TheOmegaMale

It's simple. If you own a WII U this needs to be in your collection. I'm about 25 hours into the game and I can't put it down. I haven't eaten properly in the last 2 days and I stink because I haven't showered. That's how much this game has hooked me, and it feels great. I don't think I've felt this much enjoyment with a Zelda title since Ocarina of Time back in the day. Try to Imagine the Witcher 3's open world combined with a studio Ghibli anime art style being held together by 30 years of Zelda lore, and you've got a rough idea about what you're getting into. A beautiful open world ready for you to explore and experiment with. Be prepared for a challenge though. This is no press A to win Zelda. This is hardcore, one shot kill if you're not prepared, Zelda. A bold move on the part of Nintendo with one of their flagship titles. On the technical side, I have ZERO issues with this games performance on the WII U. People crying over frame-rates need to **** it up. I've seen nothing that has detracted from my enjoyment of the game. Considering the tech inside the WII U, what they've managed to accomplish is breath taking (pun intended). In short, the best game on the WII U, and a fitting send off.

What an incredible difference! That was my reaction when playing this game on the Xbox 360 after having an awful experience with it on the PS3. I have written a review for the PS3 port and heavily criticised the game for "horrendous" frame rate issues. This made me curious about the Xbox port so I picked up a copy and just "WOW"! Almost all frame rate issues are completely gone. There is a little dip when things get especially hectic but nothing that makes the game unplayable (unlike the PS3 port). This is definitely the best version to get if you want to experience this great arcade style shooter on a modern console. I have no hesitation in recommending it. Brilliant!

Under Defeat is a Shoot Em Up or "SHMUP" that has gained a good reputation amongst the Dreamcast community as one of the best examples of it's genre. It is also hideously expensive to buy for the Dreamcast as it was released very late in that consoles life span and usually has to be imported from Japan. It has received a port to the PS3 some time ago and seemed like a great option for playing the game at a more reasonable price. I was super hyped to be able to pick up a digital download copy of this game in a recent Sony sale (about 10 pounds UK) and finally have the chance to play it. So imagine my disappointment when after jumping into the game I'm met with the most horrendous frame rate issues I've EVER seen in a PS3 game. The game literally ground to a halt when the screen got busy. I seriously haven't seen anything this bad in years (I'm talking NES / SNES era). While the game does have some great options for screen adjustment, for those that can rotate their monitor through 90 degrees for a more arcade experience, this doesn't hide the fact that more basic options are missing. An example of this is in the control method options. There really should be a way to rotate the angle of your helicopter buy using the controler shoulder buttons. It seems like such a basic omission. Arcade purists will scoff at this, but at least give players the choice! Of the different view modes on offer, the original arcade mode worked the best and interestingly seems to have the least slowdown. The "new order mode" which is a widescreen mode specifically for this port is the worst offender when it comes to the frame rate issues I mentioned earlier and was (in my opinion) all but unplayable. Sadly I can't recommend this game to anyone. Perhaps the only way to play this game as intended is on the Dreamcast. Which is crazy when you think how much more powerful the PS3 must be. I can only put this down to really sloppy porting. In which case the developer has massively let themselves down. It's very rarely that I find a game to be so frustratingly unplayable because of technical issues that I delete it from my console, but that's exactly what I did with this awful port of an otherwise great game. Just don't buy it. You'll only be setting yourself up for disapointment.

Darkest Dungeon is a game that has been on my radar since its release on PC, and now it's finally landed on PS4. The game is a 2D turn based RPG with a dark fantasy / horror storyline. The game has also picked up a reputation for being ruthlessly difficult. The core of the game revolves around you creating and managing a team of up to four active adventurers as they explore through the horror filled passages of your ancestral home. You engage in turn based combat with enemies and loot their corpses for rewards in order to upgrade your team. Pretty standard RPG stuff. However, the twist comes in exactly how important managing your team really is! That reputation for difficulty I mentioned is well earned. You can quite literally loose your entire team in one confrontation if they're not managed properly (and sometimes even if they are). Not only do you have to look after the team's health, but you must also manage their stress levels. Something that you will end up either loving or hating! Seriously, this will be the make or break of the game for many players. The stress mechanic has your team members becoming afflicted with unique behaviours as the stress level builds up. These behaviours are generally negative (but not always) and if you leave stress unchecked for to long, your character's can literally die of a heart attack! Yeah, I said a heart attack! Instant death regardless of health. And when a character is gone in this game, they're gone! Perma death is a thing. What really hurts is how difficult managing stress can be. Stress builds on characters so easily but it can be very difficult to counter. Especially when out on a mission. When you're back in the central hub you can remove stress by sending party members for a night of drinking in the inn, but this will then remove them from the active roster for at least another mission or two, forcing you to use less experienced backup characters to plug the gap. It's a balancing act that can feel extremely harsh at times. Visually the game is beautifully presented with excellent hand drawn characters and environments. The sound is great with dark brooding music and an awesome voice over that narrates your journey through the dungeons. However, I can't give any praise to the control system and user interface. This is quite possibly the weakest adaption of a mouse and keyboard setup to a controller that I have ever seen. It's horrible, and completely counter intuitive. The game also doesn't do a particularly good job of explaining how some important mechanics work. You end up learning by experience, but in a game this punishing it just doesn't feel fair. Overall, if you enjoy a challenge and have the patience, you'll get a lot from this game. It's not for the feint hearted or people looking for a quick action fix. A piece of advice, use a guide (at least just to understand the basic mechanics). No one will think less of you. 9 0ut of 10 for the core game. -1 for a god awful control scheme and not explaining itself better.

Star Trek Online is a God awful piece of garbage that should have stayed on PC. I mean seriously, if this is an example of what the PC master race get to spend their time on, then I'm glad I'm a console exclusive gamer. Keep this damned pollution off my PS4. What we have here is another example of the gaming industries free to play cancer spreading like the malignant tumour it is onto other gaming formats. So, like all the others of it's type it's a glitchy mess that has you repeating the same dull as dishwater activities over, and over, and over again. Over an extended period of time you slowly grind out levels and upgrades that allow you to do the same boring activities against slightly more powerful enemies. Rinse and repeat until you hit a wall and feel pressured into dropping money on the game, or you just walk away from it. If you're a Star Trek fan you may remember the Starfleet Command series of games. Go and play those games again. Believe me when I say that they do more justice to the Star Trek franchise than this hideous malformed beast ****. And most importantly, you'll actually have fun playing them. Look, Star Trek Online is free to play so just download and try for yourself. Then after a short time delete from your hard drive, put the whole sorry mess out of your mind and chalk it up to experience. Never to repeat again.

If you're like me and wonder, where the hell did the space shooter genre go, then look no further. Strike Vector EX is the kind of game I've been wanting for quite a while now. So how does it do? At it's core it's a arcade style, multiplayer, arena, twitch shooter.... with anime inspired spaceships (I'm thinking Macros). It's extremely fast paced and requires sharp reflexes and a lot of control pad dexterity. You control a spaceship (Vector) that has two modes of flight. The first mode is a speed mode that feels like flying in the traditional sense, bank left, bank right, up and down, all while traveling forward at great speed. The second is a hover mode that allows more precise shooting while still allowing for some movement. It's a great combination of mobility that is, to my knowledge, unique to this game. Your offensive weapons consist of the traditional machine guns (low damage, fast fire rate), rocket launchers (high damage, slow fire rate), shotguns (high damage, short range), and many more types that you will want to experiment with for yourself. They all feel satisfying to use an lend themselves well to individual play styles. Obviously, in competitive play some setups are more successful than others. You also get to outfit your ship with a special activated ability e.g invisibility, repair or mines. There is also a separate passive upgrade that will enhance a certain characteristic of your ship, e.g more armour, faster speed or stealth weapons. The arenas are just the right size and well designed for long and short range battles. Each arena has plenty of pickups to restore your ships health or reduce the cool down on special abilities. The developers seem to have put a lot of thought into how you might use the environment to your advantage by ducking behind cover for protection or to lay an ambush and out manoeuvre your opponent. I feel I should also give a mention to the campaign (as in there is one), but really the meat of the game is in the multiplayer. You can expect the usual modes, team death match, free for all, capture and control, etc.... Sounds promising so far right! Well here's where things start to get a little discouraging. A game like this lives and dies by it's multiplayer. And as of the time of this review it's been a mixed experience for me. Connection issues have been varied and there are some weird choices that the developers have implemented that really need addressing. First, there is no auto team balancing. You have to manually switch teams to even the sides. What's that all about? It's been incredibly frustrating to jump into a game where there are four human players against one human player (usually me) and three bots. Second, there is no host migration! Really? That's right friends, a rage quitting host can destroy a great game for everyone. Finally, there is no way that I have discovered to browse for better connections. It seems that once you connect to a host you will always connect to that host. Even if you drop out of the game and restart. Frustratingly, this does not mean that you are even getting the best host for your connection, it just seems to lock you in to that one person. Overall this game shows a lot of promise and, refreshingly, respect for the players. An example of this is that all of the weapons and ship upgrades are open to you from the beginning of the game. You don't have to grind for hours just to unlock a new gun or perk. In practice this means that everyone is on an equal footing right from the start. It shows that the developers want to focus on the skill of the player rather than who can grind their way to the OP weapons fastest. Now that I like. This game could have easily exploited DLC or micro transactions but it didn't. That earns extra points from me. Now go and patch those connection and team balancing issues and you've got an almost perfect package on your hands. This is a great game that deserves to do well so that we can see an even better sequel. You buy now!

I wanted to write a review of ABZU that wouldn't end up comparing it with Flow, Flower or Journey. I wanted to talk about how the game stands on it's own merits.... but.... I just couldn't. The game is great, pretty much what I was expecting, but it is essentially just these three games squashed into one package. A beautiful and artistic audio visual package to be sure, but not an original one. Which begs the question "why not just play Flow, Flower and Journey"? Ultimately it's a lack of original ideas that takes the shine off what is an otherwise pleasant experience. ABZU is not a massively lengthy game either, but It does have replay value in the form of secrets to find. However, I'm betting most people will grab them all on their second play through. I feel the price at launch is reasonable enough, but I did get a small discount for pre-ordering. (Don't pre-order games it's a stupid thing to do)! Grab this game if you're a fan of Flow, Flower or Journey, or if you're looking for a good "relax em up" to help get you through FPS fatigue. Also if you have some weird fish fetish.... freak show XD

Sometimes nostalgia is not a good thing. It can blind you from remembering some of the more frustrating and annoying things in gaming that you are actually glad have now got better with time. This is something to consider when looking at I am Sestuna. The game is a beautiful reincarnation of classic Square RPGs of your youth, most notably, Chrono Trigger. Visually the game hits the right spot and has been very deliberately designed to invoke memories of SNES and PS1 days. The music is outstanding. Who knew that plinky plonky piano could convey so many different moods and emotions? Combat is managed through a Active Time Battle system (think FF7 or earlier) and is satisfying, especially when combining attacks or using the momentum system to add extra effects to standard abilities. So.... why is there this sense of annoyance overshadowing the game? Well it goes back to this idea of nostalgia and how it's sometimes deceiving. As I was playing the game new mechanics were being introduced with only a short explanation and no real tutorial to make sure you had a full understanding. This led to situations where I was coming across serious spikes in difficulty (usually with boss battles) that I was woefully unprepared for. This resulted in me having to undo several hours of gameplay so that I could re-train and re-equip characters. Many people would look back on this as "old school gaming" and maybe that was fine when I was a teenager with nothing else to do but sit around for hours in front of the computer, but like so many others I'm just not in that place anymore. It irks me that, for the sake of a clearer tutorial, I lost several hours of my time and experienced unnecessary frustration with what is otherwise a great gaming experience. I've never understood the logic of hiding how a game works or making things deliberately more difficult to understand as a choice (I'm looking at you Dark Souls series). Anyway, it made me appreciate how somethings are just better left behind. So in the end I can't really punish the game to much for my own sense of nostalgia letting me down. However I can punish it (or rather Square Enix) for being overpriced at launch, and for their refusal to release on the PS Vita in North America and Europe. Also.... no physical copy? Shame on you Square Enix. Want a solid "old school" RPG experience? It's right here if you're willing to pay for it.

Inside is a game that ,like so many other people, I have been eagerly awaiting since playing the hugely enjoyable yet slightly disturbing Limbo. Inside has been six long years in the making and, now that it has arrived, I'm finding myself both pleased and disappointed all at once. On the plus side of this reaction is the beautiful art work displayed in the visual design, the use of sound to set the mood, some satisfying environmental puzzles, and an ending that takes you to a place you never thought you'd find yourself. However, all the positives are dragged down by one major factor, LENGTH. This is NOT a long game. My first play through took three and a half hours and by my second play through I had found all of the optional secrets. So that's a total of approximately seven hours total for full completion, and half of that was retreading old ground. That is just NOT a value package considering the price at launch of sixteen English pounds. I look at Inside as an experiment in interactive storytelling rather than a "gamers" game. It is a wonderful experience, it just left me wanting more of it for the price I've payed. Overall, I'm glad that I've played or "experienced" this game, but I can't in good conscience give it a perfect score. Maybe some of these new breed of games should come with a warning "CAUTION ART".