As a FIFA player for over 15 years, a story mode is something I've always wanted, but never thought I'd see the day it arrived. FIFA 17 is the one they finally thought to give it a shot with, after Fight Night Champion gave it a crack in 2011. Alex Hunter, the grandson of the great, Jim Hunter, is a 17 year-old looking to make it in the big leagues. With the choice to sign for any Premier League club, you get the chance to make him a rising star for your favourite prem team.
The game has cutscenes that tell Hunters life and they look great. Powered by the Frostbite Engine, it looks real and the lip syncing is great, an odd plus for a FIFA game. There are a number of characters that show up, Hunter's family and people who pop up in his footballing life. Some of these are portrayed brilliantly, particularly Hunter's mother, Butler, the coach at your chosen team and Hunter's lifelong friend, Gareth Walker. Their performances seem so genuine and real.
The game works out as a more in depth Be A Pro, but you can also play as the whole team, which I found much more preferable. Hunter is aiming to get into the first team and an eventual starter. After the rise of fellow teammate, Walker, Hunter is then made to leave on loan to the Championship. So, you end up playing for two teams, which I didn't see coming but liked it as it made sense. Hunter is portrayed well, but it can be so hard to listen to his cringey dialogue, especially during the post-match interviews.
You get to pick which position to play as, you only get the choice of attacking positions. However, depending on what the default team is, the team you sign for may not play your position. I picked CAM and my chosen team didn't play with one, but my on loan team did, suffice to say I enjoyed being on loan, rather than playing for my favourite team. The weaker squads were always getting played too, third choice goalkeepers and the youth striker would play ahead of the star players. All the teams you played against had their star players on, which made it feel unfair. Williams was another footballing personality in the game, he featured often in cutscenes and in the social media tweets praising him and Hunter's partnership together, I think the whole time I was in the same squad as him, we played together twice. It was the same with Harry Kane, who was the big signing your team made, but he didn't feature with me once.
You can do training skills to improve your overall stats and you get punished by skipping them, you can lose your starting eleven place. I wanted to check my personal stats, like my goals and assists, but I didn't think you could. Turns out they were hidden by what I thought was an Ultimate Team advert, but after you looked at your UT rewards you could see your personal stats. I thought that Butler should've just been the manager of whatever team you chose, the real life manager features but never says anything, I know they couldn't get the real voices, but Butler acts like the manager, it just fits better. Also, when going for the league title, a random woman in a suit entered the dressing room and gave a big speech, Butler and the real manager just stood there, I had no idea who she was, she just entered, spoke and left, no one even told us who she was.
I think we were partly mis-sold, there weren't really choices. I was expecting choices that affected your career, not just picking how to react to dialogue. I was expecting people to ask you to come out drinking at a party and you had a dilemma of choosing whether to go out with your friends or call it a day for training the next day. Basically, someone says something or you get asked a question in an interview and you get three choices to respond with. The gist of each option is to reply humbly, cocky or standard responses. They didn't seem to really even matter, fiery just meant you'd get more Twitter followers and fall down the pecking order with your manager and the opposite if you responded cool.
The Journey is a welcomed addition to the FIFA series and I commend EA for trying something new as the franchise certainly needed a new feature/mode. It's only available on the newer generation of consoles, keep that in mind. Sadly, it's only one season long which gives you around forty five games to play, maybe Alex Hunter's story continues in FIFA 18 and a year of his career each new FIFA game. I didn't know the name Hunter, but I certainly do now.
7.5/10
Monday, 17 October 2016
Thursday, 13 October 2016
Red Faction Guerrilla: Demons of the Badlands DLC (Xbox 360)
Welcome to my first downloadable content review, these are gonna be rated out of 5, as DLC isn't always as interesting or enjoyable as full released games, so they're harder to critique on the same level.
Demons of the Badlands is the only main DLC pack for Red Faction Guerrilla. It's sort of a prequel to the main game. You play as Sam from the main game, she said in the campaign she was a Marauder, so that's what the DLC is. Sam as a Marauder looks kind of odd, her hairs now reddish and her outfit looks ridiculous. Mariner Valley is the new area of the game and is a Marauder territory that's been infested by the EDF.
There's new vehicles and weapons, some of the weapons aren't really worth using but there are some cool new ones, the vehicles are unique and cool to drive, they're better than the Marauder vehicles that featured in the original game. There's new demolitions and transporter missions, some of these are really cool, they're more unique and can be really challenging. That's probably the best thing about this content, but they're just optional side missions you'll only do for the 100% completion
You're thrown straight into the DLC with no introduction. If I hadn't just played the main game right before I started it, I probably wouldn't even realise the main character was in the original game. Sam being able to take on the EDF made no sense, she can take the fight to them as a Marauder, but in the main game as a Red Faction member she don't do shit but hide at the safehouses. That's why they should've made a new playable character and give them a back story, other than just playing as someone we know. There's only three main missions and they're not great, that being said, they weren't great either in the main game. But only three story missions for a pricey DLC, just not worth it.
This DLC honestly just shouldn't exist, it's pointless. It doesn't add anything to the story and just makes you question why Sam wasn't around more in the story or why the Marauders didn't help the Red Faction in taking out the EDF. There's nothing to justify buying this, so save your currency for something worthwhile.
2/5
Demons of the Badlands is the only main DLC pack for Red Faction Guerrilla. It's sort of a prequel to the main game. You play as Sam from the main game, she said in the campaign she was a Marauder, so that's what the DLC is. Sam as a Marauder looks kind of odd, her hairs now reddish and her outfit looks ridiculous. Mariner Valley is the new area of the game and is a Marauder territory that's been infested by the EDF.
There's new vehicles and weapons, some of the weapons aren't really worth using but there are some cool new ones, the vehicles are unique and cool to drive, they're better than the Marauder vehicles that featured in the original game. There's new demolitions and transporter missions, some of these are really cool, they're more unique and can be really challenging. That's probably the best thing about this content, but they're just optional side missions you'll only do for the 100% completion
You're thrown straight into the DLC with no introduction. If I hadn't just played the main game right before I started it, I probably wouldn't even realise the main character was in the original game. Sam being able to take on the EDF made no sense, she can take the fight to them as a Marauder, but in the main game as a Red Faction member she don't do shit but hide at the safehouses. That's why they should've made a new playable character and give them a back story, other than just playing as someone we know. There's only three main missions and they're not great, that being said, they weren't great either in the main game. But only three story missions for a pricey DLC, just not worth it.
This DLC honestly just shouldn't exist, it's pointless. It doesn't add anything to the story and just makes you question why Sam wasn't around more in the story or why the Marauders didn't help the Red Faction in taking out the EDF. There's nothing to justify buying this, so save your currency for something worthwhile.
2/5
Monday, 10 October 2016
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
Uncharted 2 released in 2009 and is a direct sequel to the PlayStation hit Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The game starts off immediately with a train wreck and an injured Nate, barely alive having to climb up the train as it dangles over an icy cliff. Shortly into the climb to safety, the game takes you back sometime before and are introduced to the new characters. Nate meets up with Flynn, a sarcastic, humorous type just like Nate, Chloe also so shows up, a tough and adventurous type, also like Nate! The trio set out to look for the Cintimani Stone and Shangri-la.
Along the way, Nate links up again with our favourites Sully and Elena. Sadly, Sully doesn't feature a lot in this game, but there's a lot of Elena and Chloe, they're great enough to fill the void left by Sully. Prior, you and your buddy Flynn attempt a heist to steal an oil lamp. Classic robbery, black suits and gloves, hiding from security and using takedowns and stun guns to get through stealthily. The conversations between both are so believable, they seem like real people and are hilarious together. The writers for Uncharted are brilliant and do a great job with the exposition during gameplay. It turns out they're not the only ones looking for the Cintimani Stone, Zoran Lazarevic, a Russian warlord is on the path too, armed with a military unit to aid him. Lazarevic is a much improved villian over the first one in Drake's Fortune and is portrayed excellently by Graham McTavish.
Halfway into the story, there is an excellent train sequence, where you make your way to the front, whether you are inside the carriages or on the trains roof. You're surrounded by enemies, but when you get a moment you can just watch the train go through some wonderful sights, the game takes you around the world, so sometimes you should take in the scenery, the developers did a great job and created a beautiful environment. You also get to traverse through snowy mountains, they look so real and it looks like you'd freeze to death if you were there, the game looks fantastic. Improved graphics with seemingly more facial detail and more real looking environments, much different to the grassy jungle and ruins from the first.
Gameplay is as good as ever and there's more stealth options too, it's mostly gun fights, but it's nice being able to take some enemies out quietly. Also some great new weapons dropped by the enemies, giving you more of a choice to disperse those pesky villains. I genuinely think this game shines in the moments you're just exploring and having conversations with those around you. They are always interesting, funny and develop the story. You can roll over and pick up ammo as you do it, this is extremely handy for dodging bullets and refilling your own when still surrounded. You can quick throw grenades now and even reverse enemy attacks when in hand-to-hand combat. Something that's always handy is being able to switch your shoulder aim, sometimes it's more useful to shoot from your other side.
There were some issues, not a lot. If you entered combat it was difficult to get out of, if another enemy was around and was shooting you as you were fighting, this caused a couple of deaths. As with platforming games, jumping to the wrong climbable object or even jumping to your death came naturally, one day a game will perfect jumping and climbing safely. While trying to stealth around a group of enemies, Chloe walked ahead of me and got caught, which automatically meant I was discovered too, not good when you're trying to play on hard difficulty, which is challenging enough, cheers Chloe, mate.
All in all, an improvement on what was already a stellar game. New fantastic characters and a brilliant villian, all portrayed excellently, this really is a sequel better than the original. The humor is too good, Nate's handbook that's filled with clues and information, even has funny drawings and quotes, yet the game is serious as well, it just gels perfectly. Well done Naughty Dog, you've proved countless times you can make a good game and a good series of games. Also, thanks for including the theme from the first, the music is excellent. I'm pretty sure every PlayStation gamer has played this, but play it again, it really deserves it.
9.1/10
Along the way, Nate links up again with our favourites Sully and Elena. Sadly, Sully doesn't feature a lot in this game, but there's a lot of Elena and Chloe, they're great enough to fill the void left by Sully. Prior, you and your buddy Flynn attempt a heist to steal an oil lamp. Classic robbery, black suits and gloves, hiding from security and using takedowns and stun guns to get through stealthily. The conversations between both are so believable, they seem like real people and are hilarious together. The writers for Uncharted are brilliant and do a great job with the exposition during gameplay. It turns out they're not the only ones looking for the Cintimani Stone, Zoran Lazarevic, a Russian warlord is on the path too, armed with a military unit to aid him. Lazarevic is a much improved villian over the first one in Drake's Fortune and is portrayed excellently by Graham McTavish.
Halfway into the story, there is an excellent train sequence, where you make your way to the front, whether you are inside the carriages or on the trains roof. You're surrounded by enemies, but when you get a moment you can just watch the train go through some wonderful sights, the game takes you around the world, so sometimes you should take in the scenery, the developers did a great job and created a beautiful environment. You also get to traverse through snowy mountains, they look so real and it looks like you'd freeze to death if you were there, the game looks fantastic. Improved graphics with seemingly more facial detail and more real looking environments, much different to the grassy jungle and ruins from the first.
Gameplay is as good as ever and there's more stealth options too, it's mostly gun fights, but it's nice being able to take some enemies out quietly. Also some great new weapons dropped by the enemies, giving you more of a choice to disperse those pesky villains. I genuinely think this game shines in the moments you're just exploring and having conversations with those around you. They are always interesting, funny and develop the story. You can roll over and pick up ammo as you do it, this is extremely handy for dodging bullets and refilling your own when still surrounded. You can quick throw grenades now and even reverse enemy attacks when in hand-to-hand combat. Something that's always handy is being able to switch your shoulder aim, sometimes it's more useful to shoot from your other side.
There were some issues, not a lot. If you entered combat it was difficult to get out of, if another enemy was around and was shooting you as you were fighting, this caused a couple of deaths. As with platforming games, jumping to the wrong climbable object or even jumping to your death came naturally, one day a game will perfect jumping and climbing safely. While trying to stealth around a group of enemies, Chloe walked ahead of me and got caught, which automatically meant I was discovered too, not good when you're trying to play on hard difficulty, which is challenging enough, cheers Chloe, mate.
All in all, an improvement on what was already a stellar game. New fantastic characters and a brilliant villian, all portrayed excellently, this really is a sequel better than the original. The humor is too good, Nate's handbook that's filled with clues and information, even has funny drawings and quotes, yet the game is serious as well, it just gels perfectly. Well done Naughty Dog, you've proved countless times you can make a good game and a good series of games. Also, thanks for including the theme from the first, the music is excellent. I'm pretty sure every PlayStation gamer has played this, but play it again, it really deserves it.
9.1/10
Saturday, 8 October 2016
The Order: 1886 (PS4)
The Order was something I was very interested in when I first saw it. When it was first shown I was intrigued because I like Victorian England as a setting in a video game. It was originally sold to me as a monster hunting game set in VE, then I saw the futuristic weapons. This immediately made me lose interest, but then when I saw the gameplay of the fight with what I thought was a werewolf, I was right back in there with interest. Anyway, let's get started.
The Order set in London, in the late 1800s follows a small group of knights who protect the world from 'half-breeds' and also protect against the Industrial Revolution. It's a third person action game that features a substantial amount of quick time events. You're put straight into the game where you play as Galahad, a knight who is in quite the predicament. Shortly after the prologue, you are taken back some time to where the story really starts. Galahad is a very serious man, which can lead to a boring playable character. There's something off-putting about a character that has the same angry face throughout. That's just it, all the characters are serious and they're often with you. Ingraine isn't always serious, but by God she is always annoying. Marquis is by far the best, he's funny and likeable, but he's surrounded by serious folk so his humor is quickly swept under the rug. I'd much have preferred him to be the star of the game.
Now, what people will have you think, is this is an average game and incredibly short. These are lies, the game is fairly short, I'll admit. I heard someone say they finished it in four hours, this is insane. It took me around seven, short I know, but I can only imagine it was completed in four hours on the easy difficulty. Now, if you're complaining about a game being too short and completed it on easy, you have no right to moan. A disappointing factor was that a couple chapters were just cutscenes. It's a shame they decided to do this and make you think the game was longer than it actually was, with it having sixteen chapters and at least three are cutscenes and a few more are rather short. Anyway, don't let reviews tell you this game is near four hours or its average. It's gameplay is pretty good.
The graphics are exceptional, truly some of the best I've seen. The detail in the faces are incredible, facial expressions are up there with LA Noire's face scans. The performances are really good, just all a bit too serious. The scenes look great and the way they transition into the gameplay are flawless, you almost don't realise you can now move your character. When you play as Galahad near the start, he is looking over the edge of a building and his hair is blowing in the wind, it's extraordinary! Hair is an incredibly difficult thing for developers, but Ready at Dawn not only made hair blow in the wind, but made it look real. There's no denying how good they made this game look.
The gameplay here is good, nothing really new, but well done. Typical cover shooter, with some good gun play. The blacklight move allows you to kill multiple enemies at once in slow motion and move the cursor to where you wanted to hit them. It was pretty cool, but I find it difficult to really aim at enemies heads, so I just shot where the aim already was and it worked just fine. There's a good amount of weapons and lots of ammo pickups for you too. The science weapons were great, although they felt out of place in a game set in the past. One would fire thermite and then let you fire at it to blast fire, another would shoot a burst of electricity that would instantly kill anything in the way and the last had a stun mechanic, you'd fire a sort of smoke blast that would stumble the enemy, leaving them at your mercy. Another cool feature in the gun play I liked, was when you killed an enemy the cursor went red as you shot them, this was a confirmed kill, so you needn't worry about them rising up from cover.
The enemies were quite smart too, always in cover and not just idly standing by, waiting for death by science! The shot-gunner enemies charged at you and were armoured up, they were pretty challenging. There was a lock picking mechanic that hadn't been done before, sometimes you gotta ask yourself, just how many ways can game developers come up with to enter locked doorways. You could use the PS4s touchpad once to call in support, but it was pointless, but I think the whole touchpad debacle is pointless in whole.
There wasn't a lot too bad with this game, a guy's beard was see through looking at it from the side, but I got over it. The credits went on so long, the music got bored and stopped. It was quite short, BUT NOT THAT SHORT! I think the most disappointing thing was that the boss battle was just a big QTE. It looked great though, one on one with a half-breed, armed only with a knife. Also the ending left me with so many unanswered questions. *SEQUEL ALERT*.
All in all, a decent story, amazing graphics, far too serious characters, disappointing boss battle, but with the capability of Ready at Dawn, I'm certainly looking forward to what else they can do. Just hopefully it looks as great as this and is a bit longer.
7/10
The Order set in London, in the late 1800s follows a small group of knights who protect the world from 'half-breeds' and also protect against the Industrial Revolution. It's a third person action game that features a substantial amount of quick time events. You're put straight into the game where you play as Galahad, a knight who is in quite the predicament. Shortly after the prologue, you are taken back some time to where the story really starts. Galahad is a very serious man, which can lead to a boring playable character. There's something off-putting about a character that has the same angry face throughout. That's just it, all the characters are serious and they're often with you. Ingraine isn't always serious, but by God she is always annoying. Marquis is by far the best, he's funny and likeable, but he's surrounded by serious folk so his humor is quickly swept under the rug. I'd much have preferred him to be the star of the game.
Now, what people will have you think, is this is an average game and incredibly short. These are lies, the game is fairly short, I'll admit. I heard someone say they finished it in four hours, this is insane. It took me around seven, short I know, but I can only imagine it was completed in four hours on the easy difficulty. Now, if you're complaining about a game being too short and completed it on easy, you have no right to moan. A disappointing factor was that a couple chapters were just cutscenes. It's a shame they decided to do this and make you think the game was longer than it actually was, with it having sixteen chapters and at least three are cutscenes and a few more are rather short. Anyway, don't let reviews tell you this game is near four hours or its average. It's gameplay is pretty good.
The graphics are exceptional, truly some of the best I've seen. The detail in the faces are incredible, facial expressions are up there with LA Noire's face scans. The performances are really good, just all a bit too serious. The scenes look great and the way they transition into the gameplay are flawless, you almost don't realise you can now move your character. When you play as Galahad near the start, he is looking over the edge of a building and his hair is blowing in the wind, it's extraordinary! Hair is an incredibly difficult thing for developers, but Ready at Dawn not only made hair blow in the wind, but made it look real. There's no denying how good they made this game look.
The gameplay here is good, nothing really new, but well done. Typical cover shooter, with some good gun play. The blacklight move allows you to kill multiple enemies at once in slow motion and move the cursor to where you wanted to hit them. It was pretty cool, but I find it difficult to really aim at enemies heads, so I just shot where the aim already was and it worked just fine. There's a good amount of weapons and lots of ammo pickups for you too. The science weapons were great, although they felt out of place in a game set in the past. One would fire thermite and then let you fire at it to blast fire, another would shoot a burst of electricity that would instantly kill anything in the way and the last had a stun mechanic, you'd fire a sort of smoke blast that would stumble the enemy, leaving them at your mercy. Another cool feature in the gun play I liked, was when you killed an enemy the cursor went red as you shot them, this was a confirmed kill, so you needn't worry about them rising up from cover.
The enemies were quite smart too, always in cover and not just idly standing by, waiting for death by science! The shot-gunner enemies charged at you and were armoured up, they were pretty challenging. There was a lock picking mechanic that hadn't been done before, sometimes you gotta ask yourself, just how many ways can game developers come up with to enter locked doorways. You could use the PS4s touchpad once to call in support, but it was pointless, but I think the whole touchpad debacle is pointless in whole.
There wasn't a lot too bad with this game, a guy's beard was see through looking at it from the side, but I got over it. The credits went on so long, the music got bored and stopped. It was quite short, BUT NOT THAT SHORT! I think the most disappointing thing was that the boss battle was just a big QTE. It looked great though, one on one with a half-breed, armed only with a knife. Also the ending left me with so many unanswered questions. *SEQUEL ALERT*.
All in all, a decent story, amazing graphics, far too serious characters, disappointing boss battle, but with the capability of Ready at Dawn, I'm certainly looking forward to what else they can do. Just hopefully it looks as great as this and is a bit longer.
7/10
Saturday, 1 October 2016
Gears of War (Xbox 360)
Gears of War is one of Xbox's biggest exclusive franchises, in my opinion this should be Xbox's promotional franchise over Halo, (sorry fanboys) it's good but I think Gears is a better series. Let's see why, shall we?
When I saw the trailer for this game, I had to get it. That eery trailer showing main character, Marcus taking on what looked like a giant spider was jaw dropping. I had to see that thing for myself! You are thrown straight into the game, on planet Sera. Dom, a fellow Gear soldier frees Marcus from prison, in an attempt to recruit him to Delta squad and fight the threat of the Locust. The Locust are a sort of reptilian-human mix, who are savage in their attempts to abolish humanity.
You play as Marcus Fenix, the very serious, angry badass. He's a tough guy and he's not someone you'd like to be up against. The rest of your squad are memorable characters too. Dom, looking for his wife, is the coop player and my personal favourite. He's just so likeable. He's serious and also has some funny remarks. Cole is the eccentric killing machine, nicknamed 'Cole-Train', he's the humouous one and then there's Bird, the sarcastic and often whiny one. All four together make a great group of characters.
GoW is a cover-to-cover shooter and it's easily one of the best around, the movement in cover is fluent and being able to vault and dive to more cover makes it safe to manouver during combat. The gun play is excellent too, you can also do a 'perfect reload', which is a manual, quicker reload. Now, the Lancer. The Lancer is one of the best weapons you will see, it's an assault rifle, with a God damn chainsaw attached. If the Locust get too close, whip out the chainsaw and make him think twice, as you split him in two! If you're not a fan of gore, then this probably won't be for you as it's easily one of the bloodiest games I've played, I think you may be able to turn the gore off.
This game is a perfect coop game, if you have a buddy to play Gears with, it'll make the game so much better. You can revive eachother if you go down and a human player means one less dumb AI to have around. I played through the whole game with a friend on the Insane difficultly and it was a challenge, but a really fun challenge.
There are some boss fights and one is probably the most memorable boss fight in recent years. The Bezerker. Holy shit was I terrified of this dude. A giant, blind reptilian creature, that charges at you if you make too much noise. Never has the term 'tread lightly' been so true. You can't shoot it with regular guns as it's practically bulletproof. The only way to kill it, is to lead it outside and use the Hammer of Dawn which is a satellite gun the reigns fire down upon thee. There's also a massive spider-type creature and also the main villian, General Raam, these two are not meant to be trifled with. But, if you're gonna want humanity to survive, you're gonna have to! There's also a lot of mini-boss Locust, like the Boomer, I can't help but love the Boomers. Mainly because they shout "Boom" as they fire their rockets at you. It's pretty funny in their monstrous voice.
There's a multiplayer mode that is very good and features many game modes and a ranking system that doesn't use experience gained in matches, I'm not really sure how it works, but I don't like the ranking. GoW is a great multiplayer game, but it requires skill to be good, unfortunately for me, I am not a good Gears player online. It feels so rewarding just when I get a kill, but that rarely ever happens.
All in all, there wasn't really many problems with the game. A confusing ranking system probably my main gripe, a couple of texture issues, but nothing major. A pain in the ass on-the-rail section, but when are they ever fun? I also didn't like how big all the characters where, normal people look like ants compared to these massive hench dudes. Everyone was very well voice acted and fitted their characters and a good, lengthy story. The game can not be missed and neither can the following games. Play this game, because for a game that's almost a decade old, it's still very much relevant.
8.4/10
When I saw the trailer for this game, I had to get it. That eery trailer showing main character, Marcus taking on what looked like a giant spider was jaw dropping. I had to see that thing for myself! You are thrown straight into the game, on planet Sera. Dom, a fellow Gear soldier frees Marcus from prison, in an attempt to recruit him to Delta squad and fight the threat of the Locust. The Locust are a sort of reptilian-human mix, who are savage in their attempts to abolish humanity.
You play as Marcus Fenix, the very serious, angry badass. He's a tough guy and he's not someone you'd like to be up against. The rest of your squad are memorable characters too. Dom, looking for his wife, is the coop player and my personal favourite. He's just so likeable. He's serious and also has some funny remarks. Cole is the eccentric killing machine, nicknamed 'Cole-Train', he's the humouous one and then there's Bird, the sarcastic and often whiny one. All four together make a great group of characters.
GoW is a cover-to-cover shooter and it's easily one of the best around, the movement in cover is fluent and being able to vault and dive to more cover makes it safe to manouver during combat. The gun play is excellent too, you can also do a 'perfect reload', which is a manual, quicker reload. Now, the Lancer. The Lancer is one of the best weapons you will see, it's an assault rifle, with a God damn chainsaw attached. If the Locust get too close, whip out the chainsaw and make him think twice, as you split him in two! If you're not a fan of gore, then this probably won't be for you as it's easily one of the bloodiest games I've played, I think you may be able to turn the gore off.
This game is a perfect coop game, if you have a buddy to play Gears with, it'll make the game so much better. You can revive eachother if you go down and a human player means one less dumb AI to have around. I played through the whole game with a friend on the Insane difficultly and it was a challenge, but a really fun challenge.
There are some boss fights and one is probably the most memorable boss fight in recent years. The Bezerker. Holy shit was I terrified of this dude. A giant, blind reptilian creature, that charges at you if you make too much noise. Never has the term 'tread lightly' been so true. You can't shoot it with regular guns as it's practically bulletproof. The only way to kill it, is to lead it outside and use the Hammer of Dawn which is a satellite gun the reigns fire down upon thee. There's also a massive spider-type creature and also the main villian, General Raam, these two are not meant to be trifled with. But, if you're gonna want humanity to survive, you're gonna have to! There's also a lot of mini-boss Locust, like the Boomer, I can't help but love the Boomers. Mainly because they shout "Boom" as they fire their rockets at you. It's pretty funny in their monstrous voice.
There's a multiplayer mode that is very good and features many game modes and a ranking system that doesn't use experience gained in matches, I'm not really sure how it works, but I don't like the ranking. GoW is a great multiplayer game, but it requires skill to be good, unfortunately for me, I am not a good Gears player online. It feels so rewarding just when I get a kill, but that rarely ever happens.
All in all, there wasn't really many problems with the game. A confusing ranking system probably my main gripe, a couple of texture issues, but nothing major. A pain in the ass on-the-rail section, but when are they ever fun? I also didn't like how big all the characters where, normal people look like ants compared to these massive hench dudes. Everyone was very well voice acted and fitted their characters and a good, lengthy story. The game can not be missed and neither can the following games. Play this game, because for a game that's almost a decade old, it's still very much relevant.
8.4/10
Thursday, 8 September 2016
Red Faction: Guerrilla (Xbox 360)
Is there life on Mars? Disappointingly, yes. Red Faction: Guerilla released in Summer 2009 and was my first game in the series. This series features great destruction physics that let you destroy buildings. Blowing up buildings or smashing them down with your sledgehammer is so fun and satisfying, it saves this game from being a forgettable one.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, it just could be so much better. I think it had huge potential that failed to deliver, too much focus went into the destruction, which is the only thing that's really good in this game. I'm yet to play Armageddon which was released after this, but if RF ever came back with the destruction and a more solid story and characters, I believe it could thrive.
Onto the game, you meet up with your brother on Mars (oh yeah, it's set on planet Mars) and you quickly discover that things aren't too swell. The EDF have pretty much taken over and the Red Faction are the resistance that are trying to liberate Mars from their control. Standard story really, except there are no characters. There's a couple named people, some only feature in cutscenes, in which there are only about five total, some can only be heard and some pretty much just suck. Alec Mason, who you play as is probably the best character. He's not really that good though, he's boring really, but he's the only one you ever see. The story is short and the missions are boring. You have to do around three missions to liberate each sector of Mars. The missions are basically hijack this, destroy that, not very interesting at all.
So, apart from the boring story and bland characters what else do we get? Well, we get the empty, dismal planet Mars to explore. There's literally nothing to look at, just rocky mountains and sandy roads. The driving is good and the amass of unique vehicles to drive makes for variety, but driving around is made even more boring when there's no radio or no music playing, you're literally driving around a deserted place with nothing but the sound of your car. You can get a walker which is a machine you can enter that has legs and arms and are a fun way to destroy buildings and enemies quickly. The graphics are very average, the buildings all look the same and the characters that do barely appear are boring or annoying. A lot of work is needed for character development and more cutscenes and story content is definitely needed.
The gun play wasn't to my liking, I hated getting in gun battles and the EDF had a specific gun that felt over powered as it could send your car flipping as they shot it. Thankfully the sledgehammer saves the day, it's powerful and fun to use. The enemies are annoying though as they're constantly running away, leaving you to chase after them. There is a vast selection of weapons including remote mines that you can tactically use to take down structures and plant a few at once, there's also a rocket launcher and land mines. The nano rifle is the most memorable though, a gun that can disintegrate buildings, vehicles and even enemies. The AI are stupidly annoying as they will get in your way and even run you off the road, they're so annoying and even when they're talking, they're not adding anything but more annoyance. They do join you and help you out when you're in a tough situation against the EDF and they even drive a car over to you when you're running on foot for a certain distance. These were nice touches to an otherwise useless group of friendlies.
However, there is a decent amount of content here, there's plenty of side activities which go from destroying buildings, attacking EDF locations, defending bases from assaults and many more. There's also a multiplayer that seems out of place, but it can actually be pretty fun. It has a bunch of backpacks that give off certain boosters like sprinting or shaking the screen to make shooting difficult. It has a bunch of modes to try out and there's also Wrecking Crew, which lets you destroy buildings in creative ways with some friends.
I hate to diss the game, but after playing it all the way through I have to. If it wasn't for the fun of destroying buildings I probably wouldn't have liked it at all, there is so much potential here but with THQ absent these days, there may never be a chance for this potential to be unleashed. I really hope Armageddon can redeem this as that could be the last we ever get in the series. There is life on Mars, I just wish it was a little more lively... and also green! Where were the little green martians?!
6.8/10
Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, it just could be so much better. I think it had huge potential that failed to deliver, too much focus went into the destruction, which is the only thing that's really good in this game. I'm yet to play Armageddon which was released after this, but if RF ever came back with the destruction and a more solid story and characters, I believe it could thrive.
Onto the game, you meet up with your brother on Mars (oh yeah, it's set on planet Mars) and you quickly discover that things aren't too swell. The EDF have pretty much taken over and the Red Faction are the resistance that are trying to liberate Mars from their control. Standard story really, except there are no characters. There's a couple named people, some only feature in cutscenes, in which there are only about five total, some can only be heard and some pretty much just suck. Alec Mason, who you play as is probably the best character. He's not really that good though, he's boring really, but he's the only one you ever see. The story is short and the missions are boring. You have to do around three missions to liberate each sector of Mars. The missions are basically hijack this, destroy that, not very interesting at all.
So, apart from the boring story and bland characters what else do we get? Well, we get the empty, dismal planet Mars to explore. There's literally nothing to look at, just rocky mountains and sandy roads. The driving is good and the amass of unique vehicles to drive makes for variety, but driving around is made even more boring when there's no radio or no music playing, you're literally driving around a deserted place with nothing but the sound of your car. You can get a walker which is a machine you can enter that has legs and arms and are a fun way to destroy buildings and enemies quickly. The graphics are very average, the buildings all look the same and the characters that do barely appear are boring or annoying. A lot of work is needed for character development and more cutscenes and story content is definitely needed.
The gun play wasn't to my liking, I hated getting in gun battles and the EDF had a specific gun that felt over powered as it could send your car flipping as they shot it. Thankfully the sledgehammer saves the day, it's powerful and fun to use. The enemies are annoying though as they're constantly running away, leaving you to chase after them. There is a vast selection of weapons including remote mines that you can tactically use to take down structures and plant a few at once, there's also a rocket launcher and land mines. The nano rifle is the most memorable though, a gun that can disintegrate buildings, vehicles and even enemies. The AI are stupidly annoying as they will get in your way and even run you off the road, they're so annoying and even when they're talking, they're not adding anything but more annoyance. They do join you and help you out when you're in a tough situation against the EDF and they even drive a car over to you when you're running on foot for a certain distance. These were nice touches to an otherwise useless group of friendlies.
However, there is a decent amount of content here, there's plenty of side activities which go from destroying buildings, attacking EDF locations, defending bases from assaults and many more. There's also a multiplayer that seems out of place, but it can actually be pretty fun. It has a bunch of backpacks that give off certain boosters like sprinting or shaking the screen to make shooting difficult. It has a bunch of modes to try out and there's also Wrecking Crew, which lets you destroy buildings in creative ways with some friends.
I hate to diss the game, but after playing it all the way through I have to. If it wasn't for the fun of destroying buildings I probably wouldn't have liked it at all, there is so much potential here but with THQ absent these days, there may never be a chance for this potential to be unleashed. I really hope Armageddon can redeem this as that could be the last we ever get in the series. There is life on Mars, I just wish it was a little more lively... and also green! Where were the little green martians?!
6.8/10
Friday, 2 September 2016
The Warriors (PS4)
"Warriors come out to play". I had never heard of The Warriors back when I played this, I was fairly young and never watched the 1979 film until a few years after. My life revolved around this game once I played it. I was addicted, I loved it. Rockstar turned the movie into an amazing game, if you never played it go buy it right now.
For those unfamiliar with the movie, the Warriors go to a meeting with a number of other gangs, something occurs and the Warriors have to "bop" their way home to Coney Island. Sounds easy, but not when every gang and cop in the city is on their tail.
All nine of the original Warriors feature and all are playable (only Fox is not playable during the story, he's only playable in his Flashback mission). Some of the original cast even voiced their likeness, Cleon, Fox, Swan, Cochise and Ajax all reprised their roles. The game takes place before the movie and most of the story leads to the meeting at the start of the film. It shows how the Warriors got to the meeting and the later missions are featured in the film. The Flashback missions show how all nine members joined and even how the gang was formed, this is a nice added bonus and you get to know each member even more, not many got much screen time in the film so this adds more to each individual.
Graphics look great, if you've watched the movie, you can tell who each character is in the game. The Warriors who never reprised their role are well acted by the new voices. The warchief (whoever you're playing as) is given the ability to order fellow members around as they're currently in charge. The orders you get are 'wreck 'em all', 'scatter', 'hold up', 'mayhem', 'watch my back' and 'let's go' which are all pretty much self explanatory. It heavily features tagging, which is spray painting the Warriors' mark, if you're not a fan, it could get frustrating but it's not that bad when you're used to it.
There are new gangs and even a rival gang that come from Coney Island too. This builds on the story more showing how the Warriors act when they're not being chased all the way back to Coney. There's even some new added Warriors. Rockstar did an excellent job with the new gangs, characters and the story. In the game, the Warriors are a new gang and they're trying to build up their reputation so they can get in on Cyrus' big meeting with every gang in the city.
As well as a story and flashback missions, there's Rumble Mode, free roam and Armies of the Night. Rumble Mode is filled with different game modes for you to try and even lets you create your own gang, where you can hand pick your nine favourite characters to one gang. My personal favourite is Battle Royal, there's nothing more entertaining than throwing each other off of a building and watching the slow motion cutscene and the screams as they fly off, it's honestly the funniest thing ever, as harsh as it may sound. Free roam let's you run around Coney and help out the citizens, while Armies of the Night is an arcade-style beat-em-up.
There is tonnes and tonnes of fighting, thankfully the combat is fantastic. There's combos, finishing moves, takedowns, wall finishers, double team moves, throwing and grappling and rage mode which lets you do brutal finishers. There's even weapons you can pick up like batons and knives. You can also give and take weapons from your buddies. Gang wars are made better when your whole gang is with you and you take on another fifteen gang members, the bigger the brawl the better.
There's a lot of cool features too, you can sort of free run, jumping across rooftops and climbing. You can hide in the shadows from cops and rival gangs when there's too many. You can uncuff any Warriors that have been caught by the cops and even uncuff yourself when you've been taken down. Revive any knocked out buddies with flash, which is a drug that acts as health. The levels have a sort of open-world feel to them, they let you explore and you can even stay in the level as long as you want and build your arcade score very high. There's also training exercises that let you increase your stamina. You can even wear any hat that's been knocked off an enemy or even Cowboy's hat, but he's never happy when you've stolen his hat.
The Warriors are often outnumbered, which leads to some great chase scenes and they feature in the game, along with some new ones. It's pretty terrifying when you know there's a bunch a face painted, crazies chasing you armed with baseball bats. The soundtrack is amazing and true to the film, every song I loved and even the music played during the levels is fantastic. You also have the ability to replay levels and try to beat the high score if you were unable to your first time round.
The dreaded part, the bad stuff. The camera can be really awkward to control and give you a poor angle to play from at times. There's also lots of clipping, you're just trying to sprint and you're caught by the smallest corner, it can become incredibly annoying. Like I said earlier, the tagging but that's preference really, I just felt it featured too much. Thankfully there wasn't much wrong with this game.
Thank you Rockstar for making this game. It's one of my favourite games and I never even heard of The Warriors until I played this. I'm just thankful my friend let me borrow it off him and a week later, buy it off him. If you are crazy and missed this, go buy it on PS4 or even the PS3 if you're on that one. The only question that remains is "Can you dig it?"
9.1/10
For those unfamiliar with the movie, the Warriors go to a meeting with a number of other gangs, something occurs and the Warriors have to "bop" their way home to Coney Island. Sounds easy, but not when every gang and cop in the city is on their tail.
All nine of the original Warriors feature and all are playable (only Fox is not playable during the story, he's only playable in his Flashback mission). Some of the original cast even voiced their likeness, Cleon, Fox, Swan, Cochise and Ajax all reprised their roles. The game takes place before the movie and most of the story leads to the meeting at the start of the film. It shows how the Warriors got to the meeting and the later missions are featured in the film. The Flashback missions show how all nine members joined and even how the gang was formed, this is a nice added bonus and you get to know each member even more, not many got much screen time in the film so this adds more to each individual.
Graphics look great, if you've watched the movie, you can tell who each character is in the game. The Warriors who never reprised their role are well acted by the new voices. The warchief (whoever you're playing as) is given the ability to order fellow members around as they're currently in charge. The orders you get are 'wreck 'em all', 'scatter', 'hold up', 'mayhem', 'watch my back' and 'let's go' which are all pretty much self explanatory. It heavily features tagging, which is spray painting the Warriors' mark, if you're not a fan, it could get frustrating but it's not that bad when you're used to it.
There are new gangs and even a rival gang that come from Coney Island too. This builds on the story more showing how the Warriors act when they're not being chased all the way back to Coney. There's even some new added Warriors. Rockstar did an excellent job with the new gangs, characters and the story. In the game, the Warriors are a new gang and they're trying to build up their reputation so they can get in on Cyrus' big meeting with every gang in the city.
As well as a story and flashback missions, there's Rumble Mode, free roam and Armies of the Night. Rumble Mode is filled with different game modes for you to try and even lets you create your own gang, where you can hand pick your nine favourite characters to one gang. My personal favourite is Battle Royal, there's nothing more entertaining than throwing each other off of a building and watching the slow motion cutscene and the screams as they fly off, it's honestly the funniest thing ever, as harsh as it may sound. Free roam let's you run around Coney and help out the citizens, while Armies of the Night is an arcade-style beat-em-up.
There is tonnes and tonnes of fighting, thankfully the combat is fantastic. There's combos, finishing moves, takedowns, wall finishers, double team moves, throwing and grappling and rage mode which lets you do brutal finishers. There's even weapons you can pick up like batons and knives. You can also give and take weapons from your buddies. Gang wars are made better when your whole gang is with you and you take on another fifteen gang members, the bigger the brawl the better.
There's a lot of cool features too, you can sort of free run, jumping across rooftops and climbing. You can hide in the shadows from cops and rival gangs when there's too many. You can uncuff any Warriors that have been caught by the cops and even uncuff yourself when you've been taken down. Revive any knocked out buddies with flash, which is a drug that acts as health. The levels have a sort of open-world feel to them, they let you explore and you can even stay in the level as long as you want and build your arcade score very high. There's also training exercises that let you increase your stamina. You can even wear any hat that's been knocked off an enemy or even Cowboy's hat, but he's never happy when you've stolen his hat.
The Warriors are often outnumbered, which leads to some great chase scenes and they feature in the game, along with some new ones. It's pretty terrifying when you know there's a bunch a face painted, crazies chasing you armed with baseball bats. The soundtrack is amazing and true to the film, every song I loved and even the music played during the levels is fantastic. You also have the ability to replay levels and try to beat the high score if you were unable to your first time round.
The dreaded part, the bad stuff. The camera can be really awkward to control and give you a poor angle to play from at times. There's also lots of clipping, you're just trying to sprint and you're caught by the smallest corner, it can become incredibly annoying. Like I said earlier, the tagging but that's preference really, I just felt it featured too much. Thankfully there wasn't much wrong with this game.
Thank you Rockstar for making this game. It's one of my favourite games and I never even heard of The Warriors until I played this. I'm just thankful my friend let me borrow it off him and a week later, buy it off him. If you are crazy and missed this, go buy it on PS4 or even the PS3 if you're on that one. The only question that remains is "Can you dig it?"
9.1/10
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