Put on your blue jumpsuit and step out of your vault, Fallout is back. It's still unreal that this game has actually came out. I was in disbelief when it was announced and now it's been out for so long! If you haven't played Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas, then stop reading immediately and play them! But come back and read the rest please.
Plenty to talk about with all the new features and this is a big-ass game. Bethesda know how to make good games and that's why they're my favourite developer. The fifth major installment including New Vegas. An open world game set in a post-apocalyptic future, what doesn't sound great there? Despite the city of Boston being in ruins, there's plenty to explore and many buildings to enter, this is a change from Fallout 3 as you can tell what the place looked like prior to the nuclear war. F3 was a lot more of an empty wasteland compared to 4.
Unlike the other games in the series, this game starts before the bombs fell. Happy families living their daily lives, something we never saw before. Unfortunately it doesn't last long and soon after continues after the bombs. It would've been nice to get to spend time in the pre-apocalyptic world and explore at little at least, seeing as it had never been done. Despite being set in the future, the year 2287 to be exact, it has a 1950s style to the game, giving it an old style-future.
Without spoiling too much, the story is quite similar to F3 in that instead of looking for your father, you are now trying to locate your missing son. The game starts off straight into the customization of your character. The graphics have improved so much, they're not amazing, but they are fantastic compared to the old Fallouts. Your character now speaks, which I love, I hate games that have Silent protagonists. The performance is great but because there is now an actor, the dialogue is a lot more limited than it was, it's a huge loss as the dialogue was stellar in the older games, but we at least get a talking character. Now new factions roam the wasteland, mainly the infamous 'Institute', that has everyone running scared. They are said to kidnap people and create synths, human like robots that don't even know they aren't human. The story is a pretty good one, albeit quite short, but as usual has multiple endings, so you get to choose who you want to side with. This gives the game replayability, so many choices, so many playthroughs.
The game is full of choice and like the others, it let's you choose how you want to play. Third person or first person, I usually play first myself. You can also drift away from the main storyline, you can go off and adventure or go do side missions. The game has no restrictions. There's plenty of new features, you can now have individual pieces of amour to protect yourself, each individual piece has different affects too. Lots of crafting that lets you make all kinds, such as weapon attachments, armour, drugs and more. Power armour is a lot different too, it's so powerful and requires fusion cores to power it, so you can't use it forever. The game took a Minecraft approach in that you can build settlements. I think this is a great feature being able to create your own buildings and such. It's easy when you get used to it, but can be overwhelming at first. I'm not very good at it, I think it's difficult to make things look like a real structure, seeing as my walls are usually floating above the ground, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.
There are plenty of improvements in this game and the graphics are definitely one of them. A lot of people aren't that impressed with them, but if you look at the old Fallouts then you'll clearly see. Also Dogmeat looks like a real dog, he looks beautifully real. The game now has weather, it can rain and even have radiation storms. The lip syncing is really well done and actually looks like the people are speaking. There's also dialogue scenes, they're kinda like an interactive cutscene and I think they look better than just staring at the person you're talking to while the background is just frozen. The excellent music is back and fits beautifully in the game, there's quite a few new things to talk about too.
One of the new features is that you can command your companions to go somewhere and pick up items or even search areas for you. There's no level cap so you can go way beyond with your level and the new leveling up page is a thing of beauty. Each perk is accompanied by a relevant picture of Vault Boy and just generally looks more interactive and better fitted. You can romance with your companions now and they're also given an interesting back story that you have to earn the right to listen to. As well, companions have their own skills and you can get them to hack terminals or pick locks if they have the skill, saves you doing it eh. You can also carry on playing after the main story, thank you Bethesda.
Of course, the game has its faults I'm devastated to say. F4 now only let's you have one companion and that's including when you have Dogmeat by your side too. I don't think there is enough missions in the game, the story is short and there aren't a huge amount of side missions. I did everything in this game, to this day I'm certain I never did everything in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. There's the missions that go on forever but they're boring and if that's all you've got left to do in the game, then it just isn't worth playing anymore. This is a Bethesda game and with that comes bugs, we all know that. But, as it's Bethesda we always forgive them. This is something we have to stop, bugs shouldn't be present in any game and no matter how good these games are, we can't just keep forgiving and forgetting and get what we paid for. NO BUGS! This game is great, fantastic even, but it has to be said, with how good Fallout 3 was back in 2008, I think we all expected a lot more. Maybe our expectations were ridiculously high, but that's the standard Bethesda set. Overall it's a disappointment but it's still amazing and I guess I just expected too much.
Fallout 4 is really here and all the great things are back, the excellent Pip Boy used to manage your equipment and hold your mission info, the V.A.T.S targeting system that slows down time and let's you attack individual body parts and of course, all your old friends, feral ghouls, super mutants and the terrifying deathclaws. There's still DLC to come, so let's hope they keep the game alive and most importantly, fun. Let's go Dogmeat, it's good to be back.
8.9/10
Monday, 20 June 2016
Sunday, 12 June 2016
Resident Evil 5 (Xbox 360)
Resident. Evil. 5. Review. You know, like when you start the game and the guy says the name of the Res game you're playing? No? Whatever, idec anymore. Anyway, Resident Evil 5 came out back in 2009 and continues the everlasting Resident Evil series as I believe it's the 14th released game, there's so many I'm not one hundred percent certain.
Before I delve into this review, I have to say that this is one of the few games I never get bored of. Don't get me wrong, it's not 10/10 (SPOILER ALERT), but it's just so much fun. It's even more fun in co-op and for the love of God, play this in co-op or face the wrath of one of the worst AI partners you could ask for. To be frank, or Chris should I say? ;) I've never really played the game on my own, except when I first got it and I never have since. I've mostly played as Sheva, mainly so I never have to see how bad her AI is again, she's also one the most poorly voiced characters I've played as.
It's a survival horror game, but honestly, it doesn't feel like one. The game isn't scary at all, although the chainsaw manjini's are terrifying when they're after you. Plus there's lots of ammo and so much weaponry, my definition may be a bit different to yours, but for a good survival horror for me, would be a lack of ammo and strong enemies that cause you to have to run away. But the sensitivity is very slow and you can only shoot standing still, so you've always got to be alert there.
The graphics aren't that great, but they're ok, the enemies look really evil, but the monster type bosses look ridiculous. They're just squid-like creatures with orange balls on. Sounds stupid right? The melee is awful, it's so slow and with you standing still they have to be right next to you. The enemies melee attack is so much faster, being able to melee is the most pointless feature I've seen in a game, they should have removed it. The laser sight is your only way to aim, it's pretty awkward but you'll get used to it, I'd much have preferred a reticle though.
You can trade with you partner, things like herbs and ammo, if you're playing on your own, then you can dump most of it on Sheva. There's a great point system giving you final ranks on missions, that make you want to get an S rank on all the levels to unlock some cool extras. Upgrading and purchasing weapons is addicting, with so much to get, it certainly makes you play the game a lot to get the sufficient amount of money.
I wasn't that engaged in the story, but that's mainly because I didn't know what was happening, as this was my first Res game. The game is full of terrible dialogue and really average voice acting. The game was released in 2009 but still followed 'old style gaming', every time you interacted with a locked door, it would stop the game to tell you it was locked rather than an animation of you trying to open the door, or a chest would open up on its own instead of your character doing it. Doors close after you open them, so if you're not with your partner, you'd have to open the door again and it would be an animation of you going through the door, instead of letting you walk through yourself. Maybe old school Res fans would like that, but not me, if I wanted to play old-style games, I'd play the first Res. There were constant short cutscenes every time you did anything, you'd walk an inch and then there'd be a cutscene showing the enemies entering the area, this happened with almost every group of enemies. It was a constant stop and start and really slowed the game down. You'd have to wait for your partner to open a heavy door or get in a lift, rather than the next section trigger when just one of you gets there, even if you're playing on your own you still have to wait for the dumb AI to catch up.
The game is nothing special, but it's so much fun and I never get bored of it, if I rated based on how fun it is, it'd be a ten! But I judge it as a game and have my own criteria to judge, suffice to say this game is rated lower than what I even expected. But I highly recommend everyone to play this game if they have a buddy. Despite not playing many older Res games, I hope the next one feels more like a survival horror. Suck on that, Wesker.
7.4/10
Before I delve into this review, I have to say that this is one of the few games I never get bored of. Don't get me wrong, it's not 10/10 (SPOILER ALERT), but it's just so much fun. It's even more fun in co-op and for the love of God, play this in co-op or face the wrath of one of the worst AI partners you could ask for. To be frank, or Chris should I say? ;) I've never really played the game on my own, except when I first got it and I never have since. I've mostly played as Sheva, mainly so I never have to see how bad her AI is again, she's also one the most poorly voiced characters I've played as.
It's a survival horror game, but honestly, it doesn't feel like one. The game isn't scary at all, although the chainsaw manjini's are terrifying when they're after you. Plus there's lots of ammo and so much weaponry, my definition may be a bit different to yours, but for a good survival horror for me, would be a lack of ammo and strong enemies that cause you to have to run away. But the sensitivity is very slow and you can only shoot standing still, so you've always got to be alert there.
The graphics aren't that great, but they're ok, the enemies look really evil, but the monster type bosses look ridiculous. They're just squid-like creatures with orange balls on. Sounds stupid right? The melee is awful, it's so slow and with you standing still they have to be right next to you. The enemies melee attack is so much faster, being able to melee is the most pointless feature I've seen in a game, they should have removed it. The laser sight is your only way to aim, it's pretty awkward but you'll get used to it, I'd much have preferred a reticle though.
You can trade with you partner, things like herbs and ammo, if you're playing on your own, then you can dump most of it on Sheva. There's a great point system giving you final ranks on missions, that make you want to get an S rank on all the levels to unlock some cool extras. Upgrading and purchasing weapons is addicting, with so much to get, it certainly makes you play the game a lot to get the sufficient amount of money.
I wasn't that engaged in the story, but that's mainly because I didn't know what was happening, as this was my first Res game. The game is full of terrible dialogue and really average voice acting. The game was released in 2009 but still followed 'old style gaming', every time you interacted with a locked door, it would stop the game to tell you it was locked rather than an animation of you trying to open the door, or a chest would open up on its own instead of your character doing it. Doors close after you open them, so if you're not with your partner, you'd have to open the door again and it would be an animation of you going through the door, instead of letting you walk through yourself. Maybe old school Res fans would like that, but not me, if I wanted to play old-style games, I'd play the first Res. There were constant short cutscenes every time you did anything, you'd walk an inch and then there'd be a cutscene showing the enemies entering the area, this happened with almost every group of enemies. It was a constant stop and start and really slowed the game down. You'd have to wait for your partner to open a heavy door or get in a lift, rather than the next section trigger when just one of you gets there, even if you're playing on your own you still have to wait for the dumb AI to catch up.
The game is nothing special, but it's so much fun and I never get bored of it, if I rated based on how fun it is, it'd be a ten! But I judge it as a game and have my own criteria to judge, suffice to say this game is rated lower than what I even expected. But I highly recommend everyone to play this game if they have a buddy. Despite not playing many older Res games, I hope the next one feels more like a survival horror. Suck on that, Wesker.
7.4/10
Monday, 30 May 2016
Wolfenstein The New Order (Xbox One)
"The Nazi's rule the world now". Wolfenstein TNO is a first person shooter game set in an alternative history, in which the Nazi's won the war and had advanced technologies, which lead to them ruling the world. You return as B.J Blazkowicz, who starred in the previous games and helps the resistance against the Nazi's. TNO is the seventh Wolfenstein game and it also spawned a spin off game soon after, entitled The Old Blood. I've only played two all the way through (including this one), but I really enjoyed Wolfenstein (2009) and thought this one looked great. So let's enter General Deathshead's compound.
The game looks amazing and the in game cinematics are seen through B.J's eyes, so you feel like you're really watching the game through his perspective. At times in this game there are incredibly tense moments that make you worry if something's about to happen or not. It's like they were taken from a Tarantino movie, they're so well done. The scenes and interactions are the best parts of the game I'd say. In the first mission there is a choice for you to make, with both leading to alternative storylines, this gives the game some replayability which is always a good thing.
The game has a good selection of weapons and even has dual-weilding. Despite being a first person action game, you can also choose a stealth approach often in the game. Being equipped with throwing knives, putting a silencer on a pistol and being able to do takedowns on enemies are good ways to avoid an unnecessary battle. The game also has a perk system, where if you do the requirements you unlock an upgrade and the next objective to try and unlock more perks. This was a fun addition as I enjoyed trying to unlock all the perks and it made me try different things with what you were asked to do to unlock another perk, so I'd end up using different tactics and weapons I wouldn't usually use.
The game has health and armour and what's good is when you lose health, it regenerates but stops at a certain number depending on how much you lose. It starts at 100 and if you pick up more heath packs it becomes overcharged, but drops down until it hits 100 again. The story is a great 'what if' and interesting enough to keep you engaged, there's a rescue mission, a prison break and even a mission to the moon for all those aspiring astronauts. There's even a torture scene for the sicko's, it caters everyone's needs! The characters feel real and are well voice acted, they look great too. But the villians are by far the most memorable. General Deathshead is psychotic and Engel is terrifying (you'll find out why). There's also some unique sections involving driving and swimming so you're not always running and gunning, there's also boss battles that fit well and aren't too over the top. It's also good that the weapons have attachments like silencers and grenade launchers to give you more ways to play.
Something that was very annoying was having to pick up everything like ammo and collectables. You're always gonna want ammo if you can carry it, so why can't you just run over the ammo and collect it? It's a pain having to keep stopping to pick it up. There's a few times in the game were you have to run and jump to or off something, this should not be in the game because I died missing the jump more than being killed by Nazi's! You can lean around cover which can be useful, but in the tutorial section you have to lean under the door to shoot someone, I never used this again after that so it felt pointless being able to do it. You could also carry every possible weapon at once, including the dual wielding weapons, provided they could all be picked up in the level. This made you overpowered being able to carry so much and switch to any weapon available in the game. There's also a bunch of pointless side tasks in between missions, one for example is that you need to get a power tool, you go to the power tool box and find a note that says someone took it, you go to the person who supposedly has it and it turns out they dropped it miles away, you then go to find it and once you have it, go do the original task. A lot of effort don't you think? These should have been able to be skipped or something because they were unnecessary long.
Wolfenstein looks great and has a very unique and interesting story. It has replayability, with two alternate storylines but that's more or less all it has. Just a story, but a strong one. It's also a very short one too if you know where to go and such. The characters are the stand out feature here. I'm looking forward to playing the stand alone game, The Old Blood. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if more Wolfenstein games are announced and I'll play it for sure! See you at Castle Wolfenstein.
7.4/10
The game looks amazing and the in game cinematics are seen through B.J's eyes, so you feel like you're really watching the game through his perspective. At times in this game there are incredibly tense moments that make you worry if something's about to happen or not. It's like they were taken from a Tarantino movie, they're so well done. The scenes and interactions are the best parts of the game I'd say. In the first mission there is a choice for you to make, with both leading to alternative storylines, this gives the game some replayability which is always a good thing.
The game has a good selection of weapons and even has dual-weilding. Despite being a first person action game, you can also choose a stealth approach often in the game. Being equipped with throwing knives, putting a silencer on a pistol and being able to do takedowns on enemies are good ways to avoid an unnecessary battle. The game also has a perk system, where if you do the requirements you unlock an upgrade and the next objective to try and unlock more perks. This was a fun addition as I enjoyed trying to unlock all the perks and it made me try different things with what you were asked to do to unlock another perk, so I'd end up using different tactics and weapons I wouldn't usually use.
The game has health and armour and what's good is when you lose health, it regenerates but stops at a certain number depending on how much you lose. It starts at 100 and if you pick up more heath packs it becomes overcharged, but drops down until it hits 100 again. The story is a great 'what if' and interesting enough to keep you engaged, there's a rescue mission, a prison break and even a mission to the moon for all those aspiring astronauts. There's even a torture scene for the sicko's, it caters everyone's needs! The characters feel real and are well voice acted, they look great too. But the villians are by far the most memorable. General Deathshead is psychotic and Engel is terrifying (you'll find out why). There's also some unique sections involving driving and swimming so you're not always running and gunning, there's also boss battles that fit well and aren't too over the top. It's also good that the weapons have attachments like silencers and grenade launchers to give you more ways to play.
Something that was very annoying was having to pick up everything like ammo and collectables. You're always gonna want ammo if you can carry it, so why can't you just run over the ammo and collect it? It's a pain having to keep stopping to pick it up. There's a few times in the game were you have to run and jump to or off something, this should not be in the game because I died missing the jump more than being killed by Nazi's! You can lean around cover which can be useful, but in the tutorial section you have to lean under the door to shoot someone, I never used this again after that so it felt pointless being able to do it. You could also carry every possible weapon at once, including the dual wielding weapons, provided they could all be picked up in the level. This made you overpowered being able to carry so much and switch to any weapon available in the game. There's also a bunch of pointless side tasks in between missions, one for example is that you need to get a power tool, you go to the power tool box and find a note that says someone took it, you go to the person who supposedly has it and it turns out they dropped it miles away, you then go to find it and once you have it, go do the original task. A lot of effort don't you think? These should have been able to be skipped or something because they were unnecessary long.
Wolfenstein looks great and has a very unique and interesting story. It has replayability, with two alternate storylines but that's more or less all it has. Just a story, but a strong one. It's also a very short one too if you know where to go and such. The characters are the stand out feature here. I'm looking forward to playing the stand alone game, The Old Blood. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if more Wolfenstein games are announced and I'll play it for sure! See you at Castle Wolfenstein.
7.4/10
Friday, 27 May 2016
Crackdown (Xbox 360)
Let's get crackin'! Crackdown was released way back in 2007 and even came with a Halo 3 beta code, old right? It was one of the first dozen games I played on the 360 (also the game I was playing when I first witnessed the red ring of death! D:) and also the one of the first open world games I played on 360 too.
Crackdown is about an agency trying to bring down the crime in the city. You are an agent who becomes faster and stronger the more you build up your skills. There are three major gangs and each has seven targets for you to wipe out. Some are really difficult and a pain to get to so you want to play careful sometimes.
This game is so fun. Jumping around on rooftops and climbing buildings, blowing shit up, it's awesome. Leveling up your abilities is addicting and watching your scrawny agent change over time in to a huge beefcake makes you feel tough and it's easy on the eyes! Beating the crap out of enemies and throwing things like boxes and cars (if you're strong enough) is way more fun than shooting them.
The games story is pretty non-existent, you get the objective of 'cleaning up the city' and more or less get on with it. The only story related type of cutscenes are the updates about the boss you've discovered, when you've killed a boss and when you've wiped out a gang. They're also pretty boring so you'll most likely skip them. You have a handler in the form of a voice over, the voice is cool but when he chimes in all the time moaning at you to do stuff, I'd often greet him with a "STFU". What's really good about this game, is that you pick which boss to go after if you've discovered their location, the game isn't linear and let's you go where you choose.
The graphics are beautiful, they're in the form of cell shaded (the first game I'd even seen in this type, yes, a game of many firsts it turns out). I loved taking out the gang bosses, it felt so good to rid the city of one less boss. They were pretty difficult at times and you know you were making progress when you took one out. One cool feature was being able to target different limbs so you could disarm people or make them fall over. There's also a pretty good selection of weapons and a huge variety of cars to drive. The sound of the guns and the explosions was music to my ears. There were also a bunch of different agents for you to play as and you could also customise them but it was pretty limited. This is a great game to play in co-op and it's much more fun, so grab a buddy or make a friend if need be.
Some of the controls took some getting used to X to switch weapons and LB to reload were off putting. Your agent doesn't talk and there were no feelings I felt towards them and whenever you died you could just respawn, it just made you feel like you were expendable. Even though the limb targeting was a good idea, it was very frustrating at how easy it was to accidentally aim at their arms over their torso. It was also annoying how quick you could be overwhelmed by a few enemies, dying so fast even if you were a highly skilled agent. Also being able to aim at dead bodies was a pain, especially if you were in a big gun battle trying to kill the living rather than continuing to shoot the recently deceased. I found grenade throwing poor too as it seemed to hardly go anywhere and always seemed to damage me no matter where I stood. The driving handling was quite difficult but I preferred to run and jump around instead, it was so much better.
The game had a bunch of side stuff too like road races and rooftop racing to help your stats grow. There wasn't much else that added to the game that felt worth doing. The game was quite buggy too which I noticed more recently than back in the day. Some bosses just didn't seem to spawn, so I'd have to go to a completely different part of the map and then go back and hope they'd show. Some enemies would just flash and dissappear and would show up again when you had your back to them and were vulnerable. It made the game seem cheap. Not grabbing ledges despite facing them and losing progress of climbing a ridiculously tall building never made sense either.
Crackdown is soon to be a trilogy and I'm glad it's a game that's been a success and spawned more games. I'm surprised by how happy I was when the third game was announced at E3, I guess I liked it more than I thought. I for one am really looking forward to what CD3 will bring and will certainly plan to write a few words on it. Until then Crackdown.
7.1/10
Crackdown is about an agency trying to bring down the crime in the city. You are an agent who becomes faster and stronger the more you build up your skills. There are three major gangs and each has seven targets for you to wipe out. Some are really difficult and a pain to get to so you want to play careful sometimes.
This game is so fun. Jumping around on rooftops and climbing buildings, blowing shit up, it's awesome. Leveling up your abilities is addicting and watching your scrawny agent change over time in to a huge beefcake makes you feel tough and it's easy on the eyes! Beating the crap out of enemies and throwing things like boxes and cars (if you're strong enough) is way more fun than shooting them.
The games story is pretty non-existent, you get the objective of 'cleaning up the city' and more or less get on with it. The only story related type of cutscenes are the updates about the boss you've discovered, when you've killed a boss and when you've wiped out a gang. They're also pretty boring so you'll most likely skip them. You have a handler in the form of a voice over, the voice is cool but when he chimes in all the time moaning at you to do stuff, I'd often greet him with a "STFU". What's really good about this game, is that you pick which boss to go after if you've discovered their location, the game isn't linear and let's you go where you choose.
The graphics are beautiful, they're in the form of cell shaded (the first game I'd even seen in this type, yes, a game of many firsts it turns out). I loved taking out the gang bosses, it felt so good to rid the city of one less boss. They were pretty difficult at times and you know you were making progress when you took one out. One cool feature was being able to target different limbs so you could disarm people or make them fall over. There's also a pretty good selection of weapons and a huge variety of cars to drive. The sound of the guns and the explosions was music to my ears. There were also a bunch of different agents for you to play as and you could also customise them but it was pretty limited. This is a great game to play in co-op and it's much more fun, so grab a buddy or make a friend if need be.
Some of the controls took some getting used to X to switch weapons and LB to reload were off putting. Your agent doesn't talk and there were no feelings I felt towards them and whenever you died you could just respawn, it just made you feel like you were expendable. Even though the limb targeting was a good idea, it was very frustrating at how easy it was to accidentally aim at their arms over their torso. It was also annoying how quick you could be overwhelmed by a few enemies, dying so fast even if you were a highly skilled agent. Also being able to aim at dead bodies was a pain, especially if you were in a big gun battle trying to kill the living rather than continuing to shoot the recently deceased. I found grenade throwing poor too as it seemed to hardly go anywhere and always seemed to damage me no matter where I stood. The driving handling was quite difficult but I preferred to run and jump around instead, it was so much better.
The game had a bunch of side stuff too like road races and rooftop racing to help your stats grow. There wasn't much else that added to the game that felt worth doing. The game was quite buggy too which I noticed more recently than back in the day. Some bosses just didn't seem to spawn, so I'd have to go to a completely different part of the map and then go back and hope they'd show. Some enemies would just flash and dissappear and would show up again when you had your back to them and were vulnerable. It made the game seem cheap. Not grabbing ledges despite facing them and losing progress of climbing a ridiculously tall building never made sense either.
Crackdown is soon to be a trilogy and I'm glad it's a game that's been a success and spawned more games. I'm surprised by how happy I was when the third game was announced at E3, I guess I liked it more than I thought. I for one am really looking forward to what CD3 will bring and will certainly plan to write a few words on it. Until then Crackdown.
7.1/10
Sunday, 22 May 2016
Far Cry: Primal (Xbox One)
Welcome to my Far Cry 3 review! Wait, no, it's Far Cry 4. Hang on, no, it's Far Cry Primal! Sorry, it's hard to tell, they're all practically the same.
The Far Cry series has became very similar the past few releases, I could've also included Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon in the introduction, but I did want to get this review started one day. It's not necessarily a bad thing, FC3 is one of the best games I've played in recent years, however, doing the exact same thing over and over again, THAT is the definition of insanity. FC3 was so successful that FC4 did the exact same thing, but not nearly as good. Primal is set in the Stone Age, I thought this was a brilliant idea, I've never played a game set in that era and it was brilliantly done. Sabertooth tigers and mammoths walk the earth and fight with you if you keep them on your good side.
Being in a completely different era to the more modern-day setting, Primal had to do almost everything differently to fit the new, or older setting should I say? There's no camera to tag enemies, so how about an owl you can control that soares through the skies, tagging all the enemies in sight? There are no gun stores, so why not scavenge and make your on arrows for your bow by collecting wood from trees? I thought the owl tagging was a genius idea, it was one of my favourite new features. But, the biggest new feature of all, animal taming. You want a sabertooth tiger to do your bidding don't you? Of course you do! Crafting bait and hurling it towards a beast and slowly approaching it, to calm the animal down gets it to follow and fight for you. There's a number of different animals to tame, leopards, bears and badgers? Yes, badgers those ferocious, little Devils!
The game looks great, the people are always really close up in the scenes and you can see so much detail in their faces and their eyes look so real. However, it's a bit different for the close ups of the tamed beasts, they look pixely but it's only when you heal them you notice. The story isn't very memorable and nor is it that interesting, you are a Wenja, a tribe at war with the Udam tribe, while also fighting Izila tribe. One of the main characters was called Sayla, a Wenja who is haunted by the screams of the dead Wenja's and is emotionally hurt at the deaths of her fellow tribe. That makes sense, but what doesn't, when you first encounter her, she immediately tries to kill you. A Wenja. So much for caring about all us Wenja's! I found it hard to like any character in truth. They just weren't that memorable and they hardly even featured in the storyline. The game has no English whatsoever. It's the first game I've played in a completely different language, which made it unique.
Plenty of the good, older features were present. Animals you hunted showing as an x on the minimap, so you could find the carcass was always useful. Searching bodies for extra items and even the crafting with animal skins to create better gear. As there were no guns when this game is set, FC had to really focus on the melee. I really liked it, nothing like swinging your club or striking with your spear. I found melee fights to be way more fun than the gun fights ever were in the older games. Outposts were also back, which are by far the most fun thing to do in Primal, taking out a bunch of enemies using stealth to capture the outpost was always enjoyable. You could even use your owl to smash open cages animals were captured in, so they could take out enemies at the outpost for you. Owls could also drop any type of bomb weapon on the enemies below if you had any.
Crafting ammo was one of the best things in the game, you always need weapons so constantly scavenging for items was always a priority. You could also set most weapons on and even if you went up to fire with a weapon, it would automatically catch fire, which I thought was pretty cool. Not losing health every time you fell a metre was also an improvement the series really needed, that was how I would usually lose all my health... by jumping hardly a metre. Riding mammoths and some tamed beast was the fastest way to travel, but it can take a while to unlock the skill. Of course, there's fast travel, provided you've unlocked where you want to go. This game has the best fast travel, the loading screens in between are incredibly fast. There were actual boss fights. Yes, you weren't drugged up and hallucinating them this time, they actually were in real time!
However, there were still some hallucination missions. I've always disliked them, they really take me away from the game and I rush through them as fast as I can. Please no more in the next game, thanks. There were side missions too, they were boring and so pointless, they were only worth doing to get an extra skill point to upgrade yourself. Tamed beasts could be frustrating as when they're low health and you're calling them back to heal, if there's hostiles around they will try and kill them even if you're constantly calling them back to heal. This lead to many of my furry companions dying and me not bothering to revive them for disobeying me. One also got me caught and raised an alarm during a stealth operation at an outpost, I can't blame my sabertooth really though, he was trying to crawl alongside me and be stealthy too. One more thing I hated was, if you were controlling the owl and dropping bombs and such with it, the more you threw, the more alert the enemies became. All of a sudden you'll be kicked out of the owl screen to the first person view, because they've discovered you. I have no idea how an owl flying in the sky dropping stuff on you, gives away my exact location, hundreds of metres away on the ground. Be like seeing a plane in the sky and then running all the way to the air traffic controller and beating them up if you ask me. Makes no sense, does it?
All in all the game isn't bad, but that's because of how good FC3 was and it plays exactly the same. Uninteresting and forgettable story but a very memorable setting with some great new features (taming beasts). I certainly hope this isn't the last we see of Far Cry, but I hope it's the last we see of the game copying and pasting its predecessors.
7/10
The Far Cry series has became very similar the past few releases, I could've also included Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon in the introduction, but I did want to get this review started one day. It's not necessarily a bad thing, FC3 is one of the best games I've played in recent years, however, doing the exact same thing over and over again, THAT is the definition of insanity. FC3 was so successful that FC4 did the exact same thing, but not nearly as good. Primal is set in the Stone Age, I thought this was a brilliant idea, I've never played a game set in that era and it was brilliantly done. Sabertooth tigers and mammoths walk the earth and fight with you if you keep them on your good side.
Being in a completely different era to the more modern-day setting, Primal had to do almost everything differently to fit the new, or older setting should I say? There's no camera to tag enemies, so how about an owl you can control that soares through the skies, tagging all the enemies in sight? There are no gun stores, so why not scavenge and make your on arrows for your bow by collecting wood from trees? I thought the owl tagging was a genius idea, it was one of my favourite new features. But, the biggest new feature of all, animal taming. You want a sabertooth tiger to do your bidding don't you? Of course you do! Crafting bait and hurling it towards a beast and slowly approaching it, to calm the animal down gets it to follow and fight for you. There's a number of different animals to tame, leopards, bears and badgers? Yes, badgers those ferocious, little Devils!
The game looks great, the people are always really close up in the scenes and you can see so much detail in their faces and their eyes look so real. However, it's a bit different for the close ups of the tamed beasts, they look pixely but it's only when you heal them you notice. The story isn't very memorable and nor is it that interesting, you are a Wenja, a tribe at war with the Udam tribe, while also fighting Izila tribe. One of the main characters was called Sayla, a Wenja who is haunted by the screams of the dead Wenja's and is emotionally hurt at the deaths of her fellow tribe. That makes sense, but what doesn't, when you first encounter her, she immediately tries to kill you. A Wenja. So much for caring about all us Wenja's! I found it hard to like any character in truth. They just weren't that memorable and they hardly even featured in the storyline. The game has no English whatsoever. It's the first game I've played in a completely different language, which made it unique.
Plenty of the good, older features were present. Animals you hunted showing as an x on the minimap, so you could find the carcass was always useful. Searching bodies for extra items and even the crafting with animal skins to create better gear. As there were no guns when this game is set, FC had to really focus on the melee. I really liked it, nothing like swinging your club or striking with your spear. I found melee fights to be way more fun than the gun fights ever were in the older games. Outposts were also back, which are by far the most fun thing to do in Primal, taking out a bunch of enemies using stealth to capture the outpost was always enjoyable. You could even use your owl to smash open cages animals were captured in, so they could take out enemies at the outpost for you. Owls could also drop any type of bomb weapon on the enemies below if you had any.
Crafting ammo was one of the best things in the game, you always need weapons so constantly scavenging for items was always a priority. You could also set most weapons on and even if you went up to fire with a weapon, it would automatically catch fire, which I thought was pretty cool. Not losing health every time you fell a metre was also an improvement the series really needed, that was how I would usually lose all my health... by jumping hardly a metre. Riding mammoths and some tamed beast was the fastest way to travel, but it can take a while to unlock the skill. Of course, there's fast travel, provided you've unlocked where you want to go. This game has the best fast travel, the loading screens in between are incredibly fast. There were actual boss fights. Yes, you weren't drugged up and hallucinating them this time, they actually were in real time!
However, there were still some hallucination missions. I've always disliked them, they really take me away from the game and I rush through them as fast as I can. Please no more in the next game, thanks. There were side missions too, they were boring and so pointless, they were only worth doing to get an extra skill point to upgrade yourself. Tamed beasts could be frustrating as when they're low health and you're calling them back to heal, if there's hostiles around they will try and kill them even if you're constantly calling them back to heal. This lead to many of my furry companions dying and me not bothering to revive them for disobeying me. One also got me caught and raised an alarm during a stealth operation at an outpost, I can't blame my sabertooth really though, he was trying to crawl alongside me and be stealthy too. One more thing I hated was, if you were controlling the owl and dropping bombs and such with it, the more you threw, the more alert the enemies became. All of a sudden you'll be kicked out of the owl screen to the first person view, because they've discovered you. I have no idea how an owl flying in the sky dropping stuff on you, gives away my exact location, hundreds of metres away on the ground. Be like seeing a plane in the sky and then running all the way to the air traffic controller and beating them up if you ask me. Makes no sense, does it?
All in all the game isn't bad, but that's because of how good FC3 was and it plays exactly the same. Uninteresting and forgettable story but a very memorable setting with some great new features (taming beasts). I certainly hope this isn't the last we see of Far Cry, but I hope it's the last we see of the game copying and pasting its predecessors.
7/10
Friday, 13 May 2016
Portal 2 (Xbox 360)
After hearing so many good things about Portal 2 and seeing the game highly rated on every review site, I decided to finally get down to it. I played the first Portal thanks to The Orange Box, so I knew about the game already.
The game is a unique puzzler and using the Portal gun is incredibly fun. You shoot a blue and orange portal that act as doorways, enter one and come out the other. The game doesn't sound too exciting but you may be surprised. The game follows the first one, some time after and paves the way for an exciting story of betrayal and the help of an old 'friend'. Despite playing as a silent protagonist, the characters in this game are fantastic and this is one of the funniest games I've ever played. A brilliant performance by Stephen Merchant who plays Wheatley, who helps you attempt to escape the Aperture Science facility. Even J.K Simmons voices a character, a character who isn't interested in pictures of Spider-Man believe it or not!
The game has everything, an excellent story, humorous and fantastically voiced characters, fun game mechanics and a brilliant co-op mode. I was very surprised to see the second one become a full release game, as it didn't seem like there was much to expand into. Well, I was wrong. The first game was kinda cool, a unique puzzle game with a hilarious villian called GLaDOS. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did and I never expected it to get a sequel, nor did I anticipate the high praise either. I mean, this game is technically you being put in a chamber and trying to figure out how to get to the exit but at the same time, it's so much more than that. The game is just fantastic and when you play it you will understand why.
I won't say much more about the plot of the story other than it's definitely worth playing through. The game looks great, you can tell that they designed the place to look like a real high-tech science facility. The test chambers are well designed and some of the puzzles really make you think about how you get through it. There's nothing better in a game than feeling like you've achieved something and this game does that when you figure out the chambers. You feel like a genius and even a 'badass' when you complete a test at times. Or maybe that's just me. The co-op is so fun, this game flourishes in co-op mode as well. It's one of the most fun games I've played with a partner and if you have a friend to play it with, then make sure you do. Some puzzles can be difficult to figure out but as the saying goes, 'two heads are better than one'.
If you had two heads, then you'd know this game was worth playing.
8.4/10
The game is a unique puzzler and using the Portal gun is incredibly fun. You shoot a blue and orange portal that act as doorways, enter one and come out the other. The game doesn't sound too exciting but you may be surprised. The game follows the first one, some time after and paves the way for an exciting story of betrayal and the help of an old 'friend'. Despite playing as a silent protagonist, the characters in this game are fantastic and this is one of the funniest games I've ever played. A brilliant performance by Stephen Merchant who plays Wheatley, who helps you attempt to escape the Aperture Science facility. Even J.K Simmons voices a character, a character who isn't interested in pictures of Spider-Man believe it or not!
The game has everything, an excellent story, humorous and fantastically voiced characters, fun game mechanics and a brilliant co-op mode. I was very surprised to see the second one become a full release game, as it didn't seem like there was much to expand into. Well, I was wrong. The first game was kinda cool, a unique puzzle game with a hilarious villian called GLaDOS. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did and I never expected it to get a sequel, nor did I anticipate the high praise either. I mean, this game is technically you being put in a chamber and trying to figure out how to get to the exit but at the same time, it's so much more than that. The game is just fantastic and when you play it you will understand why.
I won't say much more about the plot of the story other than it's definitely worth playing through. The game looks great, you can tell that they designed the place to look like a real high-tech science facility. The test chambers are well designed and some of the puzzles really make you think about how you get through it. There's nothing better in a game than feeling like you've achieved something and this game does that when you figure out the chambers. You feel like a genius and even a 'badass' when you complete a test at times. Or maybe that's just me. The co-op is so fun, this game flourishes in co-op mode as well. It's one of the most fun games I've played with a partner and if you have a friend to play it with, then make sure you do. Some puzzles can be difficult to figure out but as the saying goes, 'two heads are better than one'.
If you had two heads, then you'd know this game was worth playing.
8.4/10
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One)
The sequel to the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot is here. I never played any of the older Tomb Raider games sadly, despite their popularity. I did however start with the reboot. I received this game the Christmas a month after its release, I only had a choice between TR and Fallout 4 on the release and it's pretty obvious F4 was going to win, but this is a Tomb Raider review, so enough about Fallout! :(
This is a direct sequel to the reboot and as good as this game was, it wasn't anything special, unlike the first one. The game is good but there's not much new and is more of the same but a little less engaging. I found the story and characters to be less interesting than the first. The game is very Uncharted like which is definitely a good thing, I guess in short you could describe the new TR as 'Uncharted with a female lead and a lot less humour'. Being compared to Uncharted can only ever be a good thing though, right?
The story I found to be less interesting as last time we were trying to save Lara's friends, but this time we were trying to stop the villain from getting some sort of supernatural artifact, taking an Uncharted approach storyline (and yes, this probably won't be the last Uncharted comparison). The gameplay, like the first is excellent! A nice choice of weapons to choose, like pistols, shotguns etc but the bow is the most fun obviously. Creating poison, fire and explosives arrows is a great new feature and can take out groups of enemies effectively. The scenery is beautiful to look at and walking in the snow is so well done, the graphics are great and looks pretty realistic at times. Side missions were a good addition that added to the game but I found the option to turn them down pointless.
The secondary characters aren't very interesting and a pretty poor main villain really brings the game down. To not care about the characters isn't too helpful in a game, but at least Lara is pretty cool. The climbing mechanics are great and the action scenes are fantastic and the best parts of the game for sure. The stealth sections seemed to have improved, although they were pretty good anyway for a third person action game. Getting stealth kills by sneaking up on enemies or doing takedowns from above is a nice change of pace and it's always a plus to avoid shootouts.
The music fits the game really well and sets the tone for an adventure game. Another important feature is now being able to sprint, why wouldn't you wanna run faster? Climbable arrows are new also they let you shoot them into certain walls to climb higher up. They can be quite awkward at times as I fell to my death more than once, but when you get used to how they work they should be no trouble. You can now also heal during a fight, by quickly crafting a medkit, this is incredibly handy seeing as you can die very quick when you're out in the open. All the items you can pick up lets you craft arrows or upgrades for your gear, which makes you want to scavenge constantly. The grappling hook was also a nice new addition, being able to get across huge gaps that would result in your death.
A couple of bugs and imperfections, like your bow disappearing off your back when you squeezed through walls and then magically reappearing when you're out of the cinematic definitely wasn't pretty to watch. A good game overall but a pretty disapointing sequel to what was a brilliant game and a fantastic reboot to the popular but deflating franchise. Tomb Raider is definitely back and I'm looking forward to more, but they definitely need to up their game for the next one and not settle for a good game and aim for an amazing one like the first. But I'm just mainly glad that they went from the big boob, short shorts, cartwheeling sex object to an actual adventure-type looking female lead. See, not every female character needs to be a sex object to be great one. Let's hope the reboot of the movie franchise also remembers that and makes us forget about that movie Angelina Jolie starred in.
7.8/10
This is a direct sequel to the reboot and as good as this game was, it wasn't anything special, unlike the first one. The game is good but there's not much new and is more of the same but a little less engaging. I found the story and characters to be less interesting than the first. The game is very Uncharted like which is definitely a good thing, I guess in short you could describe the new TR as 'Uncharted with a female lead and a lot less humour'. Being compared to Uncharted can only ever be a good thing though, right?
The story I found to be less interesting as last time we were trying to save Lara's friends, but this time we were trying to stop the villain from getting some sort of supernatural artifact, taking an Uncharted approach storyline (and yes, this probably won't be the last Uncharted comparison). The gameplay, like the first is excellent! A nice choice of weapons to choose, like pistols, shotguns etc but the bow is the most fun obviously. Creating poison, fire and explosives arrows is a great new feature and can take out groups of enemies effectively. The scenery is beautiful to look at and walking in the snow is so well done, the graphics are great and looks pretty realistic at times. Side missions were a good addition that added to the game but I found the option to turn them down pointless.
The secondary characters aren't very interesting and a pretty poor main villain really brings the game down. To not care about the characters isn't too helpful in a game, but at least Lara is pretty cool. The climbing mechanics are great and the action scenes are fantastic and the best parts of the game for sure. The stealth sections seemed to have improved, although they were pretty good anyway for a third person action game. Getting stealth kills by sneaking up on enemies or doing takedowns from above is a nice change of pace and it's always a plus to avoid shootouts.
The music fits the game really well and sets the tone for an adventure game. Another important feature is now being able to sprint, why wouldn't you wanna run faster? Climbable arrows are new also they let you shoot them into certain walls to climb higher up. They can be quite awkward at times as I fell to my death more than once, but when you get used to how they work they should be no trouble. You can now also heal during a fight, by quickly crafting a medkit, this is incredibly handy seeing as you can die very quick when you're out in the open. All the items you can pick up lets you craft arrows or upgrades for your gear, which makes you want to scavenge constantly. The grappling hook was also a nice new addition, being able to get across huge gaps that would result in your death.
A couple of bugs and imperfections, like your bow disappearing off your back when you squeezed through walls and then magically reappearing when you're out of the cinematic definitely wasn't pretty to watch. A good game overall but a pretty disapointing sequel to what was a brilliant game and a fantastic reboot to the popular but deflating franchise. Tomb Raider is definitely back and I'm looking forward to more, but they definitely need to up their game for the next one and not settle for a good game and aim for an amazing one like the first. But I'm just mainly glad that they went from the big boob, short shorts, cartwheeling sex object to an actual adventure-type looking female lead. See, not every female character needs to be a sex object to be great one. Let's hope the reboot of the movie franchise also remembers that and makes us forget about that movie Angelina Jolie starred in.
7.8/10
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