Welcome, to planet Mars! The sandy, dry wasteland, home to many inhabitants. The first game to the recently released, Technomancer. The battle for water, between Abundance and Aurora, two major factions, leads to where we start the adventure, a POW camp.
You play as Roy Temperance, a POW who hatches a plan to escape. Specialised in combat, stealth and technomancy, a sort of magic, the ability to craft weapons and better outfits for defence to help you through some tough combat. The game is small, but it has a fair amount of content including side missions, crafting and upgrading.
The areas you traverse tend to be quite small, but during the story and side missions, there's a lot of back and forth so it turns out to be a bit of a plus side. Only main parts of the map require a loading screen, as oppose to every door you enter. The loading times are also very quick. You also get a companion in almost the whole game, you can choose to go alone in parts, but they're a nice way to distract enemies when you have a bunch to fight at once. There are vendors to trade with and there's plenty of crafting, you can create components that will help you create ammo or better gear. I enjoyed the combat, I thought it was done well and the evade is your best friend, especially on the higher difficulties. I think the best thing in the game is the extreme difficultly, it's the 4th tier difficultly and it definitely is a challenge, there were times I thought I'd never get through it. However, when you know about the crafting and selling well enough, you could just manage your gear well and buy a tonne of ammo and health to aid you more easily.
As much as I liked this game, it had lots of problems. Like I said earlier, there's lots of back and forth, ninety percent of the game is just fighting. The voice acting is one of the worst, I don't think any voice in the game was a professional actor and the beginning of the game, there's some sort of monologue by a guy named 'Fatso', who is without a doubt the worst voice actor ever, play the beginning and you'll see! The graphics are also very poor, there's no detail in anything and just because it's a desert planet, it's not an excuse. Only detail seemed to go into the main character. The character you play as isn't even likeable either, he's not hateable though, he's just boring and forgettable. You could get other companions in the game but they came far too late, the guy you're stuck with for the majority of the game is by far the worst also, he's weak and does practically no damage to enemies. The story seemed like it was gonna be great, but things happened too quickly and it just deflated and left me disappointed.
There were plenty of bugs and issues too. The amount of times I got killed by getting hit through cover and walls was atrocious. Sometimes my weapons would disappear and I would be swinging air but it still did damage, poor lip syncing, slow textures, lots of clipping when there was nothing there. After ending combat you would have to wait for your character to put their weapon away before you could search bodies or open doors and it just took far too long. I found the technomancy powers pointless because they took so long to initiate and when I was low on health, I would spam the health injection and still get killed because the health didn't work and I hadn't realised, this happened far too often.
I did enjoy the game for what it was, one of the biggest challenges I've had in gaming (and I finished it for your information, which I'm proud of!) but, it just fell short. It was a great idea and with more work could be something great. I'm looking forward to The Technomancer and seeing as it's a full release, I'm expecting it to be good!
6.6/10
Thursday 30 June 2016
Monday 20 June 2016
Fallout 4 (Xbox One)
Put on your blue jumpsuit and step out of your vault, Fallout is back. It's still unreal that this game has actually came out. I was in disbelief when it was announced and now it's been out for so long! If you haven't played Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas, then stop reading immediately and play them! But come back and read the rest please.
Plenty to talk about with all the new features and this is a big-ass game. Bethesda know how to make good games and that's why they're my favourite developer. The fifth major installment including New Vegas. An open world game set in a post-apocalyptic future, what doesn't sound great there? Despite the city of Boston being in ruins, there's plenty to explore and many buildings to enter, this is a change from Fallout 3 as you can tell what the place looked like prior to the nuclear war. F3 was a lot more of an empty wasteland compared to 4.
Unlike the other games in the series, this game starts before the bombs fell. Happy families living their daily lives, something we never saw before. Unfortunately it doesn't last long and soon after continues after the bombs. It would've been nice to get to spend time in the pre-apocalyptic world and explore at little at least, seeing as it had never been done. Despite being set in the future, the year 2287 to be exact, it has a 1950s style to the game, giving it an old style-future.
Without spoiling too much, the story is quite similar to F3 in that instead of looking for your father, you are now trying to locate your missing son. The game starts off straight into the customization of your character. The graphics have improved so much, they're not amazing, but they are fantastic compared to the old Fallouts. Your character now speaks, which I love, I hate games that have Silent protagonists. The performance is great but because there is now an actor, the dialogue is a lot more limited than it was, it's a huge loss as the dialogue was stellar in the older games, but we at least get a talking character. Now new factions roam the wasteland, mainly the infamous 'Institute', that has everyone running scared. They are said to kidnap people and create synths, human like robots that don't even know they aren't human. The story is a pretty good one, albeit quite short, but as usual has multiple endings, so you get to choose who you want to side with. This gives the game replayability, so many choices, so many playthroughs.
The game is full of choice and like the others, it let's you choose how you want to play. Third person or first person, I usually play first myself. You can also drift away from the main storyline, you can go off and adventure or go do side missions. The game has no restrictions. There's plenty of new features, you can now have individual pieces of amour to protect yourself, each individual piece has different affects too. Lots of crafting that lets you make all kinds, such as weapon attachments, armour, drugs and more. Power armour is a lot different too, it's so powerful and requires fusion cores to power it, so you can't use it forever. The game took a Minecraft approach in that you can build settlements. I think this is a great feature being able to create your own buildings and such. It's easy when you get used to it, but can be overwhelming at first. I'm not very good at it, I think it's difficult to make things look like a real structure, seeing as my walls are usually floating above the ground, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.
There are plenty of improvements in this game and the graphics are definitely one of them. A lot of people aren't that impressed with them, but if you look at the old Fallouts then you'll clearly see. Also Dogmeat looks like a real dog, he looks beautifully real. The game now has weather, it can rain and even have radiation storms. The lip syncing is really well done and actually looks like the people are speaking. There's also dialogue scenes, they're kinda like an interactive cutscene and I think they look better than just staring at the person you're talking to while the background is just frozen. The excellent music is back and fits beautifully in the game, there's quite a few new things to talk about too.
One of the new features is that you can command your companions to go somewhere and pick up items or even search areas for you. There's no level cap so you can go way beyond with your level and the new leveling up page is a thing of beauty. Each perk is accompanied by a relevant picture of Vault Boy and just generally looks more interactive and better fitted. You can romance with your companions now and they're also given an interesting back story that you have to earn the right to listen to. As well, companions have their own skills and you can get them to hack terminals or pick locks if they have the skill, saves you doing it eh. You can also carry on playing after the main story, thank you Bethesda.
Of course, the game has its faults I'm devastated to say. F4 now only let's you have one companion and that's including when you have Dogmeat by your side too. I don't think there is enough missions in the game, the story is short and there aren't a huge amount of side missions. I did everything in this game, to this day I'm certain I never did everything in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. There's the missions that go on forever but they're boring and if that's all you've got left to do in the game, then it just isn't worth playing anymore. This is a Bethesda game and with that comes bugs, we all know that. But, as it's Bethesda we always forgive them. This is something we have to stop, bugs shouldn't be present in any game and no matter how good these games are, we can't just keep forgiving and forgetting and get what we paid for. NO BUGS! This game is great, fantastic even, but it has to be said, with how good Fallout 3 was back in 2008, I think we all expected a lot more. Maybe our expectations were ridiculously high, but that's the standard Bethesda set. Overall it's a disappointment but it's still amazing and I guess I just expected too much.
Fallout 4 is really here and all the great things are back, the excellent Pip Boy used to manage your equipment and hold your mission info, the V.A.T.S targeting system that slows down time and let's you attack individual body parts and of course, all your old friends, feral ghouls, super mutants and the terrifying deathclaws. There's still DLC to come, so let's hope they keep the game alive and most importantly, fun. Let's go Dogmeat, it's good to be back.
8.9/10
Plenty to talk about with all the new features and this is a big-ass game. Bethesda know how to make good games and that's why they're my favourite developer. The fifth major installment including New Vegas. An open world game set in a post-apocalyptic future, what doesn't sound great there? Despite the city of Boston being in ruins, there's plenty to explore and many buildings to enter, this is a change from Fallout 3 as you can tell what the place looked like prior to the nuclear war. F3 was a lot more of an empty wasteland compared to 4.
Unlike the other games in the series, this game starts before the bombs fell. Happy families living their daily lives, something we never saw before. Unfortunately it doesn't last long and soon after continues after the bombs. It would've been nice to get to spend time in the pre-apocalyptic world and explore at little at least, seeing as it had never been done. Despite being set in the future, the year 2287 to be exact, it has a 1950s style to the game, giving it an old style-future.
Without spoiling too much, the story is quite similar to F3 in that instead of looking for your father, you are now trying to locate your missing son. The game starts off straight into the customization of your character. The graphics have improved so much, they're not amazing, but they are fantastic compared to the old Fallouts. Your character now speaks, which I love, I hate games that have Silent protagonists. The performance is great but because there is now an actor, the dialogue is a lot more limited than it was, it's a huge loss as the dialogue was stellar in the older games, but we at least get a talking character. Now new factions roam the wasteland, mainly the infamous 'Institute', that has everyone running scared. They are said to kidnap people and create synths, human like robots that don't even know they aren't human. The story is a pretty good one, albeit quite short, but as usual has multiple endings, so you get to choose who you want to side with. This gives the game replayability, so many choices, so many playthroughs.
The game is full of choice and like the others, it let's you choose how you want to play. Third person or first person, I usually play first myself. You can also drift away from the main storyline, you can go off and adventure or go do side missions. The game has no restrictions. There's plenty of new features, you can now have individual pieces of amour to protect yourself, each individual piece has different affects too. Lots of crafting that lets you make all kinds, such as weapon attachments, armour, drugs and more. Power armour is a lot different too, it's so powerful and requires fusion cores to power it, so you can't use it forever. The game took a Minecraft approach in that you can build settlements. I think this is a great feature being able to create your own buildings and such. It's easy when you get used to it, but can be overwhelming at first. I'm not very good at it, I think it's difficult to make things look like a real structure, seeing as my walls are usually floating above the ground, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.
There are plenty of improvements in this game and the graphics are definitely one of them. A lot of people aren't that impressed with them, but if you look at the old Fallouts then you'll clearly see. Also Dogmeat looks like a real dog, he looks beautifully real. The game now has weather, it can rain and even have radiation storms. The lip syncing is really well done and actually looks like the people are speaking. There's also dialogue scenes, they're kinda like an interactive cutscene and I think they look better than just staring at the person you're talking to while the background is just frozen. The excellent music is back and fits beautifully in the game, there's quite a few new things to talk about too.
One of the new features is that you can command your companions to go somewhere and pick up items or even search areas for you. There's no level cap so you can go way beyond with your level and the new leveling up page is a thing of beauty. Each perk is accompanied by a relevant picture of Vault Boy and just generally looks more interactive and better fitted. You can romance with your companions now and they're also given an interesting back story that you have to earn the right to listen to. As well, companions have their own skills and you can get them to hack terminals or pick locks if they have the skill, saves you doing it eh. You can also carry on playing after the main story, thank you Bethesda.
Of course, the game has its faults I'm devastated to say. F4 now only let's you have one companion and that's including when you have Dogmeat by your side too. I don't think there is enough missions in the game, the story is short and there aren't a huge amount of side missions. I did everything in this game, to this day I'm certain I never did everything in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. There's the missions that go on forever but they're boring and if that's all you've got left to do in the game, then it just isn't worth playing anymore. This is a Bethesda game and with that comes bugs, we all know that. But, as it's Bethesda we always forgive them. This is something we have to stop, bugs shouldn't be present in any game and no matter how good these games are, we can't just keep forgiving and forgetting and get what we paid for. NO BUGS! This game is great, fantastic even, but it has to be said, with how good Fallout 3 was back in 2008, I think we all expected a lot more. Maybe our expectations were ridiculously high, but that's the standard Bethesda set. Overall it's a disappointment but it's still amazing and I guess I just expected too much.
Fallout 4 is really here and all the great things are back, the excellent Pip Boy used to manage your equipment and hold your mission info, the V.A.T.S targeting system that slows down time and let's you attack individual body parts and of course, all your old friends, feral ghouls, super mutants and the terrifying deathclaws. There's still DLC to come, so let's hope they keep the game alive and most importantly, fun. Let's go Dogmeat, it's good to be back.
8.9/10
Sunday 12 June 2016
Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360)
Resident. Evil. 5. Review. You know, like when you start the game and the guy says the name of the Res game you're playing? No? Whatever, idec anymore. Anyway, Resident Evil 5 came out back in 2009 and continues the everlasting Resident Evil series as I believe it's the 14th released game, there's so many I'm not one hundred percent certain.
Before I delve into this review, I have to say that this is one of the few games I never get bored of. Don't get me wrong, it's not 10/10 (SPOILER ALERT), but it's just so much fun. It's even more fun in co-op and for the love of God, play this in co-op or face the wrath of one of the worst AI partners you could ask for. To be frank, or Chris should I say? ;) I've never really played the game on my own, except when I first got it and I never have since. I've mostly played as Sheva, mainly so I never have to see how bad her AI is again, she's also one the most poorly voiced characters I've played as.
It's a survival horror game, but honestly, it doesn't feel like one. The game isn't scary at all, although the chainsaw manjini's are terrifying when they're after you. Plus there's lots of ammo and so much weaponry, my definition may be a bit different to yours, but for a good survival horror for me, would be a lack of ammo and strong enemies that cause you to have to run away. But the sensitivity is very slow and you can only shoot standing still, so you've always got to be alert there.
The graphics aren't that great, but they're ok, the enemies look really evil, but the monster type bosses look ridiculous. They're just squid-like creatures with orange balls on. Sounds stupid right? The melee is awful, it's so slow and with you standing still they have to be right next to you. The enemies melee attack is so much faster, being able to melee is the most pointless feature I've seen in a game, they should have removed it. The laser sight is your only way to aim, it's pretty awkward but you'll get used to it, I'd much have preferred a reticle though.
You can trade with you partner, things like herbs and ammo, if you're playing on your own, then you can dump most of it on Sheva. There's a great point system giving you final ranks on missions, that make you want to get an S rank on all the levels to unlock some cool extras. Upgrading and purchasing weapons is addicting, with so much to get, it certainly makes you play the game a lot to get the sufficient amount of money.
I wasn't that engaged in the story, but that's mainly because I didn't know what was happening, as this was my first Res game. The game is full of terrible dialogue and really average voice acting. The game was released in 2009 but still followed 'old style gaming', every time you interacted with a locked door, it would stop the game to tell you it was locked rather than an animation of you trying to open the door, or a chest would open up on its own instead of your character doing it. Doors close after you open them, so if you're not with your partner, you'd have to open the door again and it would be an animation of you going through the door, instead of letting you walk through yourself. Maybe old school Res fans would like that, but not me, if I wanted to play old-style games, I'd play the first Res. There were constant short cutscenes every time you did anything, you'd walk an inch and then there'd be a cutscene showing the enemies entering the area, this happened with almost every group of enemies. It was a constant stop and start and really slowed the game down. You'd have to wait for your partner to open a heavy door or get in a lift, rather than the next section trigger when just one of you gets there, even if you're playing on your own you still have to wait for the dumb AI to catch up.
The game is nothing special, but it's so much fun and I never get bored of it, if I rated based on how fun it is, it'd be a ten! But I judge it as a game and have my own criteria to judge, suffice to say this game is rated lower than what I even expected. But I highly recommend everyone to play this game if they have a buddy. Despite not playing many older Res games, I hope the next one feels more like a survival horror. Suck on that, Wesker.
7.4/10
Before I delve into this review, I have to say that this is one of the few games I never get bored of. Don't get me wrong, it's not 10/10 (SPOILER ALERT), but it's just so much fun. It's even more fun in co-op and for the love of God, play this in co-op or face the wrath of one of the worst AI partners you could ask for. To be frank, or Chris should I say? ;) I've never really played the game on my own, except when I first got it and I never have since. I've mostly played as Sheva, mainly so I never have to see how bad her AI is again, she's also one the most poorly voiced characters I've played as.
It's a survival horror game, but honestly, it doesn't feel like one. The game isn't scary at all, although the chainsaw manjini's are terrifying when they're after you. Plus there's lots of ammo and so much weaponry, my definition may be a bit different to yours, but for a good survival horror for me, would be a lack of ammo and strong enemies that cause you to have to run away. But the sensitivity is very slow and you can only shoot standing still, so you've always got to be alert there.
The graphics aren't that great, but they're ok, the enemies look really evil, but the monster type bosses look ridiculous. They're just squid-like creatures with orange balls on. Sounds stupid right? The melee is awful, it's so slow and with you standing still they have to be right next to you. The enemies melee attack is so much faster, being able to melee is the most pointless feature I've seen in a game, they should have removed it. The laser sight is your only way to aim, it's pretty awkward but you'll get used to it, I'd much have preferred a reticle though.
You can trade with you partner, things like herbs and ammo, if you're playing on your own, then you can dump most of it on Sheva. There's a great point system giving you final ranks on missions, that make you want to get an S rank on all the levels to unlock some cool extras. Upgrading and purchasing weapons is addicting, with so much to get, it certainly makes you play the game a lot to get the sufficient amount of money.
I wasn't that engaged in the story, but that's mainly because I didn't know what was happening, as this was my first Res game. The game is full of terrible dialogue and really average voice acting. The game was released in 2009 but still followed 'old style gaming', every time you interacted with a locked door, it would stop the game to tell you it was locked rather than an animation of you trying to open the door, or a chest would open up on its own instead of your character doing it. Doors close after you open them, so if you're not with your partner, you'd have to open the door again and it would be an animation of you going through the door, instead of letting you walk through yourself. Maybe old school Res fans would like that, but not me, if I wanted to play old-style games, I'd play the first Res. There were constant short cutscenes every time you did anything, you'd walk an inch and then there'd be a cutscene showing the enemies entering the area, this happened with almost every group of enemies. It was a constant stop and start and really slowed the game down. You'd have to wait for your partner to open a heavy door or get in a lift, rather than the next section trigger when just one of you gets there, even if you're playing on your own you still have to wait for the dumb AI to catch up.
The game is nothing special, but it's so much fun and I never get bored of it, if I rated based on how fun it is, it'd be a ten! But I judge it as a game and have my own criteria to judge, suffice to say this game is rated lower than what I even expected. But I highly recommend everyone to play this game if they have a buddy. Despite not playing many older Res games, I hope the next one feels more like a survival horror. Suck on that, Wesker.
7.4/10
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