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Category: Weekly Gaming/Media

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

22/12/2017
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

15/12/2017
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

08/12/2017
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

01/12/2017
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

24/11/2017
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

17/11/2017
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

10/11/2017
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

07/11/2017
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

04/11/2017
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

27/10/2017
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

13/10/2017
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

06/10/2017
Weekly Gaming: Call of Duty: Ghosts (PS4)

As I’ve said in previous Call of Duty games, I actually don’t mind th franchise as a whole. I understand it’s cool and hip to hate on the popular franchises these days, but Call of Duty games have always managed to entertain me for the few hours I need to put into them. There’s something about the sheer bombastic nature of the campaigns that’s both lethargic, and somewhat entertaining. All this is to say, it’s awesome to see the fruits of a publisher/developers labour when money is (almost) no obstacle, especially when Call of Duty games of years past have been able to generate billions in revenue within the first 24 hours alone.

So with all that being said, we move on to the uncomfortable middle game of the series, one that could even be argued has stated the demise of on of the biggest sellers in gaming history; Call of Duty Ghosts.

First up Ghost’s campaign, which, considering I’ve enjoyed the previous two campaigns I’ve played, comes somewhat of a surprise to say: I genuinely didn’t like it. From the barebones narrative of a united South America taking on the USA, to the stupid, brutish characters and their constant shouting of “we’re ghosts!!!”, the whole campaign was stupid and lacked any nuance whatsoever.

Even the few characters you meet throughout the game’s short 5-6 hour campaign are so generic that they rarely take their masks off, meaning we literally have a a couple of characters which are mimicking the modern warfare series’ “Ghost”. In fact, I would not be surprised if Neversoft were struggling to think up a story, proceeding to look to the Modern Warfare series, and proceeded to centre and entire narrative around the one faceless character they liked. It’s weird, because COD in recent years has really come a long way in their story telling, so it’s so odd that they had such a bad year in 2013.

Onto the gameplay, which you could guess is just as fast paced and smooth as possible. As always with a Call of Duty title, Neversoft managed to keep to the 60fps lock for the most part, and proceeded to keep you constantly on your toes as you mow down countless foes. My only issue here is the way Neversoft constantly try to take control away from you as the player to show a big explosion, or water falling through a city. These big set-pieces look cool, don’t get me wrong, but they add nothing to the gameplay, and if anything, take agency away from me for trying to get to my end destination. It’s confusing, and feels like a cheap way to add “excitement” to the otherwise smooth shooting mechanics.

Settings wise, Ghosts at least manages to change up the scenery every now and then, giving you a variety of mission locales, from the deserts of chilli, to the frozen lands of Antartica, all manner of different terrains are explored, and it actually helps in keeping the campaign feeling fast paced. Unfortunately, whilst each locale looks different, and in some instances stunning to observe, they for the most part are generic and lacking any detail. As per my reviews with Battlefield, I found that if you only look at the content the developers want you to look at (the other characters on screen + the main path you walk) then the detail is superb, but the second you start to wonder around the level you notice the rest of the geometry and aesthetics are fairly simply, with repeated textures and objects used throughout. It’s a shame, as the change in locale’s actually could have helped the game stand out from the crowd.

I know my reviews usually last a lot longer than this, but man oh man was I not impressed with Ghosts. From the boring dialogue of macho men constantly saying what people thing hard men say, to the bog-standard gameplay typical of a COD game, from start to finish I was merely playing the game purely to finish it for my 52 games in 2017. If you want to play a COD game, don’t get Ghost’s; there’s plenty of good titles in the Call of Duty catalogue, and this definitely is not one of them.

2/5

29/09/2017
Weekly Gaming: Submerged (PC)

It’s been a while since I’ve played an incomplete, rough indie game, and weirdly enough, I wasn’t actually going out of my way to do that. But that was the case with Submerged – a weirdly ambitious indie platformer that proceeded to push the boat (literally) in the graphics department, but also felt so rough that I ended up almost quitting the game. Lets take some time to disseminate why.

Submerged has you playing as a teen who is looking to help her injured brother. The very start of the game makes you know this is a world unlike our own, as the whole world is “submerged” in water, with only the tops of skyscrapers being accessible for humans. Playing as the unnamed girl, you proceed to sail the sea hoping from one building to another finding collectibles and old medical equipment for your ill brother.

With that context out the way, let’s talk about the good things Submerged brought to the table.

Graphically, Submerged is both one of the prettiest indie games I’ve seen in a while, as well as the roughest. Some scenes took my breath away, especially the dynamic weather on display through your travels throughout the world. Having the absolutely stunning skies, sunsets and sunrises follow your main character as you explore the world was fantastic, and had me more often than not standing still and watching as the world passed me by.

Another thing submerged done right was its UI, or to put it another way: its ability to say a lot without saying anything at all. There is very little text used throughout the game, with most story points, as well as objectives told through simple symbology or animations. I was surprised and excited at how much I was able to understand the world and it’s backstory based on nothing more than simple abstract cards that are collected throughout the game. It gave me true inspiration for my own games in the future, and is definitely a highlight of how well games can do when they try their best to portray elements to players of many different walks of life through simple human-understandable images.

Collectibles was another strong point that kept me playing far longer than the game required just so I had everything the game had to offer. The world is vast, and as such, has many islands that hide collectibles throughout, as well as powerups for your boat within the

On the rough side is the absolutely atrocity that is the textures, repeating of assets, and just simply flat world the developers at Uppercut Games have conjured up. Terribly detailed and bump mapped lion textures adorn every surface, with their intention meaning to bring more detail to the world, but instead detract from the beauty of the environmental effects. Textures were so flat and dull that even my girlfriend pointed it out, saying it looked terrible. Considering my other half usually doesn’t care about graphics, it shows how bad they really are.

The animations too are lacklustre and provide no life to the characters you’re meant to care about. Every morning your female player discovers that she is increasingly getting more moldy, with green spores covering her arms – but I just don’t believe that she’s actually worried. Each day her animations for climbing are exactly the same, and just don’t give the feeling that she’s pushing through pain to save her brother.

Then there’s the gameplay of getting to the main game objectives themselves. For one, your character cannot walk, jump, or in fact, do any of the things you would expect in a platformer. Instead, you simply walk up to a wall, continue to press forward and have your character traverse the environment like you would in Assassin’s Creed – all without any button prompts. It’s weird, but the lack of actual control of my character made the actual traversal of the world extremely boring – I simply felt like a bystander willing the character to their next inevitable position.

It seems that in striving for simplicity, Submerged becomes all but mundane, making me bored when traversing environments, and requires so little input from the player that I was able to play a lot of the game one handed.

The buildings you traverse weren’t exactly exciting either – there are multiple paths to take usually, with some resulting in dead ends, and others leading to collectibles. If anything I found the map design of the buildings the most frustrating part of Submerged: 5 minutes of slow traversal could result in nothing in you took the wrong path, with no way of getting back to the start of the building in any timely fashion, yet again resulting in more wasted time.

Despite the rough edges, there is some charm to be had in Submerged. I may not believe it’s anywhere near as good as some of the reviews I recall reading when the game was first released, but it was still a nice way to kill some hours, and a great way to find collectibles across a whole map. By all means give the game a go if you like finding lots of collectibles, just be warned that the graphics, gameplay and even controls are a little rough, and as such, you should know about that before going in.

3/5

22/09/2017
Weekly Gaming: Super Mario Run (iOS)

Nintendo’s first foray into mobile gaming may have been a massive hit (Pokemon Go) but their first premium game is certainly a mixed bag of weirdness. Super Mario Run costs the grand old price of £7.99, not an extravagant price when comparing it to the traditional games market, but certainly pricey on mobile platforms. So what do you get for your money? Let’s find out.

First up, Super Mario Run is a running platofrmer, but because you can’t control a phone as easily as you would a traditional console and controller, the game is a forever runner – Mario himself moves forward regardless as to whether you actually press anything or not. This is a massive break from previous mario games, with their precise controls, but is understandable due to the constraints of mobile phone’s designs.

Nintendo made a big point of advertising the fact you control Mario with only one hand, and whilst it works absolutely fine, it does change the players relationship with Mario. You see, Mario in most games is renowned for his precision – where you want him to go, he will go. This 1:1 relationship between what you do on the controller and Mario actually moving is one of the main reasons the Mario franchise has been so successful. The issue is, having Mario move himself forward makes it hard to judge when to actually jump, or the to tap the screen to make him kill an enemy.

This disconnection between player and movement actually has far reaching consequences. I for one love mario games – they can be both simplistic, and extremely hard depending on your skill level. Super Mario 3D World for example, I managed to collect every single optional coin, and even completed the extra hard special levels, all because of how much I enjoyed controlling Mario. Yet, in super Mario Run, I struggled in even simple levels, accidentally making Mario fall to his death multiple times just because I mis-timed a jump or accidentally used my double-jump far too soon. It’s annoying, and actually made me walk away from the game for several months.

But it’s not all bad, Super Mario Run actually distills the core of Mario games into a mobile platform quite well. Enemies we all know and love go about levels exactly as you’d expect, and are great to take on. There’s no new enemies to take on, but due to some of the level changes some enemies do move in new and different ways. Take the Boo’s for example – as Mario can’t change direction manually, they are usually used as obstacles on your path e.g. popping out of blocks, as opposed to enemies you can actively avoid and use to your advantage.

As alluded to in the previous chapter, Mario’s new control system has resulted in some level design changes. The most dramatic ones are Bowser’s castle levels, and the haunted house levels. The former doesn’t entail having multiple levels (levels being platforms above and below the one you’re currently on), whilst the latter consists of very thin levels with lots of blocks that pause Mario and allow him to move again when tapping the screen. This is all fine and good and takes a little longer to get used to than usual, but results in some new gameplay that can get a bit confusing.

On the subject of levels, it has to be noted how few levels there actually are. In total, there’s 18 levels and 6 castle levels, all which can be completed in around 1 minute, resulting in a really short game. The way Nintendo goes about making the game longer is through collecting optional coins – each level contains 5 purple coins. Should you collect them all, you’ll unlock a new version of the level with 5 new coins. Do this 3 times, and you’ve collected everything that level has to offer. I’m usually a fan of these optional objectives, but genuinely had no interest in it here on Super Mario Run. Maybe it was because there’s no way to go back to collect a coin, meaning it’s more memory of the level than your actual skill, resulting if you having to repeat a level multiple times just to get a single coin, but I just couldn’t enjoy this aspect of the game.

Thankfully, the graphics are just as good as ever, with Mario looking just as detailed, if not more so than on Nintendo’s own consoles themselves. Levels are lovely and detailed, and the amount of aliasing being used makes Super Mario Run look like a pixar film at times. It’s just so smooth and detailed, it’s genuinely lovely to look at.

Unfortunately, it seems that Nintendo might have been in two minds when making Super Mario Run. You see, whilst it’s a premium game with a premium price tag, it’s completely cluttered with free to play elements, something that seems at odds with the game’s core design. You see, you start in a hub world where you must start to rebuild the mushroom kingdom using Toads earned through repeating levels in the game’s “Rally” mode, and coins earned in levels. Not only does this try to get you to repeat levels endlessly, it also proceeds to tally up how many enemies you’ve killed giving you special unlocks should you kill so many.

This split personality of premium/free to play couldn’t help but make me feel…. gross for playing Super Mario Run. If the game would have been free-to-play, most of these mechanics would have been completely acceptable – Nintendo need to make money, so keep you coming back is the way to go. But, if I’ve paid a non-inconsequential fee to play the game, I don’t expect to be bombarded with all of this shit. I should be able to play the game as and when I want, and not pestered to spend more time in Mario’s world. It’s a weird mismatch of a game, and one that I wish Nintendo would have fully committed to one or the other.

Overall, I’m glad Nintendo is foraying into brand new territory, but it needs to do so with some consistency. Trying to incorporate Free-to-play mechanics into a premium game makes it both annoying, but also is a subservience to fans of the series, and first-time players alike. It’s enjoyable for a few hours, but Super Mario Run is a weird mix of a platformer that alienates fans of the series, and becomes too expensive for the casual player. By all means give the game a download if you need to see everything Nintendo produces, but be warned that you may not find it as enjoyable as Nintendo games of yester-year.

3/5

15/09/2017