Caesoose.com

Author: Dan

  • 2017 Year in Review

    2017 Year in Review

    So once again we’ve completed another orbit around the Sun, and due to this special time of year it’s time to look back and see what I’ve accomplished in those last 365 days. I must admit, I’m in two minds as to how much I’ve done – on the one hand I’ve travelled more than ever before, and produced more content and brilliant photo’s than ever before, BUT some of my achievements were not on my to-do list from the beginning of the year, so I’m unsure how good this will look. Off the top of my head though this is what I’ve been doing:

    Visited 6 Countries

    Yep! This year it appears as though I was a jet-setter, with myself going to the following six countries:

    • Japan
    • Norway
    • Denmark
    • The Netherlands
    • Bulgaria
    • Austria

    I spent a combined total of 30 days outside of the UK, which is fantastic in my opinion, as the further I get away from this place the better!

    Completed and Reviewed 52 Games

    Another year another weekly gaming! Whilst there were a few weeks where I forgot to schedule things, I did indeed complete 52 games this year and managed to review every single one of them. My list of completions can be seen below:

    Ratchet and Clank
    The Order 1886
    Gears of War 4
    Superhot
    Mirrors Edge: Catalyst
    Lego Jurassic World
    Star Wars Battlefront
    Knee Deep
    Leaving Lyndow
    The Videokid
    Sniper Elite 4
    Halo Wars 2
    Call of Duty Infinite Warfare
    Zelda Breath of the Wild
    Snake Pass
    Shovel Knight
    The Witness
    Late Shift
    Yooka-Laylee
    PuyoPuyo Tetris
    Little Nightmares
    Kamiko
    Killer is Dead
    Tokyo 42
    Virginia
    Jotun
    Tekken 7
    Monument Valley 2
    Get Even
    Tales from the Borderlands
    Valiant Hearts
    Pokemon Moon
    Refunct
    Super Mario Run
    Submerged
    Sonic Mania
    Subsurface Circular
    Mario + Rabbids
    Call of Duty: Ghosts
    Songbringer
    Unchartered 4
    Cuphead
    Jettomero
    Forza 7
    Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens
    Super Mario Odyssey
    Costume quest 2
    Sonic forces
    Bound
    Grow up
    Super Lucky’s Tale
    Doki Doki Literature Club

    Watch out for my GOTY article in the next couple of days!

    Read 24 Books

    Due to other time commitments, this is increasingly getting harder, but I managed to achieve this once again thanks to Audible. So without further ado, here’s a list of the literature I managed to get through in the last 12 months:

    Wait but Why: Elon Musk
    1984
    Human Universe
    Steve Jobs
    Deep Work
    Linux Exam Book
    Aliens (Jim-alkhalili)
    The Brain: The Story of you
    User Interface Design for Programmers
    Elon Musk Biography
    The Long Earth
    Spelunky (Boss Fight Books)
    Dangerous – Milo
    The Anti-Procrastination Book
    Reality is Broken – Why games make us better
    Video Game Story-telling
    Surviving AI
    The Long War
    The Long Mars
    The great gatesby
    The long utopia
    Metal gear solid
    The watchmaker of filigree street
    SPQR

    To add to this (but not included in the list) I also read the following Manga:

    One Punch Man 1
    One Punch Man 2
    One Punch Man 3
    One Punch Man 4
    One Punch Man 5
    One Punch Man 6
    One Punch Man 7
    One Punch Man 8
    One Punch Man 9
    One Punch Man 10
    One Punch Man 11

    (shit… that’s a lot of One Punch Man).

    Watched 28 Movies

    Yep, another year, another 24 (or more!) movies. This year I watched quite a few classics, but easily my biggest disappointment was the latest Star Wars – so much so that even when watching the film me and Lucy couldn’t help but turn to each other in awe at how shit some of the scenes were. Regardless, here’s all the films I managed to watch in 2017:

    The Killing Joke
    FFXV Kingslave
    Burn After Reading
    O Brother Where Art Thou
    Steve Jobs
    Fargo
    Doctor Strange
    Bad Grandpa
    Allegiant
    A Serious Man
    A Garden From Words
    Hurricane Bianca
    Grown Ups 2
    Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
    Wonder Woman
    Batman Lego Movie
    Logan
    Spiderman: Homecoming
    Dunkirk
    Fantastic Beasts and where to find them
    Blade Runner
    Paprika
    Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle
    Thor: Ragnorok
    Now you See me 2
    The Dark Tower
    Star Wars: The Last Jedi
    Baby Driver

    Produced 16 Videos on Youtube

    This one’s come as a surprise to me actually, with me only realising I had done this just now as I went back to my channel and counted all the videos I had made.

    I’m happy that I’ve come up with a style for my thumbnails, and will continue to improve the quality of my uploads – with lots of animations and actual formulaic structure that I can consistently rely on in the future – making it faster and easier to create more videos.

    Overall I’m quite happy with this goal, as my expectation was that I had done a lot less. Regardless of this, I’ll definitely continue to push out content, and hopefully pick up a few new subscribers along the way!

    If you want to view some of these videos, you can by all means visit my channel below:

    https://www.youtube.com/caesoose

    Attended 2 Game Jams and Created 2 Prototype Games

    Yep! This year was the year that I finally thought fuck it, and met some people at games jams. First up there was the JanJam in Oxford at the beginning of the year where I helped contribute towards “Beleaf”, which you can read about below on Rosa’s website:

    http://rosacarbo.co.uk/janjam17

    It was a delight to meet my fellow jamers, so much so that it made me realise how little I knew and how much I had to improve in games development

    Secondly, I attended Splashjam 2017 in Norway – a fantastic experience that took place above the arctic circle. To say it was a trip of a lifetime is an understatement – I look forward to going back to Norway once again in the future, and will take what I learned from the experience and use it in spades over the coming years.

    You can view more details about the game I created (Earth 2167) at the link below:

    https://itch.io/jam/splash-2017

    Started work on my second game

    Whilst not complete, and with constant set-backs, I have indeed started working on my second game. This one is based on Nintendo’s Streetpass game, whereby players would earn an amount of coins based on how many steps they have walked on a given day. Using iOS, and an extension available on the app store to access apple’s Healthkit data, I’ve managed to come up with a prototype of a player calculating how many steps they’ve done, and then getting an amount of coins based on those steps. Players can then spend this money on puzzle pieces, of which the completed puzzles will be my own landscape photography.

    The players stats and whether they’ve collected a puzzle before or not is all stored within a local db (all of this is new technology to me, so it’s taken some time to get used to it all). I’m hoping to have the finished product available on iOS sometime in 2018.

    In 2018, I’ll make sure to write a weekly blog of my progress on the game. I’ll update this article accordingly to link to that blog.

    Prepared for Linux Exam

    Whilst I haven’t taken the Linux Exam just yet (I’m terrible at actually arranging things), I have read through my Linux exam book and have been working towards doing the actual exam by using Linux on a regular basis.

    Come the new year I seriously need to sit down, book an exam date asap, and get on it, revising daily to pass the test.

    Started Taking Photography More Seriously

    Throughout the course of this year I’ve realised how much I do truly love photography, and how much joy it brings me to go out of my way to capture an image and share it with the world. So as of April, I proceeded to purchase a nice expensive DSLR camera: the Sony Alpha A6300. For quite a while I was leaning towards Canon camera’s, but after weighing up what I wanted to do with the camera (Video record + photography) I settled on the a6300 due to it’s 4K 100mbps recording (using the full 6k sensor and downsampling), and great 24mp shots.

    To give a hint of the types of shots I’ve taken, you can see some of my images below. Suffice to say, I’m happy with my purchase, and have even gone on to purchase more lenses for the camera throughout the year:

    Taken on Nara Island
    Taken in Norway
    Taken in Tokyo

    Tooks 365 photos on instagram for #DailyDan

    Yep! I decided to take part in the daily instagram challenge, and successfully took 365 photos this year! You can see my results and a daily snapshot of my life at my instagram account:

    https://www.instagram.com/caesoose

    Oh! And whilst you’re looking at my instagram stuff, maybe take a look at my photography account:

    https://www.instagram.com/caesoosephotography

    So whilst I’m sure there’s so much more, for now, this is all the things I feel I’ve achieved in 2017.

    I hope you’ve all had a lovely year, and I look forward to 2018 being a bigger and better year!

    See you in 2018!

    -Dan

  • Doki Doki Literature Club (PC)

    Doki Doki Literature Club (PC)

    Warning: the following review contains plot spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club. It’s recommended you play the game before reading this review.

    Given it’s the end of the year, and that I had to complete one more game to achieve another year of 52 games, I proceeded to look through steam for new games I could play that weren’t too long. That’s when I remembered Doki Doki Literature club, the quirky game from Team Salvato that the internet seems to be going crazy for. Looking it up, I couldn’t believe my luck: it was free! So I got on with downloading it asap and proceeded to play it one Sunday afternoon.

    First up, lets get this out of the way. Doki Doki Literature Club is a Visual Novel game whereby you play as a school kid who happens to find himself in a literature club with 4 very attractive girls. Each day you write a poem for them, and cater it to individual girls, for example, Yuri like’s dark, edgy words and themes, where as Natsuki (the more childish of the group) prefers cute and lovely things. Depending on the words you choose for the poems, each girl will fall ever closer to you, showing custom art pieces of the girls and you becoming quite intimate.

    So far, so typical waifu* game. But Where Doki Doki Literature Club changes is in its approach to bringing about a bigger narrative of these types of waifu games. You see, half way through the game, one of your best friends starts acting weird, writing poems that talk about getting someone out of their head. This all comes to a head when said best friend comes out as having depression, and proceeds to commit suicide one day later. Rather than live with these consequences in game, the game then rewinds, taking you back to the start of the game all with the exception of your best friend now being missing.

    N.B. Waifu games cater to single young men, presenting them with a bunch of ladies, of different personalities and body types for the purposes of making them grow attached to these fictional characters so that they buy products with said characters on/invest more time and money into the franchise.

    Play another week in the game and you’ll soon start to notice that the girls are acting up, to the point of wanting the player at all costs or even just acting weird. The character I was romancing, Yuri, even proceeded to start giving me poems which had her “scent” on, and even would have outbursts of how she would play with herself using the pen I dropped one day. Whilst this was all weird, I found it a fantastic narrative of how far gamers who like waifu’s are willing to take their relationships with their imaginary characters.

    To put it another way, Doki Doki literature club takes waifu games to their logical extreme, pushing the player to question what is right and wrong when it comes to games that create female characters purely to be maids to the main character. I mean, how long would you take being stared at in a cupboard before it no longer feels cute and affectionate, and instead is taken as the creepy and weird action it actually is? In putting the player in these circumstances, Doki Doki Literature Club manages to be both one of the best Waifu games on the market, whilst simultaneously showing how awful the games can be.

    The fact that the ending literally screams “this world and the women within it were made entirely for you!” pushes this point home even further, so much so that I’m unsure how anyone could conclude anything different from the game.

    Play even further, and you’ll eventually have Monika (pictured above) come out and specifically say that she’s been altering the game files to get closer to you, the player. Having to navigate to these files just to delete this crazy character was a fantastic touch, one that drove the point home even more about how this game, and world, was created just for you, to the point an “AI” would want to delete all competition to be with you.

    Hmmm… this is usually the point in the review where I talk about the game’s graphics and sound – and whilst the cute anime girls are certainly detailed and do the job, graphics is definitely low on the list of priorities for Doki Doki Literature Club. Being a narrative driven game the images on screen are merely there to communicate what girl is saying what to you, and whilst it’s all pretty, it’s not really the point of the game. Don’t get me wrong, there are points when the art and particle effects on display are fantastic, but overall, don’t go into Doki Doki Literature club expecting to push your PC to it’s limits.

    So all in all, as you may well be able to tell, I thoroughly enjoyed Doki Doki Literature Club. It’s a pleasant (read: enjoyable) game that really has you wanting to know more about the characters and the world they inhabit. I liked the overall tone of the game, and felt that the twists and turns the narrative took helped keep me interested when I started to get bored of interacting with the same people over the course of the week. Give Doki Doki a try, I promise you won’t be left disappointed.

    P.S. TEAM YURI FOR THE WIN

    4/5

  • Super Mario Odyssey (NS)

    Super Mario Odyssey (NS)

    It’s been a bloody good year for Nintendo, and I for one couldn’t be happier for them. Whilst I initial said the switch wouldn’t sell tremendously well, it looks like I may be being proven wholeheartedly wrong, which is a bloody good thing, as it means we get fantastic gems like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, all in the space of one year. The fact I’m comparing Super Mario Odyssey to easily my favourite game of 2017 in the same sentence show’s how fantastic it really is: Nintendo have made an absolutely stunning platformer, one I’ve gone back to so many times since completing it that I’ve put over 40 hours into it.

    So, what is Super Mario Odyssey about? Well, as per always Peach is kidnapped (along with her new tiara hat that is sentient), with Mario being blasted out of the sky upon trying to rescue the Princess from her captor, Bowser. upon landing in a new, Tim Burton-esque world called hat land, marries happens upon a hat ghost that’s inhabited his fallen hat, and proceeds to use this new hat creature asap, finding he can use it to attack enemies, or even control other creatures. This random new mechanic is explained away within a millisecond, and is never explained much further, carrying on Nintendo’s long held trope of not really explaining much, but using it to death all the same.

    Regardless of how weak the actual story is (there’s a couple of cutscenes along the way, with a lacklustre amount of narrative), the actual gameplay is what most (if not all) players are here for, and it has to be said that Super Mario Odyssey has some of the freshest platforming in the last few years. Not only does the new hat mechanic add so much to the way Mario navigates the world, it also changes the way the levels/ world is laid out.

    You see, in Super Mario Odyssey you are taken to individual worlds that have multiple moons strewn throughout. These moons help power your craft for you to move onto the next world, but there’s nothing stopping you spending hours in one location picking up as many moons as possible. In fact, in the desert kingdom I done just that, spending the first 3-4 hours of the game gathering 80% of the moons available (around 70) before even heading onto the next world, meaning I was already way ahead of what the game anticipated.

    This freedom is present throughout the whole game, and ties in perfectly to the structure of how Mario now plays. Throughout your first play through of the main levels you’re basically collecting brand new moons and progressing every couple of minutes. Everything’s so close together and (apparently) so easy to get that you start to feel Super Mario Odyssey is a little bit too easy. But continue to play the same levels, and you’ll notice the easy moons were purely there for the beginners of platformers, and to get you used to the mechanics of Mario.

    As you start to accumulate 500+ moons (once you’ve completed the main story once), you notice that each moon is a challenge in themselves, some requiring knowledge about the world and it’s mechanics, with others requiring player skill in regards to controlling Mario. Regardless of whether you’re jumping across skyscrapers in a city, or running through time trials at breakneck pace, you consistently feel like you’re learning more and being pushed further than ever before. It’s an enthralling experience, and one that genuinely has you enticed well after the final moments of the campaign.

    Graphically, as per Nintendo tradition the game is an absolute stunner to look at. It’s weird to say, especially given the limited power of the portable games console, but my god does the Nintendo Switch manage to deliver on some cinematic levels of quality! Trees, textures, enemies, everything in fact looks and animates delightfully, resulting in one of the most pixar-esque games to have come out of Nintendo for quite a while. I say that often, but it really is true – Nintendo’s graphical fidelity is as if you’re watching a pre-rendered movie in real time, and it’s an absolute delight to behold.

    Level variation goes through the traditional standard formula of ice level, desert level, dark level etc, but unlike traditional platformers where your characters handling changes slightly based on the terrain, Super Mario Odyssey introduces new ai to control, as well as new environmental puzzles to master. Take for example the water level, where Mario still has an oxygen level. Using the new hate controlling mechanic, you’re able to take over fish, that can of course swim indefinitely. This new way of traversing the levels makes each one a delight to rediscover, especially when you’re hunting for ever more elaborate moons.

    Whilst on the topic of levels, the only level I disliked was a food themed level. Whilst many reviewers have praised it for it’s platforming (which admittedly, is pretty good), I couldn’t stand the actual levels’ aesthetics. You see, instead of there being food strewn all over the place (like, burgers, chicken etc.), you instead get a bunch of abstract shapes and colours that are meant to represent food. Some say it’s because Nintendo were worried about advertising food to kids, so chucked all the textures out, which I find more believable than the half-assed attempt at a style we got in the end.

    Musically, being a Nintendo game Super Mario Odyssey is fantastic. Everything from the new voiced jump man song, to the perfectly suited themed songs for each level will have you jiggling around well after you’ve completed the game and walked away for a while. Even as I write this sentence a few songs and swimming around my mind, wanting me to find remixes of those songs on Soundcloud. It’s genuinely fantastic, and Nintendo should be impressed with that they’ve managed to accomplish here.

    So overall, Super Mario Odyssey is an absolute delight to behold, and one that’ll keep you hooked and entertained for hours. Between it, and Zelda, I feel completely justified in spending £300 on my Switch at the start of the year, and would even argue it’s worth people going out of there way just to purchase the new console for these games alone. Super Mario Odyssey manages to perfect some of the series’ tropes, and even introduces (and disregards with relative ease) so many new mechanics that’s any one could have been a game unto themselves. If you like platformers, you owe it to yourself to own Super Mario Odyssey – it’s the pinnacle of what a platformer can be.

    5/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Super Lucky’s Tale (PC)

    Weekly Gaming: Super Lucky’s Tale (PC)

    It’s been a weird year for platformers. One would have expected the triumphant return of some of gamings legends in the form of Playtonic Games and their debut, Yooka-Laylee to have been something of a home run. Alas, it was not, with me cursing the game and being bored with it from start to finish. Super Lucky’s Tale then has an uphill battle, being a brand new game published by Microsoft and exclusive to Xbox One and PC’s everywhere. So does it manage to because a new original platforming franchise, or was this series doomed from the offset? As is always the case when it comes to these questions, it’s a little bit of both.

    The game starts out with a little intro detailing Lucky’s (the main fox protagonist) sister having stolen a magical book which a group of cats, called the litter (look into this), are after. Having crashed near Lucky, the book opens, transporting Lucky and the litter gang into it’s magical world. It’s here the the starts proper – controlling Lucky you make your way through the first overworld, and make your way into the only unlocked stage, world 1-1.

    Here you get a feel for what Super Lucky’s Tale will entail – the stage is laid out in a similar way to the rest as you make your way through, and teaches you how to jump, how to interact with items in the environment, and even how to earn all 4 lucky clovers on each stage. These game mechanics will repeat throughout the 5 hour campaign, and whilst they’re simplistic, it’s gratifying all the same.

    You see, Lucky’s Tale’s shortness is actually a blessing in disguise. Due to how short and repetitive each stage is, it’s actually quite mind-numbing (in the good way) to play through the campaign. There’s no thinking involved, and the platforming is fairly simplistic for the most part, meaning you can just sit back and relax as you explore and collect trinkets around the world.

    There are times when this simplicity falls apart, and I would blame that more on the developers inconsistencies. You see, for say 80% of all stages, a secret clover can be found by going into a secret underground location and completing a mini game. There are some stages though that completely destroy this idea, and instead break the cycle by giving you just some extra coins. These inconsistent games design decisions occasionally caused irritation or anger on my part – when you’re having to repeat a level to find something due to the developers changing up the common design language they themselves have presented, it’s never a good thing.

    So, apart from the typical platforming controls and mechanics, what is there to do in Super Lucky’s Tale? First up, collecting Clovers (think of them as Mario’s Stars). Each stage has a maximum of 4 to collect, with each one required a different method to attain. Each stage has one to collect just be finishing it, another can be acquired by collecting 300 coins, another by collecting the individual letters that make up Lucky’s name, and finally, the aforementioned secret area clovers. The overworked also has some mini-games you can complete to collect some, resulting in a total of 99 to find and acquire during your time in Lucky’s world.

    Throughout each stage you’ll encounter charming and cute creatures that inhabit each world, and even help them out in some circumstances. These creatures do speak, but most of what they say add nothing to the lore of the world, and, if anything they’re merely window dressing to the platforming of the game itself.

    This is fine, as Super Lucky’s Tale manages to be quite a cute and lovely platformer to behold. Graphically it’s not going to win any awards for being an innovative tech platform, but what art assets are there are sharp and lovely to look at, making for a lovely platformer to behold.

    The one thing I couldn’t get my head around was the story. It’s cool that the game is made for all ages, so had to be fairly easy for children to understand, but I can’t get over how the main antagonists of the game proceed to help you out and constantly talk to you through each and every level. This inconsistency of enemies actually being friends (one of the cats legitimately calls you a friend at some point), takes away from the “good vs evil” narrative the game peddles all throughout, and makes for a weird hypocritical mess of a motivation for progressing through the campaign.

    Another nuisance was the awkward camera controls, which seems to be a given when it comes to any platformer bar Mario. Most levels you’ll encounter are designed in such a way that the designers never intended for you to backtrack to explored areas. As such, each obstacle and platform is perfectly fine to naviagate going forwards, but never going back due to the camera not allowing for it. Pressing left or right on the right analogue stick merely changes the degree of looking (still forwards!) at Lucky – meaning the most you can ever look around Lucky is -45 degrees to +45 degrees. In most circumstances this is fine – you rarely have a reason to jump towards the camera, so the developers didn’t really implement it. But there are times, especially when hunting down many coins or hidden clovers that you’ll need to, and its in these moments that you’ll most likely die a lot.

    So all in all Super Lucky’s Tale could have been a triumphant first outing from Playful Corp, but due to inconsistencies in level design and some niggling issues with narrative it ending up being just OK. That doesn’t mean I don’t think you should play Lucky’s – far from it. I can imagine parents enjoying this with their kids, and having a relatively good time in doing so – just don’t expect Lucky’s Tale to be the second coming of a bygone era of great platformers.

    4/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Grow Up (PS4)

    Weekly Gaming: Grow Up (PS4)

    It’s been years since I sat down and gave Ubisoft’s Grow Home a go, and looking back, I remember being rather fond of BUD and his weird adventures in creating a star fruit for his mothership, MOM.With those fond memories in mind, this past weekend I decided to sit down with the sequel to that surprise hit, Grow Up, and it has to be said, the game is just as fascinating and charming as it was the first time round. Let’s explore why.

    Grow Up starts out with BUD riding within MOM, playing Tic-Tac-Toe indefinitely whilst exploring the cosmos. Unfortunately, with MOM concentrating on Tic-tac-toe too much, she accidentally hits into an asteroid, causing her to explode across a planet leaving BUD falling through it’s atmosphere. Upon landing, you’re straight back to where you were in the first game – controlling the weird physics of BUD and navigating an alien world.

    Eventually, you’ll happen across POD, a new drone character that is able to survey the land for you whenever you press the touchpad on the PS4 controller. Using his surveying ability you’re able to hunt down MOM’s parts, as well as all the new challenges, flora and crystals across this new land. In addition to that, you also have 4 new Starplants to grow!

    So, with POD in your arsenal of tools, you’re now able to set out and go about playing the game however you like. The completely open world is yours for the taking, with the same climbing mechanics also coming over from the first game completely in-tact. I proceeded to spend the first hour of playing Grow Up hunting down abilities for BUD (like the parachute, glider and even jetpack), and then proceeded to go to whatever tickled my fancy.

    At first I simply grew star plants and ensured they got as big as possible, controlling their vines to hit into floating lumps of rock to get them ever stronger, but this wouldn’t last, with myself constantly getting side-tracked with so many challenges and crystals to collect throughout the world.

    You see, with Grow Up, bigger definitely equals better, and where as the first game felt more of a primer to the BUD universe, you now have an entire world to explore, with different climates, land masses, and even more things to see and do than ever before. Just like Mario Odyssey (my review is coming for that, I promise!) you constantly have things to do, with even the climbing from one point to another being a puzzle and challenge in and of itself. There would be many instances where I would see a crystal sticking out of a rock a mile away, and consider how I can make my way to it using all the unique flora around, as well as using what limited resources BUD has available to him.

    The simplicity of the games design, to just have a open world with an end goal of accumulating all of MOM’s piece, can’t be understated. It means you can make your own fun, whether it be pushing bugs off mountains to their death (sorry poor creatures), or exploring each and every secret cave to find those luscious crystals, everything is pretty damn fun. Some may be annoyed at the lack of proper storyline/ no linearity, but I for one loved it.

    Most of the ideas here are recycled from the first game, from the collecting of plants and species, to the using crystals to level up your currently activated abilities, but overall the recycling doesn’t hurt the sequel, due to all the new things to collect and see. The power-ups too are given faster than before, meaning I was able to glide around the world fairly fast, resolved one of my biggest gripes with the first game, the constant climbing.

    If there’s one criticism to throw at Grow Up it’s the performance. Whilst i was playing Grow Up on the PS4 Pro i would constantly get framerate pauses whenever the game tried to save, and had many instances of the game slowing down to a crawl at times. Weird considering how graphically simple the game is.

    Also, graphically the game is still not much to look at. I mean, it’s to be expected when this is from a small off-shoot team within Ubisoft, but it’s not exactly a fantastic looker, especially within screenshots.

    Grow Up was the sequel many thanks hoped it would be. More of the same, but plenty more of it, allowing fans to do more of the things they liked, and less of the things they didn’t like (I’m looking at you, climbing). I certainly enjoyed my 5-6 hours in the game, and will be going back to it to collect all there is to find, including finishing each and every challenge, and getting all the remaining crystals I missed (40 damnit!). If you want a lovely lazy Sunday afternoon exploring a freeing and charming world, you most certainly can’t go wrong with Grow Up.

    4/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Bound (PS4)

    Weekly Gaming: Bound (PS4)

    Man oh man has playstation Plus been a roller coaster of a service over the years. When it first started out all those years ago I couldn’t wait to get my hands on most of the games that were offered. Triple-A titles left right and centre, all whilst being the same price (if not cheaper in many instances) than Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.

    I open with this context, as Bound comes to me courtesy of the Playstation Plus service, and my oh man has it been a let down these last few years. Nothing but indie games people haven’t heard of combined with Sony published games that never reviewed well in the first place. Polygon’s Owen Good wrote a fantastic piece on this exact issue just a few days ago, and I feel it explains my feelings on the service perfectly: https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/2/16728566/games-with-gold-and-playstation-plus-free-games-2017-analysis-opinion

    So with that being said, is Bound a good enough game to bring PS+ out of the depths and allow gamers to feel they’re getting good value for money? Unfortunately not.

    Not knowing anything about Bound before jumping in, I downloaded the game, and proceeded to boot it up. I was first presented with a pregnant lady leaving a car and proceeding to walk down a beach. Ok I thought, you’ve peaked my interest, what is Bound about? As I pushed the pregnant lady on, the game proper manifested, with a weird polygonal world manifesting in this ladies imagination. In this world, she’s merely a little girl, with her mother (the queen) appearing to have everything under control. You proceed to explore this rather gorgeous setting, only to find all is not as it seems, with a monster lurking around screaming at you, causing the sound princess to lose consciousness.

    Once that little intro is finished, you’re not in control of the pregnant lady once more, but this time the real world is actually a level select menu, with each turn of a new notepad being a different level to experience. You can proceed to take on any level in anyway you see fit, but being the boring bugger I am, I proceeded to just start from the furthest left level and make my way across to the right.

    The reason you’re able to take on levels in anyway you see fit? Because the game is abstract enough to only provide a little bit of context at the end of each level. So whilst each level is an abstracted example of what happened to the lady in her childhood, it’s only the very end of a level which actually shows what happened. In many instances it’s just showing normal family life, although throughout the campaign you’ll start to get the sense that something isn’t quite right. I shan’t go into spoilers, but whilst I felt the narrative and gameplay were a little too disjointed, it all concluded nicely in the end.

    Onto the gameplay, which, as mentioned before is fairly disjointed from the main story. You play a weird looking princess in an abstract blocky world. As you proceed through, you’ll notice the princess moves like a ballerina would, swaying to and fro about the level as you navigate her around. Occasionally you’ll happen across obstacles that try to kill your princess, and it’s up to you to either avoid them, or, should you actually get caught, worm your way out of the predicament by pressing R2 to dance nasties away.

    The stages are gorgeous to navigate, with enough particle effects to make anyone say wow should they see it in action, I just couldn’t help but feel it was all a bit too easy. Plastic, the develops of Bound, may have been just a little too inspired by games like Journey and Flower, and whilst they were trying to replicate the simpleness and majesty of the aforementioned games, just couldn’t actually make the world feel coherent in the story. As a consequence, the game and story just can’t help but feel plastered together – two unrelatable ideas smashed together to try and make something of a game.

    Story and lack of coherence aside, musically Bound doesn’t hold up too well either. In my time in the world I cannot recall a single song that’s stayed with me past my completion, a terrible state of affair for a game centred around a ballerina princess.

    Navigation/controls aren’t exactly fantastic, with me accidentally killing my character far too often, even with simple controls on, meaning my character wouldn’t walk over the end of surfaces. Further annoyance can be found in that not all the controls are explained, meaning on my first play through of the game I couldn’t reach many area’s purely because my characters move set was never explained properly. One could argue that the developers want you to replay the levels a second time with this added knowledge, but I personally so no reason to revise – past seeing what the main story was, there isn’t much more for me to see, both in the abstract worlds, and in controlling the ballerina princess.

    Whilst it’s world is fantastic to navigate through, you can’t help but feel Bound could have been so much more than what was released. The story, whilst fairly basic by the end of the campaign, had so much potential, it’s just a shame that some developers think that adding obfuscation makes a basic story better. The world too, whilst being gorgeous, could have been more fleshed out, linking more to the girls past as opposed to being abstract beyond recognition. As you can then tell, Bound is ok, but could have been a fantastic game up there with Abzu should the developers have spent a bit more time working on tying everything together.

    Bound then is another perfect Playstation Plus release – mediocre and Sony published. One day, playstation plus may give us a truly fantastic hit, but so far that is not within sight anytime soon.

    3/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Costume Quest 2 (Xbox One)

    Weekly Gaming: Costume Quest 2 (Xbox One)

    It’s been many years since I sat down and had a bloody good time with Costume Quest. This charming, weird game was something of a mystery to me, with the only things being heard about the game being good words by Giant Bomb and other outlets on it’s great theme. So, 6 lovely hours later after completing the main campaign, I came away impressed, and excited for a sequel (should one ever be made).

    Alas, not all wishes should come true, and I for one am sad that I just sat through a sequel which has tarnished my memories of a truly great and charming game.

    Not that Costume Quest 2 starts off bad; if anything it starts off no different to Costume Quest 1, and in fact is a direct sequel, with the whacky group you controlled in the first place finding themselves between worlds, trying to find their way home. Starting the game proper, you find yourselves in your old town, but with the main antagonist of the game scheming as always. Upon Mr Orel White coming back from a portal, you notice he has a talisman, one which opens portals to the demon realm, and which allows you to control all manner of creatures that come out.

    Wanting to stop Dr White before this all happens, your group proceeds to travel back in time, but not before two of them stay behind to help you out from across time. In this starting area, you encounter a new random child, that proceeds to be your third party member (for no other reason than you asked him where something was). using these three characters, you then proceed to battle bad time people int he same manner of the previous game: by transforming into your costumes.

    This was already where one of my first issues arose: unlike Costume Quest 1, which had great costumes/transformations, costume quest 2 seems to have given up on truly original and innovative transformations. You start off with a Candy corn and superhero, both of which look bland and normal, with the rest of the costumes gained throughout the game being no more inventive or creative as the first. It’s a shame, as getting new costumes was easily one of my favourite things of the first game – not only seeing how awesome the costume looked in fights, but also the awesome moves and special attacks that I’d get to see unfold as fights proceeded.

    Whilst the fights themselves are as easy and as serviceable as the first, you can’t say the team have rested on their laurels. Your characters are now able to double attack, parry and defend (if I recall correctly, you could only do the latter in the first game), meaning each fight requires your full attention to everything happening on screen, as well as ensuring you have some timing skills.

    The fights also (maybe I’m mis-remembering once again) introduce a new stat in play – stat boosts and detriments based on the costumes you choose, and the enemies you’re attacking. This can come with some pros in that you deal a lot more damage to some enemies, but definitely some cons also – especially when there’s no discernible way to tell enemy types apart other than actually attacking them. Even when you do learn the different enemies, there’s no guarantee that the costumes you pick beforehand will be in anyway effective for them, since each enemy encounter is random. It’s irritating that whilst the developers have tried to add more depth to the combat, they’ve simultaneously taken way the ability to choose your moves/specials, which in doing so left you feeling frustrated that you can’t prepare effectively.

    What I’ve said so far may not sound great, but also may not sound bad either, I cannot for the life of me forgive the lack of coherent story, and shitty characters Costume Quest 2 manages to create. The first Costume quest was a barrel of laughs, with kids taking on adults and monsters as equals, with a lot of funny text and situations making for an extremely entertaining time. Costume Quest 2 tries to start off this way, but soon trips over when you find there’s no story telling for hours on end, with much of the game being endless candy hunting and random battles. What little narrative there is isn’t funny, and even exists to justify (badly I might add) why you’re going to a new locale.

    I think that’s what irritates me most about Costume Quest 2: the story does not do a good enough job of being light-hearted or even justifying why a specific location looks the way it does. Take for example the future, where Dr Orel White manages to take over the world – children are banned from eating sweets or trick-or-treeting – a terrible fate for all involved. But for some reason, Dr Orel White appears to be a genius that is able to create robotics and hovering cars – something which has no bearing what-so-ever on the fact he took a talisman which enabled demons to come through.

    I could go into detail about why each of the characters are also annoying, with the third party member disappearing every 2 minutes to be replaced by another, but doing so would make me even more annoyed, due to it’s wasted opportunity to flesh out the world and the characters within. Or even the fact that the end scene has no way out other than to quit the game. It’s insane.

    It’s just a shame that Costume Quest 2 exists at all. It appears as though it may have been a cash-grab, one that ran out of money before it was forced out, causing a random story and not great gameplay mechanics. As someone that loved the original, and couldn’t wake for a sequel, I’m hugely disappointed I saw this game through to the end and feel like I’ve waster 7 hours of my life. Don’t wish for sequels, you’ll almost always get hurt.

    2/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PS4 Pro)

    Weekly Gaming: Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PS4 Pro)

    It’s been a while since I sat down with my other half and played some good old light hearted lego. These times aren’t only about the fun of playing with your partner, but also the fact that Lego games are just as enjoyable as ever, with a funny and mundane story all set in the same universe of brands/franchises you love. It’s this lightheartedness that makes me more than happy to sit down and play the game, even if I have other things I should be doing.

    So, to start off with, what is Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens? It’s a lego game which retells the film’s story, albeit in a more light-hearted and fun tone. You play the actual characters at the story-beats of the film, and proceed to re-enact the scenes, all with lots of gameplay thrown in inbetween. For example, early on in the game you play as Rey and BB8 as they explore a ruined old Star Destroyer – a great way to get you used to each characters abilities, all whilst playing lines of dialogue from the film.

    Get used to seeing split-screen screenshots – I didn’t play the game once alone

    Being the Lego franchise gives the developers more freedom in regards to the story-beats, meaning (most) characters don’t ever actually die, and meaning you get bigger levels to explore, showing off more backstory to the Star Wars universe than the films actually showed. A fantastic example of this is a new level that opens once you complete the game and have enough gold bricks – in it you play as Han Solo and Chewbacca as they try to capture a creature which is seen in the film (and later on in the game). These scenes don’t add that much to the fiction, but extended the time we played the game, and gave us more reasons to keep coming back, which is only a good thing.

    As per (most) of the Lego games, Lego The Force Awakens manages to be as entertaining as ever, with myself and my partner laughing at least a few times in each level. Some of the funniest moments are when you least expect it – for example a story beat where a character is meant to die may seem sad, until the dead character suddenly gets up and waltzes off the screen, only to grab some flowers and act dead once more. It’s times like these where the Lego is a genuine charm to play.

    Expect to fight a lot of enemies. A LOT

    That’s not to say there isn’t grinding: being a Lego game, Lego The Force Awakens has a lot of grinding throughout it’s stages, with 10 minikits, 3 gold bricks, and 1 red brick ready to collect on most. Issue is, the vast majority of the collectibles can’t be grabbed until you’ve already completed the stages once and have proceeded to buy specific character with abilities that allow you to get them. This “grind” is annoying when you first play through, seeing clearly signposted collectibles being too far out of reach is always going to be annoying, but it gives you reason to come back, and is all the more gratifying when you actually 100% a stage.

    The space fights were actually pretty nifty, and felt more like rogue squadron than a lego game.

    Graphically, as per all Lego games, it’s a mixed bag. The main playable figures themselves have so few polygons that I wouldn’t be surprised if they came out of PS2 assets with all but a few minor tweaks. But the levels, and environments they traverse are gorgeously rendered – massive landscapes with plenty of detail on grass, leaves, star systems, the lot. It’s a weird mis-match of an aesthetic, which is weirdly pulled off very well – if it weren’t for the low poly characters, you would know you’re playing a PS4 game.

    There are puzzles throughout, but as with any Lego game you’ll come across, but the vast majority of them are easy to solve and don’t require much past pressing and holding the O button in the right place. Things are mixed up a bit when you have to use two characters to slot things into place, but when you’re playing co-op, these also become trivial.

    Exploring areas to find new and interesting puzzles is one way to kill time

    There are a few niggles I have in the sound quality department though – namely, the voice acting. Most voices for the characters are great, and are either masterfully taken from the film (so much so you can’t even tell), whilst others have great new original dialogue. Where this falls apart though is in some of the quality of the main characters – namely Rey. You see, the voice acting is so atrocious in quality that you can’t help but hear the room/street it recorded on. Her voice sound so distant, so bad that you can’t help but notice how much it stands out. Even my partner had to ask why her voice quality was so bad, with me advising that it was most likely due to the fact they had only a short amount of time with the actress and wasn’t able to do retakes. To say it stands out is a bit of an understatement.

    So overall, as with most of the Lego games I’ve played, I thoroughly enjoyed Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Voice acting nuisances aside, I managed to put a good 15-20 hours into the game with my other half, collecting as much as possible just to see as much of the game as possible. If you’re looking for a highly polished co-op game, with no sharp edges, by all means give the game a go, you won’t be disappointed.

    4/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Sonic Forces (PC)

    Weekly Gaming: Sonic Forces (PC)

    Hey all!

    This week I take a look at a series I’ve long loved, the Sonic franchise! I would usually be excited about this, but I’m afraid there’s bad news: Sonic Forces is easily one of the worst games I’ve ever played. Graphics aside, the game has next to no redeeming features, with it’s controls easily being one of the worst I’ve ever experienced. It’s as if the animations/graphics were made by Hollywood studios, whilst the programming was left to a bunch of primary school children.

    If you want to read my full opinions on the matter, by all means click the link below:

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/270151/sonic-forces-pc/

    Until next week, I hope you’re well, and I look forward to seeing you beautiful face once again!

    -Dan

  • Weekly Gaming: Forza 7 (Xbox One)

    Weekly Gaming: Forza 7 (Xbox One)

    Hi all,

    Welcome back to the weekly schedule! Apologies once again for the mess up in previous weeks – I just cannot get over how fast this year is flying by!

    For this weeks game, I’m taking a look at Forza 7, the latest racer from Turn 10 studios exclusively for the Xbox One and PC. Overall, I didn’t mind the game that much – it has a lot to do, and a lot of customization in regards to controls. Just be warned that it can get boring fast thanks to this being the 7th iteration of the franchise.

    If you want to read my thoughts on the game, click the link below to be redirected to VGChartz.com:

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/269745/forza-motorsport-7-xone/

    Until next week guys and gals!

    -Dan

  • Weekly Gaming: Cuphead (Xbox One)

    Weekly Gaming: Cuphead (Xbox One)

    Hi all!

    So as per my previous post, I apologise that this is a little late! October flew by, so much so I genuinely cannot believe it’s already November and I’m off to Japan this week!

    Posts will still continue (as I’ll schedule them ahead of time), but otherwise I’ll be on the other side of the world!

    Right, less catching up, and more reviewing. This week I take a look at Cuphead, the (long delayed) game from Studio MDHR, whose visuals are sure to delight gamers and non-gamers the world over. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Cuphead’s world, and whilst I disagree at everyone’s statement about it’s difficulty, I still felt it was a fantastic game which is challenging – not hard.

    For clarification on how I feel hard and challenging are two different things, you can read my full review below over at VGchartz.com:

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/269722/cuphead-xone/

    Until next time!

    -Dan

  • Weekly Gaming: Jettomero (PC)

    Weekly Gaming: Jettomero (PC)

    Hey all,

    Apologies for this, but it appears I forgot to publish a review on the 20th of October, so this post is for that! Please find below my review for a game I haven’t talked about on my own website just yet: Jettomero.

    You can read the full review over at VGChartz.com below:

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/269731/jettomero-hero-of-the-universe-pc/

    Thanks for coming back again! I’ll post another catch up for Friday the 3rd soon, with regular schedule commencing Friday the 10th 🙂

    Til next time!

    -Dan

  • Weekly Gaming: Uncharted 4 (PS4 Pro)

    Weekly Gaming: Uncharted 4 (PS4 Pro)

    Unchartered 4 Review (PS4 Pro)

    As those of you may have seen from previous reviews, I like the Unchartered games, but always found them a bit hollow. In fact, it was the original Unchartered game that put me off the series for so long, with its mediocre presentation, lacking game design, and weird characterisation. A started to warm towards the series throughout playing 2 and 3, with both games not only pushing the limits of what was possible in the graphical department for such an old system, but also making the characters more likeable.

    So here we are at the fourth title in the series, and what have Naughty Dog managed to do? They’ve managed to learn from their previous titles, that’s what.

    You see, what I didn’t mention is that between 3 and 4, Naughty Dog released The Last of Us, a great game that I reviewed when it was released. It received critical acclaim, and rightly so, especially for the character interaction and building that they managed to do. Naughty Dog haven’t rested on their laurels, and with the help of the lead writer, creative director and programmer Neil Druckmann, have managed to create characters you can genuinely love, and hope do well. This isn’t to say Neil was the only developer who helped craft unchartered 4’s story, far from it, but he seems to have pushed the seriousness of gaming one step closer to Cinema and TV, making it a better medium as a consequence.

    Anyway! Back to square one before I go on a tirade about nonsense. How does Unchartered 4 play? Well, if you’ve played a previous entry in the series, then you’ve basically played Unchartered 4. Don’t get me wrong, theres a few new mechanics used throughout the campaign, such as the hook mechanic to swing from platform to platform, but overall nothing new can really be seen here. You go through the same old routine of – narrative > puzzle > platforming > kill lots of henchman > platforming that we all know and (maybe) love.

    This tried and tested formula may not be very revolutionary, but what’s different this time round is the previously mentioned character arks, especially with Nathan Drake himself. You see, from Unchartered 1 through 3 you never really knew anything about Nathan’s past – yes, he would occasionally say things about how he met sully, but outside of that you’d never know how he knew so much about history and had some great survival skills.

    Unchartered 4 manages to do a fantastic job of not only fleshing out Nathan Drake, but also his new, never before seen or mentioned brother, both of which have a few chapters that go back to their childhood in an orphanage, and even what they got up to as youngsters. This fleshing out at first feels a bit contrived, merely to teach you some new mechanics you may first think – but as the campaign progresses you start to get a real sense of brotherly love between the two siblings, and eventually, care about their wellbeing.

    Graphically, the game is stunning. Everything from the mocap on the main characters, to the detailed forests, and even the gorgeous ancient buildings all looks truly magnificent, so much so I was taking screenshots every few seconds. I swear I’ve said this before, but if only Naughty Dog wasn’t a PS4 exclusive developer – the things they could do on a platform as powerful as the PC could be truly breathtaking.

    What helps bring the graphically impressive world to life even more is the new open world driving sequences, which, whilst are new in the game design of Unchartered, are still fairly linear. You’re given a big area of a map to explore, and an objective to find something, so you proceed to drive around looking for clues that may help to reach your objective. These sections can be as long, and as short as you like, and certainly add something new to the traditional formula of Unchartered.

    The set pieces are just as extreme as ever, and push the physics simulation of the PS4 to the absolute max, with debris flying everywhere, as well as dynamic building falling as you progress, or even cityscapes being drawn in on the fly. My other half also found them incredible, being surprised that even with eh amount of detail on display, I was still controlling Nate throughout the entire scene as it was unfolding. If you liked previous Unchartered’s set pieces, you’re sure to love them here.

    There is unfortunately still the issue of ludonarritive dissonance – that is the fact that the story. puzzle solving and everything else seems to have no bearing on the actual shooting of enemies throughout the game. It’s like you’re playing two completely different games – no one ever mentions the fact they’ve just killed a bunch of men, and no one certainly mentions the blatantly stupid story moments when enemies just so happen to be in the ruins of a never before seen city. It’s all a bit immersion breaking, and certainly got annoying towards the end of the game when (spoilers ahead!) the group abandon the cave with treasure in despite the fact they could go back there at any time.

    Another issue I found was the combat. Whilst Unchartered 4 pushes you to be as stealthy as possible, I found it was easier (and faster) to just start shooting the first enemy as soon as possible. Being sneaky resulted in a lot of AI routine bugs, especially when they were within close proximity to each other, resulting in enemies walking to a cliff edge, back into a friend, and back again.

    So overall, I definitely enjoyed Unchartered 4 more so than the previous entries in the series. It still has some of the same issues that plagued the previous titles BUT it managed to add enough story moments, along with better character depth, to make me choke a little at the ending. It’s been a long ride, but one I’m glad I experienced, and dare I say it, you should too.

    4/5

  • Weekly Gaming: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)

    Weekly Gaming: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (Switch)

    Hey all!

    So this week I take a look at a game I would have never thought I’d actually be buying: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Now this may also come as a surprise, but the game is absolutely fantastic, easily one of my favourite games of this year. So without further ado, if you wish to read my thoughts on the game in their entirety, proceed to click the link below:

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/269255/mario-rabbids-kingdom-battle-switch/

    Hope you’re all well, and until next week, keep safe!

    – Dan

  • Weekly Gaming: Songbringer (PC)

    Weekly Gaming: Songbringer (PC)

    Hey all,

    Bit late with this one (I apologise!) but for this week I’m linking to my review on Songbringer – a fantastic procedural dungeon crawler that really did remind me of the early days of Zelda. It had a few issues (more bug related), but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed the game and am going to definitely go back to it in the future.

    You can read my full review at the link below:

    http://www.vgchartz.com/article/269312/songbringer-pc/

    Until next week!

    -Dan