Hearthfire released at the end of 2012, just shy a few months from a whole year after Skyrim released. There really isn't much to talk about in Hearthfire, there's not a lot of content with it and there's nothing story related.
The biggest feature is that you can now build houses. Yes, that's how much Minecraft has taken over video games. Now you can see where Fallout 4 got it from. You can build three houses in three of the smaller town, where you couldn't buy a house. Houses are excellent for storage and if you're like me, you have a load of shit you need to pack away. So you can choose one of three locations, or all three and get building.
The building is tedious, you have to get a boatload of materials. Iron to make nails and hinges for doors, clay, wood and quarried stone. You need to hoard these items, and I might really hoard them if you want to build all three houses, even more if you want to build three wings to each. It's a long boring process and a lot of back and forth to store all the materials, as you'll become over encumbered instantly.
That's not all, once you've built your houses, you'll need even more material to build your furnishings. OH COME ON. That's where I drew the line and gave up. I built a few weapon plaques and some mannequins to store my outfits and weapons, because that's all I wanted to do. A weird glitch occured though, sort of an infinite money glitch too. I found that once I applied and outfit to a mannequin, it'd stay there. I could take it off and put another outfit on instead, but every time I re-entered my house, that same outfit was there. I could take it off the mannequin, and leave, enter again and I could stock up on that outfit to sell. It really fucked with me though, as I couldn't present my outfits how I wanted, and ultimately I fucked off all my new houses. Even after five years this glitch still works.
The other big feature is adoption. You can go to the Riften Orphanage and take your pick. Your new child returns to one of your selected homes, where they spend the rest of the game droning on. Adoption is a wonderful thing, but in Skyrim, what's the point? The kid in stuck in your house walking around acknowledging you, and occasionally give your useless items like sweet rolls and tankards. Thanks kid. They are literally just their to pawn their trash onto you.
Probably the most pointless DLC to come out for a game. The ball was dropped here, and they never done anything to fix it, or even make this a good piece of content. If you've avoided it this long, well done. Keep it that way.
2.4/5
Tuesday 30 January 2018
Friday 26 January 2018
The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim (PS3)
Skyrim was released in 2011 and developed by Bethesda. It's the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series, and like everybody else, I'm waiting for Elder Scrolls 6!
This review is gonna be a little different, everyone has played Skyrim and everyone knows how good it is. I think it's a brilliant game, but it has problems. It feels wrong to shit talk Skyrim, but that's what I'm gonna do because everyone likes this game. This is why Skyrim isn't a 10/10 like most scores it gets.
For a game that came out at the very end of 2011, it's ugly. The characters look bad, the Khajit's, Orcs and the other races look pretty good, but the Nord's look like they came out of the previous generation. The texturing is pretty poor too, sure the game is huge and it's impossible to make everything look good, but still could be better. The dungeons are the same. There's like four variations of dungeons, you have to go through a lot during the game, do you really wanna go through the same place over and over? Repetition sucks.
Bugs. Name a buggier game than Skyrim.... I'm not sure there is one. I've had to restart my game from earlier saves numerous times from game breaking bugs. The worst thing that can happen in gaming is a game breaking glitch, if you can't start from an earlier save, you're fucked. Getting stuck in the geometry countless times is infuriating. Characters and followers randomly dying and disappearing.
A game that has so many characters, and yet you hear the same voice actor over and over, takes all the realism out when most people sound the same. The dull and repetitive quests, restoring the Thieves Guild having do twenty small jobs where there's only three different kinds is the most boring part of the game and no fun. Difficulty doesn't seem to matter, even if you dumb it down to the easiest difficulty, you will still find yourself getting your ass kicked.
After all that, it's still a fantastic game. There's so much variety and so much to do. You can play this game for hundreds of hours and feel like there's still so much to do. This is a great game, with a tonne of problems. Enough of the remasters and ports, give us Elder Scrolls 6 already.
8.5/10
This review is gonna be a little different, everyone has played Skyrim and everyone knows how good it is. I think it's a brilliant game, but it has problems. It feels wrong to shit talk Skyrim, but that's what I'm gonna do because everyone likes this game. This is why Skyrim isn't a 10/10 like most scores it gets.
For a game that came out at the very end of 2011, it's ugly. The characters look bad, the Khajit's, Orcs and the other races look pretty good, but the Nord's look like they came out of the previous generation. The texturing is pretty poor too, sure the game is huge and it's impossible to make everything look good, but still could be better. The dungeons are the same. There's like four variations of dungeons, you have to go through a lot during the game, do you really wanna go through the same place over and over? Repetition sucks.
Bugs. Name a buggier game than Skyrim.... I'm not sure there is one. I've had to restart my game from earlier saves numerous times from game breaking bugs. The worst thing that can happen in gaming is a game breaking glitch, if you can't start from an earlier save, you're fucked. Getting stuck in the geometry countless times is infuriating. Characters and followers randomly dying and disappearing.
A game that has so many characters, and yet you hear the same voice actor over and over, takes all the realism out when most people sound the same. The dull and repetitive quests, restoring the Thieves Guild having do twenty small jobs where there's only three different kinds is the most boring part of the game and no fun. Difficulty doesn't seem to matter, even if you dumb it down to the easiest difficulty, you will still find yourself getting your ass kicked.
After all that, it's still a fantastic game. There's so much variety and so much to do. You can play this game for hundreds of hours and feel like there's still so much to do. This is a great game, with a tonne of problems. Enough of the remasters and ports, give us Elder Scrolls 6 already.
8.5/10
Tuesday 23 January 2018
The Witcher 2 (Xbox 360)
CD Projekt Red developed Witcher 2 in 2011 on PC, it was released a year later in 2012 on consoles. It's a sequel to The Witcher released back in 2007 on PC.
Story revolves around Geralt, a Witcher who is trained to slay monsters. Geralt is accused of killing King Foltest, and is imprisoned. Geralt is suffering from amnesia, but he remembers witnessing the king's assassination while being interrogated. This leads to Geralt trying to track down the real killer, there are three split paths leaving some replayability. I also didn't appreciate the random events where you were made to play as random characters during the story, especially when you were first introduced to the character was when you controlled them and you're wondering "who is this guy?"
You get the impression it's open world, but it's very linear, I felt that was the wrong approach, but you do get free reign to do some roaming. This is a difficult game, if you're a button masher, you're gonna have to adapt. The combat is intense, one hit will do a lot of damage to you. It's all about swing, block, swing, roll. You can't keep swinging, you gotta pay attention to your enemies or you'll get a quick death. Geralt is armed with two swords, one for human enemies, and one for monsters. You can use each sword on the opposite enemy, but they do very limited damage in comparison to the true weapon.
The world of Witcher is wonderful. The medieval setting and incredibly British accents were perfect. The eccentric characters, the unique monsters and of course, the brilliant dwarfs you are easily the most entertaining. There's side quests, but honestly I didn't enjoy any of them, I was just paying attention when it came to the story missions. There's a skill tree for you to explore, there's signs which act as spells for you to cast, and a good inventory system allowing you to equip clothing and weapons that suit you. A good loot system easily allowing you to pick up useful items and simply sort it within the menus.
I found it so overwhelming and quite complex. So much is thrown at you and you're never really given a proper tutorial or time to digest all the features. It's more of just learning as you go along. There's an overcomplicated menu that's filled with different sections, some I just never looked at. For 2012 I thought the graphics were amazing, I remember being in awe looking at the detail of the characters and scenery. The voice acting is really good, it stands out in the background characters how well they're voiced.
There's side activities like fight club, which is far too easy as it's just quick time events, rolling dice which isn't that interesting and you're never really given the rules, and there's arm wrestling which is one of the worst activities I've seen in a game, it's all to to with balancing the cursor, but it's so unbalanced as your cursor is correctly placed it takes an overly long time to start moving in your favour. There's bartering and crafting too, you can also equipped bombs and destroy monster nests.
I'm not sure what to say about Witcher 2, I know it's a good game, but honestly, I wouldn't want to play through it again. I found it too complicated and the story was confusing at times, the side activities weren't interesting enough, but the characters, graphics and voice acting were all really good. I'm excited to play Witcher 3 after all the good things I've heard, but I can't see myself going back to two.
7.7/10
Story revolves around Geralt, a Witcher who is trained to slay monsters. Geralt is accused of killing King Foltest, and is imprisoned. Geralt is suffering from amnesia, but he remembers witnessing the king's assassination while being interrogated. This leads to Geralt trying to track down the real killer, there are three split paths leaving some replayability. I also didn't appreciate the random events where you were made to play as random characters during the story, especially when you were first introduced to the character was when you controlled them and you're wondering "who is this guy?"
You get the impression it's open world, but it's very linear, I felt that was the wrong approach, but you do get free reign to do some roaming. This is a difficult game, if you're a button masher, you're gonna have to adapt. The combat is intense, one hit will do a lot of damage to you. It's all about swing, block, swing, roll. You can't keep swinging, you gotta pay attention to your enemies or you'll get a quick death. Geralt is armed with two swords, one for human enemies, and one for monsters. You can use each sword on the opposite enemy, but they do very limited damage in comparison to the true weapon.
The world of Witcher is wonderful. The medieval setting and incredibly British accents were perfect. The eccentric characters, the unique monsters and of course, the brilliant dwarfs you are easily the most entertaining. There's side quests, but honestly I didn't enjoy any of them, I was just paying attention when it came to the story missions. There's a skill tree for you to explore, there's signs which act as spells for you to cast, and a good inventory system allowing you to equip clothing and weapons that suit you. A good loot system easily allowing you to pick up useful items and simply sort it within the menus.
I found it so overwhelming and quite complex. So much is thrown at you and you're never really given a proper tutorial or time to digest all the features. It's more of just learning as you go along. There's an overcomplicated menu that's filled with different sections, some I just never looked at. For 2012 I thought the graphics were amazing, I remember being in awe looking at the detail of the characters and scenery. The voice acting is really good, it stands out in the background characters how well they're voiced.
There's side activities like fight club, which is far too easy as it's just quick time events, rolling dice which isn't that interesting and you're never really given the rules, and there's arm wrestling which is one of the worst activities I've seen in a game, it's all to to with balancing the cursor, but it's so unbalanced as your cursor is correctly placed it takes an overly long time to start moving in your favour. There's bartering and crafting too, you can also equipped bombs and destroy monster nests.
I'm not sure what to say about Witcher 2, I know it's a good game, but honestly, I wouldn't want to play through it again. I found it too complicated and the story was confusing at times, the side activities weren't interesting enough, but the characters, graphics and voice acting were all really good. I'm excited to play Witcher 3 after all the good things I've heard, but I can't see myself going back to two.
7.7/10
Saturday 20 January 2018
For Honor (Xbox One)
For Honor released early 2017 and was developed by Ubi$oft. It's a multiplayer based fighting game, between Vikings, Knights and Samurais. There's a campaign, clearly little effort went into it, but I thought this was worth a try, especially over a free weekend.
It has a very unique combat system, it's pretty challenging to get used to, I thought I'd be terrible up against other players, but if you have a small amount of practice anyone can get used to it. You have to change direction of your attack and block using the right stick, if your opponent has the same direction, they'll parry you. It's a good system and can be quite fun, the online fights are intense as fuck.
All the work went in to the multiplayer, but that's not enough to sell a game, hence why I've never bought it. I had a lot of fun online, I soon got tired of it, but it's worth playing for sure. There's a bunch of modes; Dominion - 4v4 and capturing three points, Brawl - 2v2 elimination match, Duel - 1v1 and Elimination which is 4v4. The problem is very few have 'honor' playing online, you'll be fighting one v one, and then some other guy comes charging in and putting mashing against you while you're already fighting another. Some people just run away when they're close to death and you have to give chase, people can be incredibly frustrating to play against. When you get people who actually learn the combat and play the game correctly, it's great. If you're outnumbered, it's not always a bad thing (unless one is button mashing) it's amazing blocking two enemies and then getting the better of them.
After every match, you can deploy assets in territories held by other factions, BUT WHO GIVES A FUCK. I've never understood why shit like this exists in games, does anyone really care if their chosen faction holds the most territories? FUCK NO. You can play any faction anytime while playing online, and they each have a number of heroes you can choose to play as. You can edit their look, perks and finishing moves.
Aesthetically this game is beautiful, the Knights, Vikings and Samurai all look amazing. The movement is some of the best I've seen, the way the characters run, the weapon swinging, perfect. The battles look fantastic too, just looking off into the distance and seeing all these warriors going at it, you really felt apart of it. The castles and temples all looked great too, you just wanted to explore and admire the scenery.
The story SUCKS. There's three campaigns and six missions in each. The story revolves around The Blackstone Legion, a group filled with members of each faction. Other than that, I have no idea what really happened in the story. It did an awful job at informing you of what was happening and who you were. You just seemed to be bouncing around and changing characters during the campaigns. I don't know a single name of anyone I played through the campaign. There was a level system for the story only for some reason, you only got experience points towards it if you got the last hit. You could do all the work and then an AI runs in a gets the last hit, all they do is get in the way.
The story was so poor and unengaging. I'm certain every character you played as had the exact same voice actor, and the Samurai's had American accents.... So little effort. You walk around doing pointless tasks and it was only ever appealing when doing the boss fights. They attempted humour quite often, and it fell flat every single time, it was cringey and I hated all the characters anyway, they failed to make me like anyone. The worst part is the annoying Viking who constantly screams "RAIDER", it's terrible acting and just laughable how bad it is. Just don't bother with it, it's so clear they rushed I because it's a multiplayer focused game they never cared about it. It's only there so they can say they made one unlike the original Titanfall and Star Wars Battlefront.
A lot of people only play multiplayer these days, if you're one of those gamers, you'll have no reason not to give this a go, the multiplayer is pretty good, I got bored pretty quickly because I don't play multiplayer a lot nowadays. As a story game I was so disappointed. They so clearly did not try, it's shameful. Ubisoft dropped the ball here, doesn't matter though does it? Their failures always get rewarded with sequels.
6.1/10
It has a very unique combat system, it's pretty challenging to get used to, I thought I'd be terrible up against other players, but if you have a small amount of practice anyone can get used to it. You have to change direction of your attack and block using the right stick, if your opponent has the same direction, they'll parry you. It's a good system and can be quite fun, the online fights are intense as fuck.
All the work went in to the multiplayer, but that's not enough to sell a game, hence why I've never bought it. I had a lot of fun online, I soon got tired of it, but it's worth playing for sure. There's a bunch of modes; Dominion - 4v4 and capturing three points, Brawl - 2v2 elimination match, Duel - 1v1 and Elimination which is 4v4. The problem is very few have 'honor' playing online, you'll be fighting one v one, and then some other guy comes charging in and putting mashing against you while you're already fighting another. Some people just run away when they're close to death and you have to give chase, people can be incredibly frustrating to play against. When you get people who actually learn the combat and play the game correctly, it's great. If you're outnumbered, it's not always a bad thing (unless one is button mashing) it's amazing blocking two enemies and then getting the better of them.
After every match, you can deploy assets in territories held by other factions, BUT WHO GIVES A FUCK. I've never understood why shit like this exists in games, does anyone really care if their chosen faction holds the most territories? FUCK NO. You can play any faction anytime while playing online, and they each have a number of heroes you can choose to play as. You can edit their look, perks and finishing moves.
Aesthetically this game is beautiful, the Knights, Vikings and Samurai all look amazing. The movement is some of the best I've seen, the way the characters run, the weapon swinging, perfect. The battles look fantastic too, just looking off into the distance and seeing all these warriors going at it, you really felt apart of it. The castles and temples all looked great too, you just wanted to explore and admire the scenery.
The story SUCKS. There's three campaigns and six missions in each. The story revolves around The Blackstone Legion, a group filled with members of each faction. Other than that, I have no idea what really happened in the story. It did an awful job at informing you of what was happening and who you were. You just seemed to be bouncing around and changing characters during the campaigns. I don't know a single name of anyone I played through the campaign. There was a level system for the story only for some reason, you only got experience points towards it if you got the last hit. You could do all the work and then an AI runs in a gets the last hit, all they do is get in the way.
The story was so poor and unengaging. I'm certain every character you played as had the exact same voice actor, and the Samurai's had American accents.... So little effort. You walk around doing pointless tasks and it was only ever appealing when doing the boss fights. They attempted humour quite often, and it fell flat every single time, it was cringey and I hated all the characters anyway, they failed to make me like anyone. The worst part is the annoying Viking who constantly screams "RAIDER", it's terrible acting and just laughable how bad it is. Just don't bother with it, it's so clear they rushed I because it's a multiplayer focused game they never cared about it. It's only there so they can say they made one unlike the original Titanfall and Star Wars Battlefront.
A lot of people only play multiplayer these days, if you're one of those gamers, you'll have no reason not to give this a go, the multiplayer is pretty good, I got bored pretty quickly because I don't play multiplayer a lot nowadays. As a story game I was so disappointed. They so clearly did not try, it's shameful. Ubisoft dropped the ball here, doesn't matter though does it? Their failures always get rewarded with sequels.
6.1/10
Wednesday 17 January 2018
Middle Earth: Shadow of War (Xbox One)
Shadow of War released at the end of 2017 and is the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Seeing as I recently reviewed SoM, I'm just really going to speak about the new features. Most of the good things are back, like the Nemesis system, so there's no point repeating myself.
First off, the story again is quite weak. It's great being in Gondor, but the human allies again are lacking, but they're a big improvement on the last group, you feel more invested with these characters, but it's still weak. It's all about orcs, but I guess there's got to be a human side. As well as the fortress battles, the Nazgul play a big part in the story, and you're often pitted against them. I think the story is slightly stronger, but we need more orc storylines, that's why we play these games!
One of the new additions was difficulty, there was now three difficulties instead of just a standard one in the original. I went for Nemesis, as it was the hardest and would give the best the nemesis system had to offer. It was challenging too!
So there were new orc types called Ologs, they were much larger than regular orcs, and were like mini trolls. They were tough, but could be dazed by arrows to the end, and you can even ride them to bash through other orcs. There's also orc classes now, there's tricksters, tanks, assassins, marksman and many more. Each had their own abilities and you had to think on how to take orcs out instead of just going in swords blazing.
There was plenty of new traits for the orcs too. Iron will meant you could never recruit that orc no matter what, betrayals from already recruited orcs, blood brothers which meant two orcs had a close bond and could even rescue each other as you were about to kill them. You can now only recruit orcs if they are a lower level than you, anyone who is higher has to be shamed, that happens by beating them and choosing to shame them over killing them, lowering their level by five. Orcs can now also adapt to your fighting style, forcing you to constantly change how you fight.
There is equipment for Talion now, outfits, swords, bows and daggers, all have different stats and you can unlock more through chests, and even purchase some orcs to recruit in your army. Because you could buy as many orcs as you wanted, I constantly found orcs with the same names, it really took away from the unique personalities I thought the game had, every time I looked at the army screen, I was noticing too many orcs with the same name and it felt cheap. I found no use for micro transactions as you always found equipment by killing orcs, and there's infinite orcs to recruit. I thought it was just a cheap way for Monolith to make more money. If you purchased equipment at a low level, it would be absolutely useless by the time you've leveled up and have just wasted money. You can get XP boosters, they lasted a certain amount of time, but they were real time, you didn't even need to be on the game and you'd lose time, if you set it. There are also gems they give boosters to your equipment, you can level up gems for better boosters, but I think this whole section was a pointless addition.
The towers were now Sauron Towers, and when you took over one, you could use it to locate collectables. Bonus objectives now give you rewards, so they feel like they're worth doing. Executions were no longer triggered by your combo, you'd have to build up your might to be able to do them, this was a big improvement. You could also daze an opponent by exploiting their weaknesses, that left them completely open, and couldn't defend themselves at all. You could also employ a bodyguard, by choosing one of your recruited orcs and call upon them to help fight with you. Another problem was having to hold down the 'A' button to do so many things, it was so clunky and would always end up doing something different to what I wanted, and got me killed a lot. It was easily the most frustrating thing, and needs to be changed ASAP.
There are lots of new skills and my favourite was the double jump, as you could really cover a lot of distance and it was simple to control. What was rather odd, was having to relearn skills you got in the first game, what, did Talion forget how to do it all? There's plenty of new areas, you can explore Gondor and Cirith Ungol, two complete different areas. There were now Drakes too, very similar to the fell-beasts a new creature for you to fight against and ride once tamed. It's cool flying around.
I loved the new personalities of the orcs, the first guy who killed me was talking about how he killed the "tark", a name orcs often called Talion, he then became known as 'Ashgarn the Tarkslayer', I loved that. I liked how an orc you killed could have cheated death, and they are literally built back from lost pieces. The more you killed an orc, the more messed up and built back from old parts they looked. I did feel so many orcs came back to life too often, but that just might be on nemesis difficulty. If you were knocked down and about to be killed, one of your loyal followers could jump in and save your life, I was blown away by that the first time it happened.
Now on to the big selling point; the fortresses and their overlords. Now this is what The Lord of the Rings was all about! Big epic battles, and that's just what we got. You'd pick your best followers to go with you and attack the fort. You'd have to take over a bunch of checkpoints and fight off enemy orc captains who attempt to stop you. After taking all the points, you enter the fortress and face off against the Overlord. It's never a one on one fight as they always have back up, you have to plan your fight though, by knowing their strengths and weaknesses, you'll do yourself a favour. There's nothing worse than accidentally enraging an Overlord, as they're powerful enough, you don't want to give them a power boost.
After taking over fortresses, you'll have to defend them too. You have to set up your orc captains and pick your overlord. You can also pick your defences too, like spikes to stop people climbing up and reinforced walls. They work the same way as attacking, just that you have to defend the checkpoints this time. Every time they take a checkpoint, a new captain will arrive, so you want to defend as best you can, so you don't get overwhelmed. A huge flaw happened as I was defending a fortress, while I was in the middle of a massive fight, my screen just cut to black, and then said I'd lost the fort. It was ridiculous as I was in the middle of defending a point and got ripped off.
You can recruit captains from forts and get them to infiltrate the fort as a spy, be wary though, as your spies could be instantly killed if discovered or captured and you'd have to attempt to free them. Another disappointment was that I started to randomly lose recruited orcs, I'd go to the army page and just noticed a number of my friendly orcs had just been replaced by enemy ones. They were never killed and even if they were, I was never notified and I lost a lot of orcs I grew accustomed to. Although they're only orcs, you do grow attached to them pretty easily once you've recruited them. You could get a skill to revive orcs that had fell in battle, providing they were still on the army page. There were also war pits, which allowed you to send in friendly orcs in a one on one fight, if they won, their level increased, it's a great way to boost orcs.
I loved Shadow of Mordor, and I love Shadow of War. I think this improves in every way, the story is what needs the most work, but all the little additions really added a lot to this game. Improve the story, involve more orc storylines and get rid of the damn micro transactions, there really is no need for them!
8.9/10
First off, the story again is quite weak. It's great being in Gondor, but the human allies again are lacking, but they're a big improvement on the last group, you feel more invested with these characters, but it's still weak. It's all about orcs, but I guess there's got to be a human side. As well as the fortress battles, the Nazgul play a big part in the story, and you're often pitted against them. I think the story is slightly stronger, but we need more orc storylines, that's why we play these games!
One of the new additions was difficulty, there was now three difficulties instead of just a standard one in the original. I went for Nemesis, as it was the hardest and would give the best the nemesis system had to offer. It was challenging too!
So there were new orc types called Ologs, they were much larger than regular orcs, and were like mini trolls. They were tough, but could be dazed by arrows to the end, and you can even ride them to bash through other orcs. There's also orc classes now, there's tricksters, tanks, assassins, marksman and many more. Each had their own abilities and you had to think on how to take orcs out instead of just going in swords blazing.
There was plenty of new traits for the orcs too. Iron will meant you could never recruit that orc no matter what, betrayals from already recruited orcs, blood brothers which meant two orcs had a close bond and could even rescue each other as you were about to kill them. You can now only recruit orcs if they are a lower level than you, anyone who is higher has to be shamed, that happens by beating them and choosing to shame them over killing them, lowering their level by five. Orcs can now also adapt to your fighting style, forcing you to constantly change how you fight.
There is equipment for Talion now, outfits, swords, bows and daggers, all have different stats and you can unlock more through chests, and even purchase some orcs to recruit in your army. Because you could buy as many orcs as you wanted, I constantly found orcs with the same names, it really took away from the unique personalities I thought the game had, every time I looked at the army screen, I was noticing too many orcs with the same name and it felt cheap. I found no use for micro transactions as you always found equipment by killing orcs, and there's infinite orcs to recruit. I thought it was just a cheap way for Monolith to make more money. If you purchased equipment at a low level, it would be absolutely useless by the time you've leveled up and have just wasted money. You can get XP boosters, they lasted a certain amount of time, but they were real time, you didn't even need to be on the game and you'd lose time, if you set it. There are also gems they give boosters to your equipment, you can level up gems for better boosters, but I think this whole section was a pointless addition.
The towers were now Sauron Towers, and when you took over one, you could use it to locate collectables. Bonus objectives now give you rewards, so they feel like they're worth doing. Executions were no longer triggered by your combo, you'd have to build up your might to be able to do them, this was a big improvement. You could also daze an opponent by exploiting their weaknesses, that left them completely open, and couldn't defend themselves at all. You could also employ a bodyguard, by choosing one of your recruited orcs and call upon them to help fight with you. Another problem was having to hold down the 'A' button to do so many things, it was so clunky and would always end up doing something different to what I wanted, and got me killed a lot. It was easily the most frustrating thing, and needs to be changed ASAP.
There are lots of new skills and my favourite was the double jump, as you could really cover a lot of distance and it was simple to control. What was rather odd, was having to relearn skills you got in the first game, what, did Talion forget how to do it all? There's plenty of new areas, you can explore Gondor and Cirith Ungol, two complete different areas. There were now Drakes too, very similar to the fell-beasts a new creature for you to fight against and ride once tamed. It's cool flying around.
I loved the new personalities of the orcs, the first guy who killed me was talking about how he killed the "tark", a name orcs often called Talion, he then became known as 'Ashgarn the Tarkslayer', I loved that. I liked how an orc you killed could have cheated death, and they are literally built back from lost pieces. The more you killed an orc, the more messed up and built back from old parts they looked. I did feel so many orcs came back to life too often, but that just might be on nemesis difficulty. If you were knocked down and about to be killed, one of your loyal followers could jump in and save your life, I was blown away by that the first time it happened.
Now on to the big selling point; the fortresses and their overlords. Now this is what The Lord of the Rings was all about! Big epic battles, and that's just what we got. You'd pick your best followers to go with you and attack the fort. You'd have to take over a bunch of checkpoints and fight off enemy orc captains who attempt to stop you. After taking all the points, you enter the fortress and face off against the Overlord. It's never a one on one fight as they always have back up, you have to plan your fight though, by knowing their strengths and weaknesses, you'll do yourself a favour. There's nothing worse than accidentally enraging an Overlord, as they're powerful enough, you don't want to give them a power boost.
After taking over fortresses, you'll have to defend them too. You have to set up your orc captains and pick your overlord. You can also pick your defences too, like spikes to stop people climbing up and reinforced walls. They work the same way as attacking, just that you have to defend the checkpoints this time. Every time they take a checkpoint, a new captain will arrive, so you want to defend as best you can, so you don't get overwhelmed. A huge flaw happened as I was defending a fortress, while I was in the middle of a massive fight, my screen just cut to black, and then said I'd lost the fort. It was ridiculous as I was in the middle of defending a point and got ripped off.
You can recruit captains from forts and get them to infiltrate the fort as a spy, be wary though, as your spies could be instantly killed if discovered or captured and you'd have to attempt to free them. Another disappointment was that I started to randomly lose recruited orcs, I'd go to the army page and just noticed a number of my friendly orcs had just been replaced by enemy ones. They were never killed and even if they were, I was never notified and I lost a lot of orcs I grew accustomed to. Although they're only orcs, you do grow attached to them pretty easily once you've recruited them. You could get a skill to revive orcs that had fell in battle, providing they were still on the army page. There were also war pits, which allowed you to send in friendly orcs in a one on one fight, if they won, their level increased, it's a great way to boost orcs.
I loved Shadow of Mordor, and I love Shadow of War. I think this improves in every way, the story is what needs the most work, but all the little additions really added a lot to this game. Improve the story, involve more orc storylines and get rid of the damn micro transactions, there really is no need for them!
8.9/10
Sunday 14 January 2018
The Turing Test (Xbox One)
The Turing Test is a first person puzzle game, released in 2016. The closest game to this for me is Portal, they are quite different too. Let's see how it compares to Portal.
You play as Ava, sent to excavate a small moon orbiting Jupiter, called Europa. Along with a research team who have already been sent out, Ava is the last on their shuttle and is finally awaken. She is women by the technical operations machine (T.O.M) an artificial intelligence that tells Ava her crew mates are in danger, this leads to Ava going through a number of tests as she sets out to help her research team.
As Ava is making her way through the tests, she speaks to a member of the research team, informing her she is not in control of her own body, and in fact Tom is controlling her. Not only that, but the crew as found a microorganism that could possibly make humans immortal, meaning their will no longer be any death. Will TOM allow them to get it back to Earth? TOM expresses the dangers of what could happen if it gets back to Earth.
The tests are designed in a very similar way to Portal, in the way you do one puzzle in one room to open the door and progress to the next. They work differently though, as you have no portal gun, rather a a tool that collects power balls to help open doors. As well as the power balls, there are power boxes too. The puzzles increase in difficulty and even different coloured power balls emerge to get you thinking more. You can even solve puzzles with the help from pressure pads, cameras and mechanical robots.
The length of the game is what you make of it really, obviously if you struggle with the puzzles it'll take a while. The puzzles weren't too challenging, but they weren't simple either, a few required some trial and error, and others you really need to think about.
The loading times were far too long for a game with not much to it. It looked beautiful though, it was well designed and if you explored in between the puzzles, you could find lots of interesting information about your crew mates. The music was really fitting too and I enjoyed the expositing between Ava and Tom, who were well acted also.
It went in the games with gold program around a year after its release, which doesn't sound good, to give a game free so soon, but it's much stronger than you'd think. I actually bought it about two months before it went free.... Worth it though.
7.5/10
You play as Ava, sent to excavate a small moon orbiting Jupiter, called Europa. Along with a research team who have already been sent out, Ava is the last on their shuttle and is finally awaken. She is women by the technical operations machine (T.O.M) an artificial intelligence that tells Ava her crew mates are in danger, this leads to Ava going through a number of tests as she sets out to help her research team.
As Ava is making her way through the tests, she speaks to a member of the research team, informing her she is not in control of her own body, and in fact Tom is controlling her. Not only that, but the crew as found a microorganism that could possibly make humans immortal, meaning their will no longer be any death. Will TOM allow them to get it back to Earth? TOM expresses the dangers of what could happen if it gets back to Earth.
The tests are designed in a very similar way to Portal, in the way you do one puzzle in one room to open the door and progress to the next. They work differently though, as you have no portal gun, rather a a tool that collects power balls to help open doors. As well as the power balls, there are power boxes too. The puzzles increase in difficulty and even different coloured power balls emerge to get you thinking more. You can even solve puzzles with the help from pressure pads, cameras and mechanical robots.
The length of the game is what you make of it really, obviously if you struggle with the puzzles it'll take a while. The puzzles weren't too challenging, but they weren't simple either, a few required some trial and error, and others you really need to think about.
The loading times were far too long for a game with not much to it. It looked beautiful though, it was well designed and if you explored in between the puzzles, you could find lots of interesting information about your crew mates. The music was really fitting too and I enjoyed the expositing between Ava and Tom, who were well acted also.
It went in the games with gold program around a year after its release, which doesn't sound good, to give a game free so soon, but it's much stronger than you'd think. I actually bought it about two months before it went free.... Worth it though.
7.5/10
Wednesday 10 January 2018
Batman Arkham City: Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC (Xbox 360)
Released mid 2012, and the only story content DLC for Arkham City. As the title suggests Harley Quinn comes up with her own revenge scheme on Batman, following the events of the story in the base game.
The story spans two different timelines. You play as both Batman and Robin, the latter is on the path to find Batman after he's goes missing during the hunt for a grieving Harley, who has captured a bunch of cops.
It's great getting to play as Robin, I've always loved getting to play as others in the Arkham series, but it's always limited to just challenge maps. Now we get a whole story that has a new playable hero, equipped with his own abilities. The story blends well together as you swap between the dynamic duo throughout.
Robin plays very similar to Batman, besides being able to glide around. Robin is also equipped with a shield capable of blocking bullets, which always comes in handy. Robin is also armed with a big stick making it simpler to knock out some thugs.
It's a interesting story, it keeps you engaged while you try to figure how the world's greatest detective went missing. It's relatively short, but that's often the case with DLC unfortunately. There's also a great end boss fight with Harley Quinn, a bit different to the usual ones as it's entirely stealth focused.
It updates the ending, but it's not really a necessity to get it, but as with the Arkham series, their content is always brilliantly developed. If you don't think this is the greatest DLC to exist, you'll certainly see more good points than bad. In my eyes it's easily worth it.
3.6/5
The story spans two different timelines. You play as both Batman and Robin, the latter is on the path to find Batman after he's goes missing during the hunt for a grieving Harley, who has captured a bunch of cops.
It's great getting to play as Robin, I've always loved getting to play as others in the Arkham series, but it's always limited to just challenge maps. Now we get a whole story that has a new playable hero, equipped with his own abilities. The story blends well together as you swap between the dynamic duo throughout.
Robin plays very similar to Batman, besides being able to glide around. Robin is also equipped with a shield capable of blocking bullets, which always comes in handy. Robin is also armed with a big stick making it simpler to knock out some thugs.
It's a interesting story, it keeps you engaged while you try to figure how the world's greatest detective went missing. It's relatively short, but that's often the case with DLC unfortunately. There's also a great end boss fight with Harley Quinn, a bit different to the usual ones as it's entirely stealth focused.
It updates the ending, but it's not really a necessity to get it, but as with the Arkham series, their content is always brilliantly developed. If you don't think this is the greatest DLC to exist, you'll certainly see more good points than bad. In my eyes it's easily worth it.
3.6/5
Sunday 7 January 2018
Batman Arkham City (Xbox 360)
Batman Arkham City is the sequel to the brilliant Arkham Asylum. Released in 2011 and is the best Batman experience there's been. You really feel like Batman, and that's why this series gets so much praise.
What makes the Arkham series so good, is that they are in the same setting as the Batman Animated series. The world is much bigger as you get to explore a whole city! There's more villains, more gadgets, more missions, it's a complete package.
Arkham City is a citywide prison, filled to the brim with criminals, and while imprisoned at AC, they are given free will to do whatever they please, as long as they don't attempt to escape. Bruce Wayne soon gets himself arrested and into AC to infiltrate it as Batman. AC is run by Hugo Strange, who knows Batman's identity. Joker is suffering from the effects of the titan formula he took in the previous game. Dying from his illness, Joker infects Batman and has his blood infect patients at the hospitals in Gotham. Batman now must find a cure for himself, the dying patients, and Joker?
Thankfully Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their roles, as there really is no one better to be Batman and Joker. There's a great cast of Batman characters too, Mr Freeze, Penguin, Two-Face, Bane and many more. Catwoman also appears and is playable through the story and has her own side story during the main game. There's so many side missions too, helping out Bane, finding Deadshot, stopping Zsasz and many more. The combat is better than anything and the fact so many games now imitate it, that's all the proof you need. Lots of gadgets including the batclaw and batarang help you get through the game and your fights. The graphics are excellent and they bring the dark city to life, and show you what a dangerous world Batman lives in.
The story is pretty short, but you'll only notice if you're strictly playing the story. The stealth is amazing, as is the gliding and detective vision to help you spot enemies. There's plenty of upgrades and gadgets to unlock too. There's a good twist or two during and you'll see plenty of your favourite Batman villians. Another thing the Arkham series does better than anyone is Easter eggs, there are so many scattered around, you'll constantly be looking out for them. One standout during the story, is the boss fight with Mr Freeze. It's so intense, and you have to use a different technique to hurt him every time, as he learns your moves and you can never do the same attack twice.
There are plenty of boss fights and all of them are enjoyable. Challenge maps are back, both combat and predator to keep you playing after the story. Costumes for Batman and Catwoman, there is so much content and it's a stellar game. The wind even blows Batman's cape, there's so much detail. Even the tears in the cape after your fights.
Batman Arkham is easily one of the best franchises, and Arkham City is the best in the series. For a game that came out only two years after the original, they knocked it out of the park. This is a game that really let's you say "I'm Batman" out loud. Rocksteady done everything right.
9.2/10
What makes the Arkham series so good, is that they are in the same setting as the Batman Animated series. The world is much bigger as you get to explore a whole city! There's more villains, more gadgets, more missions, it's a complete package.
Arkham City is a citywide prison, filled to the brim with criminals, and while imprisoned at AC, they are given free will to do whatever they please, as long as they don't attempt to escape. Bruce Wayne soon gets himself arrested and into AC to infiltrate it as Batman. AC is run by Hugo Strange, who knows Batman's identity. Joker is suffering from the effects of the titan formula he took in the previous game. Dying from his illness, Joker infects Batman and has his blood infect patients at the hospitals in Gotham. Batman now must find a cure for himself, the dying patients, and Joker?
Thankfully Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill reprise their roles, as there really is no one better to be Batman and Joker. There's a great cast of Batman characters too, Mr Freeze, Penguin, Two-Face, Bane and many more. Catwoman also appears and is playable through the story and has her own side story during the main game. There's so many side missions too, helping out Bane, finding Deadshot, stopping Zsasz and many more. The combat is better than anything and the fact so many games now imitate it, that's all the proof you need. Lots of gadgets including the batclaw and batarang help you get through the game and your fights. The graphics are excellent and they bring the dark city to life, and show you what a dangerous world Batman lives in.
The story is pretty short, but you'll only notice if you're strictly playing the story. The stealth is amazing, as is the gliding and detective vision to help you spot enemies. There's plenty of upgrades and gadgets to unlock too. There's a good twist or two during and you'll see plenty of your favourite Batman villians. Another thing the Arkham series does better than anyone is Easter eggs, there are so many scattered around, you'll constantly be looking out for them. One standout during the story, is the boss fight with Mr Freeze. It's so intense, and you have to use a different technique to hurt him every time, as he learns your moves and you can never do the same attack twice.
There are plenty of boss fights and all of them are enjoyable. Challenge maps are back, both combat and predator to keep you playing after the story. Costumes for Batman and Catwoman, there is so much content and it's a stellar game. The wind even blows Batman's cape, there's so much detail. Even the tears in the cape after your fights.
Batman Arkham is easily one of the best franchises, and Arkham City is the best in the series. For a game that came out only two years after the original, they knocked it out of the park. This is a game that really let's you say "I'm Batman" out loud. Rocksteady done everything right.
9.2/10
Wednesday 3 January 2018
The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC (PS3)
For anyone that has been reading my reviews, you'll know The Last of Us currently has the highest rating (9.5) I've given to date. So, will the DLC become the highest rated add on so far? It's more than likely.
I got really lucky in getting this. I bought Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us soon after the latters release. I don't know why but the store threw in the season pass for TLOU for free, which was awesome, so I eagerly waited for the release of the only single player add on.
Left Behind released early 2014, throughout you play as Ellie in two different timelines. One part explores more of the story of when Ellie was surviving without Joel, while he was unable to venture out, as she looked for more supplies. The other timeline is way before Ellie ever met Joel, and before she was ever infected. We see her and her friend, Riley, as they go exploring and see their meaningful relationship build through the one night out of the the boarding school they reside at, after Riley returns from a mission away with the Fireflies. Both stories intertwine and it blends so well together.
There's not much new really, other than a new character Riley. The majority of the gameplay is just exploring and interacting with Riley, the action is in the more recent storyline, where Ellie faces off against infected and bandits. The Riley sections are amazing and so fun to play. You go into a Halloween store and there's so much to interact with, you play games with Riley and have some great exposition.
During Ellie and Riley's adventure they get power running in the shopping mall, ride a merry-go-round, read from a joke book, play a video game and a have a water gun fight. These light-hearted moments are some of the best in gaming to date. It's nice to have a far less intense story, and see their interaction with each other. It's kind of hard to explain why it's so good, it just needs to be played itself.
Unfortunately, it's not all fun and games with Ellie and Riley. The reality of the world they live in soon catches up to them. In the more recent timeline, it's great to see how Ellie survives on her own, as she grows accustomed to being in Joel's company. She proves once again how tough she is and that she can pull through on her own. This story shows once more that Ellie is one of the best characters that have come out of gaming in recent years.
Best DLC so far!
4.8/5
I got really lucky in getting this. I bought Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us soon after the latters release. I don't know why but the store threw in the season pass for TLOU for free, which was awesome, so I eagerly waited for the release of the only single player add on.
Left Behind released early 2014, throughout you play as Ellie in two different timelines. One part explores more of the story of when Ellie was surviving without Joel, while he was unable to venture out, as she looked for more supplies. The other timeline is way before Ellie ever met Joel, and before she was ever infected. We see her and her friend, Riley, as they go exploring and see their meaningful relationship build through the one night out of the the boarding school they reside at, after Riley returns from a mission away with the Fireflies. Both stories intertwine and it blends so well together.
There's not much new really, other than a new character Riley. The majority of the gameplay is just exploring and interacting with Riley, the action is in the more recent storyline, where Ellie faces off against infected and bandits. The Riley sections are amazing and so fun to play. You go into a Halloween store and there's so much to interact with, you play games with Riley and have some great exposition.
During Ellie and Riley's adventure they get power running in the shopping mall, ride a merry-go-round, read from a joke book, play a video game and a have a water gun fight. These light-hearted moments are some of the best in gaming to date. It's nice to have a far less intense story, and see their interaction with each other. It's kind of hard to explain why it's so good, it just needs to be played itself.
Unfortunately, it's not all fun and games with Ellie and Riley. The reality of the world they live in soon catches up to them. In the more recent timeline, it's great to see how Ellie survives on her own, as she grows accustomed to being in Joel's company. She proves once again how tough she is and that she can pull through on her own. This story shows once more that Ellie is one of the best characters that have come out of gaming in recent years.
Best DLC so far!
4.8/5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)