The Escapists released in 2015 and is a pixelated, prison break-out, strategy game. Can you break out of all the increasingly difficult prisons?
I'll be the first to say it, I'm sick of current game developers releasing games with 8 bit graphics. I get it's where games started and it's nostalgic, but what's the point of having amazing capabilities if they're just gonna stay in the 80s? That being said, it completely works for The Escapists. Considering its whole purpose is to break out of prisons, it has such a lighthearted tone. It's so bright and colourful, it has fantastic music that you'll have a joy listening to and it's really fun.
It can be quite overwhelming at first, there's so many possibilities to break out of each prison and your hand is never held. You're able to craft equipment to help you break out, but you have to experiment to find out how to make specific items. You can create tools to help you break out, shovels, pickaxes and weapons to fight off guards and inmates.
You can become friends with inmates and get guards on your good side. It's always good to keep everyone friendly so they don't constantly try to fight you, it can be annoying. You can do favours for the inmates and receive money and friendship. Some inmates are also merchants and sell you useful items, you can also loot sells to get them for free.
While you're planning your escape, you have a schedule you have to keep up with so the guards don't come looking for you. This includes roll calls, dinner times, exercise periods and shower time. You can upgrade your intelligence, strength and speed stats to make you better in fights, move faster and make more rare items. Every prison also has jobs for you to do, there are different jobs in different prisons too. You can do laundry, make clothes, deliver mail amongst others.
There are six total prisons to break out of, each prison has a unique layout and its own schedule so you never feel like you're doing the same thing over and over (besides when you're getting your stats up). Each prison also has obstacles you need to deal with, some have cameras in inmates' cells so you can't just get all your gear from looting them, some have Metal detectors so you can't always carry contraband. You can never get used to something you're comfortable with, because it may be difficult to reciprocate in the next prison. So your play style changes each prison.
If you start a fight with a guard and lose, or steal something from a guard and they wake up, you're sent to solitary, which skips three days. You can steal keys from guards, and make a copy of their key. You must give the key back to the incapacitated guard before the regain consciousness, or it's straight to solitary! You're able to customise your prisoner and change your name, same goes for other prisoners. A few times, some prisoners had the same name, which was annoying when you had a favour to do with a certain inmate.
As all the prisons are different, your escapes are different. Thankfully there are many ways out, I had a number of different escapes, but some prisons have only one way out. I've dig tunnels, smashed through walls and even ran through the front door. There's many ways to get freedom.
The Escapists is an incredibly fun game, it has a tonne of replayability and is an fantastic experience. The sequel has recently released and I'll soon be getting my orange jumpsuit back on!
7/10
Sunday, 17 September 2017
Wednesday, 13 September 2017
Murdered Soul Suspect (Xbox One)
Murdered Soul Suspect released in 2014 and was the very first game I ever played on the Xbox One. You play as ghost detective, Ronan O'connor. He's on the tail of the infamous 'Bell Killer', only to be killed by him.
Now a ghost, detective Ronan must find out who killed him and get justice for himself and all the other victims of the Bell Killer. Seeing as you're a ghost, you're pretty limited as to what you can do now. But, you're able to do things you can in other games. You can walk through walls. What other game can you do that where it's not a glitch? You can posses people and cats, they help you navigate around a tight area, teleport and his own version of detective vision.
The story is very short, but there are a bunch of side investigations to add to the game. You can help fellow ghosts find out how they died, giving them peace and be able to pass on. The short story is a very interesting one, investigating your own death, with an excellent twist I never expected. The characters beside Ronan aren't really that interesting. Another huge problem is the lack of characters, for a game that has you trying to guess who the real killer is, you're options are very limited.
There are a tonne of easy collectables to find and they give you more information about the town of Salem and the Bell Killer. They're so easy to find, you can see most from afar, you'll find yourself leaving the story because there's so many collectables in sight. There aren't too many areas you're taken to, but they are well designed and interesting to explore. You can travel around the town of Salem, you're able to go to a church, a police department, a graveyard, a mental asylum, an apartment block and your own murder scene. Each place has their own side story to complete too.
As you're a ghost, there's not much harm that can come to you. However, there are demons that pop up from time to time. They can kill you, as well as demon pits. They're pretty easy to avoid, if you do get scene you're able to teleport into hiding spots, and switch between them as the demon looks for you. You can also distract the demons by using crows, their caws get the attention of the demons.
There's plenty of investigations for you to work out by collecting clues. You don't have to collect all clues, but you do need to find the ones that complete the investigation. They were too simple, once you found all clues you had to pick the correct ones to complete it. The problem was, you were fooled into thinking you couldn't make three mistakes or you'd fail. Turns out, once you get three wrong, you're just taken off that screen, you're able to go back to it and just keep picking the clues until you get it right.
This game was panned, I understand based on what many reviews said, but they clearly expected the game to be different to what it was. You're ultimately a ghost, ghosts can't be shot or detected to fail missions, so to say the game was too easy is silly, the only easy thing was not being able to fail investigations. The story was short, but it was good, it was interesting and had my attention the whole time, and the twist was so unexpected. The real problem with the story was the bland characters and lack of them to delegate who was the killer.
It's not a bad game. It's not a great game. It's a game you should play, it's unique, I can't think of another game like it. What else game has you play as a ghost finding out his own killer. Play this game, it's cheap!
7.2/10
Now a ghost, detective Ronan must find out who killed him and get justice for himself and all the other victims of the Bell Killer. Seeing as you're a ghost, you're pretty limited as to what you can do now. But, you're able to do things you can in other games. You can walk through walls. What other game can you do that where it's not a glitch? You can posses people and cats, they help you navigate around a tight area, teleport and his own version of detective vision.
The story is very short, but there are a bunch of side investigations to add to the game. You can help fellow ghosts find out how they died, giving them peace and be able to pass on. The short story is a very interesting one, investigating your own death, with an excellent twist I never expected. The characters beside Ronan aren't really that interesting. Another huge problem is the lack of characters, for a game that has you trying to guess who the real killer is, you're options are very limited.
There are a tonne of easy collectables to find and they give you more information about the town of Salem and the Bell Killer. They're so easy to find, you can see most from afar, you'll find yourself leaving the story because there's so many collectables in sight. There aren't too many areas you're taken to, but they are well designed and interesting to explore. You can travel around the town of Salem, you're able to go to a church, a police department, a graveyard, a mental asylum, an apartment block and your own murder scene. Each place has their own side story to complete too.
As you're a ghost, there's not much harm that can come to you. However, there are demons that pop up from time to time. They can kill you, as well as demon pits. They're pretty easy to avoid, if you do get scene you're able to teleport into hiding spots, and switch between them as the demon looks for you. You can also distract the demons by using crows, their caws get the attention of the demons.
There's plenty of investigations for you to work out by collecting clues. You don't have to collect all clues, but you do need to find the ones that complete the investigation. They were too simple, once you found all clues you had to pick the correct ones to complete it. The problem was, you were fooled into thinking you couldn't make three mistakes or you'd fail. Turns out, once you get three wrong, you're just taken off that screen, you're able to go back to it and just keep picking the clues until you get it right.
This game was panned, I understand based on what many reviews said, but they clearly expected the game to be different to what it was. You're ultimately a ghost, ghosts can't be shot or detected to fail missions, so to say the game was too easy is silly, the only easy thing was not being able to fail investigations. The story was short, but it was good, it was interesting and had my attention the whole time, and the twist was so unexpected. The real problem with the story was the bland characters and lack of them to delegate who was the killer.
It's not a bad game. It's not a great game. It's a game you should play, it's unique, I can't think of another game like it. What else game has you play as a ghost finding out his own killer. Play this game, it's cheap!
7.2/10
Saturday, 9 September 2017
LA Noire (Xbox 360) - Guest Review
In light of the news of LA Noire coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One, here is a guest review of the Xbox 360 version, by The Purple Viper.
How can I help, reader? LA Noire is an open world game which revolves around the playable character, Cole Phelps who at the start of the game is a beat cop who has come home from serving in the second world war. Set in the 40’s, you go with Cole as he moves up the ranks in the police force (desks) and solve cases. A point to note is that as with most open world games, especially Rockstar, the player is usually on the wrong side of the law, this flips that upside down and even penalises you for behaving in a bad way. It does this naturally and it feels bizarre you ever wanted to break the law on the limes of GTA.
Primarily the game whilst being open world, features linear missions in the way of “cases”. These cases are typically, there is a body and you then analyse the crime scene with your partner for clues which take you around LA to new locations and more clues usually, which enable you to discover who has done the crime. The way you do this is to pick up evidence and then use either the forensic department to find the best place to go to find out more about objects, or you find addresses in things on victims, such as wallets. At locations, you then can interrogate people when you ask them questions and call them either liars (backed up with proof) doubt what they say or believe them, by choosing the right option, you can discover more clues or even solve the case by getting people either to tell on others or confess themselves. When it was released, one of the main focal points of the game was that the rendering of faces was the most lifelike and accurate in any game to date and even though I only played it recently and practically lifelike graphics is the norm now, I can appreciate that this must have changed the whole game when it came out. The faces and expressions are so good, there is no difficulty in telling whether people are lying or not, much to the games credit (not to say the game is easy, but what it sets out to do with characters conveying expression, works more than perfectly). When cases are complete you get a ranking, based on how well you did the case, such as questions wrong and damage done to the environment, this makes it more rewarding when you get the maximum stars avaliable. 9/10
The story was overall brilliantly put together, rich and long (but not too long) with cases feeling more rewarding for solving them as you progressed through LAPD, there was a bit of repetitiveness at times (especially on one desk, which was frustrating but in context it made sense at the end of that desk) the only faults are something that happens at the end of one of the desks which essentially voids all the conclusions (NB deductions from the player or even some confessions from “culprits”) which I found to be rather bizarre, but the story did work when it was explained (to an extent) so it didn’t ruin the story. The only other fault from an otherwise great story is that something towards the end happens, which whilst introducing us to another playable character, who is well played just like Cole, comes out of nowhere and to me seemed like a badly thought out excuse to bring the new character in for a bit. Other than these two points however, the story is one that I personally found to be very good and it had me hooked for the two weeks I played it on and off 9/10
In the way of side activities, there are also cars to collect, that is, get in and drive them (they then count as collected) and then when you get all of them, an achievement will be unlocked. The best side activity is the other one, which is radio dispatch, for each desk there are a number of calls that will come through on the police radio which are optional for the player to go and see to. Each one of these however provides not just a good side mission (most are not massively long, which I found good as you could do them and then get back to the gripping story) but provides more of a structured experience of this amazing game world that has been created. 8/10
The game world itself is very large and has plenty of character and detail, just driving around and looking at the buildings from a time long gone had me in awe, but also the NPC’s going around their day to day lives and the random chatter you can overhear, this coupled with the radio with music from that time (reminiscent of Fallout 3's Galaxy News Radio) made even driving idly round, very fun. 8/10
The few bugs that I came across were just minor nuisances such as the character moving in a bizarre fashion and making it hard to accomplish something but these were only seconds long and hardly a huge hindrance. The other one was when selecting evidence items, more often than not it would fly over to the opposite one I wanted at the slightest touch of the analogue stick, but again, this hardly ruined the game and is trivial really. 8/10
In conclusion, LA Noire is a brilliantly crafted game, with a huge, beautiful open world to explore and whilst apart from the missions it doesn’t seem like there is lots and lots to do, there is indeed, enough. The story is fantastic with only really one complaint toward the end however it was a gold way to engineer the final act of the story so it is hardly something that should put people off playing. What was one of the main features, is executed perfectly and the facial expressions are so good, it made me feel rewarded at times for reading the faces as if it was a real person in front of me. The occasional car chases could be boring and a pain, but I'm not a driver particularly so I imagine that was down to me as an individual, there is the option to stick. Overall an amazing game which I would strongly recommend to anyone into crime and open world.
8.4/10
How can I help, reader? LA Noire is an open world game which revolves around the playable character, Cole Phelps who at the start of the game is a beat cop who has come home from serving in the second world war. Set in the 40’s, you go with Cole as he moves up the ranks in the police force (desks) and solve cases. A point to note is that as with most open world games, especially Rockstar, the player is usually on the wrong side of the law, this flips that upside down and even penalises you for behaving in a bad way. It does this naturally and it feels bizarre you ever wanted to break the law on the limes of GTA.
Primarily the game whilst being open world, features linear missions in the way of “cases”. These cases are typically, there is a body and you then analyse the crime scene with your partner for clues which take you around LA to new locations and more clues usually, which enable you to discover who has done the crime. The way you do this is to pick up evidence and then use either the forensic department to find the best place to go to find out more about objects, or you find addresses in things on victims, such as wallets. At locations, you then can interrogate people when you ask them questions and call them either liars (backed up with proof) doubt what they say or believe them, by choosing the right option, you can discover more clues or even solve the case by getting people either to tell on others or confess themselves. When it was released, one of the main focal points of the game was that the rendering of faces was the most lifelike and accurate in any game to date and even though I only played it recently and practically lifelike graphics is the norm now, I can appreciate that this must have changed the whole game when it came out. The faces and expressions are so good, there is no difficulty in telling whether people are lying or not, much to the games credit (not to say the game is easy, but what it sets out to do with characters conveying expression, works more than perfectly). When cases are complete you get a ranking, based on how well you did the case, such as questions wrong and damage done to the environment, this makes it more rewarding when you get the maximum stars avaliable. 9/10
The story was overall brilliantly put together, rich and long (but not too long) with cases feeling more rewarding for solving them as you progressed through LAPD, there was a bit of repetitiveness at times (especially on one desk, which was frustrating but in context it made sense at the end of that desk) the only faults are something that happens at the end of one of the desks which essentially voids all the conclusions (NB deductions from the player or even some confessions from “culprits”) which I found to be rather bizarre, but the story did work when it was explained (to an extent) so it didn’t ruin the story. The only other fault from an otherwise great story is that something towards the end happens, which whilst introducing us to another playable character, who is well played just like Cole, comes out of nowhere and to me seemed like a badly thought out excuse to bring the new character in for a bit. Other than these two points however, the story is one that I personally found to be very good and it had me hooked for the two weeks I played it on and off 9/10
In the way of side activities, there are also cars to collect, that is, get in and drive them (they then count as collected) and then when you get all of them, an achievement will be unlocked. The best side activity is the other one, which is radio dispatch, for each desk there are a number of calls that will come through on the police radio which are optional for the player to go and see to. Each one of these however provides not just a good side mission (most are not massively long, which I found good as you could do them and then get back to the gripping story) but provides more of a structured experience of this amazing game world that has been created. 8/10
The game world itself is very large and has plenty of character and detail, just driving around and looking at the buildings from a time long gone had me in awe, but also the NPC’s going around their day to day lives and the random chatter you can overhear, this coupled with the radio with music from that time (reminiscent of Fallout 3's Galaxy News Radio) made even driving idly round, very fun. 8/10
The few bugs that I came across were just minor nuisances such as the character moving in a bizarre fashion and making it hard to accomplish something but these were only seconds long and hardly a huge hindrance. The other one was when selecting evidence items, more often than not it would fly over to the opposite one I wanted at the slightest touch of the analogue stick, but again, this hardly ruined the game and is trivial really. 8/10
In conclusion, LA Noire is a brilliantly crafted game, with a huge, beautiful open world to explore and whilst apart from the missions it doesn’t seem like there is lots and lots to do, there is indeed, enough. The story is fantastic with only really one complaint toward the end however it was a gold way to engineer the final act of the story so it is hardly something that should put people off playing. What was one of the main features, is executed perfectly and the facial expressions are so good, it made me feel rewarded at times for reading the faces as if it was a real person in front of me. The occasional car chases could be boring and a pain, but I'm not a driver particularly so I imagine that was down to me as an individual, there is the option to stick. Overall an amazing game which I would strongly recommend to anyone into crime and open world.
8.4/10
Thursday, 7 September 2017
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier (Xbox One)
A New Frontier is the third season of Telltale's Walking Dead series. It's continues the story of the previous two seasons and the first two episodes came out at the very end of 2016.
Season two's finale gave you a very big choice, I was eagerly awaiting the third season to see the impact of my decision. I was left bemused at first. We were introduced to a whole new character and not an immediate follow up to the previous series. I was very disappointed to see the game fast forward the story from my last decision, leaving me to think whatever I chose would give me the same story. A feeling I've had a lot with Telltale's so called "tailored to your choices" tagline. That being said, they've made plenty of stellar games.
The story starts with new characters, Javi and his family. For the first time in the series, the story starts at the beginning of the outbreak. We see Javi deal with the beginning firsthand and seeing it devastate his family. Javi has a lot of tension with brother whom he always seems to disapoint. The story fast forwards to the present, Javi, his brother's wife, Kate and his nephews, Gabe and Mariana have been travelling the roads together in their minivan and have been on the road for the majority of the outbreak. During the story, Javi crosses paths with our friend Clementine, (our previous protagonist) and we find out what actually happened after our final choice from season two. We learn there's a group of survivors called The New Frontier, Javi gets in a feud with them and must get him and his family safely out of their crosshairs.
The graphics are updated, they still have the comic book look, but looks much sharper. Once again we have a story that hooks you and makes you think carefully about every choice you're given. The new characters are likeable, some not so much, but that's because they're doing their job of making you dislike them and not because they are poor characters. The voice acting is excellent and shows why this is one of Telltale's strongest series.
There was one relationship they really forced you into during the story, I rebuffed every advance and even after all that, I still pissed off someone, despite doing the complete opposite of what another character thought just because of how much they forced it. It really annoyed me, I had to pay the consequences for something I never chose to do. There was another part where I was given an ultimatum, it was practically a choice of getting attacked or not, I quite clearly chose to not get attacked, and even so, another character disregarded my choice, thus I got attacked. These two 'consequences' came from choices I did NOT make, so why they happened is beyond me. This is what continues to lead me to believe you aren't given as much choice as you're constantly told. If they didn't push so hard that your decisions matter, I wouldn't get so frustrated by it.
I really enjoyed the season three, it was great to introduce a new character and keep the story going with the old ones. Overall I do think the three season are declining as they go on, but this is still a great season, don't forget how amazing the first was. Javi was definitely one of my favourite characters across the series. I really cared about his story and made choices I thought he'd make. He was a great character to take charge of.
This had once again been a great season, the next season has been announced and it's also been confirmed as the final season. This is definitely a great decision by Telltale to wrap it up, it's best to bow out in style rather than get stale. More good news is that season three set up to carry on as Clementine. See you for one last adventure Clem.
8/10
Season two's finale gave you a very big choice, I was eagerly awaiting the third season to see the impact of my decision. I was left bemused at first. We were introduced to a whole new character and not an immediate follow up to the previous series. I was very disappointed to see the game fast forward the story from my last decision, leaving me to think whatever I chose would give me the same story. A feeling I've had a lot with Telltale's so called "tailored to your choices" tagline. That being said, they've made plenty of stellar games.
The story starts with new characters, Javi and his family. For the first time in the series, the story starts at the beginning of the outbreak. We see Javi deal with the beginning firsthand and seeing it devastate his family. Javi has a lot of tension with brother whom he always seems to disapoint. The story fast forwards to the present, Javi, his brother's wife, Kate and his nephews, Gabe and Mariana have been travelling the roads together in their minivan and have been on the road for the majority of the outbreak. During the story, Javi crosses paths with our friend Clementine, (our previous protagonist) and we find out what actually happened after our final choice from season two. We learn there's a group of survivors called The New Frontier, Javi gets in a feud with them and must get him and his family safely out of their crosshairs.
The graphics are updated, they still have the comic book look, but looks much sharper. Once again we have a story that hooks you and makes you think carefully about every choice you're given. The new characters are likeable, some not so much, but that's because they're doing their job of making you dislike them and not because they are poor characters. The voice acting is excellent and shows why this is one of Telltale's strongest series.
There was one relationship they really forced you into during the story, I rebuffed every advance and even after all that, I still pissed off someone, despite doing the complete opposite of what another character thought just because of how much they forced it. It really annoyed me, I had to pay the consequences for something I never chose to do. There was another part where I was given an ultimatum, it was practically a choice of getting attacked or not, I quite clearly chose to not get attacked, and even so, another character disregarded my choice, thus I got attacked. These two 'consequences' came from choices I did NOT make, so why they happened is beyond me. This is what continues to lead me to believe you aren't given as much choice as you're constantly told. If they didn't push so hard that your decisions matter, I wouldn't get so frustrated by it.
I really enjoyed the season three, it was great to introduce a new character and keep the story going with the old ones. Overall I do think the three season are declining as they go on, but this is still a great season, don't forget how amazing the first was. Javi was definitely one of my favourite characters across the series. I really cared about his story and made choices I thought he'd make. He was a great character to take charge of.
This had once again been a great season, the next season has been announced and it's also been confirmed as the final season. This is definitely a great decision by Telltale to wrap it up, it's best to bow out in style rather than get stale. More good news is that season three set up to carry on as Clementine. See you for one last adventure Clem.
8/10
Thursday, 31 August 2017
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: The Bright Lord DLC (Xbox One)
The Bright Lord is the second story based DLC for Shadow of Mordor, and for the first time we don't play as Talion, we play as his counterpart, Celebrimbor.
Celebrimbor forged the Rings of Power, while manipulated By Sauron. Celebrimbor aims to brand Uruks to fight for him in his fight against The Dark Lord himself.
There are some new abilities, but now you no longer have Talion at your side, you lose some too. You are now gifted with the ring, it's a heavily over powered weapon, but it's the Ring of Power to be fair. It slows down time and allows you to hack down a significant number of enemies. The health has now been halved as you're no longer bound to Talion, leaving you to fight stronger and smarter. The whole goal is to brand Uruks, you want to be constantly branding every Uruk possible to fight for you.
The missions are quite strong, they are full of battles and they are tough. I've had my most difficult fights in this DLC, so if you found Shadow of Mordor quite simple, this will sort you out. You're never given a minute to relax, constant enemies and your branded Uruks aren't suddenly stronger.
The best part is the final mission. A one on one fight with Sauron. It's a pretty rare thing and he does a lot of damage. My problem was it was far too easy. It was really cool and disappointing at the same time.
4/5
Celebrimbor forged the Rings of Power, while manipulated By Sauron. Celebrimbor aims to brand Uruks to fight for him in his fight against The Dark Lord himself.
There are some new abilities, but now you no longer have Talion at your side, you lose some too. You are now gifted with the ring, it's a heavily over powered weapon, but it's the Ring of Power to be fair. It slows down time and allows you to hack down a significant number of enemies. The health has now been halved as you're no longer bound to Talion, leaving you to fight stronger and smarter. The whole goal is to brand Uruks, you want to be constantly branding every Uruk possible to fight for you.
The missions are quite strong, they are full of battles and they are tough. I've had my most difficult fights in this DLC, so if you found Shadow of Mordor quite simple, this will sort you out. You're never given a minute to relax, constant enemies and your branded Uruks aren't suddenly stronger.
The best part is the final mission. A one on one fight with Sauron. It's a pretty rare thing and he does a lot of damage. My problem was it was far too easy. It was really cool and disappointing at the same time.
4/5
Monday, 28 August 2017
Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor: Lord of the Hunt DLC (Xbox One)
I loved Shadow of Mordor, so much that I saved the DLC's for about two years so I had more to play. Lord of the Hunt once again stars Talion, and brings back out dwarven friend, Torvin. They must fight against the beastmaster warchiefs and prove they themselves can tame the new breeds of creatures.
There are new variations of creatures we've seen before. Caragarth's are stealthy Caragors, a wretched Graug can use a toxic bile to hurt enemies and you can use a horde of Ghuls to attack your foes. Graug's can also grab enemies and eat them to restore health and they can even insta kill some captains, saving you a fight.
There are new missions and side missions. The story is pretty short and not many of the missions are that memorable. There's also new warchiefs and captains.
You can tame and ride wretched Graugs and you feel pretty empowered, although they can die quick if you're not eating your enemies. There is also a warchief who rides a Graug, luckily for us, are tamed horde of Ghuls can attack them. Another problem, a warchief has his own Ghuls army, so it's a pretty even sided content and shows the enemies are just as powerful as you.
DLC is very often a let down, it's by far not a poor piece of DLC, but I don't think it's on the same level as the original game. The new tameable beasts are easily the high point here.
3.7/5
There are new variations of creatures we've seen before. Caragarth's are stealthy Caragors, a wretched Graug can use a toxic bile to hurt enemies and you can use a horde of Ghuls to attack your foes. Graug's can also grab enemies and eat them to restore health and they can even insta kill some captains, saving you a fight.
There are new missions and side missions. The story is pretty short and not many of the missions are that memorable. There's also new warchiefs and captains.
You can tame and ride wretched Graugs and you feel pretty empowered, although they can die quick if you're not eating your enemies. There is also a warchief who rides a Graug, luckily for us, are tamed horde of Ghuls can attack them. Another problem, a warchief has his own Ghuls army, so it's a pretty even sided content and shows the enemies are just as powerful as you.
DLC is very often a let down, it's by far not a poor piece of DLC, but I don't think it's on the same level as the original game. The new tameable beasts are easily the high point here.
3.7/5
Thursday, 24 August 2017
Until Dawn (PS4)
Until Dawn released in 2015 as a PlayStation exclusive. It's your classic teen slasher/horror movie, where you make all the decisions instead of screaming at the TV, "Why did she go in there?!". Not many people survive slasher movies, will you save anyone, or no one?
First things first, even though they're made by different developers, the gameplay is identical to Heavy Rain. This is more of a cinematic experience. Very little gameplay and it's all about the story and your decisions. The characters are real actors, and you may even recognise a couple. The game stars Rami Malek (Mr Robot), Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), Peter Stormare (Prison Break) among others. There are eight characters and throughout the story you will play as all of them. Initially, you can save everyone and they can also all die, for me, only three survived my first playthrough and I tried to save them all.
Josh and his twin sisters, Beth and Hannah invite all they're friends to the 'cabin in the woods'. Most of their friends play an embarrassing prank on Hannah, causing her to (stupidly) run out of the cabin at night, alone. Beth gives chase to find her, and ultimately leads to their deaths, falling off the cliff together. A year after the twins disappearance (none of their friends know they're dead) Josh invites the same friends back to the cabin, to party and remember his sisters. Everyone returns and events start to take place.
In between each chapter, you're in an office with a therapist. He asks you questions and you're given choices. Things like what scares you most or which of the characters you like better after getting to know them. It makes you think carefully about your choices. Will you encounter spiders if you say you're more afraid of them? Will this character die if I say I prefer them? You're too scared to pick an answer and too busy thinking what could ultimately happen. After all, choice matters here.
The acting is fantastic, Peter Stormare in particular is brilliant. The characters are very likeable, some are a lot harder to like than others. A character I thought would annoy me, ended up being my favourite, that was Mike. He seemed to be one of the more favoured characters, as he was given a lot of time. Another favourite of mine was Chris. He was funny and very likable. The dialogue is good, but there are certainly a lot of poor lines. Seeing as it's a game full of horn teenagers, there's a lot of cringey sexual innuendos. "Sex-capade", that's all I'll say. As I said earlier, you get to play as all the characters, some were a lot more involved, which I found disappointing because I'd like to have seen more of some others.
It's a very intense game, you're always on your toes that something will happen or your choice will have a drastic consequence. My issue was that the game hounded you with jump scares right at the beginning. Honestly it just frustrated me and made me not want to play. They throw far too many so soon as nothing's really happening. Once the games takes a more frightening turn, the jump scares slow down. It's a fantastic story, it goes a completely different direction than what you'd originally expect. It's not the only twist either, but there is one twist most players would expect. The game plays heavily on 'The Butterfly Effect' and there's a table that shows your decisions and what ultimately happens for that choice. It's really helpful to see why something happened if it doesn't seem like it should've.
There were also collectables that helped with choices in the story. There were clues about the mystery man and other things that helped influence your choices. There were also totems, some showed dangerous activities and even characters deaths, seeing these put you on edge and made you fully aware of what could happen and want to look out for. You could pick up and inspect items, most gave more information to the story, but weren't needed to be picked up if you weren't interested in the extra story.
Most gameplay was just quick time events, but the standout for me was the 'stay still', literally put your controller the fuck down and down move a muscle. These moments were amazing! They were so tense and absolutely terrifying if you fucked up. I literally froze, my hands stuck in the air, my breathing was on hold. I was terrified! There's some great camera angles, they let you see you character and vast spaces of the area you're in. The flashlight was great, you used it to look around and the light pointed where ever you aimed the camera with the right analog stick.
There were also character stats, they showed how strong or weak the relationship was between each character. I didn't see the point of it really, I don't think it really influenced much. It's got all the classic horror tropes, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me want to watch all those classic 80s slasher movies.
If you liked Heavy Rain and Telltale's story based games, you'll love this, unless you scare easy and aren't fan of horror and gore. I'm not huge horror fan, but I'm a massive story and choice game fan. This was my kinda shit. Now excuse me while I go watch Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.
7.9/10
First things first, even though they're made by different developers, the gameplay is identical to Heavy Rain. This is more of a cinematic experience. Very little gameplay and it's all about the story and your decisions. The characters are real actors, and you may even recognise a couple. The game stars Rami Malek (Mr Robot), Hayden Panettiere (Heroes), Peter Stormare (Prison Break) among others. There are eight characters and throughout the story you will play as all of them. Initially, you can save everyone and they can also all die, for me, only three survived my first playthrough and I tried to save them all.
Josh and his twin sisters, Beth and Hannah invite all they're friends to the 'cabin in the woods'. Most of their friends play an embarrassing prank on Hannah, causing her to (stupidly) run out of the cabin at night, alone. Beth gives chase to find her, and ultimately leads to their deaths, falling off the cliff together. A year after the twins disappearance (none of their friends know they're dead) Josh invites the same friends back to the cabin, to party and remember his sisters. Everyone returns and events start to take place.
In between each chapter, you're in an office with a therapist. He asks you questions and you're given choices. Things like what scares you most or which of the characters you like better after getting to know them. It makes you think carefully about your choices. Will you encounter spiders if you say you're more afraid of them? Will this character die if I say I prefer them? You're too scared to pick an answer and too busy thinking what could ultimately happen. After all, choice matters here.
The acting is fantastic, Peter Stormare in particular is brilliant. The characters are very likeable, some are a lot harder to like than others. A character I thought would annoy me, ended up being my favourite, that was Mike. He seemed to be one of the more favoured characters, as he was given a lot of time. Another favourite of mine was Chris. He was funny and very likable. The dialogue is good, but there are certainly a lot of poor lines. Seeing as it's a game full of horn teenagers, there's a lot of cringey sexual innuendos. "Sex-capade", that's all I'll say. As I said earlier, you get to play as all the characters, some were a lot more involved, which I found disappointing because I'd like to have seen more of some others.
It's a very intense game, you're always on your toes that something will happen or your choice will have a drastic consequence. My issue was that the game hounded you with jump scares right at the beginning. Honestly it just frustrated me and made me not want to play. They throw far too many so soon as nothing's really happening. Once the games takes a more frightening turn, the jump scares slow down. It's a fantastic story, it goes a completely different direction than what you'd originally expect. It's not the only twist either, but there is one twist most players would expect. The game plays heavily on 'The Butterfly Effect' and there's a table that shows your decisions and what ultimately happens for that choice. It's really helpful to see why something happened if it doesn't seem like it should've.
There were also collectables that helped with choices in the story. There were clues about the mystery man and other things that helped influence your choices. There were also totems, some showed dangerous activities and even characters deaths, seeing these put you on edge and made you fully aware of what could happen and want to look out for. You could pick up and inspect items, most gave more information to the story, but weren't needed to be picked up if you weren't interested in the extra story.
Most gameplay was just quick time events, but the standout for me was the 'stay still', literally put your controller the fuck down and down move a muscle. These moments were amazing! They were so tense and absolutely terrifying if you fucked up. I literally froze, my hands stuck in the air, my breathing was on hold. I was terrified! There's some great camera angles, they let you see you character and vast spaces of the area you're in. The flashlight was great, you used it to look around and the light pointed where ever you aimed the camera with the right analog stick.
There were also character stats, they showed how strong or weak the relationship was between each character. I didn't see the point of it really, I don't think it really influenced much. It's got all the classic horror tropes, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me want to watch all those classic 80s slasher movies.
If you liked Heavy Rain and Telltale's story based games, you'll love this, unless you scare easy and aren't fan of horror and gore. I'm not huge horror fan, but I'm a massive story and choice game fan. This was my kinda shit. Now excuse me while I go watch Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.
7.9/10
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