I have only played this game's campaign, but I have to say, I was quite surprised by the quality. DICE often do underrated campaigns, but given the backlash against this game and the focus on multiplayer I was apprehensive about it. The campaign is done really well, with decent level design and storytelling. The game looks amazing and is very well optimized, and manages to add to the Star Wars lore quite nicely. It's also one of the only games I've played on PC that natively supports HDR without having to force it through Windows. So from a technical standpoint and for single player content alone, I highly recommend this game. The controls are great whether on mouse & keyboard or controller. I haven't played the multiplayer so I won't comment on that, but it's a shame that the game's campaign was overshadowed by terrible monetisation practices in the multiplayer.
This is one of the best games I've played in a while. It's a mish-mash of all the best parts of various games: the one-hit death mechanic of Superhot, the level length of Mirror's Edge, the wall-running of Titanfall and a lot of the art style, platforming and level design from a little-known game called Deadcore. Whilst Deadcore did some truly unique things, it quickly got overcomplicated by the fourth level, making it difficult to see the path amongst all the various platforms, mechanics and enemies. This game has resisted the temptation to overcomplicate levels, mechanics and enemies, whilst still providing plenty of novelty throughout the 17 levels. The length of the game varies greatly on your competence, but on a first playthrough, expect it to take around 8 hours or more, depending on how long you spend looking for collectibles. The level design has decent variety, with a few boss fights thrown in amongst the fast-paced platforming and combat encounters. Visually however, the game looks uniform, it's just the placement of assets that differs. Though the game is difficult, it is generally quite fair and not frustrating at all. This is mainly because checkpoints are frequent, and there is a dedicated restart button which instantly resets to the checkpoint. No waiting, no loading. So even if you finish a level with over 100 retries / deaths, you don't feel bad. What does feel awesome however, is replaying levels and improving your times. It's an incredibly satisfying game to play and even attempt to master, due to its extreme fast pace. The stellar gameplay and controls are complemented by a suitably awesome electro soundtrack. The dystopian ultra-futuristic AI-controlled setting and story telling - which is done exclusively through dialogue whilst you play the game, rather than through cutscenes - is another strong point. That said, the story itself is rather pointless and doesn't have anything interesting to say. No character development, no (unexpected) plot twists, and certainly nothing deep. This game is all about the action, and to be honest, that's perfectly fine. Aside from replaying levels for collectibles, which can also be cosmetics (swords and gloves), there is a Hardcore mode which puts more enemies and enemy types throughout the game, making even the first level harder than some of the later levels in the regular mode. This will surely please those who want the ultimate challenge. Visually, the game looks great and runs well too. This is definitely one of those games that you want a high refresh rate for. It supports NVIDIA's DLSS 2.0 and also ray-tracing; although the latter is monumentally pointless; it has almost no discernible visual impact yet more than halves your framerate. In a fast-paced game like this, it serves no purpose. The game has some issues. Firstly, there are no global leaderboards, so you can't see how you compare to others or race their ghosts like you can in Mirror's Edge. There is also only one level in the entire game which is purely platforming. Whilst this isn't a pure platformer, I think the movement mechanics lend themselves well to that sort of gameplay and it would've been nice to see a few short platforming time trials, perhaps as an additional mode or DLC. Gameplay-wise, my biggest complaint is with the skills. Throughout the game you unlock different abilities and a Tetris-block upgrade system for choosing your enhancements. There are 4 abilities and you can toggle between them, but in practice, only one of them is useful. The "Tempest" skill is a blast than can take out multiple enemies, and there is an upgrade which refund its usage. Abilities require meter to use, which is primarily built by taking out enemies. Since you only have a few chances to use skills within a level, you have to be very deliberate when you use these skills. Unfortunately, everything is significantly weaker than Tempest, and combined with the fact that you can get free usage through multi-kills, it basically makes every other skill redundant for most of the game. The game also has a running theme of puzzles in between levels, as a filler for the dialogue-based story. These don't really add anything interesting to the game, but make for a more relaxing change of pace and visual setting. Overall, Ghostrunner is a refreshing platformer which nails the cyberpunk theme and fast-paced gameplay, fusing some excellent mechanics from various games and makes you feel like you're in The Matrix playing as Genji from Overwatch. whilst also adding its own style and innovation. If you like speedrunning games, this is definitely one of the best. It's challenging, but not overly complex. Whilst it's definitely not perfect, the gameplay and controls are sharp. I really hope to see a sequel or additional content - I'd love to see more games like this!
I don't usually review games before I finish them, but SotTR is such a big disappointment and a chore to play, I can't bring myself to finish it, even though I'm at the last area (yes, I got that bored I actually looked up how much further I have to slog through this drivel). I have 100% completed 2013, on both PC and Xbox, and that game had an underrated multiplayer. It did everything right. Rise of the Tomb Raider improved upon it in much the same way that Arkham City improved upon Arkham Asylum. Even though I'm not the target audience for these kind of games, I really appreciated their quality and design, as well as the graphics. But Shadow is just inexcusably bad. It might be because it's not Crystal Dynamics. Everything about this game, except the graphics, feels like a step back. The story is even more nonsensical, it's not gripping at all and the characters are very bland. Gameplay-wise, it's 90% exploration of caves and perhaps 5% combat. There's a lot of side quests and collectibles littered around, but you soon realise all of it is pointless, because despite having a large skill tree and lots of weapons, most of them are unusable because the game provides very few opportunities to engage in combat how you want. It's heavily stealth focused, which is fine but a large part of the skill tree and weapons are for aggressive combat. There is very little action in this, the genre this game belongs to can only be described as "adventure"; and that's putting it kindly, given how bland that adventure is. So you end up having lots of resoruces and fully upgrading all your weapons, but never get to use them. And then there's the outfits system, which is pointless too in the definitive edition because all the Definitive Edition ones are unlocked from the start, and look a lot better than the ones you unlock throughout the game. The game is just so restrictive with what weapons and outfits you can use, and lacks both good level design and action sequences. This largely mirrors my experience with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: the developers put in a good number of weapons and abilities, but you never get the chance to use them because the game is so thin on actual content, it's mostly filler. If all you want is a game that looks good and don't care about gameplay, this is fine. I honestly upgraded to RTX graphics card for this game and was expecting to be amazed, but really it doesn't look THAT much better than Rise. The ray-tracing is for shadows only, and RTX Medium shadows looks better than High or Ultra RTX, and actually RTX off and shadows on Ultra actually looks better in some scenes. So it's just a gimmick. DLSS works reasonably well, but the HDR in this game is horrible, one of the worst I've come across and relies on the Windows setting, not the driver. The controls are also a downgrade. Whilst it natively supports DualShock 4, the reload button doesn't work for some reason. The actual traversal of the environment is inconsistent too. Sometimes Lara won't grab ledges, and the path isn't always obvious because of the spacing and lack of clear indicators. The other two games were excellent in this regard, but Shadow just feels off. Overall, I can't recommend this game, regardless of whether you enjoyed the previous two in the trilogy. It's very bland, lacks variety and is very thin on action. It's mostly just filler.
NFS Heat is a somewhat more modern version of NFS Undercover. It is open-world, with various collectibles and activities like drifts, jumps and speedtraps that you'd expect from a standard open-world game nowadays. It's also got a story mode, which is bog-standard and nothing special. There's also a decent choice of cars in terms of variety (for a Need for Speed game anyway), with a good customisation system. The driving mechanic is centred on a 2-dimensional scale: On-Road vs Off-Road and Drift vs Race. Upgrade parts allow you to tailor any car to be anywhere on this graph. That's about as complex as it gets, which for an arcade racer is fine, but if you play serious racing games the handling is a complete joke; though it's a nice change I suppose. The game is basically structured as an RPG, where to upgrade your car with the best parts and get higher-tier cars, you need to level up and gain "Rep"; the currency earned from night-time driving. Cash is best earned during daytime races, where there are no police to worry about. Whilst this is fine in theory, in practice cash is almost useless, since it's much easier to earn than rep, especially early on. The game is severely imbalanced because early on it's much harder at night as you don't have fast cars but the police do, and it's very easy to get your Heat level up to a point where it's impossible to escape without using glitches. Later on once you've maxed your car, it becomes trivial. Unfortunately, the police chases are the worst aspect in this game; the AI is horrible and it's mostly rubber-banding, and I don't recall a single time when a spike strip hit me. It's just inconsistent and random, which takes away a huge aspect of what an NFS game should be like. This is very far from being 2005's Most Wanted. Another huge problem is that races are not restricted by performance tier; the top tier is 400+ and bottom is 100. But nothing stops you from entering a 120 event with a 380 performance level, for example. This basically means newcomers who choose to do events against other players instead of the AI are severely disadvantaged; this is more a game of grind rather than skill. They really ought to have placed restrictions on events. The game is also poorly optimised. It is by far the most demanding racing game I've played, and also one of the worst looking. The car models and especially characters lack the level of detail you'd expect from a modern game, especially one that's so demanding, and there really isn't anything spectacular about the graphics; it's all a bit of an acid trip at night with lots of colour but not very high quality. Something else that's inexcusable is the fact that you can't change the controls when playing with a controller: forget rebinds, there aren't even presets! And although there is an option to play with manual gearbox, the shift up and down buttons conflict with interactions, so it's a pointless option. Clearly this game was rushed, judging also by the number of glitches which remain many months after launch. There is only one redeeming feature of this game, which is why it's not getting a lower rating: the cross-platform play. I started playing this game after that update (and precisely for that reason), and it's something that I hope future NFS games (and hopefully other racing games) incorporate. In conclusion, NFS Heat is built on a solid blueprint, but executed poorly. It was a rushed game and it could be a very good NFS game with a few tweaks, but when you compound together all of the major issues, it's difficult to recommend.
Modern Warfare makes some significant advancements to the Call of Duty series, but the few things it gets wrong are baffling, because this game was so close to being perfect, at least as a multiplayer game. Let's start off with the multiplayer. It's the most significant aspect of the game, and Infinity Ward got almost everything right. There are plenty of weapons to choose from, with incredibly detailed customisation both in terms of functionality and appearance thanks to the Gunsmith, which means everyone can find something for their style. The create-a-class is simple and balanced, with decent perks; though some killstreaks are OP. The camo challenges are well thought out, not too grindy to get what you want but grindy enough to keep you going for a long time. There are new mechanics like mounting and tactical sprint, but to be honest I wouldn't mind if they went away. What IW have nailed is the mechanics; we have bullet drop physics rather than hitscan, and the variety of weapons can really be felt; each attachment makes a noticeable difference to the weapon. Weapon balancing is decent too. As someone that almost exclusively uses snipers and marksman rifles, I have to be honest, this is by far the easiest CoD for quickscoping, but the short time to kill and low recoil of auto weapons, along with their long range damage potential, mean it's still balanced. What IW got catastrophically wrong however, is the maps. The ONLY good maps in this game are the Gunfight maps (designed for 2v2), Hackney Yard and Shoot House. The rest are garbage, and the game is only partially redeemed by bringing back some amazing classic maps like Shipment, Vacant and Crash from CoD4. The main thing I credit this game for however, is the cross-platform play. For once, it means buying a CoD game on PC makes sense, and being able to play with Xbox or PlayStation friends is perhaps the single most important contribution of this game to the franchise in my opinion. It uses input-based matchmaking, allowing you to use a controller on PC if you so wish (which personally I prefer for CoD). The controls are also top-notch; regardless of whether you use keyboard & mouse or gamepad, the game feels great and responsive. Graphically, the game is "fine", but nothing more. It is unimpressive, but quite timeless. It's not trying to look good, but doesn't look dated either. It's just quite bland and going for that "realistic" look. Also, the ray-traced shadows are joke; they make almost no noticeable difference and are stupidly demanding even with an RTX card, so don't bother with them. Otherwise the optimisation is OK, though it has gotten somewhat worse since launch. It could definitely be improved. What is completely unacceptable however, is the insane size of updates we've had since launch, every time requiring us to download at 50 GB for minor changes. The overall game with just multiplayer stands at 135 GB; far too much for what it offers. What's inexcusable is how Warzone replaced this game, becoming the base game and forcing a free-to-play game onto those who paid for it. You cannot remove Warzone, and it's evident that Activision no longer care about MW. I won't get into the whole rebranding in this review, but it's disgraceful. Finally I want to talk about campaign and spec ops. The latter is a complete joke; it's evident the developers rushed spec ops - one of the best things about Modern Warfare 2 and 3 - because it's very glitchy, and far too many enemies. Above all, it's unexciting, not well thought out and very bland. So effectively one third of the game is redundant. As for the campaign, it sets a different tone for Call of Duty, and it's a nice change, but I really don't want to see a campaign like this again. Simply put, it's by far the shortest CoD campaign I have played, and it's also the easiest, even on the newly added "Realistic" difficulty, which is basically Veteran without HUD. The levels are comically short, the story is controversial and overall it just lacks the spectacle and excitement you'd expect from a CoD campaign. To be clear, it's not a terrible campaign, it's just massively overrated and the gameplay is unexciting. Overall, I think MW2019 makes some fundamentally important contributions to Call of Duty as a franchise and gets a lot of things right, but the overall direction is not one that I am fond of, as a long-time fan. It's going for that "realistic" tone in an attempt to attract casuals, along with the horrible map design, the promotion of camping, skill-based matchmaking, night vision and other things. Simply put, the designers tried to make CoD into something it's not: a slow-paced tactical shooter. It is evident from fan feedback and how most players play the game that this is completely out of touch with what the fans wanted.
Underrated game. Even at the end of 2018, around 5 years after its initial release, this game is high up there for contenders of best graphics and overall visuals in a video game. Running this game at 4K with a GTX 1060 on max graphics and it looks better than most modern games! The production value of Ryse is nothing short of top-tier, at least in terms of the content that's there. The art style, soundtrack, audio quality, cutscenes and especially the level of detail in the motion capture is impeccable. Despite its relatively short length (the game has 8 levels), it feels like a complete experience and doesn't outstay its welcome. Which brings me on to the other aspects of the game, graphics and production value aside. The story isn't particularly innovative in its plot or its execution, but it's certainly not tacked on. It's very straightfoward and well-paced, being mostly aided by its non-standard ancient Rome setting; though admittedly it could've capitalised on this more. The level design is also very bland uninspiring. Sure, there's plenty of collectibles and you probably won't get all of them in one run, but I have never played a game more linear than this one. The world is very small and each level is mostly the same but with different environments. Although this difference is novel in the last couple of levels, mostly it's just a change in scenery and not gameplay. This is where Ryse is most heavily criticized: the reptitive and basic gameplay. Whilst I can definitely see where critics are coming from, I also appreciate a simple but rock solid combat system. This game is literally the definition of hack and slash: you have your sword and shield attacks, alternating them in a suitable rhythm (so long as you don't do more than three of the same in a row) to defeat enemies. Of course, you also have the usual defense mechanics of evade and deflect, including parry for some heavy attacks. This is combined with a Batman Arkham style combo system, and genuinely feels satisfying when you have a good rhythm and can clear entire sections without taking any hits in a perfect freeflow. Even when that doesn't happen, the combat system is so unobtrosive that it's difficult to hate it. Of course, a game which is almost entirely reliant on combat can't get away with just that. So what makes Ryse different is its heavy emphasis on executions, which are basically a bunch of preset quick-time events that require to press either the sword or shield attack button to finish off your enemies in brutally violent manner. Although there are plenty of these and you unlock more throughout the game with the upgrade currency, towards the end you will inevitably recognise each one of them and can time your presses perfectly; though there are so many including environmental ones that it's never predictable which one you will get. Here's where things get really messed up though: if you fail the prompt by either not pressing the button in time or pressing th wrong button, the game automatically ocmplets the execution anyway, with no consequences other than your rating being lower. So the only thing that makes executions satisfying is getting the right button and timing perfect so that you can get a higher rating. What these ratings do? I'm still not sure. Presumably they give you higher XP and credits, allowing you to purchase upgrades more quickly. That's right: Ryse does have a very simplistic upgrade system for standard things like damage, health and even XP gain, and executions can grant bonuses on any of these depending on your choice (a system which is again familiar from games like Remember Me). So what else is there? Well, there are some very simple projectiles in the game: spears and spear cannons. However there is no aiming involved: the game automatically does that aiming and you just pull the trigger. This becomes hialriously absurd in the beginning of the last level. So, that brings me on to the conclusion. The short version is that Ryse isn't an innovative game, it's very repetitive and the gameplay is about as cookie-cutter as you can get. But in a world of overly complex systems, microtransactions, DLCs and so on, I must say that Ryse is one of the games I've been most impressed by recently. I've always had a soft spot for short, single-player experiences like Remember Me and Mirror's Edge (which are amongst my favourite games). Where it shines is its simplicity: take a historical setting, put a simple combat system in, add a decent story, wrap it around 8 levels and build it with state-of-the-art game engine and you're done. TL;DR: It's super-cheap on Steam, I got it for around £2 or £3. Repetitive, but gorgeous and high quality.
After playing my first Action RPG in Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Director's Cut) and being pleasantly surprised, I had high hopes for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Where Human Revolution had a great blend of light RPG mechanics and most importantly, great story, characters, art style and an immersive game world, it was let down by its relatively basic game engine (which was clearly designed for underpowered consoles to run Final Fantasy XIII). As a result, the combat was never quite as polished as it could've been and the graphics were dull. Mankind Divided, with its state-of-the-art Dawn engine and frequent presence in benchmarks should surely then make what was an already brilliant game into a near-perfect one. Has it? Clearly not. Let me start by saying that Mankind Divided does indeed look and play better than Human Revolution in terms of its mechanics and combat, but not by a significant amount. The character models, UI, cover system and experimental augs are cool. However as with the previous game, the problem is that the game's achievements discourage combat. Whilst playing the game stealthily is fun, the augmentations and weapons make no difference here, you may as well have an inventory only of biocells for going invisible and tranquilizer and stun gun. The game is litered with loot items - far more than you could ever need or make use of. If like me you explore every nook and cranny and check it over multiple times just to be sure, you're going to be astounded by how much stuff is lying around. When you do engage in combat, the game's RPG nature makes it awkward because you have to have painkillers or health stims as well as useful weapons and augs mapped to convenient keys. What really kills any purpose of the improvements in this area is the lack of bosses. I can accept going through the game in a stealthy manner but when I save up all the good stuff in my inventory I want a chance to use it at some point in boss fights. Unfortunately there is really only one boss fight right at the end of the game, the others are just "mini-bosses" in side quests which you may or may not encounter depending on how you play it. Which brings me on to my next point: the story. It seems that with Mankind Divided, they put more effort into the side quests than the main missions! Whilst Human Revolution had a healthy mix of main and side missions with meaningful choices and rewards which added to the immersion, Mankind Divided's story and side quests don't seem to be quite so cohesive, espeically the main story. Despite playing for around 50-60 hours on my first run, it feels much shorter and far less eventful than Human Revolution. There are too many loose ends, unanswered questions and overall a lack of clear direction. Then there's that infamous abrubt ending, where the developers took the laziests possible approach of explaining things through Picus News. Remember those five epic endings and cutscenes which left you with a profound sense of astonishment and moral humility in Human Revolution? Yeah you can forget anything close to being that epic in this game. Even the choices in the main story feel inconsequential. Whilst the game lore is still there, there is no cohesion - you read and hear about characters more than you actually see and interact with them. Now I expected the story to be disappointing based on the reviews, and even then I finished the game without a sense of satisfaction. The teaser in midst of the credits didn't make matters any better either. Overall I didn't feel like the story had a good flow to it - every part felt distinctly separate. Overall I am disappointed with this sequel. Although Human Revolution set the bar very high, the least I expected was something which is on par but with better graphics. Without a shadow of doubt I can say that Human Revolution is MUCH better. I would only recommend this game if you're really in the mood to jump back into the Deus Ex universe, but don't expect some masterpiece.
Wolfenstein II improves upon an already excellent re-incarnation of a legendary FPS. It's not so much that there's more, but that it's also better. Again, the formula is very much the same with the core mechanics and game design untouched. Subtle things like the characters, animations, voice acting and movement is so natural it's unbelievable. Watching the characters talk and move feels so much more natural and realistic than any other video game I've ever played. The added abilities and perks and upgrades are very welcome, as is the more immersive story and brutal violence. This is Wolfenstein on steroids, with some Saints Row level crazy antics. It's shocking. It's comical. It's badass. It's a rich game world (some of the collectibles' references to Donald Trump are hilarious). It's fast-paced and action-packed. What more could you want!? On a technical level, the game also runs well and looks great, though it requires some tweaking to get the best out of it. After much experimentation, I'm managing to achieve a stable 60 FPS using mixed settings (mostly on Ultra) with a GTX 1060 6GB, i5-3470, 12GB DDR3-1600 MHz RAM at 4K (2160p) resolution (albeit with 42% resolution scale)! Though to be honest, the game doesn't look significantly better than Wolfenstein The New Order, and that's coming form someone who played it on Xbox One (though it was one of the first and only shooters to achieve 1080p60 on console, at least at the time). The only real complaint with the graphics is the unsually low texture quality. Perhaps this is a bug or some graphics setting but the textures are definitely inconsistent in quality both between and within levels. Finally I have to give this game much praise for something absurdly simple yet practically a godsend: the loading times. I have it installed on an external 7200 RPM hard drive, and it is a big game obviously. Yet after disabling the intro movies (easily done by renaming the video file), from the moment I press "Play" on Steam I can be in the level within 20 seconds. Better yet, when you die (which will happen quite often on the hardest difficulties), you'll be thankful that the game doesn't mess about with ridiculously long death animations. It immediately reloads the last save when your health goes to 0. And guess how long this takes on a mechanical hard drive? About 2 or 3 seconds. Combine this with the ability to save the game at literally any moment along with your progress saving between deaths for things like perk unlocks, collectibles, upgrades etc. and you have a game where you can easily die a hundred times on the same checkpoint and not feel frustrated whatsoever! I don't usually write reviews for games before I finish at least the main campaign, but for Wolfenstein: The New Colossus I don't feel I need to see any more to warrant a recommendation. With so many disappointments and shady business practices in the current gaming industry, Wolfenstein II is a shining beacon that reminds us how simple it is to make a great video game. You don't need to re-invent the wheel or do anything drastically different. With incremental improvements in many areas and continuing the story (and without censorship!), improving the game world and not littering the game with microtransactions, whilst keeping features which add value such as challenge modes (and not shovelling in a half-baked multiplayer just because it's a first-person shooter), Wolfenstein II is surely the de-facto standard for modern single-player first-person shooters. It stays true to its legacy yet moves the franchise forward; arguably more so than the similar DOOM (2016). My only complaints after finishing the game are the crashes which seem to happen more regularly, the unimproved graphics and worst of all, the complete lack of any changes to the already basic scoring system in the challenge mode.
This is one of those games that you should experience without reading a review for it. So, if you haven't played it yet, please go ahead and do so, taking the game's warning seriously of course. When I first saw this game on Steam, I genuinely though the "Psychological Horror" tag was just people abusing the system. Given the game's positive reception, its catchy cover and popularity, I decided to give it a go. After reading the reviews and being 2 hours in, I actually feared what might come next. I've never been so apprehensive about finishing a game due to its shocking nature. And sure enough, this game truly is disturbing, even if you prepare yourself for the worst. But it's impossible to keep the game's depth a secret when that makes up 90% of the appeal. So why am I giving this a positive review? Well, the game breaks the fourth wall like no other. I encourage you to play this game in windowed mode and after about 2 hours in, open your steamappscommonDoki Doki Literature Clubcharacters directory. These are real files with a different extension (one is a PNG, another is Base64 encoded message **** game itself, written in Python2, actually changes the files (and not just those in that folder) as you play, which makes it feel truly real. But that's just some gimmick, right? Anyone could do that, it'sn ot the most creative idea. So, again, why am I giving this game a positive review? Especially after the ending it gave me. I assure I was most certainly NOT impressed. It left me more upset with the game and the writers' decision to end it like that, so much so that the shock factor was outweighed by my dismay of how it all happened. But you realise that's not all this game has to give. What truly sets DDLC apart is that it serves a much deeper purpose than your ordinary game. As a visual novel, this genre has very limited interactivity, and despite my inexperience with VNs, I've always wondered what the purpose of them is compared to an eBook. Yet Doki Doki Literature Club makes the best possible use of the medium. Simply put, it is a tool to raise awareness of mental health issues. It truly creates a sense of empathy that cannot be expressed in any other medium. As you "read" through DDLC, you begin to get a sense of how truly horrible loneliness and depression must be. You start to feel bad yourself. Then you wonder how it must feel like to live with this. Even if you can relate to some of the themes explored in DDLC, you begin to realise just how deep they can go. It's frightening, concerning, yet what makes it so impactful is that this is not a joke. Yes, it is taken to the extreme. But it's absolutely real. These things do happen, and even if extreme cases are not so common, even milder issues must be... just awful. So, despite the sadness, this game serves not only as an educational tool but also an inspiration. An inspiration to care more about those around you, and yourself of course, if you can relate to any of the characters. It makes you want to hug not only your friends and relatives but even strangers. It's one of those experiences that will stay with you. Depending on your personality, it may be haunting and you'll regret having beared witness to such tragedies. But to others, it may be a valuable learning experience.
As a decade-long Forza fan, I am pleased to say that this game is no worse than the others in the series. The prize crates don't make the game any better, but they don't make it worse like everyone else is saying either. The game is extremely well-optimized and gorgeous, with great dynamic optimisation, and decent support for a range of input devices; though the game feels designed for a controller rather than even an official wheel like the G920. The force feedback and overall experience on a wheel - particularly navigating menus - is not great. Certainly Project Cars 2 is better on a wheel than this (when it works that is!). But Forza remains the undisputed champion when it comes to cars. The level of customisation and attention to detail for every single car is unrivaled, and the whole experience still feels satisfying for newcomers and veterans alike, despite the lack of fundamental changes to the tried-and-tested formula. I understand the downvotes due to the microtransactions and essentially creating the driver and suits purely for such purposes, but it must be said that these are completely optional and do not take away from the game. You are not at a disadvantage by not spending any money beyond the initial purchase price. Sure, the game wants you to buy prize crates, but these are reasonably priced with in-game credits. The only thing I really wish Forza did was to have more cars (at least all of the ones in previous Forza games) and some more "ordinary" cars as there were in Forza Motorsport 4. My other request would be more tracks. If this game had the tracks, helmet cam, weather effects and wheel support found in Project Cars 2 it would be a 10/10. Yet the only innovation this entry brings to the series is yet another scheme for sustainable revenue based on the largely loathed system of loot boxes.
I've played all of the Gears games and I must say that as an online experience, I've definitely enjoyed Gears of War 4 the most. I have played it both on PC and Xbox One and the PC version is flawless in terms of optimisation, performance, graphics and even controls. I think the cross-play feature between Xbox and PC is something more games should do, which keeps the community alive. Gears of War 4 is one of the only games that has a truly seamless, balanced competitive and co-operative crossplay experience. Let me start off with the value proposition. You get campaign, Horde and Versus multiplayer. Plus, two maps every month for the first year, all free of charge. I can't stress enough how great of a job the develoeprs have done in actively supporting the game through continuous balancing improvements based on community feedback. Then umber of times the Gnasher alone has been tweaked is baffling. Similarly, the amount of content updates for horde, special events in multiplayer and additional cosmetic items has been far more than what you get in other games. And for those who complain about microtransactions: first of all, everything is cosmetic (skins) and secondly, all of it is obtainable using in-game credits which are extremely easy to earn, so I really question the sanity of people who spend really money on these. The cards and scrap system in this game is definitely controversial, especially since the skills and perks for Horde mode are based around cards, but it's just one of those RPG elements. You absolutely do not need to spend a penny in this game to get the most out of it. Even the season pass gives you pretty much nothing! Now to the main part: gameplay. Unlike other successful franchises, Gears of War 4 hasn't gone down the path of bloating its gameplay and mechanics with silly additions like killstreaks or perks in multiplayer. When it comes to Versus, it's the same as it's always been: 5 on 5, same starting weapons, more powerful weapons are pick-up based, gun on gun. That's it. It's still very much true to what makes Gears of War unique: the fast-paced movement and cover mechanics, the fight-or-flight instincts that kick in during elegant dances around the map in intense battles, the fight for power weapons, the ultimate satisfaction of beating your opponent to pulling the trigger of the Gnasher shotgun and of course, those never-tiring headshots! If you like the core mechanics of Gears, you'll be hard-pushed to find flaws in this. If you didn't like Gears before, you're not going to like it now. It's very much a unique take on shooter mechanics and design which is a love/hate thing. Mechanically, Gears is by far my favourite shooter, and I'm so glad it's not been diluted or messed with. That's not to say this game doesn't innovate however. The new weapons are satisfying, different and well-suited to the game. Similarly, the modes and maps make for exciting gameplay every time. The Horde mode has been further enhanced from Gears of War 3. The 5 classes each have a unique role, making Horde a co-ordinated, co-operative team experience. In particular, the roles of Scout and Engineer are particularly noteworthy as being different from just shooting enemies. The additions to Horde 3.0 make it more complex and interesting but unlike, say, CoD Zombies, they're transparent. The game doesn't hide any of its intricacies, and makes the role of each class and all concepts clear from the start without having a tutorial. Furthermore, the cards and class levels make the roles more dynamic, so there is scope for slightly different tactics within each class. Furthermore, the choice of map has a huge impact on the experience. It's fair to say that some maps are far more enjoyable, easier, challenging or boring than others! But this is just a testament to their variety. The only issue with Horde mode, which after a year still hasn't been addressed, is that when playing online, upon a match being created there is no way to back out, no way to veto the map, no way to communicate with other players prior to the match starting and no way to see what level each player is, what cards they have, what level those cards are, what class level they are etc. - all you can see is what class and character they've picked. Even then, most of my online Horde matches with randomers have been highly enjoyable, despite playing on the hardest difficulties. Finally, I'd like to give the reason why I can't give it a 10/10. The campaign is a huge disappointment. After the epic finale of Gears 3, the awesome boss fights in both 2 and 3, the originality of the first game and even the alternative approach of Judgement, Gears 4 is by far the weakest campaign in the series! It falls short in all departments: shallow characters, no satisfying story, no awesome / funny / memorable moments, no emotion, no interesting boss fights, no variation in gameplay, nothing. Just a repetitive run-of-the-mill 5/10 corridor shooter.
EDIT: Even a week after launch, I'm encountering a lot of bugs with this game, I'd hold off for now. Let me start by saying I'm a big fan of racing games - especially simcades. My favourites include Forza Motorsport and Project Gotham Racing, but also DiRT Rally. I've always played these games with a controller, but I decided to take the plunge into more serious simulation territory, so I got a Logitech G920 and when I played Project Cars 2 at a gaming convention with a controller, despite having all assists on and automatic, it felt really good. So now having bought the game and tried it with a wheel, I don't feel I need to play any longer than a couple of hours to give my impressions on this game. First of all, let's talk graphics. Even on a modest GTX 1060 6GB OC'd, I'm managing a very consistent 65 FPS at 1440p on High detail with Ultra textures. I was skeptical of how well this would run, especially compared to Forza Motorsport and whilst it doesn't look as good as Forza in any department (at least for the same performance target), it's still not too shabby. Next, I'd like to emphasize how complete this game feels; which I believe is perhaps the game's greatest strength. The options menus have nothing missing. There is an audio slider (0-100) for everything, every button is rebindable, every aspect of just about anything is customisable. You can even customise your HUD, making it as minimal or detailed as possible and even change the position of all the elements. The game's difficulty can also be fine-tuned. Unlike most games which offer the usual "On/Off" for things like ABS and traction control, this game has an "authentic" setting, which matches whatever the car has in real life. The AI difficulty can be adjusted literally on a 120-point scale, and there's even a 100-point scale for their level of aggression. Even better, all these settings can be adjusted almost any time, and you aren't punished for making the game too easy; nor are you forced to commit to a particular difficulty. As for the knitty-gritty details of controls, Project Cars 2 has almost everything you need, but unlike other games it doesn't force any complexity on you. The slider for adjusting deadzones and sensitivity are well-documented and fairly intuitive. Aside from the notoriously stiff brakes on my G920 setup, I didn't need to adjust much aside from reducing the deadzones from the default. Regarding force-feedback, this is what I spent a lot of time trying to get right. Iny my opinion, the defaults are far from ideal. The problem is that surface detail is too exaggerated and the effect of self-aligning torque is too strong. Whilst there's no option for self-aligning torque, I eventually got used to it. After all, Project Cars 2 is aiming for a simulation experience and so it takes time to learn the game and adapt, especially if you're new to using a wheel and/or sim racing. The cars can be tuned to a mesmerising level of detail; onj par if not more than the Forza games and original DiRT. Thankfully however, the game offers an engineer which can help you decide what needs tweaking depending on your driving needs if you don't know anything about how a car works. Finally, I'd like to round off with the value proposition. Project Cars 2 may not have the 700+ cars of Forza Motorsport 7 or the best graphics or any customisation of cars - either performance-wise or aesthetics. But as a long-time Forza fan, I decided to buy this game because it offers twice as many tracks. Furthermore, the cars on offer are cars that you'd actually want to drive and are made for the track. Whilst Forza is a better all-rounder, Project Cars 2 is clearly a game made by a team who are passionate about delivering a great driving experience, and to me that matters more in the long run than customising cars. The passion and effort that's gone into this game is clearly apparent. To me, this game is to track racing games what DiRT Rally is to rally games. I really liked Slightly Mad Studios' previous games - particularly Ferrari Racing Legends and Need for Speed SHIFT / SHIFT 2; not only for their amazing driving feel but also for that signature helmet cam, which I'm glad has made it into this game. The amount of content and variety is nothing less than what you'd expect from a great racing game. The driving is unlike any other game I've ever played. Never have I had to think so much when the track is wet, never have I had to be careful with going full throttle in a straight line. I don't know if it's because I'm playing with a wheel or it's the game's physics, but it's definitely an intense and immersive driving experience - especially as there's no rewind feature. Overall, despite feeling somewhat uneasy about getting this over Forza Motorsport 7 at first, I feel that the work that's gone into it and the vision of the developers to deliver the ultimate driving experience makes it a must-have if you're passionate about racing game
DOOM is a re-imagining of the genre-defining classic shooter which manages to stay true to its roots whilst brining in a healthy dose of modern enhancements. As with classic Doom, health, armor and ammo are pick-up based (no regeneration), there are only 10 weapons which are unlocked throughout the game (via exploration), there is no reloading, there are very few cutscenes and it's just fast-paced demon-slaying action all the way. Although on the surface it sounds like it's extremely repetitive, there are some excellent additions to keep the experience more entertaining. Firstly, as with all good classic shooters, there is a clear emphasis on exploration. You are rewarded for exploring the game's vast levels not just with meaningless collectibles and background reading, but with useful resources that will help you develop your demon-slaying capabilities. For example, each weapon can be customised with two weapon mods found from Field Drones, and each attachment can be upgraded using upgrade points, and even then there is a challenge for each mod to further enhance its capabilities. You can also upgrade the Doom Marine's suit and capabilities - again, this is almost exclusively from exploration. There are also Runes - mini challenges with a given set of conditions in an arena which, if completed, unlocks a "perk" (you can have three equipped at once) which can then be further enhanced by completing the challenges. Each level also has its own three challenges to complete. There are even sections of classic Doom maps to be found in each level! So to get the point across: there are some light RPG elements which are non-disruptive but also stay true to the spirit of the original. Furthermore, dying does not reset progress towards challenges, so it doesn't feel like a grind. The campaign is a fair length - especially if, like me, you try to explore every last nook and cranny of the levels. With an exploration-intensive playstyle, expect to spend around an hour minimum per level and there are 13 levels. It is best played on Ultra-Violence (the hardest starting difficulty available) since it feels challenging and intense as it should but becomes easier when you've got loads of upgrades later on in the game. In terms of performance, DOOM is extremely well-optimized on both Vulkan and OpenGL 4.5 graphics APIs. Even on a modest gaming rig (GTX 1060 6GB, i5-3470, 12GB RAM) the holy grail of 4K Ultra 60 FPS is achievable (though admittedly with around 75% resolution scaling) on OpenGL, and around 130 FPS at 1080p Nightmare settings. In terms of additional content, DOOM has a multiplayer component which is, as expected, an arena shooter with the usual game modes and extremely light customisation. Whilst this sounds great, it isn't especially balanced because of some consumable "perks" which put higher-level players at an advantage. The gameplay is also not satisfying in my opinion, and it just feels like a mess. I'm usually a fan of "tacked-on" multiplayers due to their simplicity, but Doom's doesn't do it for me; though perhaps more skilled players who enjoy games like Quake and Unreal Tournament might enjoy it. Perhaps the most novel feature of DOOM is SnapMaps; allowing you to create your own levels complete with their own objectives, enemeies, AI behaviour, pickups etc. The interface and tutorials for doing these are fairly good, but as with all "game creators", it is extremely time-consuming to do something simple. Still, it's a nice addition, though I haven't seen anything particularly stand out made by the community. Overall, DOOM 2016 is exactly the kind of game I hoped it would be. Everything from the weapons, gameplay, enemies, levels and even the option to have that classic centred weapon pose (as opposed to the ubiquitous right-handed pose of modern shooters) are reminiscent of the classic Doom games, and I'm pleased to say that Doom's spirit has aged beautifully. This is a shining example of how to modernise a classic game series without losing its essence.
A simple yet incredibly entertaining top-down 2D game. Who'd have thought a game with pixel graphics where the entire premise consists of nothing but clearing out rooms of bad guys could be so satisfying?! What makes Hotline Miami awesome is not only the great soundtrack, but also that it rewards both good tactics and good reactions. You have to be very fast and deliberate about every movement, every kill, every shot, every throw and punch. An insta-death game which means you have to restart the level initially sounds frustrating, but the fact that there are no load times and the weapons available and enemy patterns are slightly different on each restart, as well as the amazing soundtrack, make this a joy to play and extremely rewarding when you can combo waves of enemies. There are plenty of satisfying skill-based games out there, but I've yet to come across one which makes me feel like a total badass every time in the same way that Hotline Miami does.
Gears of War Judgment is a little different to the other games, but not in a negative way. It still feels and plays like Gears with all the core mechanics in place and beautiful graphics. The campaign is good, with a decent mix of action, level design and a very simple action-oriented story. There's nothing clever here, just your run-of-the-mill shooter campaign but done right. What makes it particularly interesting are the Declassified missions; which add an extra challenge and make the experience more enjoyable overall. Each level is broken down into sections, and each section has its own score target and some have Declassified missions which earn extra score. The missions are fairly repetitive: complete the section in a set time, face more powerful enemies, reduced visibility, reduced ammo, weapon restrictions and so on. However, the cutscenes and declassified missions do break immersion with your choice of weapons in gameplay; in nearly all cutscenes characters are always shown with Lancers even if this is not the case. Similarly, even though there is plenty of ammo available, some of the Declassified missions will contradict this in the storytelling. The multiplayer is nothing like classic Gears - it plays more like a typical third-person shooter with much more verticality than is typically possible in Gears. Whilst it's not bad, with a decent mix of weapons, maps and game modes, it's understandable why some (most) people don't like it. The survival mode is more promising though. It's basically defending some object and falling back when it gets destroyed. There are four classes and five players. Unlike typical Gears Horde, this is simplified considerably. There are no resources or a Fabricator, you cannot build defenses, you can change class when you die and can respawn within a few seconds of dying. There are also only 10 waves. It definitely has a much more lightweight and arcadey feel to it, which is by no means a bad thing. One thing I particularly have to commend this game for is the AI. Your teammates actually revive, play the objective, kill enemies and somewhat use teamwork. It's clear that the four-character setup was meant for co-op campaign, but iunlike in most games AI teammates aren't useless or stupid. This is particularly important because the entire campaign (and survival) are always with the 4 characters. Overall, Gears of War Judgment is both a good shooter and Gears of War game. It may not be as high quality as the main numbered entries, but it's still a decent experience whether or not you're new to Gears.
In theory, Forza Horizon 3 ought to be the best racing game ever. It has the state-of-the-art upgrading, tuning and aesthetic cusotmisation mechanics which have evolved over a decade, combined with the most content ever in a Forza game in an open-world setting. With so many things to do, it's baffling where to start. Here are just some of the things you'' encounter: speed zones, speed traps, drift zones, danger signs ("jump zones"), bucket list challenges, rivals events, street races & midnight battles, head-to-head races, ForzaThons (weekend challenges), convoys, barn finds, skills (perks), spotlights (more collectibles), showcase events, wheelspins, smash boards (collectibles), festival sites, as well as a ton of unique routes; each with the usual single-race, championship and Rivals variants; all across 488 roads and over 400 cars to discover. Now you can even make your own Bucket List challenges and have more options in choosing vehicle restrictions. And yet, despite all of this, the game feels... bland. Sure, the music is great and the auction house is back, and the graphics are better than ever, but none of this makes the experience enjoyable. You see, there comes a point where a game becomes too bloated for its own good. When you have an open-world map which is bulging with content like this, it's almost laughable. It reminds me of Far Cry 4: the developers simply went with the "more is better" philosophy, and in doing so, they ruined the player experience. There's definitely fun to be had here, and if you pick & choose carefully, you'll be hard-pushed to find at least something you like, no matter how casual or hardcore of a racing game fan you are. In trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience, Playground Games have created a game where "busywork" is the defining feature. Annoyances such as ANNA - the personal assistant which CANNOT be disabled, the forced interactions with the whole cheesey "Festival"/party theme, the inability to just completely ignore things you don't care about (like barn finds and adding drivers to your lineup), the overly long "tutorial". It's all just too much. When you have 5 different "currencies" (credits, XP, skill points, wheelspins, fans) and a complete open-world where most of your time is spent offroad (yet most of the cars are obviously not designed for it), there's only so much "ceremony" one can endure before it becomes a grind. As a huge fan of the racing genre and the Forza franchise, Horizon 3 will be my last Horizon game. The loading times are too long, there's too much unnecessary fluff and lacking in refinement. In conclusion, I can recommend Forza Horizon 3 to almost anyone with enough time and patience for excessive bloat and a playground where there's far more content than there ought to be. If you want "more Horizon" - both in variety and volume - Horizon 3 undoubtedly delivers. Just be careful what you wish for.
IT'S THE MOST INNOVATIVE SHOOTER I'VE PLAYED IN YEARS. SUPERHOT is one of those games that only a passionate team of indie developers could create. The concept of the game is simple but ingenious: time moves as fast as you do. This leads to a surprisingly tactical game which is almost like a turn-based real-time FPS. Every time you complete a level, it feels very satisfying and seeing the replay in real-time looks cool. Dodging bullets, switching into other enemies, grabbing guns, getting headshots etc. are all basic and rpetitive yet it never gets tiring because there's an element of tactical deliberation to your every move. Unlike a "constant-time" shooter, you really think about what you're doing and it's interesting how dynamic levels can feel. It's by no means an easy game, and much of the skill comes from being able to anticipate where enemies are going to be so that when you fire, your bullets will hit them. It's also about judging the timing. In most shooters, reloading, accuracy and positioning are instinctive - you don't think, you just do it. In SuperHot, due to the non-constant passage of time, you actually NEED to analyse the situation frame by frame; - a level of perfection which cannot possibly happen in other shooters. Aside from the excellent gameplay concept, I have to admire both the art style and the lore of the game. It's a very minimalistic yet distinctive style: weapons are black, enemies are red, environment is white and any objects you can interact with are striped blue. This is not because the game is made using Unity or the lack of talent from artists. It's clearly a deliberate decision which makes the game more pure and, from a practical aspect, easier to play. If there was complex geometry and lots of colours and objects, it would be difficult to analyse the environment and react accordingly. The game is presented as an old DOS-style terminal and includes many nice additions, including incredible ASCII art and implementations of "0-player games" such as Conway's game of life, Langdon's Ant and more. Once you're done with the game, you have plenty to keep you busy, including an endless survival mode, challenges (completing levels with certain restrictions), speedrun and even a real-time speed run mode, and even more things which I haven't unlocked yet. Even though there are around 34 levels in the game, it'll only take you a couple of hours to finish it. However, given the unique concept and brilliant execution, I have to credit this game and recommend it; though not at full price. I got it on sale and don't regret it. It's also a game that works surprisingly well with a gamepad. I've had no performance issues with it on my Alienware Alpha R1 on highest graphics settings at 1080p, and the game looks great despite its minimalistic design. The only criticisms I have are the lack of variety in weapons and enemies and the lack of cloud saves. The save game is located in your user profile AppDataLocalLow folder and I have lost my save before; though luckily the game is so good I ddn't mind replaying the first two hours.
As a big fan of the original Titanfall, I bought Titanfall 2 expecting it to be more of the same with only minor improvements/enhancements. This is certainly true of the multiplayer. Infact, I'd argue it's not quite as good as the original. Perhaps because the first game was so fresh and original amongst a sea of bland, iterative shooters that it stood out. The first game got everything nailed much like the original Modern Warfare - it had just the right level of customisation, titans, weapons, game modes and maps. However with Titanfall 2, the developers seem to have gone down a more "let's add MORE menu stuff" route like Call of Duty did. Gone are the simple pre-set default classes and limited choice of attachments and perks. The original was simple: as with CoD4, you could get away with not caring about any create-a-class nonsense and just focus on playing, match after match with no distractions. In Titanfall 2, there are more weapons, attachments, perks, titans, custom class options, titles etc. From a purely objective view these don't make the game worse - after all, more is better right? But from a gameplay experience, the whole emphasis on networks and deeper customisation take away from the core experience for me. That said, one thing they haven't got wrong is the mechanics. The fast-paced action, movement and shooting are nailed. However the multiplayer still feels a bit lacking compared to the original. Perhaps I preferred the Xbox One version, with the controls and players. But I can definitely say that the maps are much worse in this version; as are the titans. The maps are not as well-designed, don't offer exciting gameplay and are too big; - as a result the game feels much slower than it should. Furthermore titans seem a lot weaker than they did in the original. I'd also like to mention that I was rather good at the original - always did really well in all game modes, top of my team etc. but in this version I **** (maybe Xbox version is easier, or players on PC are better)- something to bear in mind. Final note regarding the multiplayer: the player base. Given the unfortunate timing of the game's launch, the PC player base has about 2500 concurrent players online. This isn't too bad, given matches are 6v6 but it means you won't be getting into matches soon. Furthermore, it's cirtually impossible to find people in the objective game modes - which in my opinion are the most fun. This isn't helped by the fact that there are two separate "pages" in the UI for modes, and the first page doesn't contain these modes - and it is not immediately apparent that there is another "page" with more game modes. Now onto why I'm giving this a positive review. Simply put, the campaign makes up for where the multiplayer was lacking. I'm a huge fan of Modern Warfare's campaign, and Titanfall 2's campaign delivers an extremely high-quality, decent length and sufficiently varied campaign with a decent story, good level design and perfect pacing. In particular, I'd like to highlight the rather excellent attempt to highlight the emotional bond between Titan and Pilot - it is truly what makes the story; even though the overall plot of the game is very generic and uninspiring. Some levels are more interesting than others, such as one where you can timewarp. There are also plenty of pre-set titan loadouts which you can switch to at any time, but these are unlocked gradually throughout the campaign. Overall there is a perfect balance between all of the things that make Titanfall... well, Titanfall - platforming/wallrunning, shooting and of course, Titan battles. For the best experience, I would recommend playing the game on at least Hard, as it is quite easy. Contrary to what some critics claim (looking at you, TotalBiscuit!), the campaign is anything but "throw-away". In my opinion, the campaign is the sole reason to purchase this game as it delivers a solid experience in all aspects. It's nothing particularly revolutionary or special, but compared to most shooters of this kind, Titanfall 2 has one of the best campaigns I've ever played. It even has a time trial tutorial level (clear influence from Modern Warfare games) and this provides some replay value. Also if you're into achievements, you'll be pleased to know that, as with Modern Warfare games, they are almost entirely single player. Visually, the game blew me away at every level. The graphics and art style are perfect, and if Origin had a screenshot key, I would have taken many. It runs flawlessly on max settings. To conclude, I would argue that Titanfall 2's multiplayer doesn't feel anywhere near as exciting or special as the original's, and the playerbase is worryingly low just months after launch. However, given the high-quality campaign - which, in my view, is not a common sight in AAA shooters - as well as the game's signature mechanics, it's worth playing if you like first-person shooters and want something exciting.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a great sequel to the critically acclaimed 2013 reboot. The game is very similar to its predecessor in its gameplay and feels just as polished; albeit with some improvements in a few areas. First of all, the game engine has been stepped up and so the game will challenge even the newest hardware. This is not to say that the game is unoptimized however - the graphics are gorgeous, with breathtaking lighting, textures and character models. The motion capture and lip syncing are amongst the best I've ever seen in a game - it's almost movie-like even outside of pre-rendered cutscenes. In terms of optimization, the PC version fairs well and is a commonly used benchmark game; though it appears to crash at certain points when using DirectX 12. It's also extremely memory-intensive (both VRAM and system RAM) at the highest graphics settings; though overall the game scales very well across different presets. Gameplay-wise, the mix is more or less the same as its predecessor - lots of collectibles, area-specific challenges, a few tombs, platforming, some puzzles, stealth, shooting, exploration and of course, scripted linear sections where things blow up and you have to run away (though QTEs are rare). Whilst there haven't been any mechanical changes (as these were already excellent), there is now more of an economy. You can craft various things such as ammo, arrows, healing herbs and even weapon attachments by scavenging various natural and man-made resources found throughout the world. You also get a choice of weapons rather than having the same 4 which are upgraded throughout the game. There are also over 30 different outfits in the game, so you'll never get bored of looking at the same character model over and over. Finally, the world is also bigger with more to do and see (e.g. side quests to unlock certain parts). These are all welcome additions which do not fundamentally alter the focus of the game, but do not add "artificial clutter" to make the game feel bigger/longer than it needs to be (i.e. it's not like Far Cry 4 where there's a bajillion different collectibles and missions but they're all repetitive and pointless). Story-wise, I feel that the 2013 game was a much more emotive and contained experience - perhaps due to its simpler nature. Rise of the Tomb Raider is more action-focused and there's less time dedicated to story and character development compared to its predecessor. That's not to say that RotTR's story and characters are weak though - it's still a good experience if you don't care much about the side stuff; though the emphasis on gameplay and the "open-world" aspect is greater than in its predecessor. Once you're finished with the main game, there is plenty left to do. Although there is no multiplayer - a shame in my view since 2013's was overlooked even though it was actually very fun, balanced and high-quality - there are a few things to compensate. Firstly there's score attack; which allows you to replay levels and tombs to obtain a high score, and you can make it harder or easier by adjusting the difficulty as well as your "perks" and challenges through a card system. Then there's Endurance - a co-op survival mode. Finally there is a mode which allows anyone to create their own mini-levels and publish them for others to attempt - kind of like Hitman's "Contracts" mode. Even ignoring the challenge modes (which really don't suit the game in my opinion), there's all of the DLC content to play through; - the most praise-worthy of which is Blood Ties. This is a short story about Lara's upbringing and family which is told almost entirely through collectibles and exploration of Croft Manor; with no action or platforming at all. Whilst this sounds bland on paper, it's actually a very well-executed and powerful story-telling mechanism; as all the text in the collectibles is also beautifully voice-acted and the interactive nature makes it easy to empathise with Lara. I don't typically play story-heavy games or games without fast-paced action but this style of story-telling suits the game perfectly. Overall, Rise of the Tomb Raider is a solid sequel to an already excellent game. It adds a lot of content without feeling bloated, but retains the high-quality AAA production value of its predecessor whilst also improving the visuals for next-gen hardware. If you thought the 2013 game was a bit slow and/or thin on content, give this a shot.
I played this game on Xbox One and I really like what Team Ninja have done. It's not just got amazing character models, but genuinely good gameplay with tried-and-tested mechanics. It's actually quite a deep and complex game if you actually bother with doing all of the tutorials, but the beauty is that it's mostly a pick-up-and-play title and you can have fun without really knowing anything about the intricacies of the game's systems. At its core, it's a rock-paper-scissors system. What makes this game particularly outstanding is that because it's in 3 dimensions, the stages actually matter and affect the gameplay; and each stage is unique, rather than being a static background image like in most fighting games. The problem arises with the PC port. Whilst it's admirable that the game is free but you have to pay for the story and characters, costumes etc., the port is just terrible. There are issues with getting controllers to work; something of a definite no-no with a fighting game. This is most prevalent when starting the game. The game for some reason utilizes a single core heavily. I was at 100% load on my first core (i5-3470 with Tubo Boost enabled), and had to set the process priority to "High" in order to get performance above 18 FPS, even in the menus! The game is built on old technology but still looks good; though it runs terribly on PC as it seems to be almost entirely CPU-bound; with little GPU usage and doesn't seem to have been built with concurrency in mind. Overall DOA5 is a great game but I can't recommend it on PC.
As a huge fan of the original - having played it through tens of times for hundreds of hours on all platforms (even the mobile version!) and completing every speedrun, achievement and collectible and it being one of my all-time favourite games, I was hugely excited when EA finally announced the return of Mirror's Edge. However, as is naturally the case with games nowadays, and given DICE's involvement in developing Battlefield games, I was skeptical about whether this game can possibly deliver without being a huge flop, despite the 8 year gap since the original's release. I am pleased to report that this game is by no means a lazy rush-job in an appeal to nostalgia. The first thing that strikes me is the visuals. It is by far the best looking game I've ever played. This is perhaps a perfect example **** where both the graphical quality and technology of the underlying game engine (Frostbite 3) and the art style go perfectly hand-in-hand. The game stays true to the original's art style, but takes a step further. Whereas in the first game there was heavy re-use of assets to the point where most of the environment was a copy-paste job, Catalyst has much more variety in its visual assets, colours and architecture of buildings. It is truly a breathtaking sight on PC. I still to this day think the original's graphics on max settings hold up thanks to the art style, but Catalyst is on another level both because of the game engine and the visual style being taken further to add more variety by the artists. Catalyst is an open-world game; which is a blessing for some and an annoyance for others. On the one hand, the huge map allows for the variety of architecture which was absent from the original; which aids in enhancing the game's visuals. From a gameplay aspect, it means that you are no longer constrained to a (mostly) linear path as you were in the original. Of course, no open-world game would be complete without a plethora of side-quests and collectibles, and Catalyst has PLENTY of them. There must be thousands of collectibles and side missions combined; though of course these are completely optional. Doing these grants your "scrip" (XP) which can be used to purchase upgrades, such as improving your combat capabilities or even unlocking new moves. However, this is not a particularly strong motive since the total XP required to get all 17 upgrades is far less than what you'll get from doing even a fifth of all objectives and the main story. These are there for the true completionists and those that want a motive for exploring the gorgeous city of Glass. Although the map is huge, the number of ways to get from any part of the map to another is actually very limited; at least on the surface. The open-world nature of the game means that it's not easy to navigate. Thankfully however, the signature Runner's Vision is there to help. Not only will it highlight objects for your to indicate the path, but can also show you a moving trail to follow in case you get lost. Even after doing A LOT of collectibles and side missions and finishing the story, I find myself needing to rely on this for most side missions and navigation. It certainly feels like there's less room for creativity. Consequently, the side quests are actually quite difficult for time; requiring a near-perfect run when following the suggested route (which is often the only route!). Of course, all of this content is useless if the core gameplay isn't up to scratch. Thankfully the designers have stayed true to the concept of the original; perhaps even more so by not allowing Faith to use guns. The hand-to-hand combat is very simple both mechanically and in terms of controls, yet feels satisfying despite the extremely predictable AI who make it very easy. Combat is not optional for many parts of the game, but the mechanics are just about good enough to excuse this. Regarding the parkour, it's similar to the original but with a few additions. You can now press a button to get up to speed after slowing down, and the major change is that you can springboard off pretty much anything. There's also a grappling hook you unlock later for traversing extreme heights and distances; though it can only be used at specific points. Overall the controls and mechanics are more "clean", fluid and intuitive, with no kick-glitching or side-stepping. It feels much more fundamental and easier to master; which is ultimately a good thing; though not as involved and technical as the original. The story has received quite a lot of negative press, but I don't think it's warranted. Sure, character development isn't as deep as it should be and the overall plot is wishy-washy, but it gets the job done. Certainly I wouldn't buy the game for the story, but the production value is a step up from the original's animated style. Overall I would highly recommend this game. It's a visual treat and is sufficiently optimized. The open-world really suits the game and is well-executed.
I gave Far Cry 3 a 10/10. It was pretty much a perfect game and a very fresh, high-quality open-world FPS and a true Far Cry game. But Far Cry 4 suffers from an unusual problem. Sure, one would surely expect it to be mostly a rehash of the same winning formula of Far Cry 3, and in many respects it is. It adds very little that's actually worthwhile - improvements are minor. However, in terms of content, there is a ridiculous amount. Where Far Cry 3 felt intense and exciting all the way through - with brilliant pacing and just the right number of side-quests, collectibles, distractions and overall mix of action, stealth, RPG elements, exploration and so on, Far Cry 4 suffers from too much content. There are far too many collectibles and side missions and the map is too big for its own good. The vertical nature means you will be climbing a lot up and down mountains and taking lots of fall damage and grappling and so on. But that's not the issue. The real problem is that it is a prime example of "quantity over quality". The developers have just gone nuts with the amount of collectibles, distractions, animals and enemies that attack out of nowhere, random events that pop up about once every 10 minutes, as well as the usual chore of bell towers and outposts. I'm about 40 hours in and only just got to the second part of the map (just over half of story missions). I have pretty much bought and upgraded everything you can possibly spend your money and skill points on with plenty to spare. As a completionist, I never thought I'd be ignoring side quests and collectibles that are a couple of meters in front of me because the game has gotten that boring it's frankly intrusive to the experience. It's actually a challenge to AVOID side quests if anything. I ended up turning down the difficulty from Hard to Normal to avoid needless gathering of green leaves to craft health syringes. Not to mention that if you buy the collectible maps and read the loading screen hints (which are short and the game takes a while to load, so unavoidable) then there are some minor spoilers on what's coming up in later missions. Not that the main story is compelling by any means. Oh no. Unlike Far Cry 3, this is not a believable, immersive experience. All the characters are dry and dull, the story feels like it was written by a simple algorithm that takes boilerplate flowchart storytelling and mashes them together. Simply put, this game is full of unnecessary bloat and suffers from severe pacing issues. There's too much to do, and by the time you've done about 30% of the game you've probably seen everything there is to see and got most of the weapons and upgrades. Don't get me wrong, the core game mechanics and the formula is still very solid, as are the visuals, gunplay, stealth (although AI is still very dodgy) and just overall game engine-related stuff. It's just that what you end up spending the majority of your time doing feels completely unsatisfying - devoid of any real benefits. There aren't even any achievements for completing all the side quests or collectibles. Money and XP and Karma are completely unbalanced - there is simply far too much money and XP than there is things to spend them on. I have yet to finish the main story but I never thought I would be leaving an early review for a successor to one of the greatest First-Person Shooters of all time. This game is just a chore to play and it's dragged on for too long. The main missions are lacking in surprises or anything to revive my interest. So far this is perhaps the weakest entry in the series. Where Far Cry 2 was in dire need of RPG elements, a deeper economy, more side quests and variety, it actually felt much more "real". Far Cry 4 feels artificially bloated to the point where you stop caring and wish the game was over long ago. Far Cry 3 had a near-perfect mix between open-world distractions and a focused, uncluttered story-telling experience. TL;DR: If you've played Far Cry 3, don't waste your time on this bloated cash-in which offers little meaningful content. If you haven't played Far Cry 3 and you can resist side quests and collectibles, you might enjoy it.
At first I disliked this game because it felt so different to the original. The 2D setting means levels are extremely linear and the mechanics are much simpler, so there is little, if any room for creativity. However, once you get used to the controls (you're always running automatically in one direction), the mobile version definitely captures the core spirit of Mirror's Edge gameplay. Because it's so linear and simple, maintain your momentum and keeping things flowing is a requirement to advance and is very rewarding at times. The levels are just right in terms of length and number of obstacles and enemies to navigate through. It's got the same art style, environments and soundtrack as the original, so it stays true aesthetically to the franchise. There aren't a huge number of levels and there is little variation between them, but when going for the 3 star speedrun it requires near-perfect execution and, to some extent, route-planning (which is mostly "up or down"). There are a few issues, such as the repetitive nature of the levels and taking out enemies by disarming them is almost always a bad option, but overall it definitely "feels" like Mirror's Edge despite it being a 2D mobile game with only a couple of gestures. Another issue is that the controls can be a bit unresponsive at times - sometimes the game won't register a swipe and there are points where the framerate becomes very low (I was playing on a Nokia Lumia 735, so it's not hugely surprising). On zip wires and slides the game uses your device's tilt angle to determine your speed; which is annoying because it's definitely not something that is explained or at all suitable for this kind of game. You also can't disable your ghost when speed running levels which is very distracting. But overall it's a solid mobile version of an iconic game and is worth the asking price. It also has great achievements, if you're into that.
After playing Forza Motorsport 5 and coming back to this in 2016, I have to say I'm very impressed. Even though I got the essentials edition (with only 320 cars instead of the 500+) this is crazy value for money in an age of microtransactions, season passes and DLC. It's not just the number of cars, but the range of them in terms of performance and variety. What makes Forza so great is its ability to represent car culture and history from various regions. Forza 4 is by far the most representative game of the Forza Motorsport series, with the most and arguably best content. It has exciting modes such as Autocross (from Project Gotham Racing), Bowling, head-to-head races amongst traffic, multi-division races amongst others as well as including a plethora of events aimed at specific manufacturers, body styles, performance categories, regions, classic rivalries and more in 26 locations around the world. For a circuit-racing simulation, this is a game with endless content thanks not only to the number of cars, tracks and career events but also to Rivals mode; which provide a variety of challenges with varying restrictions on the vehicles for those that enjoy climbing leaderboards. It's not only the amount and variety of content either, but also everything else that matters in a game like this. Visually, I dare say that despite running on ancient hardware, it still manages to look gorgeous at 1080p 60 FPS with great car models both inside and out. 1080p60 is something even modern console struggle with, so to be able to pull it off so late into the Xbox 360's lifecycle and still look modern. The interior views are a huge step up from Forza Motorsport 3, as are the exteriors from the embarrassingly cartoon-like Forza Motorsport 2. Every car has really accurate interior to a decent level of detail. Further still, there are some cars that get their own special tour in Autovista, allowing you to fully examine the car from every angle and learn more about it through commentaries. The customisation is as strong as ever, allowing you to create the wildest of designs. Performance modifications are very flexible too, with options to upgrade and also tune every aspect of any car as before. Forza is a game all about the appreciation of cars, and offers you limitless ways to make a car your own be it through performance or livery modifications. And of course there's the Top Gear track, along with some commentary by Clarkson which adds instant appeal, at least for me. The inclusion of the auction house is also noteworthy - something that was very exciting in Forza 2 to try and do up cars and sell them because of their performance or artwork - something which is missing from the latest entries. However, it is difficult to recommend the game now due to it being "end-of-lifed". You can't get the free DLC cars that were included on disc 2 anymore, but even still with the amount of cars and tracks already included in the game, there's plenty of offline content. It would take one hundreds of hours to see and do everything. So far this is the definitive Forza game in terms of content, quality and innovative features added from the previous title. It also has the best soundtrack. Combine all of that with the faultless driving mechanics, general gameplay, the straightforward money and XP system, and you have what is unquestionably the greatest car game of the generation.
I enjoy games with simple mechanics and an emphasis on speedrunning. But this game suffers from the same issues as Cloudbuilt in that it is far too complex. I only managed to get up to level 4 and I gave up half way through it because rather than offering lots of small simple levels, the levels are vast and complex and a nightmare to navigate. It is not easy (at least for me) to find which way to go as there are lots of paths. There are also far too many environmental death traps to navigate. By the time you get to level 4 it's no longer about being quick, but actually just getting through the game. Where Cloudbuilt fails because of its complex environments, extreme pace and many enemies, it at least manages to keep levels short and makes it clear that being fast is what's important. Deadcore, on the other hand, fails because it offers collectibles and long levels. The only thing that makes it remotely apparent that this is a speedrunning game is the timer on your weapon. I'm not sure if I misunderstood the game, but it seems to be that this is more of a "deathtrap navigation puzzle" game than one in which you are under time pressure; at least in the first run. The core mechanics are very promising, as is the general aesthetic and design. But it suffers from complexity which makes it difficult to enjoy and recommend.
This DLC is worth getting if you enjoyed the main game, but found the puzzles to be a bit trivial. It has 5 worlds (to see the last, you have to get all the stars and the puzzles are significantly more difficult than any other puzzles in the game) with plenty of interesting puzzles. It's not just "more of the same" because although there are no new additions to your puzzle-solving arsenal, there is a deeper exploration of the mechanics. The story is even more text-based though, to the point where if you aren't interacting with the terminal then there really is no story at all. It's based around a community forum and is really well-implemented; though a bit too dry on the story front - everything's disconnected and there's not much interaction with other "characters". If you want more story, look elsewhere. If you just want a DLC that really brings out the best in the game's mechanics, this is a must-have. Also has a decent soundtrack as with the main game, and a few secrets.
Gat Out of Hell is the same activity-filled, over-the-top open-world comedy sandbox game we've come to expect from Saints Row, but it doesn't offer anything new or interesting above Saints Row IV. That is fine given that it's an "expand-alone", but unless you are short on games to play or haven't played Saints Row IV, you're not missing much. There is no character or vehicle customisation but that's fine for a game like this. There's still plenty of side missions and excuses for blowing things up, flying around and collecting orbs, hurtling a ragdoll into traffic and so on, as well as the typical RPG elements for upgrading your character's abilities and weapons. But when it comes down to it, the game's main story is extremely short. There are lots of side activities but these get repetitive and chances are you're not going to get to use all of the 7 new "Deadly Sin" weapons without completing a substantial amount of them. I finished the story at 84% total game completion and still had 3 or 4 of these weapons unobtained. There's also no music in this game, if you're into soundtracks. Don't get me wrong, the content that's there is still on par. The comical value, whacky characters and story do entertain, it's just a shame that there's not more of it. I'd rather have had a longer story and fewer side activities. Still worth playing if you liked Saints Row IV but only if you get it very cheap.
Rocksteady have done it again! Arkham Asylum was a fantastic game in every aspect. City came along and improved upon it in every way imaginable. Then Origins came along and did absolutely nothing. So what has Arkham Knight done? Quite a bit, especially for a franchise already close to perfection. As many reviews are keen to point out, the major addition is the Batmobile. Whilst this has been met with a certain degree of hostility by fans, the addition is not only welcome but also quite necessary if you ask me. Why is this? First of all, it allows for much more gameplay possibilities. Everything from level design, puzzles & collectibles to combat and open-world gameplay become fresh. The Batmobile is not a gimmick, it is genuinely the biggest and greatest addition to the franchise. It acts as both a car and a tank. There are vehicular combat sections (yes, still with a combo system and special weapons/moves), upgrades and some racing sections. The Batmobile is used to its full potential throughout the game - both by side-quests and the main story. The real question is, how has this addition impacted the quality of the game? The answer is: not much at all. Infact, other areas of the game are just as good (mostly), if not better. The combat system is largely the same (after all, they've run out of button combinations for adding any more gadgets or special moves to Batman's plethora of combat options) but there are now special gadget moves that can be activated when the combo meter is full, and you can now juggle enemies after super stun. There are also environmental takedowns (which replace throws - throws themselves are replaced by last-minute counters). The beauty of this combat system is that it has evolved without becoming overly complex or difficult. There's a lot of variety and depth to the combat, it feels more rewarding than ever to keep long combos going. That said, there aren't really any interesting enemies to fight - just your usual stun sticks, ninjas, big guys and riot shields. The biggest addition to the combat is that in some parts you can have Batman fight alongside one of his allies (Nightwing, Robin Catwoman) - so you can do dual takedowns by switching between characters without dropping your combo. This is only really used well for Riddler's side quest, so it's disappointing that such a system is not used more. I was never a huge fan of the Predator sections as you spend a lot of time sitting around waiting. Arkham Knight adds the ability to chain takedowns, sentry guns, flying drones and enemies not visible by detective mode, as well as a Voice Synthesizer which can be used to order enemies around, and there's some interesting things one can do with this as well as the disruptor. Overall however, although the Predator toolbox has evolved, sadly the game's usage of them is poor. Despite being one of the longest games in the franchise, it has by far the fewest Predator encounters, and the Predator sections that are there are not at all challenging or add anything new or exciting. So what about the story and side missions? Well, they're both top-quality too. I would argue that the side missions are repetitive and rather dull/lacking in any real story or connection to characters compared to Arkham City, but they're not tedious. The story itself is very good also. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't discuss much about the characters and story here, but it definitely holds up to the high standard set by every other game in the series (including Origins). Major events occur, put it that way. However, despite this, they don't feel quite as dramatic or powerful as they did in Arkham City or even Arkham Origins. It's one of those stories where the first 90% is quite pedestrian and the last 10% everything happens - almost as if it was rushed - without fully tying up loose ends. One other fairly important thing to note is that there are no real boss fights. There are about 3 of them, and all of them are, you guessed it, glorified hit-and-run with the Batmobile. These are not impressive if I'm honest. They are completely underwhelming and I'm sure many others would agree that this game has the weakest boss fights of them all - because it doesn't really have ANY if we're being brutally honest. If you're expecting encounters with major characters anywhere near as good as Arkham City, you're SOL. So what's the verdict? If you enjoyed any of the previous games, unless you have a dire hatred of any games involving any sort of vehicular combat or driving sections then you will be hard-pushed to find many flaws with this game. The world is massive, there's lots to do and there's destructible environments. The combat and stealth mechanics as well as the visuals have been stepped up without compromise. The Batmobile is an excellent addition and used in meaningful ways throughout without getting too silly or "jumping the shark". For any fan of the series, it is a must-play.
This game is not only a shining example of how Early Access can help to make a great game, but also the best rally game in the series. Unlike its predecessors, DiRT Rally is very much focused on the rallying, as the title suggests. It provides one of the most authentic racing experiences to date. Few, if any other racing games capture the immersion of racing as well as DiRT Rally. The reason this game shines is because it is realistic when it comes to physics, handling and performance. It also helps that, unlike with the GRID series, every car's interior is meticulously detailed with high-resolution textures. The visual fidelity of this game combined with the authenticity and variety of the vehicles and tracks on offer combine to create a rally game like no other. Although this game is hardcore, it is in no way frustrating, unfair or poorly designed when it comes to other aspects. This is a top quality, AAA game that sets out to offer a great rally experience and it does that. Infact, it does more than that. In addition to rallying, there are Hillclimb championships; although admittedly with only 3 cars and one track. It also does Rallycross - this time with actual professional rules and cars which are very difficult to control as one would expect. Daily, weekly and monthly events with tiered rewards based on performance (and no restarting allowed) means that the game is always going to have a new challenge for you to tackle. The progression/money system is not needlessly over-complicated either. It gives player choice and keeps it simple. It will take a while to buy every car but there is no grinding involved - you always have choice. Perhaps the only criticisms of this game would be that in career events, the bonus for not restarting is miniscule compared to the gains from placing higher, and the fact that you can't select your difficulty can be off-putting for new players - even though the game starts at the lowest difficulty level. All in all however, this is a masterpiece - it may not have as much content or variety as previous titles, but in terms of quality and authenticity, it is a must-play for all rally fans.
A genuinely decent platformer which excels as a couch co-op game. It has a nice theme and soundtrack; although there's no real story and the aesthetics could do with a bit more work. It is however, a wacky game with some comical moments. The gameplay is a nice mix of platforming and combat; with the mechanics being particularly refreshing. Despite the relatively large set of actions, it doesn't feel overwhelming. The dimension-swapping is used particularly well throughout the game. Its semi-open-world nature allows for some additional challenges, side quests and collectibles. The enemies aren't repetitive and are satisfying to fight against. Combat is simple and intuitive but has enough depth to avoid repetition - especially given the variety of enemies and the use of dimensions and shields which require special moves to break. However, the game falls short at times chiefly because of the way it handles two players on screen. If you are playing as a guest on a local system, Player 1 always has "priority" meaning that if the guest overcomes a platforming section whilst Player 1 fails, the game has a 3 second timer for which, regardless of where you may be, the guest is respawned back to where Player 1 is. The "bubble" used to spawn players is particularly annoying as having to navigate to where the other player is isn't always easy when the screen is cluttered with enemies. The game also has far too much combat relative to platforming; which is a shame given the excellent platforming mechanics which can only really be appreciated fully in the Infierno challenges. If the game had more of these challenges, it would be better. The character customisation is nice and simple but could allow for more options. It is often difficult to keep track of one's character during flashy combat sections with lots of enemies. For a PS4 game, it is definitely not a graphically pleasing game - it looks like a mobile game. However, given the small team that made it, the amount of content, quality and the price, I would definitely recommend it as an excellent co-operative game that almost anyone can enjoy.
This is a truly unique game which the industry needs more of. A serious puzzle game with an intriguing story, some great philosophical elements, lots of mystery and things to be discovered. It is a very immersive experience and quite relaxing. The soundtrack, art style, environments and graphical fidelity make for a somehwat euphoric experience. It's a beautiful game in its design. There are no tutorials in this game - it's all about exploration and experimentation. What I love baout this game is that the puzzles are really intuitive; at least once you know the main mechanics, you'll rarely find yourself being frustrated by a puzzle and resorting to "cheating" (by looking up the solution). There's quite a good diversity in terms of the worlds, so you'll always be immersed and want to continue to progress the story (through interacting with "Command Prompt"-style terminals, listening to audio logs, reading some things etc.) The ambiguity in this game motivates you to progress further - everything feels like it has meaning and purpose. I would compare The Talos Principle to Portal as being a top-notch puzzle game but unlike Portal, The Talos Principle is far deeper and more "serious", with Elohim being a much more intimidating, powerful and "Godly" character than the tongue-in-cheek GLaDOS. Also the game does not rely on a single mechanic or device (although many puzzles will use just one device). Every puzzle feels like a "puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle", and indeed due to the way it's structured, some of them link so to get some of the stars you have to think literally "outside the box" (or rather, "puzzle arena"). It's beautiful, unpredictable, atmospheric and truly original. I would not have expected a game like this from the developers of the (not so serious) Serious Sam series! This is a game that is definitely worth checking out if you want something perplexing - an adventure game without any guns or violence or a linear, cliche plot. The only negative I would give this game is that I wish there was a bit more traditional story-telling to tie things together and less of those obnoxious 'Sigil' shape puzzles.
I have to respect The Old Blood for being genuinely good value. As a stand-alone game, it offers about the same level of content as The New Order but for a stand-alone DLC price. Gameplay-wise, it's the same as The New Order, just with different levels. That means it automatically gets some points in the bag right away for its excellent game mechanics, pacing, AI, gunplay and game engine - offering a stable 60 FPS at 1080p with great sound and decent enough visuals. There's a few nice additions, such as a perk which shows all collectibles on the map, the bolt-action rifle, rocket pistol, some new enemies, a challenge mode and nightmare levels. There are 9 chapters, each with a nightmare level (which are some Wolfenstein-3D levels). Whilst it's nice to see a throwback to the game's early heritage as a pioneer of the FPS genre, they're actually quite boring to be honest. Lengthy corridors of shooting pixelated enemies that offer little to no resistance is not fun. When The New Order did it for just one little bit it was amusing but to have every level with them in is stale - especially as they're very repetitive, similar and no real design gone into them. Whilst game play is the same if not slightly improved thanks to some of the new weapons (but less perks due to the shorter campaign length), the level design is not as impressive. Don't get me wrong, they're pretty decent levels, but shorter than The New Order's and less exciting/adventurous. The challenge mode is somewhat disappointing, since it does not allow perks to carry over and they are just the exact same segments as encountered in the story. The scoring system is very barebones, only rewarding headshots and chaining kills together. Although simple and challenging, it can be frustrating having to restart and waiting for the level to load, since the gold medal target takes many attempts. My biggest let-down with the game is its story. There was almost none, with minimal use of cutscenes and no real character development. Whereas The New Order was a triumph because of its emphasis on the story, characters and game world, The Old Blood is more of a traditional corridor shooter. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily, given its pricing and intended purpose, however it may disappoint some fans of The New Order if they were hoping for more of a backstory. Overall I would highly recommend this game for its sublime gameplay and shooter mechanics, but it's not quite the "Blood Dragon" it hoped to be. It's not as comical or bonkers as I would've liked. However, it is a very solid shooter set in a cyberpunk WW2 - something that is rare nowadays. In terms of value for money, it is remarkable, but don't expect anything special. Just a good solid traditional shooter.
Glad I didn't buy this game. I'm adding my "review" here to bring this game's Metascore down. More negative reviews should hopefully serve as a sufficient warning. Even though I haven't tried this game, I think everyone that bought the game on Steam should refund the game before the 2 hour limit. DO NOT PAY FOR UNFINISHED GAMES AND POOR PORTS!! DO NOT RATE GAMES ON POTENTIAL! Why do critics ignore performance issues? It's a good job user scores and reviews exist.
This is... perfection. Combining Test Drive Unlimited with Forza is a match made in heaven. I'm a huge fan of racing and open world games and after having played hundreds of hours of Forza Motorsport, I now feel like the Motorsport series has little purpose to exist. Make no mistake, although Horizon 2 comes across as being more causal and exciting, it makes no compromises in gameplay. Sure it's not 60 FPS but the environments are very pretty - as are the cars. Dynamic weather, day-night cycle, decent soundtrack and best of all, varied event types and RPG elements. All of these benefits without any loss of identity. This is still very much a Forza game in terms of its customisation. You can still upgrade and tune every minute detail of each car as well as create and download masterful artistic designs for the liveries. The skill system definitely adds to the gameplay and makes it more meaningful. The fact that it's all open world means you won't spend time in menus, and there's no long loading times. After each event you are given the option to improve your time for better rewards rather than having to go through menus to find Rivals. There's plenty to see and do in Horizon 2 - especially given the Head to Head challenges of Drivatars roaming around along with collectibles and the Bucket List challenges. My favourite thing about this game is the off-roading. With the variety of cars in this game - especially off-roaders and rally cars, this adds to the excitement. No longer are you limited to a limited choice of circuit tracks like in Motorsport. Rather, there are more exciting events like racing against jets in a Ferrari 360 CS or a train in a Lancia Fulvia. It's great to see so many licensed cars of all types being packed into an open-world game with deep customisation and tuning. Unlike the Forza Motorsport series, Horizon 2 is all about excitement and fun. Whilst it offers all the options of the serious simulator, it couldn't care less about how you've tuned your car or placing strict limitations on performance index. It's more focused on the type of experience and car - rallying, hot hatch, GT, supercars, saloons, retro etc. All of these elements combine together beautifully to create a perfect racing game. It has the solid mechanics and customisability of a simulator but doesn't feel boring. The excitement of an arcade racer with the depth of a simulator. It is not just Forza by name. The detail of the cars and their interiors - even the traffic cars - is amazing. Best of all, you don't need to be a Gold member or play with friends to get the full experience. The Drivatars roaming the world feel like real players even if they're not. I gave Test Drive Unlimited 2 a 9/10 despite it not being a high-budget game. But Horizon 2 takes the vision and refines it. This is any racing game fan's dream. It is the absolute pinnacle of racing games - both in terms of breadth, depth, design and quality.
This is one of those games that made me want to get up and start clapping when the credits rolled, out of respect. My only interest in this game was to try out an RPG that I might like, given that it's more action/gameplay-oriented. I'm a bit of **** for the cyberpunk theme, a fan of stealth and FPS and dislike games which try to hide everything from you. DXHR DC ticks all the boxes. Right from the beginning, the game feels immersive. The story is serious, easy to follow and the whole theme/context of the game blends beautifully with the RPG elements. From a thematic and plot point of view, this is one of the best games I’ve come across – it could easily be turned into a movie. Characters are well-developed not only through cutscenes and interaction but also through meaningful side quests; which are thorough in terms of explaining the reasoning from both a story perspective and gameplay (i.e. the task and reward). Staying on this, DXHR DC consistently informs the player when they’re about to make a major decision or leave an area. It doesn’t want to mislead players or make them reload a save game because they didn’t know what would happen. The only exception is the Missing Link DLC which, although from a story perspective is seamlessly integrated, it is let down by the gameplay. It is the only section of the game that felt laborious, with poor level design and worst of all, it takes away all your upgrades and inventory but doesn’t tell you that you’ll get it back (which, thankfully, you do). Gameplay consists of stealth, cover-shooting, social (dialogue), a “hacking” mini-game, exploration and inventory management. When combined together, it makes for an immersive experience throughout. Even though the game doesn’t evolve its gameplay, the variety and mix doesn’t make it feel repetitive. Your character can be developed to suit your playstyle – each upgrade being catered to one of those aspects of gameplay. The reason this game feels so immersive throughout is that there’s rarely a dull moment or a part which feels forced or meaningless. Interacting with other characters feels satisfying – as does the stealth and combat. Mechanics, controls and gameplay are all very solid. It is best played with keyboard and mouse as entering keycodes/passwords and general movement and interactions are best suited to this. The game also has a handy quick-save/quick-load feature and, at least with an SSD, the loading times aren’t long at all. Aside from the gameplay mix, the other great asset of this game is its soundtrack. It is simply amazing and couldn’t have suited the game more. At every point the appropriate background music comes on. Every time I hear the menu theme I feel glad that I launched the game. Aesthetically however, the game is less pleasing. I admire the consistency of orange and black tone, but it would have been nice to have more varied environments, as most of the game takes place in large buildings. The DirectX 11 features help lift the graphical quality of the game though. Overall, Deus Ex Human Revolution Director’s Cut is a fantastic game with universal appeal. Whether you like exploring a game’s backstory and reading a lot of text, or you like more hands-on gameplay through stealth or combat, or you simply want a game with a good plot, characters and meaningful choices, this can offer all of those. It’s also nice knowing that you can play through the game again (New Game Plus) and keep your upgrades; as it is unlikely that you’ll acquire all of them in first playthrough. There is decent replay value, the game took me about 30 hours to finish first time and all endings are elegantly presented. DXHR DC is a highly robust game which nails all aspects of what makes a great game.
What the HECK are these critics thinking?! This 3 hour FREE demo of Forza Horizon 2 not only provides gamers with a quick 1000G and complete on their profile, but also a taste of masterful game design. I haven't played Horizon or Horizon 2, but am a huge fan of racing games. Aside from Test Drive Unlimited, I don't think other games have done the concept justice. But this game represents the pinnacle of design for how a racing game should be. No, there isn't a huge amount of content and there's only 11 races and 11 cars. No, it's not a simulation. No, it doesn't have a huge deal of content. Yes, it's 30 FPS and textures are last-gen. But it's a free demo! The mechanics are brilliant - in-car view is as good as in Forza 5, driving is really responsive and every cars feels different (at least, without assists). Controls are perfect - mechanically this game is sublime. It is quite similar to Burnout Paradise but with real cars (including ALL traffic cars). So, it drives well, has licensed cars, is extremely fast-paced, open-world and FREE. I really don't see how anyone can complain about that!
I was sceptical of this game - especially given the hype surrounding it. After seeing some reviews it made it seem as if this game was a rush-job cashing in on the "CoD developer" hype. Whilst I can agree with the criticisms levelled at it, I cannot ignore the sublime gameplay Titanfall offers. Yes, it is multiplayer only (and no, you can't have bots). Yes, the campaign is completely pointless. By that I mean there is no explanation of the story that's interesting or deep enough to care, and since it's a multiplayer-only game, you will join campaign levels in an arbitrary order and have no clue as to which side is which in terms of the story. Really, it's pretending to have a campaign but it doesn't. But then again, why would anyone buy a multiplayer-only shooter for the "campaign"? The gameplay is not different to the rest of the game, so nothing added other than pointless dialogue. Onto the gameplay then. What strikes me about it at first is the pacing. Inheriting from Call of Duty's legendary controls for which all console shooters aspire to be (in terms of fluency, intuitiveness and smoothness and ease of use), the game feels incredibly agile. The parkour mechanics are, without joke, the best I've ever come across. Wallrunning can go on for very long and speeds up movement, you can chain wallruns infinitely, you can double-jump, and wallrunning resets your double jump. So really it's (one of) the fastest moving FPS around. It's not just CoD with wallrunning - it feels even better than that. The titans also feel fairly agile and control intuitively. At first I disliked the idea of titans but they really make the game what it is. They're not overpowered, they're not easy to take out and you almost have to purposely stand in front of them to be killed by them as a pilot. AI controlled "auto-titans" can be useful for defending but obviously not as good as being piloted. The titans don't feel like tanks on legs - that's for sure. They have a unique presence but they don't feel overpowered or out of place. Given that the season pass is now free, I found that the quantity and quality of maps is amazing. The maps are really well-designed and each one feels different. They are well-suited to objective play and accommodate Titans and the parkour mechanics. Speaking of which, there is a decent selection of game modes - TDM, Domination, Last Titan Standing, CTF, Marked for Death and some other variants on these. This is a game where every game mode is exciting and fun to play. The combination of map design, Titans, controls and pacing make these really intense and action-packed. Then there is create-a-class. This is where you can tell it was made by same developers as Call of Duty 4. There aren't a bajillion weapons with hundreds of attachments or skins. No, a small selection of weapons (which are actually different), only a few attachments (which are unlocked by doing challenges), 5 custom slots and 2 custom slots for each game mode. You can customise both Titans and Pilots, but it's not a mess like modern CoD - you pick the ordnance (grenade), tactical ability (e.g. cloak or temporary speed boost), perk 1, perk 2, primary weapon, secondary weapon. There are only 3 secondary weapons - all of which are pistol for different ranges. That's it - no attachments, no SMGs as secondary or anything like that. Simple, easy, balanced. No weapon feels useless, underpowered or overpowered. The smart pistol received a lot of complaints but they are misguided - it is by far the least effective weapon in the game unless you are very stealthy. It has short range and takes a relatively long time to lock on. Overall there is good variety in create-a-class but not overly cluttered. The anti-titan weapons and the Titan create-a-class are particularly commendable for their variety. One of the things that makes Titanfall so action-packed is the minions. These are AI-controlled solider which are weak and dumb but there are quite a lot of them for both teams and they spawn infinitely. The make the maps feel more alive like a battlefield and provide easy kills and actually help you do objectives. They typically battle amongst themselves but their presence adds to the action. Even if you don't see many human players you will see plenty of minions so no shortage of action. This leads to another thing about Titanfall - it is never frustrating. No matter how bad you do, you never feel angry. To conclude, Titanfall is absolutely an epic shooter. Questions will inevitably arise as to whether a triple-A title can get by on multiplayer alone, but to be honest, I don't think it's a problem. Despite Call of Duty 4's incredible single player, it received little attention from players - most of whom probably never even touched the campaign! Titanfall is overall a very original shooter. It is fair, fun and by far the best-looking Source engine game to date. I have very little to complain about on this title.
A timeless classic, one of the best games ever. But this "remake" is a joke. People have trouble getting multiplayer to work, the game doesn't run anywhere near as smoothly as it should, horrendous optimisation and NO noticeable graphics improvement. Basically a scam. Only buy if you really love the game or haven't played it before, and at very low price.
I had low expectations for this game, but I thought it might surprise me by being a complete spoof of other games, a bit like Saints Row is a parody of GTA. But Marlow Briggs lacks both charm and quality to make it appealing. Few would argue that the pricing is reasonable. However, the game suffers from too many issues to make it a recommendable game. The game consists of platforming sections and "hack n slash" combat. The problem is not the variety in combos, weapons, enemies and level design. I'd go as far as saying the developers have done a decent job (for a low-budget game anyway) in those departments. The problem is simple: PLATFORMING SECTIONS. This is a game where you don't have control over the camera so it's EXTREMELY linear - as in, you can't deviate. One would think that there is little to go wrong but you'd be wrong. You will die hundreds of times not because of poor timing or misjudgement, but because the game is simply glitchy. Inputs are not handled with any care whatsoever - the game doesn't feel consistent or smooth to play at all. Everything has a delay, and sections involving grappling or swinging are very buggy - often you can't jump off the rope, for example. Although the game is light-hearted and makes jokes about its own design, there's nothing original whatsoever. It's not classy, intelligent or well-thought out by any means. The story and characters are generic, and the level of comedy is not enough to make you laugh out loud. The problem becomes apparent when you realise that the game is TRYING to be "epic" with all its fancy locations and scenery, yet the texture quality is bad with lots of pop-in. Whilst I highly value big-budget AAA titles, I also have an appreciation for the underdogs and smaller games which sacrifice production value for a single aspect - like comedic writing/characters or focus on one specific gameplay mechanic. Unfortunately, Marlow Briggs does not impress in any department. If you are bored and have nothing better to do and are desperate for a cheap giggle, Marlow Briggs can provide that. Just don't expect it to be anything memorable.
A generally solid first-person shooter. It almost feels like what Dishonered would be if it were a shooter. Unlike most games in the genre, Wolfenstein places a great deal of emphasis on the story, context and characters. The setting is fantastic, if not a little deluded. It shows that the world would be far more technically advanced in 1960 had the **** won the war. Of course, this is all done to allow for the more interesting weapons and enemies and levels. The game starts out at a convenient point to build the setting, and then continues to explore the world under the new regime. As with Dishonered, there are plenty of collectibles and little newspaper headlines and documents to read - all there to make the game world feel authentic. Bethesda do a great job of bringing their fictional worlds to life, and encourage the player to explore every inch of the levels even though the game is a corridor shooter. You will spend a lot of time pressing the X button - as this does everything - it reloads, it's the action button, it picks stuff up. There feels like a LOT of looting in this game for ammo, health and armour - all of which are in abundant supply. So much infact, that even on Uber difficulty you will rarely, if ever, be struggling to survive. That's not to say that it's a boring game however. Sure, there are a lot of "filler" missions where you don't actually do any shooting, but these exist to develop the story. When it comes to gameplay, The New Order has it nailed. The gunplay has a lot of weight and feels satisfying. When you shoot enemies you can really feel the damage. It doesn't rely too much on gimmicks and gadgets - just pure gunplay. The ability to dual-wield weapons and with each weapon having two "modes", combat can be creative at times. The mechanics are amongst the best of any modern shooter. The most commendable feature is the ability to fully lean by holding LB and using the left stick to change your character's stance up, down, left, right etc. It makes you wonder how other shooters manage without it at time, and makes the whole moving in and out of cover by movement feel outdated. Add in the sprinting, sliding and auto-lean when behind cover, the ability to throw knives (which is intuitively mapped to the melee button) and grenades, then you've got a decent set of actions. The controls are well laid out but there aren't many options for changing them other than sensitivity and inversion. There's also some stealth in this game - which is often encouraged because taking out the commanders before they can call for backup makes it easier to progress. Although this game oozes with Steampunk theme, it seems a little conservative when it comes to the enemies at times. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there's basically three types - soldiers, "mechs/robots" and dogs. It's not a full-blown sci-fi and tries to blur the lines between fantasy and alternate reality, so don't expect anything too crazy. In terms of level design and gameplay variety, there really isn't much to commend. Sure, there's a level on the moon and a huge robot to take down in London but the overall package lacks "magnificence" in its presentation. One thing which I must commend is that it's 1080p 60 FPS - as a shooter should be! It runs on id Tech 5 which, if we're being pedantic, is two generations ahead of CoD (which is based on id Tech 3 - a 20th century game engine!) but don't be fooled - this is the same engine that was used to power Rage and consequently doesn't look much better than that. It's definitely not what you'd call "next-gen" graphically, but it runs very well and loading times are reasonable. In conclusion, Wolfenstein The New Order is good, proper first-person shooter with some of the best mechanics and controls in the business. The action is gripping and intense, but sadly there's not enough of it. Still, it's good to see a shooter that's not afraid of giving some weight to story. The lack of multiplayer is disappointing because it has good potential with all its awesome mechanics and satisfying weapons but the single-player campaign is good enough to warrant a purchase.
Although Forza 5 doesn't differ much from Forza Motorsport 2 in terms of its gameplay, features and content, it's still an excellent racing game and one that every car fan should play. The car choice isn't extensive, but you won't be seeing lots of the same exact car with different livery being branded as a different one to boost the car count. The options in terms of tuning, upgrades, progression, career, customisation, painting etc. aren't far different. You can use community liveries when buying a car, and a useful feature is the ability to auto-upgrade your car to the top of a specified class (for those that don't enjoy tinkering with individual components). The commentary from Top Gear is an awesome addition; as is the Top Gear track. Forza 5 is all about the cars: you won't find any video game that has got as detailed textures and interior models as Forza 5. Indeed, the Forzavista feature is actually quite pleasant if not novel; allowing you to inspect the car from every angle. The level of detail is beyond anything else you will ever see in a driving game. The graphics overall are pretty descent - running at 1080p 60FPS but the environment detail and lighting are no match for Codemasters' EGO 3 engine. As for the driving, it is more difficult than before. I usually play all my racing games with the fewest assists possible but in Forza 5, I would advise avoiding the Simulation steering setting because the cars spin out randomly. Clearly this was designed for racing wheels instead of the analog sticks on a controller. Other than that, the driving is quite fun, captures the sense of speed (although nowhere near as well as SHIFT 2) and is accessible yet realistic. The cars and tracks available are what you'd expect from Forza - a good mix. What's more, there are some street circuits in the game which is nice to see given that Microsoft discontinued Project Gotham Racing series - perhaps the best racing game ever (in my opinion). Speaking of which, Forza 5 tries to vary the gameplay a bit by adding some different objectives to the usual circuit racing, for example, where you have to overtake as many cars as possible within a time or lap limit. This is great to see, and it would be nice if more of these game modes were implemented to avoid repetition. That said, Forza 5 offers the player much freedom in how they progress. To finish every race in the game would take hundreds of hours, and there's also time trials and rivals modes. The aim of this much content is not to make the game a grind - there are not achievements for finishing everything - but to give the player choice in what cars they use and which tracks to race on. Overall, Forza Motorsport 5 doesn't make nay significant advances for the franchise but as a showcase for "next-gen" visuals and a haven for car lovers, it is one of the best racing games available.
When I first played this game on PC I was quite critical of its more linear and sectioned approach compared to previous Hitman games, however I think Absolution is a fantastic video game in its own right. The production value and quality is amongst the best video games ever made. The visuals are not far different from the PC version despite it running on ancient hardware and being very demanding on PC. It is beautifully optimised, has an awesome art style and, like all the other Hitman games, requires multiple playthroughs to fully appreciate its beauty. The difficulty, controls, game engine and visuals are incredibly well designed. The game mechanics and levels are questionable - you can get through the game without much thought due to the shorter levels which are split into smaller linear sections, but once you've played through the game once and then try to do the challenges there's a little more variety. Most levels do not require you to kill a target, but rather to infiltrate an area (read: get from door A to door B, much like a puzzle-platformer). There's generally very descent variety in the aesthetics and context of the levels; not so much in how they play however. This game is much more cinematic and story-driven, so the levels kinda link together rather than being a list of missions to kill unrelated targets. This Hitman game is "A Personal Contract", and is portrayed quite well. The characters are not deeply developed but are presented well. If you're expecting this to be a "true" Hitman game you may be disappointed by some of the changes but ignoring that and viewing it as a "next-gen" approach, it's a much more rewarding way to view the game. This may not be the most ingenious Hitman or have the best levels, but it certainly has a lot of polish and oozes "AAA" quality which is hard to ignore and discredit.
A surprising decent racing game! I was expecting this to be 5/10, given that it's made by the same developers that do the official WRC games. But Powerslide is actually quite fun with good design. The first thing you'll notice is just how great the graphics are. To say that this is an arcade title, the detail of the (real-life) stages embarass a lot of triple-A titles. The visual quality of the stages is fantastic, but the same can't be said about the car models. Although the lighting is OK, the textures are low-res (especially apparent when you flip your car). However, there is enough choice in cars and tracks, with each stage being around 3 minutes long. It does seem a little pointless having 14 cars in each of the three classes when most of them are the same car with different livery/driver, but given they have slightly different stats, it's excusable. The ability to turn on and off power-ups and adjustable difficulty are great features. Whether you want a party-style experience with collisions or a more serious test of skill, this game can offer that. It doesn't do much wrong, however there are some bugs at times. For instance, the game can crash randomly or when entering a race. I've also experienced the game repeatedly pausing itself at the start of a race too. The smoke powerup can also be incorrectly displayed and the framerate isn't as high as it should be. If you can overlook these issues, coupled with non-rebindable keys (although they're set to what you'd expect so not a big deal), WRC Powerslide is a good arcade racer which captures the sense of speed quite well with its brilliant camera angle.
Having never played a turn-based game, I decided to take the plunge into XCOM after seeing so many positive reviews for it. At first, the experience was ecstatic. I clocked in over 20 hours' playtime in a weekend! I was expecting the gameplay to be very dull, not accessible and for all the base management to be confusing and overly complex. But I was wrong - this game couldn't be any more accessible and easy to get into. I loved the simplicity of the mechanics but the depth that it could present the player with. In terms of combat and variety in soldiers, aliens, customisation, level design etc. Enemy Unknown is fantastic. You will never play the same map twice, which is highly impressive - especially given the variety of areas. You really feel a sense of control and importance - the theme of being a commander during a time of crisis is portrayed nicely without being mundane. Every action, every turn, every decision feels meaningful. And that's perhaps the best thing one can say about this game. Later on however, you realise the flaws in its design. Now, I'm the kind of gamer that likes perfection - I will restart until I get the result I want. Naturally, this isn't well-suited to turn-based games. Although I highly enjoyed the concept of XCOM and its gameplay, some design decisions and bugs make the game unplayable without the so called "save-scumming" tactic. The most noticeable issue is that of finding the aliens. The fog of war is so thick, your soldiers have to practically walk within a few tiles of the enemy to see them. But this is the real kicker: THEY GET TO MOVE EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT THEIR TURN! So many times I have been cheated by the game because I spent about 3 turns dashing forward not finding any enemies, and all of a sudden I move ONE TILE forward and a bunch of them appear out of nowhere and surround me DURING MY TURN! This is clearly unfair and really takes away from the tactical element. It's just plain cheap and bad design; although it's not game-breaking most of the time so I can cope with it. The second major issue I have is line of sight and chance to hit. I find that the percentage you see is almost compeltely random and counter-intuitive. So many times I have moved my soldier to a tactically better spot to increase my chances of hitting the enemy, only to lose sight of them or to lower my chances. Whoever did the calculations for hit percents clearly didn't test it in practice - there are so many ridiculous examples where you're next to the enemy and miss yet can have a high chance of hitting them from obscure angles and, in rare cases, through walls! Having played fast-paced action games for so long, the idea of turn-based combat did seem ridiculously novel at times. I mean, you can target an enemy that's directly behind another enemy but not hit the one shielding your target. The visual representation of the combat is horrific at best. Oftentimes, the games will show plasma on your character even if the alien missed you but it shows that it hit, and vice-versa. It's as if the graphics/UI team had no communication with the gameplay designers and those that code the mechanics. The camera issues in this game are inexcsuable. Especially for levels with verticality and those inside buildings, the isometric design really exposes how bad of a job the developers did of using Unreal Engine 3. First of all, framerate drops. Then, when you try to select your units or point to where you want them to go, it keeps moving about or there is so little consistency between what you see on screen and what's actually going on. It's kinda hard to describe, but once you play the game you'll see plenty of minor bugs and the occasional major one (e.g. my Hover SHIV got stuck in a wall and couldn't move). I have read reports of corrupted saves and problems with the autosave feature too. Although XCOM is an unpredictable game, it is still linear in progression. It also has some scaling issues with the campaign; where you get all the awesome gear and have a kick- base with the best weapons, jets, armour, research etc. only to be able to use them for a couple of missions before the end. In the latter half of the game, I had full satellite coverage and was drowning in money I might as well have wasted it. In early game, resource management feels really important and meaningful. Towards the end, you just sit on your wealth and can't really use your resources to help you further in combat. Although I think that's my playstyle. Indeed, XCOM is perhaps the best attempt I have encountered when it comes to balancing progression rewards with length of game. Overall, XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a game which convincingly sells the concept of Turn-Based strategy to those unfamiliar with the genre. However, the quality of its in-engine execution is shody and at the micro-mechanical level, it's almost broken. In terms of design and its vision, XCOM EU is ingenius. It definitely has replay value.
I have played and followed this game for a long time, but I cannot recommend it for several reasons. First of all, the PC version is unplayable at current. This is not a single-player game. Unless you want to do the trials (which I spent most of my time doing), you won't have fun offline. To really experience this game, you need to play against human opponents. The online on PC is extremely laggy and inconsistent and slow in terms of the matchmaking process. But the other reasons I wouldn't recommend it are as follows: Too dependent on match-up knowledge. You can't counter-pick, which forces you to learn ONE character and learn them well. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. After having cleared all trials and experimenting with every character I still haven't found one that works for me. Whether I win or lose seems to be decided mostly at the character select screen. My performance is not representative of my skill level due to the character I have chosen vs the character my opponent has chosen. No opportunity to use combos. This might sound like a noob thing to say but despite having excellent execution when in training mode I can never combo anything online not because I can't make the links, but because the opportunity to use it is rarely there. The risk vs reward makes it difficult to justify at times. This combined with the non-existent juggling mechanics mean you have to rely on bread-and-butter combos. This makes the game far too "flow-charty". Too much poking. Everything in this game feels safe and hard to punish. And finally, the most important one: NO TUTORIAL. This game is about as accessible as twister is for wheelchair users. There's nothing in the game to help you. Altthough the strategy and fundamentals might be intuitive, the controls and mechanics take a lot of practice and aren't actually all that satisfying. The game requires frame-perfect timing and is infuriating if you don't have the patience. Don't get me wrong, this is by far my most played game and I've had some great moments on it, but to me it's more fun to watch others play it (e.g. Excellent Adventures). As a spectator game, it's often more exciting. But to play? It's more frustrating than rewarding.
I love speed running games - especially those with a unique art style and vibe, such as Mirror's Edge. However, I also favour simplicity, accessibility and the addiction of trying to improve times without having to play the game 24/7. Unlike more pick-up-and-play runners like T.E.C. 3001, Cloudbuilt requires you to commit many many hours just to get a satisfactory performance on a level. And by satisfactory, I mean a gold medal. The game starts off with a pointless story where you're stuck in a room. Instead of having the level select screen from the game's main menu, you have to go into the room, press E on the bed in the room and you can play. It's utterly pointless! Once you get in the game, you have some rather intuitive game mechanics - a meter which can be used for double jumps and boosting (either on ground or in mid-air), the ability to wallrun, the ability to hold onto a wall to time your jumps and of course, the ability to climb. What makes Cloudbuilt more challenging is that the obstacles you encounter are actual enemies - some are turrets which you can shoot, others are balls of electricity etc. and avoiding death is a challenge on its own. More so than any other game in its genre, Cloudbuilt emphasizes verticality and finding shortcuts. The level design is very abstract - it's essentially just concrete blocks placed in mid-air which you must traverse whilst avoiding the enemies and falling off. The game is extremely fast-paced too, and luckily, restarting a level is a hotkey and is immediate without loading or "****!", which is very much necessary otherwise it would be downright unplayable. Unlike T.E.C. 3001, the levels are anything but linear, and trying to work out where you're meant to go is far more difficult than it should be - thus leading to frustration. And unlike Mirror's Edge, you can't simply stop and explore the level to work out which paths are optimal, because the game gives you a limited number of lives unless you restart, and in most cases it's impossible because the moment you stop to think about how to do the level, the enemies kill you. The game makes almost no attempt to assist you in finding better routes. This would be fine if the entire game wasn't a test of how well you know the level. no matter how much you've mastered the mechanics of the game, putting them into practice is seldom rewarding or satisfying - it often feels rushed and more awkward than awesome. Overall, Cloudbuilt is a game with too much depth for its own good. What makes games in this genre attractive is the ability to instantly pick the game up and getting hooked on shaving off milliseconds from your time. In Cloudbuilt, you will most likely be shaving off minutes until you spend countless hours learning the levels and getting to grips with the game mechanics just to get to the exciting part. If you're a hardcore speedrunning freak and want a real challenge which will keep you occupied for hundreds of hours, Cloudbuilt might just be for you. If you're after a fun, casual experience which you can dip in and out of, you will be sorely disappointed.
Without knowing it, Insomniac have created a game that's ahead of its time. I have never heard of Ratchet & Clank before this game, but I can say that it deserves more credit even if it is a spin-off. The reason being is that this is perhaps the most ingeniously accessible MOBA which was released at a time when the genre wasn't as mainstream. There are no tutorials, and there needn't be either. It is extremely intuitive to pick up and play, with third-person controls, solid movement/shooting/combat/platforming. It is fast-paced and there's decent variety in the weapons and enemies. Unlike other MOBAs, this game is more scripted in the campaign and levelling up your weapons and character are persistent. When played co-operatively, this game shines. The tower-defense mechanics are very simple and with a shared currency, there's more emphasis on co-operation and doing what's best for the team rather than the individual. The weapons and levelling are shared when played co-operatively too, so there's never any conflict of who should do/use what. This is a MOBA without menus and with no learning curve which can be played in split-screen. Given the size of the genre nowadays, that's a revolutionary concept. How many MOBAs literally copy DoTA? Almost all. Ratchet & Clank QForce shows that it's possible to do better - by having a fast-paced, pick-up-and-play, singleplayer/co-operative MOBA where there's no mouse-clicking or last-hitting or caring about stats of items, but rather purely gameplay. Of course, it's not particularly deep or require an enormous amount of strategy and planning, but for its target audience the difficulty and depth is perfect. The game's announcer does an excellent job of keeping you up to date on the game state, and playing the objective feels natural rather than a chore. The map design is not bad and having the minimap as well as large map helps to navigate the level. Multiplayer is a strong point of this game too, which continues the "scripted" style by having offensive and defensive phases. In terms of story and campaign length, the game only has five levels and they're quite short but there's replay value in doing the challenges. Quality-wise, the game isn't AAA by any means, and suffers from major frame-rate drops when there are a crazy number of enemies and turrets and weapons and explosions on screen, but otherwise functional. Overall, QForce is a game which future MOBA developers should take inspiration from, because of its accessibility, fun factor, design and exciting combat with cool weapons. Just because it's a casual game doesn't mean it's necessarily bad or boring. Of course it won't provide you with more than 10-15 hours of gameplay, but not every game should aspire to be endless - and not every MOBA should be exactly like the established ones.
There's plenty of good to say about Dishonored. The game mechanics are simple and straightforward, gameplay is intuitive and offers you choice in how you approach each mission, lots of options for controls. There aren't any major flaws in the game from a technical or design standpoint - expect for the poor textures. Graphically the game isn't far different from Half-Life 2. Facial detail is horrific, but that's an art style choice perhaps. What really makes Dishonored shine is its immersive game world. It feels well-crafted and you can tell there's a lot of effort gone into making the story and context as polished as possible. However, despite all its efforts, Dishonored feels somehwat lacking in one major area: completeness. By that I mean it's so linear and unvaried, it feels more like a demo. Why do I have this opinion? Perhaps it's because I rarely got to use any of the upgrades I bought or engage in combat. And although the game doesn't present you with lots of pointless choices and text walls and RPG elements that don't affect gameplay, the level design is certainly lacking in gameplay variety. Yes, each level is well-thought and detailed, but the actual gameplay is extremely repetitive. I played the game on Hard and it suffers from the same problem as Hitman Absolution - that it's too easy to be stealthy. The game rewards you for not killing anyone and being sneaky. For this reason (because of the achievements), it's tempting to be tactical in your approach. Although the game's mechanics and tools and AI accommodate for this, the excitement is definitely lacking. Furthermore, should you choose to engage in combat, there is no real fun to be had there either. With just a pistol (or bow) and a sword, it's very basic. Fast, granted, but not fun. The supernatural abilities are indeed a great feature of the game and don't feel out of place, however as with everything in this game, they're ultimately unrealised potential. Never in a level was I forced to think creatively or use the level and my abilities/weapons etc. to make a meaningful impact in any way. I'm not saying that the game should be open-world or an RPG, I just think that it's been heavily cut down in order to make it linear and easy to finish in a relatively short time. The developers went through so much trouble to build the game world and story, yet none of the characters felt well-developed at all. Granted, the story is good, but it could do with so much MORE. Same with the levels - good, but need MORE VARIETY. You spend so much time exploring the levels finding journals (lots and lots and lots of text which isn't really worth reading), collectibles and money, yet in the grand scheme of things they're absolutely useless. All those upgrades for nothing! And the choices? Well, they seem meaningful at the time but don't really impact the story overall. Bottom line: great foundations, unrealised potential. "Underdeveloped" is how I would sum it up. It'd be interesting to see how the next game turns out. Dishonored is a good game on its own but is a bit disappointing because it makes out to be so much more than it actually is.
This is a game which appeals to those who are fans of racing and motorsport. Codemasters seem to have nailed the sweet spot this time - perhaps more so than GRID 2. Let's begin with the driving. When most games try to do "simulation", this usually translates into unnecessarily dull driving with plenty of understeer, no sense of speed, the inability to drift and the inability to turn while braking. In Autosport, you still get the excitement and sharp handling of GRID 2 but with a lot more control. You can really tell a car's limits jsut from the vibration and tyre noise. I'd describe it as a perfect balance - it's deep but still fun and intuitive. For someone that plays a lot of racing games, I usually find that in some games, you are disadvantaged by not using assists, whereas in this game, turning of all assists and using manual gears is actually rewarding rather than punishing. Whilst GRID 2 was more like a Project Gotham Racing clone, Autosport is more like a Racedriver game. Whilst there is a strong emphasis on teams, the core gameplay experience doesn't feel diluted or pushed aside by unnecessary stats, menus and artificial babble. The main selling point of this game is CHOICE. You can do all the cool street racing and drifts in exotic tuners and supercars, or you can go for a more hardcore time attack approach around tracks or do some endurance racing in touring cars and such. There are five distinct disciplines which cater for a wide audience; and is something I've personally wanted to see as a racing game fan. No longer do I have to go to a separate game for each kind of experience - you can get all the racing you want in one complete package. It's just very much pick-up-and-play. Weekly challenges return in online mode, where you have a target to beat in each of the disciplines. Want to just set a fast lap time with Bronze Silver Gold Platinum to aim for? You can. Want to get an awesome drift going? you can. From street racing to track racing to demolition derby, this game has it all. It is a very high quality game in every sense, from optimisation, game engine and lack of glitches to robust mechanics and controls. The game is highly accessible to those who have little experience in racing games with a plethora of assists and difficulty options, but also gives more seasoned veterans the chance to earn more XP by using fewer assists, higher AI difficulty, less flashbacks etc. There's not much clutter here. You can tune your car, but in a similar manner to DiRT 2 and 3. Just a 5-point slider with short explanations. The only complaint I have is that of interior view. Not only is it the worst I've ever seen in terms of the camera angle, but there is ZERO detail (see screenshots), it's just black. This is dssappointing as this was my major issue with GRID 2. If you can overlook this minor flaw, you will find high quality racing game which is more about what happens on the track than the menus.
I was expecting this game to be nothing more than a shody mobile port and a cash-grab attempt by Microsoft using their most successful game franchise to appeal to casual gamers and nickel & dime them with microtransactions. However, it appears that this is not the case; for the Steam version of the game anyway. The game is underpriced if anything - at £3.99 it's the cheapest version fo the game, yet also the best. A good achievement list, weekly challenges, level-specific challenges and a sizeable number of levels along with leaderboards and a score system provide lots of replay value. So what about the game itself? Well, it's surprisingly solid as a stand-alone PC game. The controls work perfectly, visuals aren't far different to the mobile version but still a decent looking game, framerate is smooth and never dips, nice soundtrack too. You could never tell that the game was a "port" from touchscreen devices. The gameplay is actually very much like other Halo games. Sure, it's top down but the core elements of level design, enemies, weapons etc. are all very similar. Even the sounds and animations are directly copy-pasted. The result is a highly robust top-down shooter which appeals to almost anyone (unless you have an intense hatred for the Halo universe). The scoring system is perfectly designed; rewarding fast, skillful play. Overall, Spartan Assault faithfully replicates the Halo universe in a top-down environment and is a shining example of how to make a game which works just as well on a smartphone as it does on a mouse and keyboard or controller.
