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Category: Weekly Gaming/Media

GOTY 2015: My Favourite Games Played 2015

Hi all,

It’s that special time of year again, the time where we summarise what we liked (and what we didn’t) before our inevitable death. It that’s a bit too dark for you, sorry, but lets get on with my top 10 games!

(For those of you who don’t know, this list encompasses both new and old games, and is only a reflection on what I have personally played this year).

10. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Whilst I’ve played my fair share of action games in the past, Metal Gear Rising: Revengence really well and truly was a fantastic game that helped to reinvigorate my love of action games. It’s story was a little non-sensical, but at the end of the day, I’ve heard that of every Metal Gear game of the last few years.

9. Metrico

This stylish platformer changed my perspective on what a platformer game truly can be. Some of it’s brilliant puzzle ideas may actually find it’s way into my next game, due to their simplicity and brilliant attention to detail. To say it’s a must-play is an understatement, and I hope many more people get to play this fantastic platformer in the future with the games imminent release on PS4 sometime in 2016.

8. The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

What started out as walking simulator soon turned into one of the most exciting games I’ve played all year. The Vanishing of Nathan Carter genuinely tricks you into thinking it’s another Everybody’s Gone to The Rapture, but soon, through mini tales, tells a great story about a little boy named Nathan and his fantastic imagination. If you haven’t played Nathan Carter, do so: you will not be disappointed.

7. DMC: Devil May Cry

I’ve loved Devil May Cry ever since I was a little git skiving from school because of a cold. Playing as this awesome man named Dante taking on a bunch of demons from the underworld truly appealed to my teenage sensibilities, and has stuck with me even now when I’m 28. Playing through DMC: Devil May Cry by Ninja Theory, I was annoyed at first by the hair and stylistic changes they had made, but truly admired what they done to the gameplay, and looking back now at the end of the year, I can honestly say it was one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. Ninja Theory should be proud of what they done to this franchise, I know that I am proud of them for allowing DMC a few more years of relevance in this industries darkest, sequel driven, times.

6. Shadow Puppeteer

After seeing the game and speaking with it’s Norwegian creators at EGX 2015, I had to have my hands on a game that truly conjured up images of Tim Burton the second I laid eyes on it. Shadow Puppeteer wasn’t without it’s faults; the platforming felt a bit too glitchy at times, but it was truly stunning to watch, and brilliant to think about it’s puzzle mechanics.

5. Grow Home

I haven’t sat down with a game and been so enthralled by it that I complete it 100% in a long time. Grow Home broke this streak for me when it became available on PS4 recently, to which I was so hooked I genuinely sunk around 8 hours into it before coming away satisfied that I had uncovered everything the game had to give. Whilst Grow Home is no longer free on PS+, I’d still recommend giving the game a go. Every friend I’ve spoken to who’s played the game loves it.

4. Not a Hero

Hilarious and patriotic are not words you hear often in the games industry, but both are perfect descriptors for Roll 7’s crazy and manic shooter Not a Hero. Every press of the trigger had me chuckling to myself as enemies would swear english profanities in my direction. Along with the hilarity, there was also good gameplay, a seemingly repetitive shooter but one that has depth due to how small and complex the levels are. The objectives played out on said levels are also the cream on the cake.

3. Rocket League

I spent over 100 hours playing Rocket League; a feat I thought I no longer had in me due to other responsibilities in my life. But Rocket League properly grabbed me, so much so it was hard to look away. I knew I had it bad when I got home drunk from town one day, barely able to walk, yet still sober enough to think “I need to play Rocket League!”, and so I plonked it on the TV. I done terribly of course, but it still stands as a testament to how fun Rocket League is, and how it easily earns a top spot in my GOTY awards 2015.

2. Life is Strange

It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes Life is Strange so damn special. Maybe it’s the new perspective on a life I never knew, maybe its the lovely hand painted textures and graphics, or maybe, just maybe, it’s because the story had me talking with friends and family in ways a game hasn’t for many years. Life is Strange is a landmark moment in the games industry: it’s still AAA enough to reach a mass audience the indie scene could only dream of, but is also tackling subjects the AAA industry frequently don’t speak about. Topics from Suicide, murder, proper characterisation and many more are truly excellent in (almost) every aspect. Dontnod should be proud of what they’ve produced: it’s stellar.

1. Halo 5

This may come as no surprise to those who know me (I mean, I love the halo franchise so much I’m considering getting a tattoo), but Halo 5 has reinvigorated my love and passion for the franchise. Halo 4 burned me out; it was truly a mediocre game that was capable, but boring. Halo 5 on the other hand is so addictive that I’ve invested countless nights and hundreds of hours into the multiplayer, and that doesn’t even include the campaign that I tirelessly finished on legendary alone. For fans of shooters on consoles, you can do no better at the moment than Halo 5; a truly landmark game that has kept me hooked since its release in October.

So there you go, my top 10 games of 2015. As with the previous 3 years, I’m going to be continuing to complete a game a week, with a weekly article going up as standard. I’ve done 156 articles so far, and I’m not going to stop anytime soon.

So tune in next year (and next week) for my coverage on games I’m completing, along with new opinion pieces, and video articles I’ll soon be producing.

Thank you for your support, and have a fantastic Holiday.

-Dan

23/12/2015
Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void (PC)

Hi all,

I know this is a week or so out of date, but this week I’m posting my review on Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, a fantastic game that I thoroughly enjoyed and will be coming back to time and time again. As always, the review can be found below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/262188/starcraft-ii-legacy-of-the-void-pc/

Hope you enjoy, and as always, thanks for visiting!

-Dan

18/12/2015
Weekly Gaming: Poncho (PC)

Hi all!

I completely forgot to post this on here when I completed it for VGChartz.com, but here it is! My review for one of my most anticipated indie games: Poncho.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/261993/poncho-pc/

Just in case you don’t want to read the actual review, you can have a narrated version below:

As always, hope you’re all well, and have a fantastic new year!

-Dan

11/12/2015
Weekly Gaming: Shadow Puppeteer (PC)

Hi all,

For this week I’ve decided to put up my review/article on a game I completed in October called Shadow Puppeteer. The game was fantastic, and I wish the developers all the luck in the world when it releases soon on Wii U.

If you want to read my opinions on the game, click the link below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/261362/underrated-hidden-gems-1-shadow-puppeteer/

Hope you’re all well, and thanks for visiting.

-Dan

04/12/2015
Weekly Gaming: Desert Golf (iOS)

I never imagined, in my wildest dreams, that I would be writing about an endless procedurally generated golf game. Even writing that last sentence feels weird. And yet, here I am, writing about a game I’ve become obsessed with.

Like my first sentence alluded to, Desert Golf revolves around plain, 2D course, where holding your finger on the screen, moving it in a direction and releasing whacks the golf ball in a specific direction. The course is procedural, so you’ll get random geometry sticking out here and there, and once you’ve potted you ball, you’ll then proceed to the next stage, which simply encompasses the viewable screen moving to the right a certain distance and pushing your ball out of the hole to try again on the next course.

That’s the entire game.

I’m not even joking. The entire game encompasses what I described above ad nauseam.

There’s no music to speak of, no change of scenery (albeit the colour of the ground slowly changes hue over the 250 holes I’ve so far played), and no change of mechanics.

And yet, despite how little this game has to offer, I’m absolutely hooked.

The simplicity of the levels can be a random mix of difficult shots (where you’ll need to use the curvature of the land to bounce the ball correctly) all the way to the mundane where a simple tap will suffice. It’s addictive to sink one hole after another, all the while your score at the top of the screen is increasing. the score is used as an indicator for how well (or bad) you’re doing, with a twitter icon appearing occasionally to share your progress with friends. I (thankfully) found I was 200 shots below a friend at the 200 mark, a massive achievement for myself, and one that helped in keeping me hooked to the game.

So when will the madness end? Well I recall the Giantbomb crew talking about Desert Golf, and from what I remember, it really does never end, with many giving up after a few thousand holes.

Is Desert Golf worth your time? Yes yes and hell yes. Looks can be deceiving, and for Desert Golf, that works in its favour, with a simple but challenging mechanic taking it far further than I could ever imagine. Time will only tell how far I actually get, but for now, I’m hooked.

4/5

27/11/2015
Weekly Gaming: Rocket League (PS4)

It’s a strange thing to be addicted to a game you never thought was your type or genre. I genuinely can’t explain how it makes me feel. I genuinely do not enjoy sports games, so to get hooked off a game I was sceptical of in the first place is weird, and not something that happens often.

So, how did I come by Rocket League? Well luckily, it was free for Playstation Plus in September, a fantastic offer for a game only just released. For weeks I’ve been listening to the Giant Bombcast talk about how they’re all hooked to the game, so one afternoon, in my downtime, I decided to give the game a go. Booting the game up, I was greeted to a stunningly brilliant rendering of a car on a field, a weird sentence I wouldn’t ever have imagined I’d ever write! (first time for everything today it would seem). Jumping head first into an online match, I soon discovered what all the hype was about when I scored my very first goal.

You see, Rocket League is equal parts luck, and equal parts skill, but when you score a goal or save one from happening, you genuinely feel like the most skillful player there ever was. Having your best (and worst) moments replayed straight after they happened really keeps you interested in the match a hand, even if you’re doing bad. I constantly wanted to better myself, or show off, depending on how I was doing.

Sorry, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. To begin with, an explanation of Rocket League:

Rocket League lets you play a typical game of football as a car. Sounds crazy, but it’s genuinely genius; to the point fans are now campaigning to make it an e-sport. You can choose from 4 different types of match: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, proceeding to try and outscore the opposing teams. It’s that simple.

Each match lasts a maximum of 5 minutes, so the game really is a “pick up and play” type of game, with myself constantly thinking “ah, I have half an hour free before I go to bed, I’ll play a few games of Rocket League before sleep”. Whilst this mentality is certainly awesome, it can cause problems in regards to being just too damn addictive, with every match’s score screen prompting you to instantly press the “find new match” button without thinking.

So how are the controls? Well to put it simply; Delightful. You literally control the car like you would any normal racing game, just this time the mechanics necessitate you controlling it in weird and wonderful ways, with the addition of a jump and nitro boost helping to push your driving skills to the extreme. With traditional racing games you’re trying to stick to a track, constantly making tiny adjustments in order to stay within the course and get the best time. Not so with Rocket League, where you’re constantly trying to change direction within seconds to counter wherever the ball is at that moment. Rocket jumping is hard, but soon you get used to it and are flying just as much as you’re driving, whacking the ball out of the air before over players can get to it.

There isn’t really anything in the sense of music (bar the main menu screen, which, due to the quality of Rocket Leagues servers, you’ll rarely ever spend time on the menu), which isn’t a bad thing considering this is a sports game. Sound effects are as you’d expect (fans cheering, explosions happen when you score a goal etc.) and help to keep the immersion in the match.

So should you get Rocket League for the grand total of £15 if you missed it on playstation plus? HELLS YES. I have easily put in hours and hours of time into the game, getting hooked well past the point of when I should be in bed before work the next morning. The game is addictive, and certainly something I wasn’t expecting to be hooked to considering it’s a genre I don’t generally like.

5/5

20/11/2015
Weekly Gaming: Grow Home (PS4) Review

I’ve been meaning to play Grow Home for a while now. Considering one of my school mates has their own name in the game, I really needed to download it and give it a go, especially after the guys at Giant Bomb gave it high praise. Alas, months passed with constant reviews and programming to be done, until it finally become apparent the game was getting a new release on the PS4 as a part of it’s Playstation Plus free games promotion. Well this was a massive delight, especially since it meant I’d finally get to play the game, but also, I would’t have to pay anything for it!

So where to begin? Well to start off, Grow Home is an indie game by Ubisoft Reflections in Newcastle, a studio renowned for Watch Dogs and The Crew. Strange, I know, but at least some of the team up there were given free time to work on Grow Home. The game has a simple premise; you play a red robot named BUD (Botanical Utility Droid), who travels with his mother ship (M.O.M) from planet to planet finding Star Plants, huge plants which can create Star Fruit for people back on earth. The plants are gigantic, easily able to reach over 2000 metres in size, so it’s up to BUD (and you, the player) to grow the plant and retrieve it’s fruit. It’s a fantastically simple premise, but one that I found extremely enjoyable; as of writing this review I played the game for over 7 hours and managed to get every trophy in the game.

Whilst the graphics are simple, they’re certainly great in portraying a lovely environment.

Whilst the premise is simple, the controls and gameplay are far from it, with BUD being a wobbly mess that is difficult to control. At the start you’ll walk more than anything else using the analogue sticks, but occasionally you’ll need to pick things up using the R1 and L1 buttons (which both control BUDS arms). It’s these buttons you’ll also need to use for climbing, which, considering this is a vertical game all about growing a plant upwards, you’ll be doing a lot of. Alternating between L1 and R1 enables BUD to grab hold of walls in front of him, and whilst this works for the most part, the fiddliness of BUD himself will make it difficult to keep ahold of walls sometimes. For the most part, the controls are fine. BUD feels like a real tangible thing, with gravity and weight, and whilst this form of control is annoying at times (try falling 600-700 metres after climbing for tens of minutes), it adds a sense of challenge to anything you may want to do in the game.

The world BUD explores is open, meaning you’re free to explore til your hearts content. Upon exploring, you’ll find new wildlife to pick up and inspect, as well as power crystals, which power BUD up and give him more abilities. The first (and possibly most useful ability), was to zoom the camera out, meaning you could see whether crystals were hiding in unexplored places. This was a nifty addition, and later additions usually involved the rocket pack on BUDS back, which was a way of flying around the world temporarily (and increasing length as you gather more crystals). The hunting for new flowers, fauna and crystals really pushed me to explore every nook and cranny of the world, a somewhat enjoyable but also challenging prospective considering BUDS control mechanics.

A final word about the world: the way in which you grow the star plant is a fantastic mechanic where you hold a flower/bloom, and then direct it to wherever you like. The stem of your new sprout will then have more flowers to bloom to do the same with. Should you direct your stem into a floating island with green underneath, you’ll grow the main star plant higher, furthering your progress. It’s all a fantastic mechanic that kept me entranced until the end.

At the start of the game there’s endless possibilities, with the whole land before you, and with a plant which hasn’t grown yet.

Controls aside, it’s onto the graphics, which is simplistic throughout the whole game. Just take a look at the screenshots attached to this review, and you’ll see how everything is stylised polygonal, with no textures, and everything simply coloured. Whilst some may be critical of this simplistic approach, I, for one, enjoyed it, with the massive shadows from the single light source adding a nice feeling to an otherwise simplistic decor. Just to add: there’s not really anything in the way of music, and what little sound effects are in the game suit it admirably.

So, was Grow Home worth the wait? I’d say so. For a free Playstation Plus game, you really can’t go wrong. I ended up spending 7 hours getting 100% of the trophies before stopping, even though the main game can be completed within 3 hours; I was just that hooked. Some may find it boring after a while, but for the most part, Ubisoft Reflections first foray into indie gaming is a fantastic success. Go get it for free if you have Playstation Plus, otherwise, it’s certainly worth the £7 they’re asking.

4/5

13/11/2015
Weekly Gaming: Catlateral Damage (PC)

The following review was done at the beginning of the year when I received a early access review copy of Catlateral Damage from it’s developer. Due to problems at the time, as well as my awful writing, I never got around to publishing it. Read it now before I decide to take it down:

Love cats? Then you’re going to love Catlateral Damage, the game which’ll have you exploring a procedurally generated house whilst making an absolute mess of it. Your reason for doing so? Cause you’re a cat, you don’t need any further reasoning.

The game’s easy to understand and play; you’ll explore randomly generated houses and will need to push as much of your owners stuff onto the floor as possible. You achieve this through two means; either using your paws to whack things off, or walk into them, ensuring they smash onto the floor from whatever height they’re at.

It’s a simple premise, but certainly has some repetitiveness to it, with the two game modes available merely deviating in how much time it gives you to push things off the shelves. Objective mode gives you one level after another, making you push off a certain amount of objects before you can progress to the next level. Litterbox mode on the other hand gives you free reign of the levels, and allows you to spend as much or as little time as you’d like before moving on. Regardless which mode you select, you’ll be getting the same game here, with levels being the same albeit with more urgency in the objective mode.

There are side objectives in the game, regardless of which mode you choose. The first time a buzzer went off to tell me that there was a mouse on the loose I abandoned everything I was doing and went about trying to locate it. Upon catching it I managed to get one of the power ups

Whilst going about your business and whacking things off sides, you’ll be given power ups to improve your 3 main abilities: jump, speed and swatting power. Your way of attaining these powers will change from house to house, with some randomly spawned just by doing a level, and others appearing because you’ve played with a cat toys for so many times. Occasionally you

In playing Catlateral Damage I couldn’t help but feel a truly Katamari Damacy vibe emanating from the game. The objects around the scenery are basic, but they’re at least different, with the game being intelligent enough to differentiate between different books or DVD’s, so will push you into getting so many of a certain object. Every different object you find and push off in the world will contribute to your collection of items you’ve happened across.

Whilst there is a core mechanic at play here, I couldn’t help but feel that the game was a hollow shell of what it could become one day should the developers add more items, more objectives, and overall more of everything into the game. Once you’ve seen few deviations of the formula at the start of the game, you soon start to feel bored, and have to make your own objectives. I found myself purely going for the achievements within steam rather than doing anything else in the game. This isn’t to say Catlateral Damage is bad at all, just that it feels like it’s missing its potential in what an addictive game it could be, rather than the shell of one we have right now.

3/5

11/11/2015
Weekly Gaming: Life is Strange Episode 5: Polarised (PC)

Hi all!

So this week I finally finished Life is Strange’s final episode. It was a fantastic series, and one that I’m sure will live on in gamers memories as a true testament of what adventure games can accomplish when they take on better subject matters and have a brilliant writing staff. Telltale game’s last few entries into the adventure game market really have left me stumped with how hollow I’ve felt from them, so here’s to hoping they learn from DontNod studios’ fantastic writing.

The review in question can be found below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/261900/life-is-strange-episode-5-polarized-pc/

As always, thanks for visiting, and I hope you all have a brilliant week!

-Dan

06/11/2015
Weekly Gaming: Halo 5: Guardians (Xbox One)

Hi all,

For this weeks review I have something more special: my first ever video review! Whilst I was excited for Halo 5 anyway, to have been given a review copy weeks ahead of launch was a god send, and one which enabled me to make my first ever video review with plenty of time before launch.

So please, give the video a watch below:

And if you want to read more than what the review had to say, you can read it below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/261687/halo-5-guardians-xbox-one/

As always, thank you for visiting, hope you have a fantastic week!

-Dan

30/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: Skyrim DLC: Dragonborn (PC)

I told myself (and my friends) time and time again that I would buy the DLC for Skyrim one day. 4 years after the games launch, it’s finally happened. The legendary edition was only £4 on Green Man Gaming, so I took the plunge, and haven’t regretted it at all.

Just a side note: I didn’t buy it for ages as I wanted to just buy the DLC, since I bought the retail copy of the game many years ago. This never happened as the DLC pricing was just ridiculous, even on sales. Lo and behold, it was cheaper to buy the legendary edition of the game with all DLC then it was to just buy 1 piece of DLC (god I hate DLC).

Arriving into Steheilm is a weird affair, one which really feels dreary and crap compared to the wondrous locales of before.

So, upon getting all the DLC downloaded and installed, I proceeded to jump into my old 64 hour playtime game, where I was completely overpowered and ready for anything. Upon arriving, and walking around a bit, I finally got some NPC’s that tried to attack and kill me. Once they were dispatched, I found a note on them saying they were dragon heretics sent to kill me from a far off land near Marrowwind. So I set off to find out about this new land, as Skyrim itself is fairly explored at this point for me, so a change of scenery would have been good.

Upon arriving, I found that a lot of people were mindless drones, simply constructing structures around holy poles. Speaking with someone nearby that wasn’t affected by the mind control going on, I found that there was a temple far away that I could explore for clues on what was happening. It was here that I decided to embark on making my way across the land, finding every single point of reference possible, so that I could then fast travel to anywhere on the island when I actually started getting objectives (yes, I know that’s strange as it diminishes the wonder you experience when encountering a place for the first time, but I love find everything possible so that I can quickly and efficiently finish objectives). The land of Solstheim is a lovely place that is truly new and wondrous compared to Skyrim before it. There’s plenty of desert (something we definitely haven’t seen in skyrim) due to the constant volcanic activity far away, and plenty of natural creatures we haven’t seen before. Some floated, which I’m sure was a shout back to players of the original Marrowwind, whilst some were spider like and exploded. It was nice to see such a new and interesting land, and makes me all the more excited for Fallout 4 due this year.

The Deadra sequences were easily my favourite, with the land of Steheilm not actually containing much for me.

So what of the main story? With another Dragonborn on the scene, you can’;t help but think that shit is about to go down. Unfortuantely, it doesn’t really. Markaarn (a Dragon priest that existed when Dragons ruled Skyrim, but was the first to rebel), barely shows himself as he’s in another dimension, one with the deadra demon of forbidden knowledge. He can’t do much in the real world, so controls people on his behalf to do his bidding. It’s a weird story, one which really doesn’t last long, but one I was glad I played thorugh if not purely for the alternate dimensions alone. Travelling through a world that is within a book, and is made of pages of said book is fantastically gratifying, with every nook and cranny of the dimension looking so much more different then anything seen before in Skyrim. Add to that the fact you’re serving a deadra lord and are learning new dragons spells all the time (getting the strength of a dragon is definitely awesome), and you have for a pretty mediocre expansion with some amazing parts.

There aren’t many locations on the island of Solstheim, with all locations being spread pretty thin and far apart. This is a shame, as I genuinely love searching for new lcoations, but understandable considering this is only an expansion. The side quests were pretty cool, with one re-opening the mines up for the island, and another getting me to investigate a murder plot, but overall, 8 hours later, I feel I’ve seen all I can from the island, which is a shame when I easily spent the best part of 20 hours on The Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion.

Stupid other Dragonborn being stupid. Look how Stupid he looks!

So was it all worth the wait? Meh, not really. Whilst I’m glad I played the expansion, it didn’t really add anything to the story of Skyrim for me. I’m definitely thankful I only spent £4 on the content rather than the £13 Bethesda is trying to charge for the DLC alone, but really, I could have gone without. Is it worth your time? If you’ve never played Skyrim before and feel you could do with getting it all together in the legendary edition like I did then knock yourself out, it’s got a lot of content. But should you already own Skyrim, don’t bother, it really doesn’t add much.

3/5

23/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: Titan Souls (PC) Review

On paper, Titan Souls ticks all the right boxes for me. Indie: Check, Roguelike: Check, lovely pixel graphics: Check. But in playing through and completing Titan Souls, I can’t help but feel hollow. The games completely based around the simple concept of one shot kills, with your character only having one arrow to fire at a time and it having to be retrieved before firing again. It’s was a great concept in theory, but where did Titan Souls manage to slip between the crack and become so… dull?

Well it wasn’t in the graphics, which were simply sublime throughout the whole campaign. There were times when everything felt a little repetitive, and the Titans and player could of had more animations than the few they are given, but overall the world felt alive and lovely, with each and every Titan being exquisitely detailed. My biggest grip about the graphics? Too many enemies flip-flopped between being 3D modeled and others being completely 2D sprite based. It was jarring, and certainly inconsistent in a world that was mostly sprite based.

After defeating 8 Titans you’re able to make your way to the final two bosses, which are certainly harder than the rest.

The music helped me enjoy the game and see it through to it’s end, with lovely guitars playing whilst exploring forests, and action-ey fast paced music appearing whenever a Titan is encountered. What surprised me the most was the amount of variety, with all 13 Titan encounters having different music. Granted, due to the way the game is played (you die, you run to the place again, and die again), you rarely got to hear music for more than a few seconds, but what was heard was certainly impressive enough to keep me adventuring.

The controls? Well not much can be said about the controls. You have two buttons: One to fire your sole arrow + reclaim it, and one to roll/sprint. It’s simplicity at it’s finest, enabling the player to master the controls early on, and purely using the Titans moves/patterns to dictate how the game is played out. There were times I couldn’t help but think how much better the game could have been with different abilities though, with a new level of variety being added to the game based purely on what actions you can and cannot do to your enemy.

So what of the gameplay? Well, this is probably where my major gripes start to manifest. You see, the roguelike ability to die with one hit is fantastic when applied to lots of different games, and can push you to better yourself as a player. My problem with Titan Souls’ implementation of this mechanic is that when you die you’ll then need to walk back to the same point you were at previously purely to start the fight again, which, when you’re dying over 128 times in one playthrough, equates to a lot of waster time walking back to the same point you were at previously. Whilst it sounds like a tiny gripe in the grand scheme of things, I can’t help but feel the single hit death which is applied to enemies and the player is a bad concept in making the player feel empowered after killing a Titan. You see, there were more times that I felt my triumph over a Titan was more down to luck than my own skill, causing me to feel hollow when I should have felt joyed that I had managed to kill my foe.

One of the only places in the whole game where you’ll get any dialogue, this friendly giant must be slain without any context as to why.

The hub world between Titans just felt contrived, with no story as to why the ruins are there at all being explained to the player in my entire playthrough. During development, team Acid were interviewed and asked where their motivations came from, with the team admitting Shadow of the Colossus being high on their list. The problem is, this doesn’t translate very well into Titan Souls. Where Shadow of the Colossus did indeed give massive open worlds, they were there as you was striving to find your next Colossus’ to take down, giving the player time away from the action they had previously endured. Titan Souls attempts to do this with their big open hub world, but it just can’t help but feel contrived, as the player has no prior knowledge as to why they’re there at all and why they’re killing Titans. At least with Shadow you had a purpose, here Titan Souls can’t even muster much of a purpose. You kill big things instantly; end of.

Most Titan chambers are simple, with only a large area to which you can avoid enemy attacks with. The water Titan was an exception, and one that genuinely had me excited to play.

Add all of what I’ve said above with the fact Titan Souls is a short game (I managed to complete it in 2 hours 35 minutes), and you have a disappointment when compared to my initial excitement. Replayability is limited, as I now know how to kill all the Titans, so going back would feel more like luck in defeating them than actual skill. Titan Souls is clever, there’s no doubt about that, but I won’t be coming back to it anytime soon.

3/5

16/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: DMC: Devil May Cry (PC) Review

As a huge fan of the Original Devil May Cry series, I’ve been waiting to get my teeth into DMC for a while. I’ll admit, when it was first announced, I joined in with the mass of fans that cried foul because of Dante’s hair colour change (how petty and small a thing to get worked up over). But, upon the game being released for years now, I’ve gotten over that original contempt I felt for the change, and have decided to finally take the plunge and play the game on PC, where I can experience it in full 1080p, 60FPS glory. Below I’ll break down each part of the game, starting with the Story, moving onto the Graphics/Sound, and finally the gameplay. Enjoy!

The Dream Sequences are fantastic, easily showcasing some of the best scenes in the game.

First up, the Story: Seriously, as much as I enjoyed the original Devil May Cry games, the story wasn’t exactly thorough or deep. I find that with age, I genuinely can’t remember much other than Dante was the son of Sparta, a demon that loved a human and had a kid, allowing that kid to be super-human in strength, and to even summon demon powers to take on the super-natural. Whilst this may have been enough back in the days of the PS2 (a simple enough premise to keep players engaged), these days that simplicity just wouldn’t stand.

So Ninja Theory (developers of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West) took the game back to the drawing board, with the story taking place in a world not unlike our own. Dante and Virgil are still demon kids, but their mother was also an angel, meaning they are nephilim; half angel, half devil, able to kill gods themselves. Unlike the original series, which took place in a real world, DMC takes place in Limbo, giving Ninja Theory the perfect setting to let their creative juices flow freely, with worlds crumbling and contorting in weird and wonderful ways. It also allows them to show Dante fighting demons without humans seeing them, closing a loophole the previous games faced. This setting, and the seriousness of it, really shone through, keeping me hooked until the end of the game. Fantastic retelling/alteration of a mediocre original series I would say.

As can be seen in the first level, you’d be really hard pressed to find that DMC was buiilt for the PS3/Xbox 360. The level of detail is stunning.

Next up, the graphics/sound: Well, what can I say. We haven’t really had a true next gen (read: previous gen) devil may cry game, with Devil may cry 4 being more of a slight upgrade over Devil May Cry 3’s engine, it felt awesome to actually play a game made for Xbox 360/PS3, and even on the PC, where I was able to crank graphics settings so high it looked like a PS4/Xbox One title (albeit with silky smooth 60fps framerate at all times). The HD textures were a pleasure to behold, with in game graphics looking better than the pre-rendered cutscenes, I was gobsmacked. Ninja Theory deserve a pat on the back for what they managed to do with the Unreal 3 engine, with the game truly being a beauty on new and old consoles + PC.

The sound was also a joy to behold: with punk rock appearing every time an enemy encounter started, it truly got me into the fight, pumping me up and pushing me to do better. Whilst the music and sound may be a bit “pretentious” due to some of the songs feeling too… contrived (as in, the developers forced the punk aesthetic too hard), it still all flowed well together, with the main menu music also pulling me in to the point I’d stare at the screen for a while, waiting to start.

Levels seem to constantly twist and turn, adding a certain fluidity to the game as nothing is ever what it seems.

So, finally: The Gameplay. The absolute core of a Devil May Cry game, and the main reason the series has been so renowned for so long. It’s the gameplay that kept players coming back despite all of it’s terrible story and plotholes. How’d it hold up in DMC? Fucking beautifully.

It was the gameplay most of all that kept me hooked to the game from beginning to end, with each and every action or story-point actually tying perfectly into the gameplay. Whilst playing, I couldn’t help but this Ninja Theory concentrated 100% on the gameplay first, with everything like story and music being made purely to add substance to the game, or to give an excuse to actually play it. You start off with just Dante’s sword, and his trusty guns. This soon changes to a devil weapon (a hammer), and an angel weapon (a scythe). These soon get superseded by stone hands and katanas, which in turn immensely changes up the gameplay and combos you can perform, so much so I was constantly changing my tactic to try and get a SSS rating in fights. Like I say, it truly feels like the whole game was built around the fighting first and foremost, with everything else being an excuse to fight more. It’s fantastic.

The boss fights were incredible, with the News Anchor fight easily being one of the most intoxicating environments in a game in a long time. Having news graphics with a presenter you need to kill is fantastic.

So overall, I’m annoyed. Annoyed because I didn’t invest the time (nor money) to play DMC sooner. The only reason I finally got around to buying the game now was because it was only £5 for the PC version, and I really need to finish more games that I buy. I’m glad I finally did play it, and am annoyed there may never be another considering how damn great DMC was. The sales figures weren’t great for this one, with Capcam being in a scary position of almost going bankrupt also, it seems we’ll never see a sequel for DMC anytime soon. If you haven’t played DMC, and are a massive fan of action games, you owe it to yourself to play DMC.

5/5

09/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: Catherine (PS3) Review

Catherine’s been on my to do list for years now. The game has always fascinated me: taking control of a man who needs to decide between his girlfriend of many years and a new girl on the scene. It always appealed to me, as it’s exactly where I am in life at the moment, with me reaching my 30’s soon and not settled down (whilst everyone else around me is having kids and getting married). After I had heard good things for years, I finally started looking into buying it, only to find that it was already on my PS3 as it was free on PS+ many years ago.

Trying to find a perfect time to play the game was a challenge though. Thankfully, my friend and I was looking for a new game to complete together, and decided on Catherine, since we could see the story whilst taking it in turns to solve the puzzles. To say I’m glad we played Catherine is an understatement.

The game of Catherine takes place in a little Japanese city, with you playing and watching the life of Vincent as he unexpectedly gets dragged into a world of drama between two girls, all whilst men are dying from strange dreams. Upon night time, Vincent himself has these strange dreams, where he needs to climb a weird puzzle game in order to live another day. By day, he speaks with friends to try and get to the bottom of what to do in his current predicament. Half puzzle game, half dating simulator. It’s a weird combination of gameplay, but one that really speaks volumes to the games core underpinnings: it’s ability to use gameplay as a metaphor and tell a fantastic story.

Moral choices are insane when you’re constantly reminded that there’s a person on the receiving end of your choices.

You see, whilst you have some control over Vincent and his decisions (do you drink more at night to have an advantage in your dream, but will most likely mean that Vincent sleeps with the wrong Catherine again?) the game still wants to tell a story of it’s own, with some of your reactions/replies to moments being not what you’d want to say. I’d find many instances where Vincent would need to reply to a text he had gotten, only to find that none of the replies suited what me and my friend wanted to actually say, meaning we’d need to do the lesser of two evils. This is all fine and good though, as you still have some control over Vincent, it’s just annoying when a situation presents itself that you wish you could actually have some control over.

The nightmare sequences are cool, but nothing special. Catherine’s puzzle mechanics are simple, but solid, with Vincent being able to move blocks to progress up a tower, and climb them. What starts off simple enough soon becomes harder, with ice blocks, explosive blocks, and many others soon forcing you to constantly rethink your strategy of how to make your way up the tower. The stages are big enough that you have plenty of freedom to come up with your own solution, meaning Catherine is still giving your freedom to choose in both it’s main story and it’s gameplay.

The true brilliance of the game is during the day, when you control Vincent in deciding what he does around a bar. It’s here that you get to learn more details about the world around you (more men dying, details about special drinks being poured for you etc), but it’s also here where you’ll make new friendships and answer questions which will change your characters morality. It’s this “morality” system which will have an effect on the ending, with multiple anime scenes playing out depending on how you answered the questions, or responded to Catherine (and Katherine)’s demands.

Choices like these (albeit not as straightforward) are constantly asked throughout the story, like “do you see kids as life’s greatest gift, or annoying for your freedom?”. These questions had me and my friend in great debate, with us rarely picking the same answer.

I was hooked on these day scenes, with me shouting at Craig telling him what to reply in a text back to Catherine. The characters felt real, and were certainly enticing enough for me to have an opinion on what should be done with them. I wanted to have an impact on the world, and wanted so much for Vincent to get with Catherine, the new girl on the block who enticed Vincent to cheat on his girlfriend of many years: Katherine. Lo and behold, the developers actually made the two Catherine’s out to be a visual metaphor; Catherine (the young, blonde free spirit) was freedom manifested, with Katherine (the dull, safe girlfriend) being commitment. It was a good contrast, and was interesting to see that I went with freedom each and every time, whilst my good friend (who’s about to get married and already has a kid), chose the latter. It was these decisions and constant scenarios which made me truly love the game, with their being no “right” or “wrong” answer, merely decisions to be made like what would happen in real life.

I genuinely loved Catherine, and may actually be tempted to play it again in the near future (when I’ve got less games to play). The decisions, atmosphere, and everything about it enticed me to a point I was shouting my friend down on what decisions to make all the time. It was also fascinating on the breadth of different choices people would make in the exact same situation given the same questions. If you’re the kind of person who likes a fantastic story (one that’ll make you look at your own life and the decisions you make), then look no further, as Catherine is sure to get you thinking about your life decisions so far. Just be warned: don’t play the game with a loved one around. They may affect your decision making, or would be annoyed at the answers you give.

4/5

02/10/2015
Weekly Gaming: Rare Replay (Xbox One)

Hi all!

So this week, I managed to get a copy of the recently released Rare Replay for Xbox One! The collection was definitely one of the best I’ve ever played, with a fantastic meta-game placed over the top. If you wanna give my review a read, you know what to do!

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/260438/rare-replay-xbox-one/

As always, thanks for your continued support!

-Dan

25/09/2015