"The Nazi's rule the world now". Wolfenstein TNO is a first person shooter game set in an alternative history, in which the Nazi's won the war and had advanced technologies, which lead to them ruling the world. You return as B.J Blazkowicz, who starred in the previous games and helps the resistance against the Nazi's. TNO is the seventh Wolfenstein game and it also spawned a spin off game soon after, entitled The Old Blood. I've only played two all the way through (including this one), but I really enjoyed Wolfenstein (2009) and thought this one looked great. So let's enter General Deathshead's compound.
The game looks amazing and the in game cinematics are seen through B.J's eyes, so you feel like you're really watching the game through his perspective. At times in this game there are incredibly tense moments that make you worry if something's about to happen or not. It's like they were taken from a Tarantino movie, they're so well done. The scenes and interactions are the best parts of the game I'd say. In the first mission there is a choice for you to make, with both leading to alternative storylines, this gives the game some replayability which is always a good thing.
The game has a good selection of weapons and even has dual-weilding. Despite being a first person action game, you can also choose a stealth approach often in the game. Being equipped with throwing knives, putting a silencer on a pistol and being able to do takedowns on enemies are good ways to avoid an unnecessary battle. The game also has a perk system, where if you do the requirements you unlock an upgrade and the next objective to try and unlock more perks. This was a fun addition as I enjoyed trying to unlock all the perks and it made me try different things with what you were asked to do to unlock another perk, so I'd end up using different tactics and weapons I wouldn't usually use.
The game has health and armour and what's good is when you lose health, it regenerates but stops at a certain number depending on how much you lose. It starts at 100 and if you pick up more heath packs it becomes overcharged, but drops down until it hits 100 again. The story is a great 'what if' and interesting enough to keep you engaged, there's a rescue mission, a prison break and even a mission to the moon for all those aspiring astronauts. There's even a torture scene for the sicko's, it caters everyone's needs! The characters feel real and are well voice acted, they look great too. But the villians are by far the most memorable. General Deathshead is psychotic and Engel is terrifying (you'll find out why). There's also some unique sections involving driving and swimming so you're not always running and gunning, there's also boss battles that fit well and aren't too over the top. It's also good that the weapons have attachments like silencers and grenade launchers to give you more ways to play.
Something that was very annoying was having to pick up everything like ammo and collectables. You're always gonna want ammo if you can carry it, so why can't you just run over the ammo and collect it? It's a pain having to keep stopping to pick it up. There's a few times in the game were you have to run and jump to or off something, this should not be in the game because I died missing the jump more than being killed by Nazi's! You can lean around cover which can be useful, but in the tutorial section you have to lean under the door to shoot someone, I never used this again after that so it felt pointless being able to do it. You could also carry every possible weapon at once, including the dual wielding weapons, provided they could all be picked up in the level. This made you overpowered being able to carry so much and switch to any weapon available in the game. There's also a bunch of pointless side tasks in between missions, one for example is that you need to get a power tool, you go to the power tool box and find a note that says someone took it, you go to the person who supposedly has it and it turns out they dropped it miles away, you then go to find it and once you have it, go do the original task. A lot of effort don't you think? These should have been able to be skipped or something because they were unnecessary long.
Wolfenstein looks great and has a very unique and interesting story. It has replayability, with two alternate storylines but that's more or less all it has. Just a story, but a strong one. It's also a very short one too if you know where to go and such. The characters are the stand out feature here. I'm looking forward to playing the stand alone game, The Old Blood. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if more Wolfenstein games are announced and I'll play it for sure! See you at Castle Wolfenstein.
7.4/10
Monday, 30 May 2016
Friday, 27 May 2016
Crackdown (Xbox 360)
Let's get crackin'! Crackdown was released way back in 2007 and even came with a Halo 3 beta code, old right? It was one of the first dozen games I played on the 360 (also the game I was playing when I first witnessed the red ring of death! D:) and also the one of the first open world games I played on 360 too.
Crackdown is about an agency trying to bring down the crime in the city. You are an agent who becomes faster and stronger the more you build up your skills. There are three major gangs and each has seven targets for you to wipe out. Some are really difficult and a pain to get to so you want to play careful sometimes.
This game is so fun. Jumping around on rooftops and climbing buildings, blowing shit up, it's awesome. Leveling up your abilities is addicting and watching your scrawny agent change over time in to a huge beefcake makes you feel tough and it's easy on the eyes! Beating the crap out of enemies and throwing things like boxes and cars (if you're strong enough) is way more fun than shooting them.
The games story is pretty non-existent, you get the objective of 'cleaning up the city' and more or less get on with it. The only story related type of cutscenes are the updates about the boss you've discovered, when you've killed a boss and when you've wiped out a gang. They're also pretty boring so you'll most likely skip them. You have a handler in the form of a voice over, the voice is cool but when he chimes in all the time moaning at you to do stuff, I'd often greet him with a "STFU". What's really good about this game, is that you pick which boss to go after if you've discovered their location, the game isn't linear and let's you go where you choose.
The graphics are beautiful, they're in the form of cell shaded (the first game I'd even seen in this type, yes, a game of many firsts it turns out). I loved taking out the gang bosses, it felt so good to rid the city of one less boss. They were pretty difficult at times and you know you were making progress when you took one out. One cool feature was being able to target different limbs so you could disarm people or make them fall over. There's also a pretty good selection of weapons and a huge variety of cars to drive. The sound of the guns and the explosions was music to my ears. There were also a bunch of different agents for you to play as and you could also customise them but it was pretty limited. This is a great game to play in co-op and it's much more fun, so grab a buddy or make a friend if need be.
Some of the controls took some getting used to X to switch weapons and LB to reload were off putting. Your agent doesn't talk and there were no feelings I felt towards them and whenever you died you could just respawn, it just made you feel like you were expendable. Even though the limb targeting was a good idea, it was very frustrating at how easy it was to accidentally aim at their arms over their torso. It was also annoying how quick you could be overwhelmed by a few enemies, dying so fast even if you were a highly skilled agent. Also being able to aim at dead bodies was a pain, especially if you were in a big gun battle trying to kill the living rather than continuing to shoot the recently deceased. I found grenade throwing poor too as it seemed to hardly go anywhere and always seemed to damage me no matter where I stood. The driving handling was quite difficult but I preferred to run and jump around instead, it was so much better.
The game had a bunch of side stuff too like road races and rooftop racing to help your stats grow. There wasn't much else that added to the game that felt worth doing. The game was quite buggy too which I noticed more recently than back in the day. Some bosses just didn't seem to spawn, so I'd have to go to a completely different part of the map and then go back and hope they'd show. Some enemies would just flash and dissappear and would show up again when you had your back to them and were vulnerable. It made the game seem cheap. Not grabbing ledges despite facing them and losing progress of climbing a ridiculously tall building never made sense either.
Crackdown is soon to be a trilogy and I'm glad it's a game that's been a success and spawned more games. I'm surprised by how happy I was when the third game was announced at E3, I guess I liked it more than I thought. I for one am really looking forward to what CD3 will bring and will certainly plan to write a few words on it. Until then Crackdown.
7.1/10
Crackdown is about an agency trying to bring down the crime in the city. You are an agent who becomes faster and stronger the more you build up your skills. There are three major gangs and each has seven targets for you to wipe out. Some are really difficult and a pain to get to so you want to play careful sometimes.
This game is so fun. Jumping around on rooftops and climbing buildings, blowing shit up, it's awesome. Leveling up your abilities is addicting and watching your scrawny agent change over time in to a huge beefcake makes you feel tough and it's easy on the eyes! Beating the crap out of enemies and throwing things like boxes and cars (if you're strong enough) is way more fun than shooting them.
The games story is pretty non-existent, you get the objective of 'cleaning up the city' and more or less get on with it. The only story related type of cutscenes are the updates about the boss you've discovered, when you've killed a boss and when you've wiped out a gang. They're also pretty boring so you'll most likely skip them. You have a handler in the form of a voice over, the voice is cool but when he chimes in all the time moaning at you to do stuff, I'd often greet him with a "STFU". What's really good about this game, is that you pick which boss to go after if you've discovered their location, the game isn't linear and let's you go where you choose.
The graphics are beautiful, they're in the form of cell shaded (the first game I'd even seen in this type, yes, a game of many firsts it turns out). I loved taking out the gang bosses, it felt so good to rid the city of one less boss. They were pretty difficult at times and you know you were making progress when you took one out. One cool feature was being able to target different limbs so you could disarm people or make them fall over. There's also a pretty good selection of weapons and a huge variety of cars to drive. The sound of the guns and the explosions was music to my ears. There were also a bunch of different agents for you to play as and you could also customise them but it was pretty limited. This is a great game to play in co-op and it's much more fun, so grab a buddy or make a friend if need be.
Some of the controls took some getting used to X to switch weapons and LB to reload were off putting. Your agent doesn't talk and there were no feelings I felt towards them and whenever you died you could just respawn, it just made you feel like you were expendable. Even though the limb targeting was a good idea, it was very frustrating at how easy it was to accidentally aim at their arms over their torso. It was also annoying how quick you could be overwhelmed by a few enemies, dying so fast even if you were a highly skilled agent. Also being able to aim at dead bodies was a pain, especially if you were in a big gun battle trying to kill the living rather than continuing to shoot the recently deceased. I found grenade throwing poor too as it seemed to hardly go anywhere and always seemed to damage me no matter where I stood. The driving handling was quite difficult but I preferred to run and jump around instead, it was so much better.
The game had a bunch of side stuff too like road races and rooftop racing to help your stats grow. There wasn't much else that added to the game that felt worth doing. The game was quite buggy too which I noticed more recently than back in the day. Some bosses just didn't seem to spawn, so I'd have to go to a completely different part of the map and then go back and hope they'd show. Some enemies would just flash and dissappear and would show up again when you had your back to them and were vulnerable. It made the game seem cheap. Not grabbing ledges despite facing them and losing progress of climbing a ridiculously tall building never made sense either.
Crackdown is soon to be a trilogy and I'm glad it's a game that's been a success and spawned more games. I'm surprised by how happy I was when the third game was announced at E3, I guess I liked it more than I thought. I for one am really looking forward to what CD3 will bring and will certainly plan to write a few words on it. Until then Crackdown.
7.1/10
Sunday, 22 May 2016
Far Cry: Primal (Xbox One)
Welcome to my Far Cry 3 review! Wait, no, it's Far Cry 4. Hang on, no, it's Far Cry Primal! Sorry, it's hard to tell, they're all practically the same.
The Far Cry series has became very similar the past few releases, I could've also included Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon in the introduction, but I did want to get this review started one day. It's not necessarily a bad thing, FC3 is one of the best games I've played in recent years, however, doing the exact same thing over and over again, THAT is the definition of insanity. FC3 was so successful that FC4 did the exact same thing, but not nearly as good. Primal is set in the Stone Age, I thought this was a brilliant idea, I've never played a game set in that era and it was brilliantly done. Sabertooth tigers and mammoths walk the earth and fight with you if you keep them on your good side.
Being in a completely different era to the more modern-day setting, Primal had to do almost everything differently to fit the new, or older setting should I say? There's no camera to tag enemies, so how about an owl you can control that soares through the skies, tagging all the enemies in sight? There are no gun stores, so why not scavenge and make your on arrows for your bow by collecting wood from trees? I thought the owl tagging was a genius idea, it was one of my favourite new features. But, the biggest new feature of all, animal taming. You want a sabertooth tiger to do your bidding don't you? Of course you do! Crafting bait and hurling it towards a beast and slowly approaching it, to calm the animal down gets it to follow and fight for you. There's a number of different animals to tame, leopards, bears and badgers? Yes, badgers those ferocious, little Devils!
The game looks great, the people are always really close up in the scenes and you can see so much detail in their faces and their eyes look so real. However, it's a bit different for the close ups of the tamed beasts, they look pixely but it's only when you heal them you notice. The story isn't very memorable and nor is it that interesting, you are a Wenja, a tribe at war with the Udam tribe, while also fighting Izila tribe. One of the main characters was called Sayla, a Wenja who is haunted by the screams of the dead Wenja's and is emotionally hurt at the deaths of her fellow tribe. That makes sense, but what doesn't, when you first encounter her, she immediately tries to kill you. A Wenja. So much for caring about all us Wenja's! I found it hard to like any character in truth. They just weren't that memorable and they hardly even featured in the storyline. The game has no English whatsoever. It's the first game I've played in a completely different language, which made it unique.
Plenty of the good, older features were present. Animals you hunted showing as an x on the minimap, so you could find the carcass was always useful. Searching bodies for extra items and even the crafting with animal skins to create better gear. As there were no guns when this game is set, FC had to really focus on the melee. I really liked it, nothing like swinging your club or striking with your spear. I found melee fights to be way more fun than the gun fights ever were in the older games. Outposts were also back, which are by far the most fun thing to do in Primal, taking out a bunch of enemies using stealth to capture the outpost was always enjoyable. You could even use your owl to smash open cages animals were captured in, so they could take out enemies at the outpost for you. Owls could also drop any type of bomb weapon on the enemies below if you had any.
Crafting ammo was one of the best things in the game, you always need weapons so constantly scavenging for items was always a priority. You could also set most weapons on and even if you went up to fire with a weapon, it would automatically catch fire, which I thought was pretty cool. Not losing health every time you fell a metre was also an improvement the series really needed, that was how I would usually lose all my health... by jumping hardly a metre. Riding mammoths and some tamed beast was the fastest way to travel, but it can take a while to unlock the skill. Of course, there's fast travel, provided you've unlocked where you want to go. This game has the best fast travel, the loading screens in between are incredibly fast. There were actual boss fights. Yes, you weren't drugged up and hallucinating them this time, they actually were in real time!
However, there were still some hallucination missions. I've always disliked them, they really take me away from the game and I rush through them as fast as I can. Please no more in the next game, thanks. There were side missions too, they were boring and so pointless, they were only worth doing to get an extra skill point to upgrade yourself. Tamed beasts could be frustrating as when they're low health and you're calling them back to heal, if there's hostiles around they will try and kill them even if you're constantly calling them back to heal. This lead to many of my furry companions dying and me not bothering to revive them for disobeying me. One also got me caught and raised an alarm during a stealth operation at an outpost, I can't blame my sabertooth really though, he was trying to crawl alongside me and be stealthy too. One more thing I hated was, if you were controlling the owl and dropping bombs and such with it, the more you threw, the more alert the enemies became. All of a sudden you'll be kicked out of the owl screen to the first person view, because they've discovered you. I have no idea how an owl flying in the sky dropping stuff on you, gives away my exact location, hundreds of metres away on the ground. Be like seeing a plane in the sky and then running all the way to the air traffic controller and beating them up if you ask me. Makes no sense, does it?
All in all the game isn't bad, but that's because of how good FC3 was and it plays exactly the same. Uninteresting and forgettable story but a very memorable setting with some great new features (taming beasts). I certainly hope this isn't the last we see of Far Cry, but I hope it's the last we see of the game copying and pasting its predecessors.
7/10
The Far Cry series has became very similar the past few releases, I could've also included Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon in the introduction, but I did want to get this review started one day. It's not necessarily a bad thing, FC3 is one of the best games I've played in recent years, however, doing the exact same thing over and over again, THAT is the definition of insanity. FC3 was so successful that FC4 did the exact same thing, but not nearly as good. Primal is set in the Stone Age, I thought this was a brilliant idea, I've never played a game set in that era and it was brilliantly done. Sabertooth tigers and mammoths walk the earth and fight with you if you keep them on your good side.
Being in a completely different era to the more modern-day setting, Primal had to do almost everything differently to fit the new, or older setting should I say? There's no camera to tag enemies, so how about an owl you can control that soares through the skies, tagging all the enemies in sight? There are no gun stores, so why not scavenge and make your on arrows for your bow by collecting wood from trees? I thought the owl tagging was a genius idea, it was one of my favourite new features. But, the biggest new feature of all, animal taming. You want a sabertooth tiger to do your bidding don't you? Of course you do! Crafting bait and hurling it towards a beast and slowly approaching it, to calm the animal down gets it to follow and fight for you. There's a number of different animals to tame, leopards, bears and badgers? Yes, badgers those ferocious, little Devils!
The game looks great, the people are always really close up in the scenes and you can see so much detail in their faces and their eyes look so real. However, it's a bit different for the close ups of the tamed beasts, they look pixely but it's only when you heal them you notice. The story isn't very memorable and nor is it that interesting, you are a Wenja, a tribe at war with the Udam tribe, while also fighting Izila tribe. One of the main characters was called Sayla, a Wenja who is haunted by the screams of the dead Wenja's and is emotionally hurt at the deaths of her fellow tribe. That makes sense, but what doesn't, when you first encounter her, she immediately tries to kill you. A Wenja. So much for caring about all us Wenja's! I found it hard to like any character in truth. They just weren't that memorable and they hardly even featured in the storyline. The game has no English whatsoever. It's the first game I've played in a completely different language, which made it unique.
Plenty of the good, older features were present. Animals you hunted showing as an x on the minimap, so you could find the carcass was always useful. Searching bodies for extra items and even the crafting with animal skins to create better gear. As there were no guns when this game is set, FC had to really focus on the melee. I really liked it, nothing like swinging your club or striking with your spear. I found melee fights to be way more fun than the gun fights ever were in the older games. Outposts were also back, which are by far the most fun thing to do in Primal, taking out a bunch of enemies using stealth to capture the outpost was always enjoyable. You could even use your owl to smash open cages animals were captured in, so they could take out enemies at the outpost for you. Owls could also drop any type of bomb weapon on the enemies below if you had any.
Crafting ammo was one of the best things in the game, you always need weapons so constantly scavenging for items was always a priority. You could also set most weapons on and even if you went up to fire with a weapon, it would automatically catch fire, which I thought was pretty cool. Not losing health every time you fell a metre was also an improvement the series really needed, that was how I would usually lose all my health... by jumping hardly a metre. Riding mammoths and some tamed beast was the fastest way to travel, but it can take a while to unlock the skill. Of course, there's fast travel, provided you've unlocked where you want to go. This game has the best fast travel, the loading screens in between are incredibly fast. There were actual boss fights. Yes, you weren't drugged up and hallucinating them this time, they actually were in real time!
However, there were still some hallucination missions. I've always disliked them, they really take me away from the game and I rush through them as fast as I can. Please no more in the next game, thanks. There were side missions too, they were boring and so pointless, they were only worth doing to get an extra skill point to upgrade yourself. Tamed beasts could be frustrating as when they're low health and you're calling them back to heal, if there's hostiles around they will try and kill them even if you're constantly calling them back to heal. This lead to many of my furry companions dying and me not bothering to revive them for disobeying me. One also got me caught and raised an alarm during a stealth operation at an outpost, I can't blame my sabertooth really though, he was trying to crawl alongside me and be stealthy too. One more thing I hated was, if you were controlling the owl and dropping bombs and such with it, the more you threw, the more alert the enemies became. All of a sudden you'll be kicked out of the owl screen to the first person view, because they've discovered you. I have no idea how an owl flying in the sky dropping stuff on you, gives away my exact location, hundreds of metres away on the ground. Be like seeing a plane in the sky and then running all the way to the air traffic controller and beating them up if you ask me. Makes no sense, does it?
All in all the game isn't bad, but that's because of how good FC3 was and it plays exactly the same. Uninteresting and forgettable story but a very memorable setting with some great new features (taming beasts). I certainly hope this isn't the last we see of Far Cry, but I hope it's the last we see of the game copying and pasting its predecessors.
7/10
Friday, 13 May 2016
Portal 2 (Xbox 360)
After hearing so many good things about Portal 2 and seeing the game highly rated on every review site, I decided to finally get down to it. I played the first Portal thanks to The Orange Box, so I knew about the game already.
The game is a unique puzzler and using the Portal gun is incredibly fun. You shoot a blue and orange portal that act as doorways, enter one and come out the other. The game doesn't sound too exciting but you may be surprised. The game follows the first one, some time after and paves the way for an exciting story of betrayal and the help of an old 'friend'. Despite playing as a silent protagonist, the characters in this game are fantastic and this is one of the funniest games I've ever played. A brilliant performance by Stephen Merchant who plays Wheatley, who helps you attempt to escape the Aperture Science facility. Even J.K Simmons voices a character, a character who isn't interested in pictures of Spider-Man believe it or not!
The game has everything, an excellent story, humorous and fantastically voiced characters, fun game mechanics and a brilliant co-op mode. I was very surprised to see the second one become a full release game, as it didn't seem like there was much to expand into. Well, I was wrong. The first game was kinda cool, a unique puzzle game with a hilarious villian called GLaDOS. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did and I never expected it to get a sequel, nor did I anticipate the high praise either. I mean, this game is technically you being put in a chamber and trying to figure out how to get to the exit but at the same time, it's so much more than that. The game is just fantastic and when you play it you will understand why.
I won't say much more about the plot of the story other than it's definitely worth playing through. The game looks great, you can tell that they designed the place to look like a real high-tech science facility. The test chambers are well designed and some of the puzzles really make you think about how you get through it. There's nothing better in a game than feeling like you've achieved something and this game does that when you figure out the chambers. You feel like a genius and even a 'badass' when you complete a test at times. Or maybe that's just me. The co-op is so fun, this game flourishes in co-op mode as well. It's one of the most fun games I've played with a partner and if you have a friend to play it with, then make sure you do. Some puzzles can be difficult to figure out but as the saying goes, 'two heads are better than one'.
If you had two heads, then you'd know this game was worth playing.
8.4/10
The game is a unique puzzler and using the Portal gun is incredibly fun. You shoot a blue and orange portal that act as doorways, enter one and come out the other. The game doesn't sound too exciting but you may be surprised. The game follows the first one, some time after and paves the way for an exciting story of betrayal and the help of an old 'friend'. Despite playing as a silent protagonist, the characters in this game are fantastic and this is one of the funniest games I've ever played. A brilliant performance by Stephen Merchant who plays Wheatley, who helps you attempt to escape the Aperture Science facility. Even J.K Simmons voices a character, a character who isn't interested in pictures of Spider-Man believe it or not!
The game has everything, an excellent story, humorous and fantastically voiced characters, fun game mechanics and a brilliant co-op mode. I was very surprised to see the second one become a full release game, as it didn't seem like there was much to expand into. Well, I was wrong. The first game was kinda cool, a unique puzzle game with a hilarious villian called GLaDOS. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did and I never expected it to get a sequel, nor did I anticipate the high praise either. I mean, this game is technically you being put in a chamber and trying to figure out how to get to the exit but at the same time, it's so much more than that. The game is just fantastic and when you play it you will understand why.
I won't say much more about the plot of the story other than it's definitely worth playing through. The game looks great, you can tell that they designed the place to look like a real high-tech science facility. The test chambers are well designed and some of the puzzles really make you think about how you get through it. There's nothing better in a game than feeling like you've achieved something and this game does that when you figure out the chambers. You feel like a genius and even a 'badass' when you complete a test at times. Or maybe that's just me. The co-op is so fun, this game flourishes in co-op mode as well. It's one of the most fun games I've played with a partner and if you have a friend to play it with, then make sure you do. Some puzzles can be difficult to figure out but as the saying goes, 'two heads are better than one'.
If you had two heads, then you'd know this game was worth playing.
8.4/10
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One)
The sequel to the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot is here. I never played any of the older Tomb Raider games sadly, despite their popularity. I did however start with the reboot. I received this game the Christmas a month after its release, I only had a choice between TR and Fallout 4 on the release and it's pretty obvious F4 was going to win, but this is a Tomb Raider review, so enough about Fallout! :(
This is a direct sequel to the reboot and as good as this game was, it wasn't anything special, unlike the first one. The game is good but there's not much new and is more of the same but a little less engaging. I found the story and characters to be less interesting than the first. The game is very Uncharted like which is definitely a good thing, I guess in short you could describe the new TR as 'Uncharted with a female lead and a lot less humour'. Being compared to Uncharted can only ever be a good thing though, right?
The story I found to be less interesting as last time we were trying to save Lara's friends, but this time we were trying to stop the villain from getting some sort of supernatural artifact, taking an Uncharted approach storyline (and yes, this probably won't be the last Uncharted comparison). The gameplay, like the first is excellent! A nice choice of weapons to choose, like pistols, shotguns etc but the bow is the most fun obviously. Creating poison, fire and explosives arrows is a great new feature and can take out groups of enemies effectively. The scenery is beautiful to look at and walking in the snow is so well done, the graphics are great and looks pretty realistic at times. Side missions were a good addition that added to the game but I found the option to turn them down pointless.
The secondary characters aren't very interesting and a pretty poor main villain really brings the game down. To not care about the characters isn't too helpful in a game, but at least Lara is pretty cool. The climbing mechanics are great and the action scenes are fantastic and the best parts of the game for sure. The stealth sections seemed to have improved, although they were pretty good anyway for a third person action game. Getting stealth kills by sneaking up on enemies or doing takedowns from above is a nice change of pace and it's always a plus to avoid shootouts.
The music fits the game really well and sets the tone for an adventure game. Another important feature is now being able to sprint, why wouldn't you wanna run faster? Climbable arrows are new also they let you shoot them into certain walls to climb higher up. They can be quite awkward at times as I fell to my death more than once, but when you get used to how they work they should be no trouble. You can now also heal during a fight, by quickly crafting a medkit, this is incredibly handy seeing as you can die very quick when you're out in the open. All the items you can pick up lets you craft arrows or upgrades for your gear, which makes you want to scavenge constantly. The grappling hook was also a nice new addition, being able to get across huge gaps that would result in your death.
A couple of bugs and imperfections, like your bow disappearing off your back when you squeezed through walls and then magically reappearing when you're out of the cinematic definitely wasn't pretty to watch. A good game overall but a pretty disapointing sequel to what was a brilliant game and a fantastic reboot to the popular but deflating franchise. Tomb Raider is definitely back and I'm looking forward to more, but they definitely need to up their game for the next one and not settle for a good game and aim for an amazing one like the first. But I'm just mainly glad that they went from the big boob, short shorts, cartwheeling sex object to an actual adventure-type looking female lead. See, not every female character needs to be a sex object to be great one. Let's hope the reboot of the movie franchise also remembers that and makes us forget about that movie Angelina Jolie starred in.
7.8/10
This is a direct sequel to the reboot and as good as this game was, it wasn't anything special, unlike the first one. The game is good but there's not much new and is more of the same but a little less engaging. I found the story and characters to be less interesting than the first. The game is very Uncharted like which is definitely a good thing, I guess in short you could describe the new TR as 'Uncharted with a female lead and a lot less humour'. Being compared to Uncharted can only ever be a good thing though, right?
The story I found to be less interesting as last time we were trying to save Lara's friends, but this time we were trying to stop the villain from getting some sort of supernatural artifact, taking an Uncharted approach storyline (and yes, this probably won't be the last Uncharted comparison). The gameplay, like the first is excellent! A nice choice of weapons to choose, like pistols, shotguns etc but the bow is the most fun obviously. Creating poison, fire and explosives arrows is a great new feature and can take out groups of enemies effectively. The scenery is beautiful to look at and walking in the snow is so well done, the graphics are great and looks pretty realistic at times. Side missions were a good addition that added to the game but I found the option to turn them down pointless.
The secondary characters aren't very interesting and a pretty poor main villain really brings the game down. To not care about the characters isn't too helpful in a game, but at least Lara is pretty cool. The climbing mechanics are great and the action scenes are fantastic and the best parts of the game for sure. The stealth sections seemed to have improved, although they were pretty good anyway for a third person action game. Getting stealth kills by sneaking up on enemies or doing takedowns from above is a nice change of pace and it's always a plus to avoid shootouts.
The music fits the game really well and sets the tone for an adventure game. Another important feature is now being able to sprint, why wouldn't you wanna run faster? Climbable arrows are new also they let you shoot them into certain walls to climb higher up. They can be quite awkward at times as I fell to my death more than once, but when you get used to how they work they should be no trouble. You can now also heal during a fight, by quickly crafting a medkit, this is incredibly handy seeing as you can die very quick when you're out in the open. All the items you can pick up lets you craft arrows or upgrades for your gear, which makes you want to scavenge constantly. The grappling hook was also a nice new addition, being able to get across huge gaps that would result in your death.
A couple of bugs and imperfections, like your bow disappearing off your back when you squeezed through walls and then magically reappearing when you're out of the cinematic definitely wasn't pretty to watch. A good game overall but a pretty disapointing sequel to what was a brilliant game and a fantastic reboot to the popular but deflating franchise. Tomb Raider is definitely back and I'm looking forward to more, but they definitely need to up their game for the next one and not settle for a good game and aim for an amazing one like the first. But I'm just mainly glad that they went from the big boob, short shorts, cartwheeling sex object to an actual adventure-type looking female lead. See, not every female character needs to be a sex object to be great one. Let's hope the reboot of the movie franchise also remembers that and makes us forget about that movie Angelina Jolie starred in.
7.8/10
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