Maybe I‘m too thick or perhaps we just don’t click like we used to? Either way, some puzzles in Broken Age were tough as nails. It’s a thoughtful and imaginative game but in equal measure, a chore wrought in guess work, cluttered with poorly realised puzzles whose inventiveness seems hazardous to their own brilliance. A staple of gaming in the late 80s and a decent chunk of the 90s, point-and-click adventures have always existed on one solid foundation: player satisfaction. Pioneers Lucas Arts and Sierra both nailed this mechanic and the smug realization when you stopped and exited the Tunnel of Love in Sam & Max Hit the Road or the gratifying way Space Quest IV lectured you for cursing (“what would your mother think”?) are no accident, but perfect examples of impetus driven almost entirely by ‘the eureka moment’. It’s these mini epiphanies that make all that pointing and clicking worthwhile, as ‘the point’, as far as the player can tell, is to be rewarded for their troubles. It’s a pity then when the re-birth of the genre, helmed by one its most beloved figureheads, fails not only to re-capture former glory but quite radically regress it – eliminating the logic and signposting (subtle in-game hints helping guide the player to a defined conclusion) that had helped give the point-and-click such a unique and intellectual essence. This lack of logic can be found all throughout Broken Age’s 4-6 hour lifespan but is most damning in the latter half of the game, when things really start to hit the fan. Cat-hair moustache bad? I won’t tar it with that brush but it’s well on its way. At this point in the story the player is asked to craft a makeshift hole-patch material from combination disgusting man-made broth and eggshell. Sure it sounds great but the path to the solution is far from rewarding. The goal here is to afford the slop a pH level of 9 so it can be used to patch up a spaceship. Figuring you have to plumb the depths of the purple-grey mess with your talking spoon (it makes a certain amount of sense in context), you’re told the pH is 7. A basic chat with your dad, the mastermind behind this plan, has you learn the acidic materials will lower the pH, whilst dropping in anything highly alkaline (say, a shell) will raise it. Alright – I’ll just drop in this shell I got earlier. “Just a minute” says Shay, one the game’s two main characters, “that’s a shell-shaped instrument, not a shell”. Here’s where the real fun begins… Depending on your capacity for arbitrary inventory mashing, the next 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay will see you traipsing backdrops, attempting to combine a fish with a snake and growing steadily more frustrated as you attempt to solve this bastard of a riddle. Through nothing more than process of elimination, the solution finally becomes clear – use the juice tapper from the guy in the tree to crack the egg of the bird that had previously attacked you every time you went near it, let alone when you tried to smash up its kid’s house with a blunt instrument. There’s no flow here nor reason and this laziness garnishes the whole game – the player asked to exhaust all possibilities before proceeding. Though dotted with imagination and some genuine fun, the elaborate and seemingly random nature of Broken Age distills it to nothing more than a disappointing irony, cruel in its purpose and choice of moniker. In attempting to recapture the inventiveness of its predecessors, its ambition has tipped the balance and now has it nowt more than a frustrating exercise in developer telepathy. Space Quest, Sam & Max or Monkey Island this game certainly isn’t, though it can now share a shelf with Assassin's Creed Unity and the Masterchief Collection as a herald of the broken Age (with apologies given to Broken Sword).
It’s a safe assessment that eighty per cent of the characters in The Witcher 3 do not want you there. They hate you offering your services, and detest you even more when they part with their hard-earned coin. Your mere appearance, it seems, is but to weigh heavy on their soul. With such a depressing outlook, it’s a wonder CD Projekt’s pièce de résistance isn’t one big sad slog, but quite the opposite. The Witcher hosts a vibrant world brimming with opportunity, you need only stagger your way around to see it all. As someone long weary of fetch quests and open-world nonsense, to be as enamored as I am with this game is somewhat of a miracle. Wrapped in mystique, I’m eager to explore every arcane cranny. An ominous hole? Better believe I’m going down there for what could be as little reward as a loaf of bread. Appropriately, ‘wild’ is the word I’d use to best describe the massive world of Temeria. The harsh, windswept landscape feels anything but safe, bringing with it treasure, beasts and happenstance which could see you stashing a new bit of steel, or assertively pirouetting over a cliff. Among its many creatures, hazardous fish-men ‘Drowners’ roam both land and sea, scratching at your heels as you pop down to explore that one last chest, wreck, or – as it turns out – three-storied Temerian Atlantis. It’s a land lived-in and a seamless melding of scene, weather and soundscape that brings forth a magnificent and detailed melancholy, the mood and intimacy of The Last of Us mixed with the beauty and breadth of Red Dead Redemption. A simple stroll shows just how beautiful Temeria must have been before the war. Sweeping hills, plunging valleys and more than one glorious sunset still lighten the landscape, but the earth is now stained with blood from battles not long fought; overturned carriages litter the back roads, and lynched corpses sway quietly in the breeze – a warning – the shoes-on-the-power-line of this world. It’s strange then that a team could build to such heights yet erect the foundations in a bog. Plagued by clunkiness, movement in The Witcher 3 feels like parkour through molasses – weighty and frustrating in equal measure. Never have I been more aware of gravity than prancing the coastline to only seconds later be met with an untimely demise, courtesy of what must’ve been a slippery ledge or perhaps an overly oily pair of boots? Keen to check that chest on the bluff? Get ready to amble tentatively and god help you if you overcompensate in acceleration – you’ll be eating more dirt than a Rock Troll. To afford a humanoid the weight and steering of a dual-skid catamaran is both bold and baffling, and it’s unfortunate that the plethora of boats littering the numerous lakes, seas and Temeria’s main river the Pontar, already pushes The Witcher well over its quota of maritime vessels. Sadly, there’s just no room for the S.S. Geralt. To further **** this sandwich, The Witcher comes with one of the most ruthless fall damage systems I’ve seen. Anything more than a small drop and you’re a crumpled husk. It’s as if CD Projekt Red had a delayed reaction to the Crouching Tiger-like jumping of Bethesda’s Oblivion and set out to create the most grounded RPG imaginable, literally. Fortunately, this kind of weight translates well to combat. Everything from a quick slash to a flashy upward arc feels both powerful and hefty. Enemies come with a reasonable head on their shoulders, and bandits, pirates or any of the numerous creatures will rally, mob and use their numbers to cut you down before you can get your own in. If respected, the combat system can give way to some excitingly grim finishers: an above waist vivisection, a kneeling decapitation or a grand height reduction by way of a sweeping kick… with a sword. Keep a quick dodge at the ready, and you’ll be lopping off legs in no time. For the most part, The Witcher is astonishingly beautiful and without doubt, one of the best looking games on the PS4. So good are the visuals that it feels a disservice to any more than lightly jog the streets of its largest city, Novigrad, for all the things you may miss. Unfortunately, such a detailed palette has it slightly outreach its technical grasp. Load times are lengthy (prepare to pop the jug on should you die) and frames do take a dive in the more detailed and intensive areas such as Crookback Bog. The game also suffers from a team adjusting to mucking about on consoles. The UI is cumbersome, and the inventory: a grid-based system with egregiously small type. It may work on PC, but all that squinting and rummaging can quickly become tiresome without a mouse. But, it’s an easy trade and The Witcher’s achievements far outweigh its missteps. The cast of characters is massive and always interesting. Individuals come pre-packaged with their own fears, loves, motivations and hatreds (you, mainly) and this affords a decent whack of nuance to side quests whilst aiding in the helix questing system – strands of adventures
Wolfenstein: The New Order is a gem ****, though one baked in nostalgia. Its run-and-gun, cover-is-for-the-weak, blow-everything-to-hell **** party is a welcome reprise from the hum-drum shooter affair plaguing the genre since the rise of the blue-grey, Whitcoulls-gift-voucher-for-X-mas FPS. The **** have won, the future belongs to enormous Swastikas, mass culling of all nationalities (no discrimination here) and overall despair. Lovingly crafted by Machine Games, Wolfy New Order sees BJ Blaskowitz – full-time **** fun extinguisher – back in action. Though bloody and bombastic, this newest iteration on the series paints a far more detailed picture than expected, eliciting some oddly tender moments from our meaty hero and comrades. The true charm of Wolfy lies in its older, more tactile mechanics. Similar to elder games of a the same ilk, retrieving items (health, armour, ammo and weapons) doesn’t require a simple stroll over or near supplies, but the single tap of a button. This does make for some high-intensity spamming but you can’t help but be transported back to a time before collision detection was perfected and the retrieving of med kits was deemed a wholly manual affair. Lovely. However, with an older formula does come outdated ideas and things that have since evolved for good reason. Particularly evident in this regard is Wolfenstein’s choice of manually-triggered cutscenes. Well-polished, sure, but the sudden and self-inflicted snaps from gameplay to movie can impede on pacing, especially when a heated run-in with a Panzerhund – the SS’ very own nightmarish take on Astro from the Jetsons – morphs into an emotionally-charged chat with a colleague amongst bloody wreckage. Not a complete showstopper but its choices like these that really does have the once labyrinthine, granddaddy of shooters showing its age. Old Blood expansion aside, there’s no doubt that Wolfenstein: The New Order deserves a sequel. Its reckless disregard for the methodical, plodding shooters of late brings with it a celebration of extravagant stabbing and the simple joys of moving through a level, blowing some **** up. This attitude coupled with an oddly thoughtful narrative makes new Wolfenstein an excellent package and a welcome return to the past.
Marketing for SOMA, Frictional Games’ in-house follow up to Prussian hide-and-seek sim Amnesia: The Dark Descent, may have had you brush it aside as nothing more than a well-realised bit of Bio or System Shock fan fiction. You’d be right, but the comparison only goes so far before SOMA strays from its spiritual brethren, mostly in the right ways. The game’s milieu is an eerie stretch of seemingly endless ocean and the inner passages of stations dotted about the sea floor. Much like Amnesia, SOMA’s true skill lies in letting your imagination run wild, and with something as boring as a bit of coral now putting a lump in your throat, it’s evident the fifteen-strong Swedish developer have continued to hone their craft. Barnacle-riddled wreckage forms aquatic tombs on the seafloor. Traipse the depths and ponder the nasties lurking within – this is where SOMA thrives. The inside areas of the game are a web of corridors with dodgy wiring and compartments whose austere sheen wouldn’t seem out of place aboard the Nostromo. If the ocean brews unease, the rooms and passageways damn well steep it, giving an immense feeling of entrapment and another reason to hold your breath as you dart between rooms and sift the possessions of a suspiciously absent crew. SOMA isn’t groundbreaking in its gameplay, opting for the ‘twist this, pull that’ blueprint (intercut with mad dashes from unthinkables) we’ve seen countless times. Computer terminals, audio logs and scraps of paper highlight extra bits of information but, for the most part, aren’t mandatory. This DIY storytelling isn’t anything new either and games of this ilk rarely work unless morsels contribute something substantial to something worth pursuing. Thankfully, SOMA’s central mystery will have you scouring crusted hulls until your eyes bleed. A mood as thick as molasses and a story asking all the right questions, SOMA should be an inescapable experience. Unfortunately, technical limitations are obvious and the PS4 can’t quite bear all the dust, rust and aquatic homicide. Outside areas see frame rates take a dive and checkpoints come part and parcel with short freezes – great for catching your breath, not so much for building immersion. The game also locked up completely after a few particularly intense set pieces, leading to moments of unforeseen horror as I caught glimpse of myself in the TV. These moments weren’t app killers but definitely detracted from an otherwise excellent white-knuckle romp. It’s uncertain if similar issues exist on PC, but in this instance, the PS4 does simply seem unable to handle all of Frictional’s lovely screen furniture. Not without flaw, SOMA’s story elevates it from what has come before. Frictional Games have crafted a terrifying but thoughtful experience and a true fascination of wonder and darkness. Much like Amnesia, horror enthusiasts will fall madly for SOMA, and technical hitches aside, you’d be doing **** disservice to stray from its madness.
If like me, you haven’t stepped back into the World of Warcraft for a good while, the announcement and release of Legion probably means very little. As a fan of MMOs, jumping back into a game 12 years gone said to me that I’d be at it for months simply reaching a point where I could consider attempting a dungeon or raid. With great skepticism and nearly 10 years of inactivity under my belt (last seen in Burning Crusade) I reinstalled WoW to see what all the fuss was about. In the build up to release, a great many things had been touted about Legion’s story and I was curious about the “reset” heralded by the expansion. In all, I was re-entering the world to answer three questions: can a brand new player jump in and have fun; am I able to play the game without it being obvious I’m a brand new player; does this thing have legs? Legion’s starting area is fantastic for introducing the new Demon Hunter class, adding mechanics to the player’s arsenal (and to that of your enemies’) and showcasing the various status ailments you may receive and how to counter these. By the time the 2-3 hour starting area is well and truly rinsed, you should be ready to tackle the meat of the expansion without delay. Given the quality of story even in this first zone (and around the Demon Hunter class campaign), you should be smitten from first glance. The game area is broken up into four leveling zones scaled to your current level, meaning you can tackle them in any order and follow the stories that interest you the most. 2-3 hours per zone means leveling an alternate character after your first feels no less tedious than completing things sequentially. You can traipse dungeons while leveling and indeed, must, in order to see all stories to their conclusion. Once you hit the new level cap of 110, which took me a good 10 hours from the creation of my character, dungeons will be a good chunk of what you’re doing. Unfortunately, I also found myself reaching Legion’s end game zone ‘Suramar’ after only a few hours of questing. Here, you’re expected to do world quests simply to boost your faction reputation and grind for better gear. No stranger to MMOs and the grinding generally needed for end game activities, I was well prepared but also couldn’t help but feel a little let down as Legion seemed only to just be getting started before dropping everything and telling me to rinse-and-repeat on a slightly harder difficulty. Also disappointing is the new class Demon Hunter only having around 15 abilities to use in combat. With a top level of 110, I was hoping for a similar number of combat skills to that of other MMOs. This sort of restriction can feel a bit jarring when compared to the 40+ skills you’re used to running in something like Final Fantasy XIV. As a storied player, if you’re wanting to jump back in, smash out Legion and re-examine WoW’s long lineage, now’s as good as time as any. You can run solo the majority of previous 25-40 man raids and easily experience everything pre-Legion, albeit in an extremely cheap way. Killing Illidan at the top of the Black Temple in one hit is definitely amusing, as is watching the life drain from Arthas. By the time I got to Deathwing though and was able to avert a time travelling apocalypse with the simple press of ‘2’, I just felt dirty. New players, on the other hand, can find a lot to love starting with Legion. As always, Blizzard’s world building is top-notch and learning the ropes won’t take anyone too long. The quest introducing the new story does a stellar job of teaching new players the ins and outs but those wishing for something longer (by MMO standards) may be left underwhelmed. If you’ve always wanted to see the World, I would strongly recommend a visit. The game is in great shape and easily the most accessible it’s been since the vanilla launch. As for my own Azeroth adventure? Right now, I have 20 days of game time remaining and I don’t think I’ll be darkening those doorsteps again anytime soon.
