Oxen Free has potential to be an interesting game, but it completely missed the mark for me. First there's the dialogue options in the game. The problem with Oxenfree's dialogue system is that it often would interrupt whatever conversation to interject with your point. Which isn't always bad, but I would prefer it if i could buffer my input until after a person stops talking, so that if i wanted to keep listening to the conversation i could, or just move right along with whatever the new topic is. Too many times, i found myself accidentally interrupting other characters because I found the option i want, but pressed it too early or waited until the dialogue timer ran out and missing a point entirely Then there's the pacing. In comparison to the map, it's so slow. With the long loading times for the xone version, added with the fact that everything is spread out an in-game mile apart, and the "running speed" is quite slow it makes it annoying to explore and travel around, even with the map (which was not super intuitive to use) and makes me want to not go off the required path as much as i should. Third, there's the convoluted story. It feels like the game is trying to tell you at least five different stories at once. The problem is that each of the stories are not well developed and most of them are irrelevant to what is happening within the game. The main story was not told well, and there are certain sections in the game that made it quite clear. Finally, there's no real gameplay. You have a radio, you look for signals when the game prompts you to, and you move on to the next section. The rest is simply walking from point A to point B with a whole bunch of dialogue that is poorly paced. Either the dialouge ended too early and there was a decent amount of silent walking, or i would get to the end of a section and the person was still talking. I also encountered a glitch where one character got stuck, and the game could not progress, so i had to reset the section Overall it has potential to be an interesting game, but if you're looking for a story based game that is actually executed well, I would recommend playing one of the Telltale games. Oxen free is not worth your time. If it was paced better, some optimization of the dialogue systems took place and the developers tried to expand deeply on a few stories, rather than try and tell 5 different stories at once, then the game could have been interesting as a Tell-tale substitute. Currently the game play isn't interesting enough to warrant proper multiple playthroughs to completely understand everything
A lot of people like to compare Yooka Laylee to Banjo Kazooie, as the game was meant to be a spiritual successor made by people who worked on the original. While that is not a bad comparison, I believe that the game should be compared to Banjo tooie, as Banjo tooie is more similar to Yooka laylee than Banjo Kazooie is. To sum up my position, Banjo tooie was not as good as Banjo Kazooie, but it was an excellent sequel and introduced new mechanics that made the game fresh and interesting. Yooka laylee seems like it wanted to follow the path of Banjo tooie, but the game was too ambitious with what it was trying to accomplish. First off, the maps were simply too large, especially when extended. While the idea is interesting, it just creates empty space, increasing the travel time to get to all the challenges and unnecessarily extending the playtime. The player does not receive an efficient means of travel until on the path to World 5. Next, there are simply too many useless collectables. The quills become useless after all the moves are bought (the same for pagies and opening/extending worlds), and you end up with an excess of a few hundred quills, 70 extra pagies, 5 secret collectables that don't do anything, and play coins, which (along with the arcade itself) felt like it was added in to extend the playtime. The only collectables that are worth getting 100% are the health/energy extenders, as they make your life easier. over the course of the game. Third, the challenges felt too simple and felt isolated from each other, rather than each world being cohesive like Banjo Kazooie, and to a lesser extent, banjo tooie. Since there are a large amount of collectables, some of the challenges get repeated, only reskined and the execution is made more difficult.. Because of the variety that Banjo kazooie and tooie offers, no challenge repeats itself, and each puzzle is unique to it's environment. Overall, it's not a bad game. Like other kickstarter projects, it just got too ambitious, with too big of worlds, too many useless collectables and to simple challenges. It seems like the type of game a parent could use to introduce their child into the world of gaming in a friendly environment, rather than the Banjo Kazooie successor that everyone was waiting for. For the hardcore fans, I recommend either buying banjo kazooie and tooie again for the Xbox one (both combined are cheaper than yooka laylee) or buy the rare replay (also cheaper than yooka laylee with tons more value) and wait for the price to drop before picking up Yooka laylee
Layers of fear is a well designed experience, in terms of it's visual effects and it's sound design. The game is a creepy experience that messes with your head and has an atmosphere that seems unnerving. The story is intriguing, and barring a few minor glitches, the game's visuals are nearly flawless. If you buy the game as a once through narrative, then the game is an easy sell as a 9/10 However, the problems arise when you start going for completing the game by experiencing all of the endings and getting all of the collectables However, the collectables make the game tedious and repetitive, and shows how little variance the game actually has. A majority of the collectables are hidden inside drawers and cabinets, (which the game has plenty of, and are usually empty), and the way to find them is not interesting. Only a few of the collectables actually setup a mini-puzzle to solve and required multiple rooms to find, creating a satisfying challenge. The more you find out about the story, the more confusing it gets. You have two versions of the protagonist, and two versions of the wife presented through the game and the collectables. Each version of both characters contradicts with each other as you try to piece the story together. Each version examined separately have interesting ideas and could actually make great stories by themselves (although not all of them would be good for horror). Piecing together the story also affects how you view the endings. If you have bits and pieces of it, then all of the endings work, but if you have the whole story in front of you, then (to me at least) only one of the endings make sense, as the other two don't line up with how the characters are presented through the collectables. The game would had been just fine without any of the collectables. The story and the interactions with the game alone are fascinating to experience for the first time. Adding in collectables unnecessarily extends it's playtime, complicates the narrative to being conflicting with itself, and requires tedious searching that is honestly not worth it. That's why the game gets knocked down a couple of points to a 7/10 for me.
The visuals of the game were fantastic. It felt stylized and was fun to run around in while I explored the terrain, and each character has a set of unique skins that they can use thoughout the game. Personally I wished they came up with a few more interesting skins for certain characters, since they did not have any interesting skins to choose. The gameplay varies from boring and tedious to fun and interesting. The problem is that not all of the characters are particularly useful, and are created for certain gimmicks or for certain enemies, while others (such as the last character you unlock) is so overpowered, that you don't need to use anyone else, unless the game forces you too. Too many sections in the game I found were "Kill this set of enemies in this way to progress" or "Do a certain gimmick that character does again to progress", or some combination of both, which gets boring after a while. At other points I got lost in what the game wanted me to do, because I either misinterpreted a cutscene, or missed an enemy, causing me to either use the hint system, or wander around in circles until I figured out what to do. There was potential for good gameplay however. I enjoyed the early game when everything was new, and I had the opportunity to solve different puzzles. The villagers in each town are also pretty interesting to talk to, and often provide extra background to the town you are in, or certain bits of information on how to deal with enemies or solve puzzles. The plot was not that interesting us presented in an unbalanced manner, leaving me confused once I went to the final part of the game. Essentially when the player saves an important family member, they reveal part of the backstory, but since there are only 3 people to save, there is a ton of backstory that has to be delivered, which left me bored and wanting to get back to exploring the game. If they had spread it out more, say to some of the villagers I was interacting with, then it wouldn't have been so bad. Overall I gave this game a 7/10. Not the best of Rareware, but certainly not the worst. If you get this game as part of the Rare replay set, I would recommend playing it, otherwise I would only recommend this title after you've played/finished some of their other titles (such as Banjo-Kazooie or Conkers bad fur day)
Overall, this game is not worth playing. People coming from an AC background will find this limiting in terms of what the players can do and how they play. New players will most likely be annoyed with the repetitive story that leaves on an unjustified cliffhanger. The gameplay is often strict and unforgiving (not in a good way), and feels limited in terms of how you can overcome most obstacles in the game. The sidequests are annoying to deal with (especially if you're going for 100%) and it is not a good game on its own, let alone in a trilogy In terms of setting, ACCC had a beautiful scenery that could have been immersive if the game play had been pulled off correctly. However, the missions get boring and repetitive, with infiltrating 4 bases, killing four main bad guys and escaping 4 times. The individual scenarios seem limited in the sense that you had only a few tools that were useful and a handful of options of how you could get past a guard unseen. The controls varied in how useful they were. Sometimes they worked fine, sometimes they wouldn't react fast enough (or at all) making situations more difficult than necessary, or overcompensating leading to the player getting caught. The combat was not well designed, leaving the player constantly frustrated at cheap shots from the enemy if surrounded by two or more of them. Next, the plot seemed ripped off from other assassins creed games where the assassins have an item stolen from them by the Templar and a large amount of the Chinese assassins were killed as a result. Now the player must take revenge, kill the people responsible, and find the missing item. I lost interest in the plot near the beginning, since it felt mostly like unnecessary filler, and picked up again near the ending where the plot was left unresolved and will be picked up in the next game. In terms of the game's performance, it was stable for the most part and I got through the game without any crashes, which is a plus. It's only when you want to go after collectables and side quests that i found problems. The side quest progress is only saved after you get to a predetermined check point. So if you do the task succesfully, but get caught in an unrelated section before getting to the checkpoint? Too bad, gotta do it again. The scoring itself was often strict and unforgiving. The only way i could get a reliable perfect score with a sidequest to kill someone, I often had to find the checkpoint to get the Shadow score, go back, kill the guy in question and hopefully get to the next checkpoint. I accidentally finish some levels without checking the sidequests thinking i had finished it, only to find out it had been reset due to me going back a checkpoint. Overall this game is fine to play if you are going for a more casual playthrough, this game delivers, although in a boring, repetitive sense. If you are going for the completionist aspect (like I was) then this game will aggravate you in terms of gameplay, story and its sidequest My final rating is a 5.0
Lego Batman 3 is a disappointing addition to the Lego game franchise. From a story that is extended far beyond what it should have been to boring, repetitive side missions. Lego Batman 3 feels more like a chore to complete, rather than the fun entertaining experience it should have been. Lets start with the story: The story swings in both extremes of bad writing. You have certain issues which could be expanded upon wrapped up too quickly, and other issues which could be explained and dealt with within 1-2 levels, expands to take up 5-6 levels. The story needs more balance and extra ideas to keep the plot rolling, rather than being stuck doing the same task over and over, except it's slightly tweaked so it looks different Gameplay: The game starts out alright with you starting out as Batman doing Batman things, giving off the impression that it may take a similar form as its predecessor Lego Batman 2. But as you play this game, you get the impression that Lego Batman 3 is stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sense that it wants to be both a Lego Batman game and a Lego DC superhero game. The level design feels like it should be for a Lego Batman game, but the abilities given to you from the DC universe makes the level feel restrictive in what you can actually do. The Hub worlds provided in the game is an interesting idea, but a large portion of them feel like copy and paste, with similar quest lines, tedious racing challenges and annoying item hunts. The main hub worlds look the part, but can be confusing to navigate, as each door is labeled with a tiny sign that you can only see up close, and no other indication of where the door leads. If you are in it for 100% completion, you are in for a rough time. Everything is tedious to collect, from gold brick achieved by quest lines, to red bricks (with no red brick indicator), and to minikits. The 100% reward is unjustified and doesn't even include a 'collect a million studs' included in its previous iterations, which was annoying. Also, the game itself has been known to have a save glitch where it says there is no game save data found whenever you leave the game and come back to it. I had to restart the game 3 times until I looked up the problem and how to fix it. The only good thing I can mention is that it feels like it would be a good nostalga trip for fans of the DC universe. Collecting all the Adam Wests (which feels like a rip off of the stan lee collectables) gives a nice Easter egg level, you can play as your favorite superhero/ supervillian that they have available, and aesthetically it feels like you are in the DC universe. Overall, I give this game a 3 out of 10 for a drawn out plot, game breaking glitches and freezing on multiple occasions, inadequate level design, and boring, tedious collectables to acquire. Unless you are nostalgic for the DC universe and want a sandbox to play with your favorite super heroes, I recommend skipping this Lego title.
Noticing a lot of reviews that just focus on one issue rather than taking the whole game into account, so I'll throw my opinion into the mix: Overall, Halo 5 is a game that was over hyped. Through the hunt the truth advertisement Halo 5 hinted at being an immersive story line of questioning whether Master Chief should still be trusted even after going AWOL. Instead we got a campaign that is short in terms of story progression with minimum ties to its predecessor, Halo 4, and a multiplayer that is fun at first, but fizzles out after a few matches in Arena and Warzone. Campaign: The story itself has underdeveloped characters in a drawn out game with a disappointing ending. Halo 5 has a perfect opportunity to develop Master Chief's character and introduce conflict to make Master Chief and his crew more interesting, but fails to deliver as we focus on Team Osiris whose actions have little effect on the overall story, until the ending, which results in a cliffhanger for Halo 6 Consequentially, the lack of character development for any of the characters within the fire teams made for a less engaging experience, since none of the character's history and individuality are described except through a few short dialogue sections in the latter section of the game, where it is not necessarily needed. The story offers plenty of lore and information either through conversations in-game, in cut scenes and through hidden intel in each of the missions. However as a casual Halo Player, none of the information was worth seeking out, since it often offers irrelevant conversations that have no relevance to the plot line. Any interesting plot holes that arose as a result of Halo 4 and Spartan Ops were either anticlimactic in resolution or dismissed entirely through a one-liner given to you. The story presented as a result felt, ironically, underdeveloped to the point where it feels like Halo 5 is just providing a background for Halo 6 The environment did look amazing with no noticeable frame rate issues, and the addition of the team revival was useful, however the campaign was clearly designed for a multiplayer experience, since there are an unnecessarily large amount of enemies for a solo player, and the A.I performance is not as good as it could be, especially in close range scenarios, where all three of the supporting A.I could be taken out with a successful melee swing. Most of the game play is repetitive and tedious, especially on higher difficulties, making the campaign seem more like a firefight mode with a few in-between sections to save your progress. There are noticable exceptions, such as either a flying segment in one mission, or other missions that allow the use of vehicles to make killing easier, and more segments that switch up the kill enemies on foot should be implemented into further games. The reward for beating Halo 5 on legendary is not worth the time and effort, and for the most enjoyment should be played on a lower difficulty, unless you have a coordinated group of friends and a weekend to kill. Multiplayer: As far as multiplayer goes, it is fun at first. However, Halo 5 multiplayer does not hold out for the long run. The Arena section offers different types of games to play, but with some playlists having randomized games can make getting commendations difficult, since you end up playing the same type of game over and over again. Also, arena maps often feel cramped, leaving little possibility for long term strategy. War zone is essentially strongholds on a bigger map. There is minimal PVE interactions, and are either at the beginning of the match, or out of the way of where the current action is taking place. Overall the campaign feels underdeveloped in terms of story and character design with a multiplayer driven campaign that feels more like firefight, than an innovative campaign. The campaign will overload you with mostly uninteresting lore from intel and cut scenes, and any conflict from Halo 4 was easily dismissed, leading to a Campaign focused on the wrong person, with an uninteresting story. The multiplayer is fun at first, but there is essentially nothing to work towards, since the Req system is slow and unreliable, and matches feel repetitive and often one sided in the case of Warzone Recommedation: The game is currently not worth the $75 CAN price-tag it currently has. In its current state, it's value is more likely around $30 CAN, and is likely going to go down in value as people leave for other games and eventually leave for Halo 6
