After seeing the E3 gameplay of Watch Dogs, it was definitely one of my most anticipated games to be coming out on the Xbox One. Did it live up to my expectations? Or did Ubisoft fuck up again?
Released in 2014, a hacker by the name of Aiden Pearce seeks revenge after his niece was killed, in what was really a hit put on Pearce. Ubisoft have done it again! Aiden Pearce is up there with Connor from Assassin's Creed 3, as one of the worst protagonist I've ever played. Pearce looks poor, he doesn't stand out and other characters in the game have way better looking graphics. Not only that, he has a hilarious, clichéd, raspy voice. The guys a hacker for christ sake, he hides behind a mask and cap, he's not Rambo, he doesn't need a tough guy voice. I always say a game is doomed to fail if they make a protagonist so unlikeable.
I think making a game about a hacker is quite limited, there just doesn't feel like there's a lot to do or I'd want to do as one. I must say that being able to traverse through camera feeds is unique and well done. I enjoyed surfing the cameras and planning my next move. The game looks beautiful, the cars are new and shiny, the people however aren't in the same level, they look more like they were made only for last gen. You can use cameras to take out patrolling enemies, using explosions as they walk near something you can manipulate. The hacking is very simplistic, you just press 'X' and you can instantly see through a camera or blow up an exploit. It does make for fun and unique ways to take out enemies, but you can go in guns blazing or silenced weapons and takedowns.
I felt no attachment to any character's, Clara looked great compared to everyone else, Jordi and villians, Damien and Lucky are very well acted, but Damien doesn't look great with the graphics. Pearce had no connection to his it seemed, I think I was meant to feel something, his nephew never spoke, he just looked sad all of the time and then all of a sudden he spoke! They did hire a voice actor after all, they just chose to never use him. They just chose to make awkward cutscenes with the two together. T-Bone was one of the best, he is a hacker like Aiden, he featured often and is the playable character in the story DLC. I thought Jordi was under used, he was a great character that could've added more. Nicole, Aiden's sister was very well acted and she carried Aiden through every conversation they had together. Damien was another one who carried Aiden through the scenes. Why did they have to make us Aiden?
There were a lot of upgrades for you to choose from, but a lot weren't worth getting. Something annoying about the upgrades was sometimes they wouldn't save and you'd have to pick them again. There's a focus mode that slows down time and is very useful in helping you dispose of enemies quickly and efficiently. The hacking mini game was enjoyable and it was challenging too at times, having to link up all the wires in a time limit, wasn't always so easy. Like all Ubisoft games, there were towers that would unlock the map when you hacked them, there were often little puzzles to get to them, made it more interesting. The fast travel was super quick, you could hide in your car and switch off all the lights and you have a huge arsenal of weapons to choose from.
As well as a five act story, there's plenty of other things to do, there's side missions, activities and games to play. Each side mission has an ending mission, but are mainly a copy of the previous missions. You can clear gang hideouts and deliver cars in a time limit. There's cool games to play like chess puzzles, there's a drinking game which is fun and challenging too, but you have to wait ages for the button sequences, as you are forced to listen to their bullshit chatter while you wait for them to pour you a drink. There were even privacy invasions which had you hack into civilians homes and could see them in their private moments, a lot of the acts witnessed were pretty funny. When you were profiling with your phone you would get information on people you were looking at, finding out their salary and a fact about them like "Loves cats". A lot of these were funny and some made you want to kill them person, but it looks like they spent too much time making up facts than making the characters and acting better.
A lot of story missions had to be initiated with a phone call, if you had loaded up the game without doing the missions, you'd be treated with the same phone call every time you booted up the game without doing the missions and you can't even skip them. Frustratingly you couldn't fast travel or request a car delivery in missions. There were no waypoints when you started the mission, you had to manually mark the objective. The outfits were really stupid and brightly coloured, odd for a guy trying to be conspicuous. Money waw very easy to obtain and yet there was nothing to do with it. You'd be pulled away from a map icon you were looking at if there was another close by. Aiden would take so long to finish his sentences as he said what he was planning to do next at the end of each mission. You could lose a car you were chasing and yet you can track a train to find your nephew on foot, a car was parked through a gate and after clearing a side mission, I died after it and the respawn had me do the whole thing again, despite completing it before I died, that happened twice. Pretty disapointing after my expectations.
There was online for some reason, online free roam in a game where there wasn't much to do in single-player. Free roam with a friend could be great in the sequel, if there's things to do. The tailing and hacking were actually kind of fun, but the rewards were nothing, an XP bar that did fuck all. Hacking someone was really fun though, trying to hide and keep away from the other player was frightening and even funny when you could see them run around looking for you. You would have to initiate the hack and you had a minute to get into a hiding spot. While looking for somewhere to set up camp, the player started driving away, so I had to chase them so I didn't lose them, despite getting in the zone, I failed with two seconds left. I had a blast playing through the races with a friend, but only because we worked together to take out the other drivers, which lead to some hilarious moments.
My expectations quickly deflated once I started playing. Although parts of the game were fun, the main character, story and missions weren't always. It's a hard game to recommend and can only be described as a game you need to play for yourself and see what you think. I can't believe this game got a sequel and a movie announcements, but the sequel looks great and if they do some good coop stuff, it could be a lot of fun. Well done Ubisoft, you done fucked it up!
6.5/10
Thursday 23 February 2017
Thursday 16 February 2017
Dante's Inferno: Dark Forest DLC (Xbox 360)
Welcome to the first review that was played in 2017! This review and all that follow will be in contention to appear in my end of the year review awards. I'll be planning to include a best and worst DLC award this year too.
Worst DLC ever? It might just be. Dark Forest is Dante Inferno's first DLC. It is set right before Dante returns home and finds the bodies of Beatrice and his father. We start off with maxed out holy and unholy paths, giving us the ability to use all moves and upgrades. Dante sees a man and starts to chase him, the man turns out to be the assassin that killed Beatrice and Dante's father.
This was a poor cash in and it's cheaply made. When Beatrice appears, her lips don't move and there are no new enemies, just reskinned to make something look new. It's ridiculously short and is basically one big puzzle with a few enemy waves. In between each part of the puzzle is a wave of enemies, there's three altogether.
The puzzle has you going through Portal doors, depending on which way a beam of light is shining from. If you enter the wrong door it'll take you back to the start, leaving you to begin the puzzle section again. You get a description hinting how to solve the puzzle. Once you kill all the waves and solve the whole puzzle, you're done. And this was priced at 400 Microsoft Points back in the day. It's a well made puzzle, but that much for a 15 minute and pointless DLC? Get fucked!
I don't know if it's still available to buy, but if it is, don't! Don't waste that much money on something that isn't needed or worth bothering with at all. As it stands, this is the worst DLC I've ever played.
1.2/5
Worst DLC ever? It might just be. Dark Forest is Dante Inferno's first DLC. It is set right before Dante returns home and finds the bodies of Beatrice and his father. We start off with maxed out holy and unholy paths, giving us the ability to use all moves and upgrades. Dante sees a man and starts to chase him, the man turns out to be the assassin that killed Beatrice and Dante's father.
This was a poor cash in and it's cheaply made. When Beatrice appears, her lips don't move and there are no new enemies, just reskinned to make something look new. It's ridiculously short and is basically one big puzzle with a few enemy waves. In between each part of the puzzle is a wave of enemies, there's three altogether.
The puzzle has you going through Portal doors, depending on which way a beam of light is shining from. If you enter the wrong door it'll take you back to the start, leaving you to begin the puzzle section again. You get a description hinting how to solve the puzzle. Once you kill all the waves and solve the whole puzzle, you're done. And this was priced at 400 Microsoft Points back in the day. It's a well made puzzle, but that much for a 15 minute and pointless DLC? Get fucked!
I don't know if it's still available to buy, but if it is, don't! Don't waste that much money on something that isn't needed or worth bothering with at all. As it stands, this is the worst DLC I've ever played.
1.2/5
Thursday 9 February 2017
Dante's Inferno (Xbox 360)
Welcome to Hell, no, literally, we're going to Hell! Released back in 2010 and a rental from Blockbuster, (miss you, mate) introduced me to the Hell Dante suffers. With a heavy resemblance to God of War, this could be a highly praised game.
Absolutely beautiful cinematics, some of the best I've ever seen. It's a shame the in-game cinematics and graphics don't look this great. The graphics aren't bad, but sometimes it looks cartoony. Dante's helmet makes his eyes look ridiculously spaced apart, almost fish-like. Dante is condemned for the sins he has committed, but denies them and takes Death's scythe and splits him in two. Pretty fucking cool, right? When returning home, his love Beatrice, as well as his father are found murdered. Beatrice appears and speaks to Dante, before being swept into Hell by Lucifer himself, thus beginning our next crusade to save his love.
We go through Hell and encounter the Deadly Sins, each sin bring new enemies and often a fitting boss fight for each. The majority of the boss fights are really good and some of the enemies and bosses are well designed. While in Hell, a blue ghost-like man often appears called Virgil. He acts as a sort of Hell tour guide and informs you on your surroundings. It's a hack and slash game, I often was bored of the fighting because you are constantly fighting. You get small breaks and are presented with some well made puzzles. There was a bunch of nudity and some was pretty disturbing. A giant Cleopatra' s nipples opened up which came with enemies and some female enemies presented us with a tongue-like penis and were making loud moaning noises... I did say it was disturbing. The beast mourning was pretty cool and the typical stomp and swing attacks worked really well.
There were multiple types of cutscenes, but the comic style ones were my favourite. They were short and sweet and looked great. Lucifer looked quite bland, as he was just a plain, smoke-filled man, his final transformation was much more appealing. Lucifer was the best character and he was brilliantly voiced too. Dante and Virgil were well acted too. I enjoyed the story of traversing through Hell to find your love, very similar to Shadows of the Damned (2011). There was also a great twist ending. At the end, it says 'To be continued', 7 years later there is no news of a sequel, unless it meant it was continued through books.
The music fits this perfect, it's haunting and disturbing. You certainly won't catch me listening to the Dante's Inferno soundtrack on YouTube! It's very bloody and mature, but you get to choose whether to play a holy or unholy path. You can play both if you so choose, each path provides you new upgrades the more you do. You can find relics that can give you abilities to help you and even some magic powers that you can button map to suit you. You also have the ability to shoot holy crosses that hurt the enemies, it's unlimited and you can fire them for as long as you want, I felt it better to hardly use them.
An unfortunate event, in a series of them was the constant button mashing. Want to use a health or mana fountain? Button mash. Open a sealed door? Button mash. Absolve an enemy? Button mash. There was so much I automatically started to button mash when pulling a lever for an elevator, you only need to press a button once for that. The camera was really far out and you couldn't even move it an inch. There was no autosave and you could only save your game when you found a Beatrice statue. The platforming and rope manouvering sucked and caused many deaths. There were a couple of glitches, but nothing game breaking. The worst was killing unbaptised babies. I know this is a religious game and unbaptised babies don't go to Heaven, but asking me to kill something that look exactly like a baby is something I don't want to do, you can give them grey skin and claws to make them look evil all you want, it's still a baby. I just don't think it was necessary and I made sure to absolve all the babies.
I loved it the first time around, not nearly enough the second time, but I appreciate that it is still a good game. I can't compare it to God of War, as I'm yet to finish any, but as it's own game I'd say it's certainly worth a go.
7.5/10
Absolutely beautiful cinematics, some of the best I've ever seen. It's a shame the in-game cinematics and graphics don't look this great. The graphics aren't bad, but sometimes it looks cartoony. Dante's helmet makes his eyes look ridiculously spaced apart, almost fish-like. Dante is condemned for the sins he has committed, but denies them and takes Death's scythe and splits him in two. Pretty fucking cool, right? When returning home, his love Beatrice, as well as his father are found murdered. Beatrice appears and speaks to Dante, before being swept into Hell by Lucifer himself, thus beginning our next crusade to save his love.
We go through Hell and encounter the Deadly Sins, each sin bring new enemies and often a fitting boss fight for each. The majority of the boss fights are really good and some of the enemies and bosses are well designed. While in Hell, a blue ghost-like man often appears called Virgil. He acts as a sort of Hell tour guide and informs you on your surroundings. It's a hack and slash game, I often was bored of the fighting because you are constantly fighting. You get small breaks and are presented with some well made puzzles. There was a bunch of nudity and some was pretty disturbing. A giant Cleopatra' s nipples opened up which came with enemies and some female enemies presented us with a tongue-like penis and were making loud moaning noises... I did say it was disturbing. The beast mourning was pretty cool and the typical stomp and swing attacks worked really well.
There were multiple types of cutscenes, but the comic style ones were my favourite. They were short and sweet and looked great. Lucifer looked quite bland, as he was just a plain, smoke-filled man, his final transformation was much more appealing. Lucifer was the best character and he was brilliantly voiced too. Dante and Virgil were well acted too. I enjoyed the story of traversing through Hell to find your love, very similar to Shadows of the Damned (2011). There was also a great twist ending. At the end, it says 'To be continued', 7 years later there is no news of a sequel, unless it meant it was continued through books.
The music fits this perfect, it's haunting and disturbing. You certainly won't catch me listening to the Dante's Inferno soundtrack on YouTube! It's very bloody and mature, but you get to choose whether to play a holy or unholy path. You can play both if you so choose, each path provides you new upgrades the more you do. You can find relics that can give you abilities to help you and even some magic powers that you can button map to suit you. You also have the ability to shoot holy crosses that hurt the enemies, it's unlimited and you can fire them for as long as you want, I felt it better to hardly use them.
An unfortunate event, in a series of them was the constant button mashing. Want to use a health or mana fountain? Button mash. Open a sealed door? Button mash. Absolve an enemy? Button mash. There was so much I automatically started to button mash when pulling a lever for an elevator, you only need to press a button once for that. The camera was really far out and you couldn't even move it an inch. There was no autosave and you could only save your game when you found a Beatrice statue. The platforming and rope manouvering sucked and caused many deaths. There were a couple of glitches, but nothing game breaking. The worst was killing unbaptised babies. I know this is a religious game and unbaptised babies don't go to Heaven, but asking me to kill something that look exactly like a baby is something I don't want to do, you can give them grey skin and claws to make them look evil all you want, it's still a baby. I just don't think it was necessary and I made sure to absolve all the babies.
I loved it the first time around, not nearly enough the second time, but I appreciate that it is still a good game. I can't compare it to God of War, as I'm yet to finish any, but as it's own game I'd say it's certainly worth a go.
7.5/10
Thursday 2 February 2017
Sunset Overdrive: Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machines DLC
The second of the story DLC's, clearly named after the recent Planet of the Apes movies. We now go beyond 'the invisble wall' and into the FizzCo Robotics Factory.
As well as a new area, we get new weapons, outfits, traps, challenges, side missions and main missions. There's also a couple new characters, who provide practically all the missions.
The area is bigger than what the oil rig DLC gave us, again all mission took me a little over two hours, but was slightly longer overall. There were only slight variations of the robot enemies, with no real new ones again.
The two new characters provide a lot of humour and the final boss fight is even more hilarious. The Sunset TV guy gets possessed into an evil TV screen. He's changed into darker clothes and can be seen pulling evil faces and saying menacing things to the player, it was just like the original game.
I think it was a slightly better DLC, because the area was bigger and there was more added to it, not forgetting the great boss fight. There was also one main glitch like the other, a mission objective wouldn't show until I had to restart the mission.
Now there's no other DLCs to come, give us a sequel Insomniac!
2.9/5
As well as a new area, we get new weapons, outfits, traps, challenges, side missions and main missions. There's also a couple new characters, who provide practically all the missions.
The area is bigger than what the oil rig DLC gave us, again all mission took me a little over two hours, but was slightly longer overall. There were only slight variations of the robot enemies, with no real new ones again.
The two new characters provide a lot of humour and the final boss fight is even more hilarious. The Sunset TV guy gets possessed into an evil TV screen. He's changed into darker clothes and can be seen pulling evil faces and saying menacing things to the player, it was just like the original game.
I think it was a slightly better DLC, because the area was bigger and there was more added to it, not forgetting the great boss fight. There was also one main glitch like the other, a mission objective wouldn't show until I had to restart the mission.
Now there's no other DLCs to come, give us a sequel Insomniac!
2.9/5
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