, this game would be a CLEAR WINNER for game of the year. My recommendation is to stop reading this review and head to the nearest place that sells video games and buy this game. In today's gaming world, very few games offer such a deep and involving storyline, and we must take note of when a gem like this arrives. Dead Space so far to date however, EASILY has my vote for GAME OF THE YEAR! Take a bow EA, this game was flat out AMAZING! Thank you for giving gamers what we have been craving for, for a long, long time!
Gameplay: Dead Space provides gamers with a gameplay experience that will set a new standard for up and coming games to live by. From combat to exploration and even puzzle solving the tools that Dead Space provides gamers brings forth a gameplay that is hard to p@!%#*! up.
First off is the view of the game, it is over the shoulder and not first person which is absolutely perfect considering the extra amount of environment it allows you to see. Movement with the character is relatively slow and with the addition of a run button allows the game to keep moving along at whatever pace the gamer decides to go. This game also does not have a "quick turn" feature (which can be resolved by spinning the camera to the location you want and hit LT) so gamers who wish to have a feature like this are not left out. This makes the characters movement very realistic and when you are facing yourself with very narrow hallways it helps to add a heightened sense of horror and suspense since you can not just turn immediately around to see the monsters charging you. This may sound as an inconvenience to some gamers, however like I said before will provide a much more horrific experience.
Dead Space also provides gamers with a "stasis" power that will allow them to, in essence, freeze anyone or anything temporarily. This is very useful if you find yourself in a situation that is incredibly intense and you want to "slow" the experience down for your salvation. This also has another added bonus in that it allows gamers to finish off their opponents in the way they want to. Stasis is a power that we have seen on many other games which is true, however, the stasis power in this game is activated by the gamer only while your weapon of choice is drawn and ready to fire. This makes for a seamless flow from "freeze to fire" and is a M@!%#*!IVE improvement from other games where you have to first use the power, then arm your weapon. In Dead Space its press one button then unleash hell.
Another great innovative idea is the kinetic powers that you obtain. True other games have kinetic energy powers that the gamer can use, but thankfully the same attention to gameplay detail with the stasis power can be found in this as well. Gamers can have their weapon drawn and ready to shoot, and then use kinetic energy to grab an explosive canister and then unleash the canister and fire almost simultaneously. The flow of the gameplay for these two features was very risky, however the developers have put a lot of time and effort into making sure the transitions were smooth and almost instant.
One of the great features of this game is the Zero-G mode, where just like astronauts you get to jump and fly around and latch onto ledges and platforms that would normally be out of your reach. Zero-G is not everywhere in the game, and will take the gamer a bit of time to get used to. One of the reasons is that in Zero-G if you jump onto a wall, then that wall is your new floor, the ceiling from before is now behind you. It takes a bit of time to get used to the fact that your bearings go all to hell when in Zero-G if you're not careful; however once you get used to Zero-G movement it’s incredibly simple and innovative.
The puzzle solving of this game is also done in a way where gamers will not break their controller in frustration. By providing gamers with a "sense of direction" (Press in RS), you are able to see where you are "supposed" to go next. This is a great innovative idea that will allow gamers the protection of not getting lost inside such a mammoth ship. When activated a blue line will light up from your character's feet and shine for a few seconds showing you the "path" that you can take. The reason I say "can" is because this is a m@!%#*!ive ship and there are other areas to explore so you may not want to always "follow the path", but that is for the gamers to decide. There is one gripe that I do have with this "guide" system, and that is if you're not facing the direction you need to go, the camera and your character itself will turn automatically, so I do recommend that you only use this IF you are not in a fight for it will in essence turn your back to your enemy and allow them to attack you over and over again.
A lot of detail has been taken into account in providing a very fluid, smooth moving game that will delight not only hardcore gamers, but relative newcomers as well. This game has a lot to offer in the terms of gameplay but one thing is for sure the developers got it right and thank you for that
Graphics: The visual eye candy of Dead Space can be found at every turn. From the opening scene you can tell that a lot of time was put into making every single detail of this game absolutely authentic and amazingly real. Not a lot of games recently have put such attention to detail into the gamer's environment, thankfully though, Dead Space provides.
The character models to start out with are AMAZINGLY life like and the interactions are mind blowingly real. This helps bring to life the whole story of Dead Space b/c it will bring gamers a deeper appreciation for all the characters, both living and dead... and we'll get to the dead ones here soon. Not only is the human interaction between player and other humans amazing, but the interaction between the gamer and the environment. From picking up a cell phone in a tram station, to reading a magazine left on a desk of a fallen solider, this game does a great job in its attention to detail. One of my favorite moments was when I was reading the writing in blood on a bathroom wall asking their god to save them from the horrors and monsters, then right underneath it only 2 words "We're ******" where you can tell the last letter is smeared in a bloody streak downwards to a hand, not a body, but just a hand. That is just a small taste of how twisted the visuals can be.
The enemy models are something that not only provided me with an amazing horror experience, but the variety and detailing of each makes this game one of my personal favs. It’s not just like there are different colored enemies or the same enemies, just with more health and armor, but there are subtle differences that make this game go from good to great. For example one of the creatures is a baby that has been genetically mutated for "the cause". It sprouts 3 tentacles which not only sway life like, however, it also has an "Alien face hugging" characteristic which makes every enemy in this game a force to be reckoned with. There are many graphic and gory details about every single enemy in the game that, thanks to the developers taking their time to do, make every single encounter something to be not only feared but appreciated. From pregnant exploding demons, to m@!%#*!ive armored brutes, and incredibly fast moving stalkers, this game is a visual eye candy from start to finish.
The gamers also have the ability to dismember their fallen either by gunfire or by a curb stomp that would shatter every bone in your body. The limbs and dismemberments throughout the game provide such a realistic feel due to the simple fact that everything was painstakingly thought through w/ a high attention to detail. If you see a dead body in the chair and you shoot the head from behind, the whole body reacts to the sheer force of the shot, not just the head. Bodies breakdown and flop around differently depending on what limbs you decide to remove. If you have an enemy that is running at you and you shoot its legs out, the legs will stay and twitch and pulse their remaining blood supply amongst the ground while the demon will just use whatever limbs it has left to crawl after you and end your life.
Dead Space's environments are absolutely amazing. You are placed into a m@!%#*!ive "planet-cracker" (reminds me kind of like a "star destroyer" from star wars) and this ship is M@!%#*!IVE. From the very beginning gamers are dealt a m@!%#*!ive amount of eye candy when it comes to the detailing of the enviornment. From areas of a green house that provide highly detailed plantlife and overgrowth going up and down the walls, M@!%#*!IVE storage facilities w/ multiple levels, to the simple comm. panels that you interact with throughout the game, no detail was missed. You will come to areas that have shattered gl@!%#*! and bodies everywhere w/ an emphasis on HEAVY blood loss, and you can see almost every single individual tendon that makes up not only the human corpses, but EVERY single enemy you face.
Last but not least is the communications that you receive via a "pop up" video screen. These encodings are done absolutely perfectly from the static to the real life images you see and will provide you a little taste of what you can expect to experience. The quality makes the gamer feel that they are actually communicating with the other person on the other side of the screen and it helps to add a tremendous amount of realism to the game. These "pop-up" videos are thankfully stored in your database so that you may (like I did) view them again and again and again. In summary from start to finish, EVERY visual aspect of this game is absolutely amazing and it hopefully will become a mark for other games in development to achieve and surp@!%#*!.
Audio: The audio in Dead Space is second to none. From the very moment you insert the game into your console the audio begins to take you on a horrific ride that will constantly beat your ear drums into submission. This game was MADE for a 5.1 system, by providing gamers an audio experience that does not happen very often. From Dead Space's "Twinkle Twinkle little star...” in the very opening, to the very last scene of the game, the soundtrack is something that I hope future games take into consideration. It has its moments that will raise your blood pressure, and tense your body as you get a "feeling" that will sweep over you without letting up. It also has its moments of accomplishment which when experienced in the context of the game itself lends gamers a greater sense of accomplishment. Many of times after a conclusive victory I found my heart pounding and adrenaline rushing through my veins which only elevated the sense that I just slaughtered something BIG.
The soundtrack does something else that I rarely see in most survival horror games, it goes completely silent. Just ominous sounds of the environment with no musical score to back it up provides an unbelievable amount of heightened tension, that not only will lead gamers into a false sense of security, but allow a much more dramatic climax when BANG everything goes crazy. This soundtrack also is a key for providing many "JUMPING" moments, where you may think after you've gone through a battle that you've won, but you're dead wrong. I've had experiences where after a battle I have thought to myself "I’m so glad that’s over with" and the music will go silent again, then BANG with out warning the game takes an immediate turn for the INTENSE and I barely have a chance to catch my breath.
The sound FX as well are worth mentioning all in themselves due to the simple fact that it is VERY rare to play a game where depending where your character faces will determine where you hear your enemies come from. I know that there are many other games where (in a surround sound system) you hear different effects from different speakers, however, what sets this game apart is the CONSTANT variety of sound effects. You will hear everything from static coming from a comm. link, a baby's cries, laughter, screams, chains and pipes dragging and being dropped, panels breaking, gl@!%#*! shattering, and many, many more.
Now to another fun part, for all gamers, the weapons. Dead Space provides you with an arsenal that is not only fun to use, but sounds every bit as good as every other element in the game. From a scorching searing flamethrower, to a head ripping buzz saw weapon, every single weapon provides gamers with audio heaven with every single shot. Once upgraded your weapons as well develop a different sound. You can start out with a simple amazing sounding projectile sound from your basic plasma cutter, but when fully upgraded sounds like you are unleashing a hand held a-bomb explosion with every shot. The sound for the weapons is absolutely amazing and the fact that the gamer can customize and develop their weapons just as they would themselves makes upgrading every weapon worth it just to hear it go boom.... and boom it does go.
The voice acting in Dead Space is VERY well done. Different tones of voices indicate different emotions that the gamer will feel. It's and experience that will allow the gamers to actually feel what the other person is going through on the other side of the screen. There will be times when you will hear frustration, anger, rejoice, laughter, praise, and more. Thankfully the dialog as well is not done in a way that makes you regret playing this game and is very well written and provides some amazing insight as to the history of the ship and its crew. What is amazingly done is the way the audio from other actors interacts with the audio from other people and creatures alike. You will hear the horrific screams of an attack; you will hear the sobbing stories of a man who just wanted to get home to his family but in the end, takes his own life. You hear it all in the voices of your team as well as in the silenced voices of the now dead crew.
This when combined with the soundtrack bring to the gamer an audio experience that hasn't been seen for a very, very long time. If you do not own a surround sound system, do not worry as this game will easily provide your ears with such a harmony of sound and effects that all that is needed by the gamer is to turn up the volume. This game has it all and the soundtrack and effects are by far some of the best I have heard in a long... long time....
"Twinkle Twinkle little star.... How I wonder how dead you are” Enjoy.
Suggestions: Its hard to imagine what to ask the developers, its like trying to improve a ferrari. The visual and audio qualities of this game are top notch, however if there is one thing that I could say to them, it would be one word: SEQUEL... actually it would be multiple words: MAKE THIS GAME A SERIES
Overall Score: 9.9 / 10
Ninja Gaiden 2
Overall: Ninja Gaiden 2 is a beautifull follow up to the original xbox title Ninja Gaiden. The game pits users against a seemingly m@!%#*!ive demon army that is determined that we mere humans suffer and perish at the hand of the archfiend. If you're looking for a deeper plot than what I just wrote, then sadly you would be at a loss, for the story is very very loose and there are a few moments that the gamer will say to him/herself "how did we go from there to here?" The plot of Ninja Gaiden 2 is loose at best. From the beginning, the story has a chance to make some sense and possibly dive deeper into the intricate emotions of the characters, sadly though it does not. From the beginning Ryu must "babysit" a character that serves literally almost no purpose in the game except to provide some "shirt busting" eye candy. The plot development though is what they should have focused on more @ Tecmo, instead of a character that is just there to take up space. This game had so much potential but alas, it falls short in the plot development, very very short.
This normally would be a sign of bad things to come when a game's storyline isn't well developed, but alas this game def. has some qualities that pull its ninja hind parts out of the fire, but not all the way. The old Ninja Gaiden has provided many xbox users and "old-school" NES players the chance to dust off the sword and gear up for one m@!%#*!ive battle after the next. The original games provided users the ability to "trigger" enemies based upon new areas that they enter or explore, and Ninja Gaiden 2 is no different. I'll dive into this in more detail in the gameplay description, and try not to get off topic of this summary.
This title does provide users with a multitude of levels and areas to explore. Ninja Gaiden 2 takes gamers on a journey between distant realms of demonic nature, to the Statue of Liberty, to an old japanese village, and more. Gamers will also appreciate the attention to detail of the accuracy of information of the ninja that was taken into account for this game. Details such as weapon names, the use of the weapon by the ninja, ninja magic or "ninpo" in the game and more will provide hours upon hours of enjoyment for gamers. This isn't a game where the ninja weild lazer swords and shoot particle cannons, this is a game where ninjas use authentic ninja weapons as well as ninja magic "ninpo" to obliterate your existence from the game. This is a wonderfull feel in that it provides a more modern twist while still showcasing a part of Japanese culture and history that has long been over exploited and done with "over-the-top" effects, but deserves every bit of recognition and praise. An example would be in Ninja Gaiden 2 you come to face what are called "gun" ninjas that wield automatic guns and are very acrobatic and hard to hit. This is a good example of how the game puts a modern twist on such a anceint way of life.
Ninja were traditionally very, very intelligent. It is easier to consider them the "special ops" of feudal japan. They utilized deception, intelligence, strength, inginuity and more to complete their missions. Granted some missions did involve @!%#*!@!%#*!inations, however, they were also deployed to gain valuable information and report back. The ninja, if caught, had to outsmart its adversary every chance they got so they maintained the upper hand in the fight. Ninjas as well utilized gunpowder in various ways from traps for enemies, to "ninja magic", and more. This is one of many wonderfull details that Ninja Gaiden 2 takes into account and then provides a modern twist for gamers of today. This game is a great example of how a proud culture from hundreds of years ago has thrived in all of our minds and hearts due to the mystery that is the Ninja.
Gameplay: For those thinking that this game is going to be a fun and enjoyable romp through feudal japan that pits your ninja skills against an army of foes waiting to end your journey, you will be partially satisfied. Instead of having images of a multitude of enemies laying at your feet in pieces as you celebrate your much deserved victory, you will find yourself instead shouting and smashing things from your controller to tv due to the difficulty of this game.
First off is the camera that is provided for the gamer. This is huge considering that the camera will be the only thing you can control to actually see the enemies on the screen that are attacking you. The camera moves around by user control and has the ability to center its focus with the push of a button, however, users will have to literally start thinking in a 360 degree field of view in order to fully grasp the concept of this camera. Many of times users will curse the camera, and feel that death is coming for them in the forms of enemies that are off the screen that the gamer can not see. There are two ways to combat this sensation, one way is to turn the camera sensitivity all the way up.
Even when this is done, the camera can still hinder the gamer in a multiple of areas, esp. when critical jumping and timing is needed and you have a barrage of flaming arrows and throwing stars winging their way towards the back of your head. The second option involves the gamers to start thinking in a 360 field of view. If your character is in a big open training area, then thanks to the amazing new A.I. that I will be going into detail more, understand that enemies, like yourself, do not want to die so they will flank and attack from behind if possible. This means that the gamer must always keep his/her head on a swivel if they want to avoid death from off the screen. A good example would be if you were faced with 3 enemies in front of you all standing in a row. You then focus your attacks on the one in the middle and ignore the other two for now. The other ninja that you did not attack will pivot around behind you and try to flank you and surprise you with attacks that will be next to impossible to block or avoid.
This is all thanks to the new A.I. that Ninja Gaiden 2 provides gamers. The enemies in the game are a lot more bent on survival for themselves and will do anything from ranged attacks to sneak attacks in order to try to gain the upper hand against you in a fight. This will also come into play when you go after the boss battles for now their A.I. has also been improved upon to provide gamers a true challange which some will find at times to be next to impossible. With all the improvements that have taken place in Ninja Gaiden 2 in regards to enemy A.I. this is a great example of how you can take something amazing and make it even better.
Ninja Gaiden 2 also provides users with some of the most fluid and intense combat fighting situations that are to be found on a video game. Combos and obliterations are the main focus of this and provide multiple ways of dispaching your foes to another world. Every weapon in the game has multiple obliteration techniques that the user can do in a fight that will end it shortly, very very shortly. This works out beautifully considering that most of the time you are faced with more than 3-5 enemies at a time. By using the ability to end one enemies life in a few strokes, the user can then turn his/her attention to the other enemies that have now by most part either taken up flanking positions or have worked their way directly behind you. Using the obliteration techniques as well provides a colorfull zoomed in mini cut scene where the enemy finally falls at the hand of your blade which will seem interesting at first, but then you will find it to become very repetitive, however, since there are multiple weapons at Ryu's disposal and every one of them have multiple obliteration sequences, the user will not be at a loss for limb removal enjoyment.
Combos also are a main focus of Ninja Gaiden 2. True its one thing to end the fight quickly and enjoy the pleasure of converting your enemies into piles of limbs, but Ninja Gaiden 2 also allows the gamer to smash, over and over and over and over and over..... and over again every single opponent that stands in your way, and this is one of the ways that Ninja Gaiden 2 shines above all. When you are faced with multiple demons and you are thrashing out a 60 hit combo or up the fluid gameplay of the battle allows Ryu to literally bash the ever loving crap out of anyone and will leave gamers shouting at times "ooooooooooooohhhhhhhh snap!!! DID YOU JUST SEE THAT!?!?!?!" This is because the fluid action sequences of Ninja Gaiden 2 are injected with some serious "roids" that take the gameplay from enjoyable to extremely enjoyable.
Just as every weapon has multiple obliteration techniques, Ninja Gaiden 2 provides multiple "Ultimate Techniques" that can be unleashed at the mere press of a button, but don't start to think that this is a "golden ticket" to get through the game. In order to do Ultimate techniques you will need to "charge" your character up. This is done by holding the attack button for a few seconds, however, once charged you are totally defenseless. This is where the stratagey comes into play for the gamer. Stratagy is key for the timing of this move, and I can not stress enough the word KEY. This is not a move that is to be pulled off when its 20 on 1, however, this is more suited to 3 on 1 or so. When the gamer charges this ultimate technique they are rewarded with a mini cut scene of Ryu using his tools of his trade to rain hit after hit after brutal and bloody hit into his opponents. Multiple weapons mean that the gamer is treated to m@!%#*!ive, and I repeat, M@!%#*!IVE ultimate bashings. Imagine slicing through an opponent in a 30 hit ultimate technique, switching then to your staff (or whatever weapon suits your fancy), and raining down another 35 hit combo for a glorious total of 65 ninja bashing hits!
I mentioned earlier that parts of this game is controller smashing hard, and I still mean every word of it. Ninja Gaiden 2 commands every bit of respect and focus that you can provide, for if you give anything less, then kiss your lil ninja tail goodbye. This is a game that will test gamers focus with every turn. The original Ninja Gaiden for the 360 had its moments of frustration and this sequel is no different. A major improvement for the gamer is the ability to regain lost health after a fight. Instead of going through a battle now, taking damage, and then hopefully making it to another save point before you have to use your health items, the gamer's health will refill to a point. Ninja Gaiden 2 offers now a "red bar" that will steadily grow as you take damage in a fight. This is health that will not be restored at the end of the fight. Right now fans are breathing a sigh of relief, however, that is soon counteracted by what the enemies bring to the table.
This game will pit you in situations that are phenominally hard. When you start out there are 2 forms of difficulty. Acolyte and Warrior provide the "easy" and "medium" difficulties and for the common gammer not accustomed to Ninja Gaiden, they will seem like "hard" and "yeah right impossible." For instance there is a boss battle, that after you make it through that you have to immediately fight 8-12 more hard enemies, and THEN the level is over. If you should happen to expire while you are fighting these extra death dealers, then you will have to start all over at the main boss battle again, and then move on to the 8-12 enemies that already stopped you in your path. This will provide hours upon hours of challenge for the gamer, but will also allow a great feeling of accomplishment upon p@!%#*!ing levels and areas. I've mentioned the difficulties of Acolyte and Warrior, however, I have not begun to stress the challenge of the next 2 levels of difficulty, mentor and master ninja.
With the mentor difficulty you face an even greater challange that is not for the faint of heart. An increase in in the A.I. means that this difficulty will be a source for many sleepless nights and replaced controllers. This however, pails in comparison to the other difficulty setting, Master Ninja. For the common gamer Master Ninja difficulty will seem to them like the developers were sitting around and thought to themselves "what would a gamer never be able to beat?" I say this because Master Ninja is a difficulty that is beyond anything we interpret to be hard. Your ninja skills will have to be honed to a razor's edge in order to even stand a chance against your opponents in this difficulty. Enemies will attack, and attack, and attack again without hesitation. They will use every single move and method they can comprehend to end your journey right then and there. Upon completion of the Master Ninja difficutly gamers are awarded 100 gamerscore points, however, in my eyes they should receive a medal. If completion of mentor is an impossible challange, then completion of Master ninja will test gamer's devotion when faced with an impossible scenario. I can not stress enough the difficulty and frustration that awaits you in master ninja.
As I mentioned gamerscore earlier, this game provides users w/ creative achievements that force the gamer to explore and search the levels instead of just blasting through enemies and levels with a bloody sword (granted you can just do that as well if you so desire). Some of the achievements range from: completing certain levels, using only 1 weapon throughout the game, beating it on a certain difficulty, etc... This provides a great replay value for the game in that users will have to run through Ninja Gaiden 2 multiple times in order to gain a full 1000 gamerscore points. There are some secret achievements, however, with a little exploration most can be obtained fairly easily.
Graphics: The graphics on Ninja Gaiden 2 are absolutly stunning. Ryu comes to life like we have never seen him before and the battles are stunningly beautifull esp. when you have the oppertunity to view him in HD. The backgrounds, even for being rendered landscapes, provide a beautifull backdrop in every single level and help to institue a feeling of belonging to the gamer. This beauty starts from the very first min. the gamer puts the disc in the 360 and does not end till its all said and done. Gamers will see beautifull graphics on every level, from very well done water effects as well as some goregous fire detailing, and more.
This also means that every single battle that the gamer goes into will be done with absolute beauty. From your encounters with common enemies and foes to major boss battles and epic fights, everything is laid out for the gamer in one beautifull package. Seeing limbs and heads removed in such fluid HD beauty is something that you will be hard pressed to find in any other game. The graphics are truly top notch and its all thanks to the wonderfull developers at Team Ninja, who is also responsible for other graphically stunning games such as Dead or Alive. Team Ninja leaves no attention to detail out in the construction of Ninja Gaiden 2. The detail doesn't just stop at the landscapes in the background, but continues on to fill every single aspect of the game, from trees, to bulidings, everything is shone in a goregous p@!%#*!ion that will impress even the most critical of gamers. From old japanese villages, to modern day cities, to the depths of hell, every moment shines with stunning graphics.
The detail involved in the enemies are also very impressive. Every imperfection, every eye, every single small little detail is displayed for the gamers enjoyment. The detailing in Ryu's adversaries truly make for a graphically staisfying time. Gamers will see things from the flames coming from the eyes, or the bolts of lightning rain down from above, to the pavement of a street, to the subtle leaves of a tree. This game holds nothing back when it comes to graphics and is one of the most visually stunning games you can find on the xbox 360.
Audio: This is where I have to find a little fault with the game. Being an audio producer/dj I tend to focus on the music to help create the environment and emotion that will help define a gamer's enjoyment. I have recently purchased a copy of the soundtrack for the original Ninja Gaiden on the xbox b/c I wanted to do a direct comparison and see what improvements, if any are apparent. Sadly though I was disappointed.
The music soundtrack to Ninja Gaiden 2 does little to help the gamer immerse themselves into the level and the boss music sounds pretty much the same from level to level so there is little variation there as well. Also, there are no tracks that provide the same type of feeling that we once got when playing the original Ninja Gaiden, and for a game that took many years to develop I felt that this was a big disappointment. I was expecting a japanese influenced soundtrack that branched into intense dark electronic beats to signify intense situations that you will find yourself in, to the lull of softer music for when you are venturing around the levels. Unfortunetly I was fairly disappointed in the soundtrack, however, thats not to say that this game does offer some redeeming audio qualities.
The sound FX that the gamer will hear with every single swing of a weapon is done brilliantly. The clash of swords, the impact of projectiles, the boom of explosions, all of it and more sound crisp and clear and will leave the gamer wanting more. The voices of the bosses also bring out a sense of amazement. From the misleading softness, to the booming b@!%#*!, every boss has their own individual charcater and because of this and it brings the gamers of Ninja Gaiden 2 a treat when the times comes for the final confrontation. Ninja Gaiden 2 does have its faults in the audio department, however, when compiled against the big picture of the game experience, will leave gamers with a very enjoyable experience
Overall Score: 9.2 / 10
