Battlefield 1 (Xbox One)

Don't be fooled by the name, this isn't the first in the Battlefield series, its name is based on the fact the game is set during World War 1. Released in 2016, Dice continue their hit series once again.

Battlefield's priority has always been the multiplayer, but let's put that on hold for now. The campaign is really mini campaigns. Each one has a different protagonist and they're set at different points during the war. The intro is fantastic, you play as all different people and if you die you don't fail, you just keep getting put as a different soldier. The point of it is that not everyone lives, this is a war and people will die.

I won't talk about each campaign too much, just the highlights. Through Mud and Blood is one of the best campaigns, it's vehicle based, but does have plenty moments on foot. You're in a small team in a tank, and you get to know your crew. Your team struggles to survive and features a bunch of tank battles. Definitely the most explored story.

Friends in High Places is probably my favourite campaign. Again it's vehicle based as you play as a pilot who has lied his way into the air force. The flying mechanics are perfect and it's so fun to play. It's not always in a plane like the previous campaign, there's a gun fight on top of a blimp and some great wars in the skies.

Avanti Savioa is a very short campaign, Luca is dressed in heavy armour and seems unkillable as he runs out in the open and guns down his enemies. As the story goes on, an older Luca is telling his daughter the story as he searches for his brother.

The Runner is another strong campaign, you play as an Aussie Runner, who's job is to deliver messages to other squads filled with vital information to warn or inform of enemy tactics. Bishop works alongside an eager rookie who gets into trouble and Bishop must find him and the other captured soldiers.

Nothing is Written is the worst by far in my opinion, I didn't enjoy it much. We play as Zara, the only female playable character, who works for T.E Lawrence as they drive back the threat of the Ottoman. There's plenty to keep you entertained in single player and it's worth trying, even if you're a die hard multiplayer only when it comes to Battlefield.

Obviously, the multiplayer is great. Old and new game modes, there's plenty. Operations is my favourite mode, the matches can be very long. Similar to Rush, one team has limited respawns and must take two objectives and continue to take two objectives each time they take them. War pigeons is another new mode, each team must capture the pigeon and defend the player as they prepare to send a message to signal an artillery strike to win the game.

The multiplayer is fun and addictive, the maps are brilliant, sandy deserts, muddy trenches, really well made. Another way to earn points is to give out squad orders to your online squad, asking them to attack and defend points, successfully completing orders rewards you XP. You're able to also ride horses online, an extra new vehicle for your matches.

The menus are slow and unresponsive at times, frustrates you before you even play. When you join your friends squad online before joining a match, you're not entirely sure you're teamed up. When they find a game with you in their squad, you're not automatically taken to the same game, you're given a small prompt telling you to join your friend. I often missed it as it never stayed and regularly joined a game well after my friend had started. Just put us in the match at the same time, the loading is ridiculous and the game can come close to ending while you wait! Another dumb thing still in the series is pausing the game to look at the scoreboard. Everyone wants to see how they're doing, so why make it a longer process? It should be a quick motion and it used to be a quick motion of pressing the back button. Change it back, it's functional.

Battlefield 1 is a brilliant game, a good campaign and an excellent multiplayer. I'll be surprised if Call of Duty can keep up in the coming years. For online shooters, keep it Battlefield.

8.3/10

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (Xbox One)

Brothers released in 2013 and was ported to the Xbox One two years later. It featured in the Xbox Game Pass, and seeing as I liked it back on the 360 I thought I'd play it again on my free trial.

The story features two boys, Big Brother and Little Brother. Together they work as a team on their adventure as they try to get medicine for their ill father. There is no dialogue, the characters speak in the own language and there's no translation for us.

There is a unique gameplay mechanic, each thumb stick controls each brother, so you can move them at the same time. As well as the sticks, the left and right bumper works for each corresponding brother. It works surprisingly well, it takes a little time to get used to but it works so well.

I won't spoil too much of the story, but you're taken to so many beautiful places on your adventure. You meant so many fascinating characters, giant birds, trolls, turtles and many more.

The game looks friendly but it has lots of dark themes, kidnapping, suicide, betrayal, death, it can get really heavy at times. It's a wonderfully told story, but has extreme levels of emotion. It's a story you'll remember long after you've played it.

The mechanics, the story, the graphics, the emotion, the power, you'll remember it all. The best way to describe this game is memorable. I'll never forget it and how good it is. The problem is that it's so short, literally two hours long which is a big shame. The length allowed the developers to really polish the game, but two hours is always too short for a game.

There are great puzzles to be solved and really well made, there's a great way to climb a tower were you're tied together and you swing from each other to manoeuvre. There's plenty of interactions when you meet people, and they're always worth talking to. The only problem I ran into while playing, was when I died I got stuck in an infinite load screen, and my progress never autosaved despite it saying it did. I never faced that problem again, but I decided to play the whole game in one sitting to be safe.

This is worth playing for anyone who hasn't already, I've played it twice now and both times it was brilliant. Give it a try.

7.8/10

Hitman (Xbox One)

Hitman (2016) is the sixth game in the series developed by IO Interactive. They decided to go with a strange approach this time around, a triple A title going episodic... This isn't Telltale, but Square Enix also publish Life is Strange, maybe this is their new approach.

Hitman has six episodes and a couple of special episodes. The first episode has a training mission, a small mission and then the main mission in Paris. The next five episodes have a big mission, and the two special episodes have a couple of smaller missions. There's a decent amount of content in fairness, and they're really well made as usual. It doesn't feel like a triple A game though, I don't know if it's because it's episodic, there just doesn't feel like there's enough for the price. Hitman is a great game, but even your first time through a mission you can do it quickly, but there's an incredible amount of replayability.

There are now 'opportunities', they offer unique ways to take out targets or set up events to take out a target, there's a bunch per mission. I really liked them, they were great to try, but I felt they made the game to easy. The marker could point you straight to a weapon or a certain room and make you do difficult tasks easy. At the same time, some of these would be incredibly difficult to ever find out on your own just from playing, so it's 50/50 the way I feel about them.

It looks fantastic, it really does. For the amount of people on screen it runs smoothly. The beautiful environments you're taken to through your assassinations, there's so much to explore, there's so many challenges and disguises, so many ways to take out your targets. It's content overload. You have instinct mode, which is similar to detective mode from the Batman series, it works in a similar way and is a huge help in completing missions. There's a quick save function which is a godsend in a game like Hitman.

Unlike Hitman Absolution; if you wear a disguise to someone else in the level, they won't all immediately discover you. Only people in the same outfit with a circle above their head can spot you. Like Absolution; Contracts are back. The ability to create your own missions and play ones other players have made. I'm not a big fan of Contracts though, they are great but I prefer to play the main missions.

Hitman has a story that doesn't really engage you, they link the missions together, but I don't play Hitman for story, no one does, although Absolution had an interesting one. Most of the cutscenes feature people you have never seen before and don't know if they're even relevant. When cutscenes played excluding Agent 47 and Diana, I felt like I was playing a different game all together.

After you've completed a mission you can replay them and there's loads of reasons why you should, you're able to pick a starting location, starting disguises and even your load outs like the old days. These make the same level different every single time you play. The main levels take you to Paris, Sapienza, Marrakesh, Bangkok, Colorado and Hokkaido. Each level is brilliantly made, beautiful to look at and fun to explore. Hitman 2016 also keeps in the light humour the previous games have had, making it even better to explore for these moments.

I'd be interested to see if the next Hitman game continues the episodic format, I'm inclined to say it will as a Game of the Year version has recently released to my surprise. It is an excellent game in all fairness, the quality has definitely stepped up, but the amount feels like it's taken a hit. I'm worried for gaming as we are being charged more for less and it's a current problem. I'm also not a huge fan of episodic games, I was only into Telltale doing it, not triple A games, this can't become the next gaming trend. Anyway, despite it being episodic it's a great game.

8.1/10

Before I go, stop making Hitman films. This series doesn't work as a film. STOP.

Beyond Good and Evil HD (Xbox 360)

Beyond Good and Evil released back in 2003, I never played it on PS2 but I always wanted to. I jumped at the chance to play the HD version on 360 that released nine years later.

I love these kind of games. One of my favourite genres, I grew up on them. Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, they don't make games like this at that level anymore. A cartoony, action-adventure game set in its own universe and has its own creatures. Unique world's with so many possibilities.

We play as Jade an investigative reporter, with her uncle Pey'j a pig-man. The two are involved with the resistance who plan to overthrow an alien conspiracy threatening their world. You meet some interesting characters through your journey and explore some fantastic areas.

It looks great, a remake 9 years later. It looks sharp. The combat is pretty boring, but the game makes up for that with its exploration and story. You can drive across the waters and later fly through the skies, they're fun to travel in. There's plenty of secrets to discover and even merchants to barter with.

During your travels you can discover pearls, they are a form of currency in the game. There's races for you to try and even some minigames for you to play with the locals. You can even subscribe to the news, you'll get notifications about what is happening in the Hilly's world. One big problem was that you were never really introduced to the villains. Besides a video on loop of the leader, I think you see him in two parts and one is the final battle, I felt they needed to be fleshed out more to influence you. The final boss battle is so frustrating, they flip the controls on you and it's difficult to grasp. Right is left, left is right, FUUUUCK.

This world and its inhabitants are amazing, there's just limited things to do, it feels like it's missing a lot. It's semi open world but it's linear, exploring is fun but there's not much to look out for. A big open world and plenty of things to do is certainly needed for the next game, take advantage of this extraordinary world.

This is a great game, the prequel that was finally announced at E3 this year looks incredible. Just the emotion and love the developers had announcing the sequel after so long shows how much they care about this game. I'm expecting big things and I'm counting down the days to when it's finally released.

7.5/10

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Xbox One)

Welcome to the 100th review! I know it's not a spectacular game for it, but let's see why.

Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a movie based game, that includes very little of the actual movie. I thought the second movie was better, but I think the first game is the stronger one. 

Movie games are often bad, this one doesn't even have the cast or their likeness from the film, so why even have the film's name? Kingpin is the main villain, he wasn't in the film this game is based on in case you didn't watch it. I like the way this and the first game have their own story and have elements from the movies, but they may as well be their own thing. It's even worse that they set up a third game, but obviously this franchise is no longer around and we have a new Spider-Man.

The swinging is better, I hated it at first. The left trigger controls your left hand and right trigger is your right, so you can aim your swinging and make it easier to manoeuvre with each hand. The stealth is way worse, it's been dumbed down to the point where it doesn't work. You have to go about five feet behind an enemy to stealth attack, you're Spider-Man! The guy who can shoot webs far away! Why do you need to be so close? So many glitches that make the game look cheap as fuck.

When you finally have a showdown with Kingpin, it's not over. You're then thrown into boss fights on after the other. The pacing is way off. Here's how it goes; Kingpin fight, Electro fight, Goblin fight and finally, Carnage fight.... Electro appears twice in the whole game and the second time is the boss fight, he's the main villain in the fucking film!

There's very little improvement in the graphics, they still suck ass. The voice acting is ok, I like the voice actor for Peter Parker, he reprised his role. The cutscenes look ridiculous, the way Spider-Man moves in the m is annoying, he's so over the top you have to just skip them, he moves too move and it looks awful. like the amount of villains that feature, Kraven and Shocker show up too, they are just bundled in poorly near the end. There's a bunch of new costumes to wear while you play, most are terrible, but the Carnage-Spider-Man is awesome. 

The story is quite lengthy, not overly long to be fair. There's a bunch of side missions, but once you've done one, you feel you've done them all. Spidey sense is useful, but there's no reason to keep playing once you finish the story. The game sucks. I was looking forward to it, I enjoyed the first game even though it wasn't great, but this one wasn't fun, it was a chore. Spider-Man games have always been fun for me, this is the first one I've played that has failed.

Fuck this game and give us Insomniac's Spider-Man game, it's going to be Batman Arkham tier.

6.3/10

The Evil Within: The Executioner DLC (Xbox One)

The Executioner is the final DLC for Evil Within. It's a stand alone story that puts you in the shoes of the infamous Keeper, one of the deadliest and creepiest of all the bosses.

An unseen man enter the STEM, he takes the form of the Keeper, and is on the lookout for his daughter. He only has the girls diaries to follow in his search, and comes up against plenty of foes, familiar ones at that.

You play in first person, which is very strange. You walk slow and you clip on everything, the Keeper's frame is so big. It can be frustrating to play. It's non stop fighting, you fight small waves of enemies and ultimately a boss. Overall, you're fighting your way towards the next boss fight. Some of the bosses include one of the giants, Joseph and even our old friend, Sebastian.

You pick up coins that you can spend on upgrades for your health, speed and capacity of equipment. Melee combat is your primary weapon. You also have throwable items and can also grab and throw enemies.

It's pretty boring and slow, if you like the dull, constant combat, you'll enjoy it. But why would you? It's basically an homage to an iconic character from the original game. I mean how weak is the story? A random guy, no name and faceless, looking for his random daughter? You can tell a lot of effort went into that... pass on this, unless you bought the season pass.

2.4/5