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Weekly Gaming: Super Hot (PC)

I finally done it. After months of hearing fellow gamers and journalists talk about Superhot, I finally bit the bullet and bought the game to play through it in one night.

And truth be told: I’m underwhelmed.

Not to say Superhot is a bad game, not by any stretch of the imagination. Far from it in fact. I just believe that maybe gamers across the world have maybe shouted superheats praises a little too much, making my time with the game not feel as epic as someone playing it with no prior knowledge.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself here, so lets start from the beginning.

Superhot is a First Person Shooter whereby time doesn’t move until you move. From that one sentence you can already tell this isn’t like normal FPS’s, and as a consequence, you could also call super hot something of a strategy/puzzle game.

The game starts out by presenting you with a PC, with it’s own custom operating system. From here, you’re able navigate around all the files and folders, and open up chat messages with some unknown contact. They send you a build of a file called “Superhot.exe” and from there, when you click or enter it, you’re able to play the main campaign.

Starting out, you’ll undoubtedly want to mess around with the time mechanics until you have a firm grasp on what you can, and cannot, do. Looking around the environment causes an extremely minimal amount of time to pass, with picking up weapons or punching enemies making chunks of time pass relatively quickly. Distinguishing how much time is left before a punch occurs, or a bullet hits you, can take some getting used to, especially when you’re looking around to find a way around a bullet heading right for you.

Each level throughout the campaign is tiny, but sets up an elaborate scenario whereby you’ll always feel epic for having overcome the challenge on offer. One level for example starts you in an elevator, with 3 enemies pointing their guns at you ready to fire. The second you start you need to punch your way around, as one wrong move will result in a bullet in the head. It’s challenging, but once you see your full speed replay at the end of the level it makes the scene feel truly epic, like something out of the matrix.

Once you’ve mastered the first few levels you’ll then proceed to get more chat logs with the “friend”, and download further levels to take part in. The story starts to show here and there, as you start to realise this world is more than just a game, with you in fact having an actual influence on the real world. I won’t spoil the ending, but considering I went into Superhot not expecting too much of a story, it left me impressed.

The issue is, there’s just not enough of the game. It took me an hour and a half to complete Superhot, with the challenges extending that time for a few more hours. Given my upcoming criticisms of the gameplay in a minute, this could be seen as a good thing, but I just can’t help but think that the high price for low amount of game time is a bad deal. Granted, the gameplay is super polished and feels like something a Triple-A studio could produce, but it just doesn’t feel like *enough* for how much is paid.

My other issue is the gameplay: it’s a one trick pony. Like I said at the start of this review, maybe it’s because of how much journalists have been raving about the gameplay for the last year, but I couldn’t help but feel that it becomes old, fast. Yes, the replays at the end look good, but the limited amount of guns, and situations you’re put into make for a game that’s figured out extremely fast, losing it’s puzzle attributes fairly fast. Some could argue that the campaign ends before the mechanics get boring, but I would counter that the developers could have extended the gameplay by giving more options, more variations, more enemies. Anything but the same would have sufficed.

There’s nothing to speak of in regards to music, with some of the only sounds you hear throughout the game being the constant chanting of “Super Hot” between each level. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but there are times that the action could feel a bit better with the right soundtrack going on in the background.

Hype is such a strange thing in video games. It has the potential to give a studio millions of sales with relative ease (I’m looking at you No Man’s Sky), but in the same vain it can also cause a loss of feeling towards a given product when it doesn’t meet it’s lofty expectations. Super Hot is one such game for me, as the hype surrounding its release has been so high that it could never fulfil my expectations.

Super Hot is a good game, there’s no denying that. But I don’t believe it was a contender in my own top 10 games of 2016. It’s short campaign, lack of content, and one core mechanic soon become old, fast for me. Get Super Hot if you can get it on sale, but I wouldn’t recommend paying full price for it.

4/5

27/01/2017
Weekly Gaming: Titanfall 2 (PC)

Hi all!

For this weeks Weekly Gaming, I take a look at EA/Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall 2. Whilst I don’t want to spoil the review too much, I should say that the game is absolutely sublime, and it’s a bloody shame that it hasn’t sold well at all.

You can read my full review below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/266335/titanfall-2-pc/

If I don’t speak to you beforehand, have a bloody fantastic Christmas, and I’ll see you back here again same time next Friday.

-Dan

23/12/2016
Weekly Gaming: Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest (PC)

Where oh where do I start with a game like Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest? OK, first off, why I own the game. I personally love the Adventure Time universe; I love that for a children’s show it has so many dark themes that it could just as easily have been made for adults. Characters work together so well, and everyone who ever watches the show is bound to have their favourite.

I was gifted the game as it was on my Steam Wishlist back in 2014, but with life being so busy (and the Steam library increasing dramatically all the time) it hasn’t been on my list of things I must play. Fast forward to today, and I decided, you know what, the game’s only meant to take 6-7 hours to beat, may as well hammer it out in one night.

Having completed the game, all I can say is: I wish there was a way to turn back time and get those 7 hours of my life back.

I genuinely feel that Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest was made as a cash grab based on the Adventure Time name. Not only does the game feel like it was made by some interns in their spare time, but the game from start to finish add’s nothing to the Adventure Time world, and if anything, tarnishes it’s brand identity.

Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest is a top down isometric dungeon crawler where you take control of Jake or Finn, as you proceed to look for 8 mystery artefacts so you can save your lost friend, BMO, all whilst grabbing as much booty as they possible can.

Each dungeon is a relatively plain floating island, with the only noteworthy unique environment variable being the enemies themselves, which are taken straight from the show and copy/pasted hundreds of times. These enemies are simple, and have no AI to speak of, simply walking towards you and attacking until you die or they do, whichever comes first. Whilst these two set backs wouldn’t necessarily be bad by themselves, they contribute to a hugely boring game, one which has no unique qualities to speak of.

The only thing that could be considered entertaining is the spells you’ll find throughout the world as you traverse. These spells can be purchased or found, and allow Jake and Finn to have a myriad of different abilities, from summoning princess unicorn, to even wearing Jake as armour. These abilities are cool, but due to their lacklustre effects could be considered merely side mechanics, things that aren’t really integral to the story or gameplay, but are good to see/use occasionally regardless.

Then there’s the story, which is so lacklustre you could be forgiven for thinking the game doesn’t even have one. Apart from a simple 10 second cutscene after killing each boss, nothing else happens, with the dungeons themselves merely being time sinks in which you can endlessly kill enemies and find loot. the story could be summed up to: BMO’s missing and has been taken hostage; It’s up to Jake and Finn to find 8 artefacts and give them to the baddies holding BMO. That’s it; no interactions between characters, no extra stories to make this feel unique, nothing.

Animations are janky as all hell, and the combat has nothing to actually get you hooked. Run up to an enemy, mash x, and you’re done. The sound effects from Jake and Finn are authentic, coming from the real voice actors themselves, but since it’s all flavour text for each thing you interact with (a spell for example) you’ll soon get sick to death of hearing the same things being said over and over again.

Oh and the bugs that are still present after the game’s been out for over 2 years are insane! There were multiple occasions where I would have to exit back to the title screen and start a dungeon again just because my character would get locked in an animation that would never play out.

If I haven’t made it clear over the last few paragraphs, I did not enjoy my time with Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest. The game is literally made to be a time sink, requiring little thought and little attention, you should only play the game should you have the mind of a 5 year old. Avoid Finn and Jake’s Epic Quest like the plague; there’s nothing good to be had from playing it.

1/5

09/12/2016
Weekly Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops 3 (PC)

There was one question I just could not stop asking myself throughout my playthrough of Activisions latest Call of Duty shooter; why on gods green earth is this game branded with the moniker “Black Ops”?

Obviously, this is the third in the series, but for some odd reason, Black Ops 3 has no connections to the previous two, and seems to never actually warrant the Black Ops title. Granted, some may say that this is a trivial matter, but I for one think that it perfectly encapsulates the differences (both bad and good) of this latest in a long line of Call of Duty games. Let us proceed to unravel why.

First up the story, which, whilst being completely unrelated to the previous two games, is actually quite a departure from traditional COD games. The year is 2065. Augmentations and robotics are rife across the world, with many people now having brand new DNI’s implanted into their minds, allowing them to interface with robotics and technology the world over.

If the plot sounds familiar, that’s because it’s been done many times before in other forms of media: Ghost in the Shell springs to mind for example. Where Black Ops 3 deviates though is in the philosophical applications of DNI’s. Very early on in the game you’re taught that you can interface with another person’s DNI, allowing you to see everything they’ve ever thought. Doing so will make them brain dead, and it’s through this moral ambiguity that Black Ops 3’s story actually stands tall.

You see, whilst it’s a nuisance that there’s no relation to the previous two games, Black Ops 3’s futuristic story manages to carve out an extremely believable and unique world. The use of DNI’s to interface with peoples imaginations and memories allows for dramatically different and crazy landscapes, with the stylised future feeling fantastic, even going so far that it would feel right at home in a Deus Ex game.

With an AI intent of never dying eventually making its way into the plot, the moral ambiguity starts to increase a notch or two. The characters that take part can at times feel like stereotypical caricatures, but overall they help to give the story more believability, showing how different personalities can help in truly showing a devastating force. Overall, by the end of the 8-10 hour campaign I was left feeling hugely satisfied with what I had just taken part in, something I can’t necessarily say for other Call of Duty games (I enjoyed the previous Black Ops games, but don’t take too fondly to their stories).

This isn’t an understatement when I say that the futuristic setting helps to add more to the gameplay than any COD game before it. Your suit not only has augmentations that allow you to do things like hack enemy AI, or cause explosions at a distance, but also allow you to traverse the environment at tremendous speeds. Wall running, double jumping and sliding are all present, and they add such a sense of speed that it’s going to be hard to go back to previous Call of Duty games I haven’t played before (e.g. COD Ghosts).

About those augmentations: they’re fantastic at changing up the “strategy” (I use that word lightly) of a traditional Call of Duty game. In the past you’d run from encounter to encounter, shooting down everything you saw without thinking. With the new abilities to hack, destroy and paralyse enemies you’re given greater freedom to take any challenge that is thrown at you how you would like to. For my part, I admit I relied on the instant kill robot feature a little too much (especially when it’s upgraded and can explode other surrounding robots), but the versatility of different options to mess and tinker with is truly astonishing, and weird in a franchise that’s become accustomed to pushing out the same features year in, year out.

The addition of a new “Hub” world base between each mission is also another weirdness that truly sets Black Ops 3 apart from anything that came before it. During each level, you’ll pick up and find collectibles, as well as modification kits that are earned through levelling up. Back at the base you can choose to use these kits to upgrade your abilities, make new guns, or simply upgrade existing weapons. The collectibles you find can also be showcased on your walls, along with any accolades that you’ve learnt in tough missions. It’s odd and small, but all of this makes your playthorugh feel personal: you get to choose what you want to do and what you want to showcase within your base, making everything, from load outs to mission completions feel rewarding and personalised, with a sense of progression which is always present.

The new enemy types were a welcome departure from constant humans being able to just hide behind buildings and objects in the environment. Robots march towards you without hesitation, which are first seems really simple (just shoot them right?!?) but soon becomes a challenge in itself when you also have to worry about other enemies firing at you. Then there’s the big enemies; these monstrosities can be seen as bosses, as they require a lot of rockets, and a lot of bullets to be taken down. There’s also drones, which are weak but high in number, and finally bullet-proof humans. All this variety makes for a challenging experience, especially when you have multiple enemy-types homing in at you at once. If anything, the enemies on display push you more and more into using your augmentations, which results in a splendid gameplay loops of running, firing, hacking and repeating, all whilst trying to stay alive.

Graphically, Black Ops 3 is an absolutely stunning game. I took so many screenshots throughout my play through that at times I would die from taking in the scenery rather than actually playing the game. Characters brim with life, environments look just as stunning as anything you’d ever see within a Crysis game, and for the most part my 1070 GTX was well and truly put through it’s paces. There are times where you can see that Treyarch are still using the old COD engine, all with glitchy AI and the same animations as previous games, but these times are few and far between.

Finally, the music, which for the most part was ignorable. You’re not really going to come to a COD game for it’s music, especially with so many explosions and so much gunfire going off at all times. On that note, the explosions were just as explosion-ey as ever, with guns sounding like what you’d expect a future model of an AK-47 to.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Black Ops 3. The changes made since the last Black Ops were significant enough to keep me more than entertained, with the new augmentations and hub world helping me feel that this was my own personalised experience. The only thing I just cannot get my head around is the use of the Black Ops name. There are so many changes, such a different story, and overall no relation to previous games that I don’t see a need to use the moniker at all. For a title as fantastic as this, Black Ops 3 deserved its own franchise name, God knows it deserves it for how much of a departure it is from the tried and tested COD formula.

5/5

02/12/2016
Weekly Gaming: Mortal Kombat X (PC)

Some things never change, and in the case of Mortal Kombat, this old saying couldn’t be more true. Yes, the game’s been given a facelift with new characters taking the centre stage, but at it’s heart, Mortal Kombat X manages to stay true to the reboot from a few years ago, whilst also adding a few new Kostmetic (see what I did there?) and gameplay changes.

First off, Mortal Kombat X takes place both after the events of the first games epic conclusion, and also 20 years into the future, helping to mitigate the amount of characters that died from the original. A great Elder God tried to take over Earth-realm once Shao-Kahn was annhilated, and as such, Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade came to the rescue alongside Raiden, trapping said Elder God for millennia.

Fast forward 20 years, and you have the world as a different place – kids have been raised, Blade and Cage are now a part of Earth’s defences, and the outworld has been taken over by a new emperor; Kotal Kahn. This new look at a well-known world is fairly cool, especially with how much people have changed. Cage for example was always the smart-ass, but in the future he’s fairly calm, collected, and a great leader.

As with the original Mortal Kombat reboot, the story takes place across different stages and with you taking control of any character that’s central to the plot at that time. You get to experiment with many characters and all their different assortment of control schemes, and in doing so, build up an understanding for the subtle changes NetherRealm studios have employed. It can be annoying at times, especially when you take control of a slow character that you can’t string any combo’s together with, but at least it gives you and understanding of that character for when you have to fight them on the opposing side.

Overall, with a 5 hour story, Mortal Kombat’s campaign kept me intrigued until it’s end, but it was nothing to shout home about. The drama felt stiff, and every step of the way it felt contrived, as if the current situation your characters were in was purely for the developers to have a new fight matchup. I mean, some characters would destroy an enemy when you control them, but out of nowhere they’re defeated later on in the campaign? It makes no sense. If you come into Mortal Kombat expecting a great story, be warned; this is like B-roll movie.

Story out of the way, how’s the combat? Overall, pretty impressive. When fighting regular matches outside of the campaign you get to chose multiple styles of combat for each character you may play as. Each style has it’s own distinct pros and cons, with some styles being more powerful but slower, and others speeding things up to the detriment of the damage you can cause.

It’s still Mortal Kombat combat though, and as many of us have said over the years, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s completely competent at what it does, don’t get me wrong, but my god are there times where you swear the game is cheating for the opponent, or you get slammed with no chance of blocking or re-cooperating. I’m sure you’ll be able to find professionals online playing the game at such a level that it looks fantastic, but for people like me who dabble in fighting games now and then it just doesn’t feel right. It strikes a weird balance between Tekken and Street Fighter, which you’d expect would be a perfect combination, but in the end comes off as just feeling off.

Graphically, you can tell Mortal Kombat X was made for the next generation of consoles, and even on PC the game is absolutely stunning. Running at the highest settings, it was jarring when character models and lighting effects were better in-game than the cinematics that took place. Particle effects are plentiful throughout combat, and the Fatalities are just as gruesome as ever, with blood and guts going everywhere.

The collectibles on offer past the campaign are ridiculously plentiful, with the gallery where you unlock them all being a game in-itself! Walking around a maze, trying to purchase things whilst also unlocking mysteries and taking on wolves, it’s gratifying the amount of detail they’ve put into something as simple as unlocking extra movesets.

Past the gallery, you also have plenty of online modes to take advantage off. Before you begin the game, you must choose a clan. There’s 5 different clans to choose from, with everything you do throughout the game contorting points towards your designated clan. It’s a weirdly cool incentive to play more hours into the night, especially when your clan is closest to winning the daily prize pool of Koins to spend in the gallery.

So, for all the small cosmetic (and minor gameplay) changes, does Mortal Kombat X warrant a purchase with your hard earned money? As always, it depends. There’s probably some of you who love the way that Mortal Kombat plays and feels, even from the Sega Mega Drive days, and to you I’d say get it, you’ll feel right at home. But for those of you who only dabble in fighting games like myself, I’d stay away from Mortal Kombat X unless you can get it on sale; the story and features around the gameplay are cool, but the combat itself never truly feels great, which is a shame, as that’s the core reason most of us by fighting games: to fight.

3/5

18/11/2016
Weekly Gaming: Nidhogg (PC)

It’s rare that a game truly encapsulates the mantra “Keep it Simple, Stupid”, fortunately, Nidhogg is one such game. Don’t let it’s simplistic retro art style throw you off, for all of it’s simplicity in the aesthetics departmenr, Nidhogg is one deep and lovely game.

First off, the main appeal of the game: The combat. Being a simple 2D platformer, you’d expect for me to just say there’s 2 buttons to attack, wouldn’t you? Well… technically that’s correct, but its the manner in which Nighogg combines these buttons along with your analogue stick that truly makes the combat come alive.

You see, whilst there’s only two buttons to master (A to jump and X to punch/slash with your sword) Nidhogg has multiple ways to chain these buttons together and give them different uses depending on the context of your movement. Jump and pressing X? Why not dive kick to knock the opponent back. Holding a sword? Pressing up on the analogue stick will easily change it’s position, allowing you to disarm hostile attackers with relative ease. Opponent running away? Just press up and x at the same time to throw your sword at them.

These devilishly simple but hard to master techniques wouldn’t be as fun as they are if it were not for the fantastic presentation for such a simplistic game. Every death has a fantastic new and varied scream, truly helping to push forward the narrative that these two fighters are well and truly fighting to the death with everything they have. The amount of gore present is also insane, with each death of your character sending hundreds of blood particles across the stage, making for a truly colourful level once you and your opponent have died plenty of times.

The objective of Nidhogg is simple. Kill your opponent, and then proceed to continue killing (or avoiding) them rushing to their side of the screen. Being player one, you start on the left, so it’s up to you to kill the AI, and rush to the right. The second the other player gets a kill in on you though it’s time to hunt them down, as it’s now their chance to run three scenes to the left. This back and forth is truly amazing, and helps for the game to truly feel alive, especially when you’re hunting somebody down and worrying you’ll fail to successfully counter their attack the next time you encounter them.

But it’s the skill and the feeling of ecstasy from triumphing over your opponents that truly sets Nidhogg apart from other indie games on the market. You see, the plethora of different combinations you can pull of in fighting your opponent never ceases to astound me, especially when an AI character manages to pull off a combo you would have never dreamed of. I’d be constantly on the edge of my seat, wondering whether I’d get the upper hand over my opponent, or him, me. It’s nail biting stuff, but extremely gratifying when played, and hugely satisfying once you finish the games campaign against it’s ever increasing difficult AI.

So overall, I’m thoroughly impressed by Nighogg and it’s attention to detail. Don’t get me wrong, the game’s short, with it’s $15 asking price being a bit much in my opinion, despite how much replayability there is. If you ever find the game in a sale, get it in a heartbeat, you will not be disappointed.

4/5

11/11/2016
Weekly Gaming: Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Call of Duty Black Ops recently. I mean, it wasn’t fantastic, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it definitely punched above my expectations for it, and proceeded to make me eager enough for more of the story to go out and purchase the second and third of this trilogy. So with Black Ops now a distant memory, and with me having some time to myself, I decided to give the second a go, to see if it manages to surpass the original or whether it manages to fall flat on it’s face.

My initial impressions upon starting the game were “who the fuck is woods, and who the fuck is this?”. Suffice to say, if I was having problems remembering characters from the first game when I only played in 2 months ago, i feel sorry for players who had to wait two years. It took a good hour or two (and a bit of Googling), but after a while, I was able to follow the story and find out why the game flashes between the 80’s and 2020’s.

You see, you play as “section” mason, Alex mason’s son (you played as Alex Mason throughout the first game). You’re trying to get to the bottom of why a terrorist is planning to destroy the western world, and how. So, in classic Call of Duty fashion, you have flashbacks to the 80’s in many weird and wonderful places that are central to modern history. Take Vietnam, Africa and Afghanistan for example. I’m not gonna complain too much, the variety of stages helps to really show the graphical prowess of this successor, and my oh my does it impress.

For a game that was still only released on last-gen consoles, Call of Duty Black Ops 2 is quite the visual upgrade from it’s predecessor. Everything from textures, to lighting effects, to even character models all stand out as far more detailed than before. It’s crazy really, especially considering Black ops 2 continues to use the same engine. Treyarch deserve some recognition for what they were able to do with such a limited amount of resources.

The gameplay is the standard affair we’re all used to with Call of Duty game: namely great shooting and action sequences galore. I especially liked how much more “force” each gun seemed to have in this sequel, as I recall the previous guns feeling like pea shooters in comparison. Enemies are the same as always: Spawn from random locations and then try and flag you from multiple directions, the difference here is that there’s a lot more of them, mainly due to engine upgrades that allow a lot more enemies and NPC’s on screen at any given time. I’ll say one improvement the developers made for the enemies this time round: their ability to want to survive is commendable. The animations they display when flipping a table or a drinks machine is fantastic, and whilst it was first shown off in FEAR all those years ago, it’s still a great addition to increase the complexity of the enemies you’re fighting.

I wouldn’t usually bring up bugs in my reviews, mainly because all of the big ones have usually been fixed by the time I get around to playing a game, but also because I don’t feel they impact the gameplay too much (most of the time!). Unfortunately though, Black Ops 2 for the PC had one of the worst bugs I’ve experienced in PC games, which is that after every single campaign level I completed the game would crash to my desktop. I mean it – every single campaign mission, thrown straight back. Looking around on the net it seems this has been known since day one, with Treyarch saying they’d fix it soon, yet here we are, two years after it’s release with no fix in sight. The only way around it was to use Steam in offline mode, or to have less than 50 friends. Horrendous in my opinion, but alas, now you know (should my opinion be what you need before you go out and buy something – I don’t know, it could happen!).

Story wise, it wasn’t as interesting as “the numbers” theme within Black Ops 1 (that entire sub-plot is thrown out the window within the first hour), but overall it kept me engaged and pushed me to find out more throughout the plots entirety. What was more interesting throughout was the future missions, where there was an air of believability throughout. The world is effectively the same as now, but with a new type of plane (where the engines are mobile, allowing for upwards travel) and monitors everywhere. It makes me look forward to playing Black Ops 3, where most of it’s missions are apparently based in the future, with all it’s high-tech robot suits and an all-out war.

For the most part, I enjoyed my time within Black Ops 2. It’s a more streamlined affair than it’s predecessor, which makes for a more enjoyable experience on the whole. Don’t get me wrong, it has it’s flaws, like the bugs and the lacklustre story when compared to the original, but taken in it’s entirety, Black Ops 2 really is a better game than the original. Treyarch should be proud, they really did manage to make a fantastic sequel to the acclaimed Black Ops, something many thought they wouldn’t be able to do. One things for sure, I’m sold on the premise of future warfare, and cannot wait to sink my teeth into Black Ops 3.

4/5

04/11/2016
Weekly Gaming: Mighty No. 9 (PC)

Hi all!

This week I’m going to post a review back to Mighty No. 9, a game I reviewed a while ago, but never posted to this site. For those of you who need a little background: Mighty No. 9 was a kickstarter project from the man that brought us the original Mega Man. This hard 2D platformer was hugely successful in the NES years, but with Capcom owning the IP, it stagnated, becoming a title that was never developed in the 3D era.

If you fancy reading my feelings on the game, by all means give the review a read below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/264813/mighty-no-9-pc/

As always, thanks for visiting, and until next Friday have a fantastic week!

-Dan

14/10/2016
Weekly Gaming: Call of Duty: Black Ops (PC)

I genuinely cannot believe that it’s almost been 6 years since Call of Duty Black Ops was introduced to the world. The game still (in my mindset at least) feels like it was just announced yesterday, with it’s weird mid-60’s era warfare being quite new and revelatory for the time. But alas, here we are 6 years later, and with myself having never given the game a go. For someone that was a fan of the series (I specifically asked for COD 2 for christmas one year, loving the series that much), I was never that interested in the concept of Black Ops. Maybe it was because, to me at least, the series was trying too hard. Modern Warfare was astounding, and it’s follow up, Modern Warfare 2 was just as good, so I suppose I just couldn’t be bothered with what felt like a stand in for a fully fledged game between games. But in dismissing Black Ops as an off-shoot, did I miss anything? Yes and No. Let me elaborate.

Black ops makes sure you know it’s trying to tell it’s own story, and is trying to create characters you fall in love with (just like the whole world did with Captain Price). From the offset you’re given a mysterious premise to the game, that there’s numbers that need decrypting, and it’s up to mason to crawl back through his memories to find out what they mean. This mystery takes you from one place to another, and is actually a good way to explain why Black Ops takes place in such a variety of places.

You fight in the jungles of Vietnam, the island of Cuba, the harsh winters of Russia, and even see the Pentagon during your travels, and whilst Black Ops’ graphics is certainly starting to show its age, I for one enjoyed the attention to detail given to each locale. My only gripe is the Call of duty engine itself, which not only makes shooting enemies feel hollow (I can’t count the amount of times I wasn’t sure whether my shot landed or not), but also does a bad job of lighting environments, resulting in characters looking “plastic-ey”, especially when you’re up close to them during intense story moments.

Those moments are few and far between, because for the most part you’re going to be mowing down countless amounts of enemies as they swarm towards you in open areas. The typical COD action is present throughout, with the ante constantly being upped whilst more and more enemies swarm your way. One advantage Black Ops had over other titles in the series is it’s ability to give narrative as to why you’re in all these different circumstances. Underground fighting Vietcong? There’s plans under there which lead back to the soviets and their Weapon of Mass Destruction. In a Lockheed Blackbird guiding troops through Russia? There’s a plant nearby that manufacturers deadly gas. It all ties together quite nicely to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few moments which felt like tropes (the guiding of people from a Lockheed was one of them), but overall Black Ops done a good job of explaining why you were in each location.

The gunplay as ever was entertaining and constant. Any downtime between gunfights was great for receiving narrative relating to the story, but overall the variety of weapons to use and abuse was staggering, and enjoyable for the most part. As I mentioned before, the game engine was annoying in so-far as not communicating to the player whether an enemy was hurt or killed, but overall I enjoyed mowing down thousands of enemies with different weapons. There’s a reason players keep coming back to COD after all these years, and the gunplay is certainly the main one.

It should be noted here that on PC, the gamepad was not an enjoyable controller to use in Black Ops. I for one prefer using a controller on PC games (call me a peasant all you want, to each their own I say), but found it impossible to do so in Black ops. It just felt wrong, no matter how much I changed up the settings, each and every kill just felt weird or lucky, never as though I had any skill. Half way through the campaign I switched to keyboard and mouse and felt a hell of a lot better for doing so. Take heed if you’re like me and prefer controllers, Black Ops may say it supports gamepads, but it does not feel nice at all.

I spoke of the story/mystery earlier on in this review, so how does it play out? Overall Black Ops does a genuinely good job of intriguing the player, and introducing enough likeable characters that you feel bad should they be hurt. The cold war setting is a point rarely explored in games, so to see key figures from the era (like Kennedy) rendered within the engine was a delight. Plot points come frequently, and whilst the main twist in the campaign was predictable from a mile off, it still done a good job of upping the ante throughout the campaign. The conclusion is also satisfying, albeit with the caveat that you can’t help but think the developers left the franchise open to a sequel in two years time.

A big gripe I do have with the PC version is it’s lack of extra settings to truly use the power of the platform. The graphics engine is clearly made for consoles, and it’s a shame that my PC could easily run the game at over 140fps, especially given the fact Treyarch (the developers) have experience with PC gaming in the past.

Oh, and before I come to the summary, I’m glad Treyarch brought the Zombies mode back for Black Ops. Whilst I didn’t give it a go on PC too much (it’s more of a co-operative mode), I’m glad it exists; I have so many fond memories of killing zombies whilst trying to survive with Uni friends.

So in conclusion, 6 years on I can see why Black Ops was actually seen as the one true competitor to Infinity Wards behemoth Modern Warfare series. They set up some memorable characters, and some plot points that truly standout compared to the stories of other Call of Duty games, and all whilst maintaining the fantastic 60fps gameplay everyone knows and loves. Just be warned if you now wish to play the game since reading this review: Activision RARELY reduce the price of their games. The only reason I have Black Ops 1 and 2 on PC is because of a Steam summer sale. If you still want to give the game a go, get it from amazon; it’s still $40 on Steam.

07/10/2016
Weekly Gaming: Her Story (PC)

Given how many awards Her Story has received this year (some from BAFTA for example), I felt it was time to give the game a go, and see what all the fuss was about. I recall walking past the game at EGX Rezzed 2015, but didn’t think much of it due to its lacklustre appearance. I mean, who wouldn’t? You’re in a tiny room with hundreds of other games making loud noises and packed full of action and explosions, and all you see on this one monitor is an artistic impression of an old CRT monitor, complete with scaliness and reflections, with nothing more than a lady talking on it. I’m sure many others would walk past too.

But boy ‘ol boy was I a fool. After spending the best part of an entire evening with my other half playing through Her Story, I can say I’m a fool for not giving it a look sooner.

Her Story revolves entirely around a series of police interviews with a suspect. You’re given no context about the reasons the person in question is a suspect, or even what has happened for their to be an investigation, you’re just presented with a PC monitor, a database piece of software, and some instructions on how to use it.

You proceed to watch the first 5 videos already brought up within the database, and from there you start to build up a picture of what has happened. From these tidbits of information recovered from the tapes you just watched you can proceed to search for new terms in the database. A lot of the recordings you find may lead nowhere – sometimes they’re not giving more context on the current line of thinking you may have, other times they’re 2-3 seconds long and only contain a recording of the lady saying “yes” or “no”.

But it’s in this mystery and lack of context that Her Story really stands out from the crowd. My other half really got into the idea of being a detective, picking apart everything the lady said to try and distinguish what we should search for next. Some clues may lead nowhere, but others feel like going down the rabbit hole, revealing a whole new point to the investigation you had never thought of before.

The lack of hearing questions pushed at the lady also helps to keep a sense of mystery throughout, with your own mind having to be the conduit for which you try and order everything together. Tapes are mixed, and depending on which search terms you use, convoluted, making for an interesting and ever lasting hunger for more information.

I’m not going to spoil anything about the story or the game, as that’s a huge part of what makes Her Story so incredible to experience. Should you already know terms or story points before you go in, you lose the mystery and as a result, are able to separate yourself from the investigative experience Her Story so greatly encapsulates. Suffice to say, what you get from the story is certainly fantastic, with many plot points giving you aha! moments that expand your understanding of the events that happened.

The acting of the actress was fantastic, with me an my other half truly getting a sense that these were real tapes with real questions being asked. The story, too has done an absolutely fantastic job of building this world up from scratch just through this ladies answers to questions we never hear. It’s insane to think these places and people don’t exist in real life, as the attention to detail about everything is staggering.

One touch I did like was that Her Story is open ended; there is no conclusion to the story, no grand cut-scene that explains everything in chronological order, you’re simply asked if you’ve seen enough to understand what happened. It’s up to you, yourself to determine if you’ve seen enough of the tapes and have enough context to know what happened in 1994.

You know what? I’ve been racking my brain for the last 15 minutes trying to think of a negative for Her Story and genuinely can’t come up with one. It knows what kind of game it wants to be, and never deviates from the course, creating one of the most sophisticated and brilliant games of the last few years. Because of this paragraph alone, I’m pushing the 4/5 I originally gave it up to a 5/5.

So, Her Story is genuinely fantastic. I can say without doubt that the game has won me over, and I can understand why it won as many awards as it did. Should you have 3-4 hours free one evening, and have a PC, iPad or Android tablet, give the game a download; you won’t be disappointed.

5/5

23/09/2016
Weekly Gaming: Cibele (PC)

Losing your virginity; it’s a deeply personal experience, and one which rarely gets mentioned in all forms of media. There’s a reason; this awkward first time is meant to prepare you for a lifetime of sexual encounters, so it’s hugely intimate and infinitely personal. So imagine my surprise when a game is made that goes through a girls first sexual encounter, and online relationships in general. I was interested, don’t get me wrong; indie games really do push the boundaries when it comes to what can and cannot happen within an interactive medium.

So how does Cibele go about explaining it’s developer’s (Nina Freeman) first experience? Through a simulated desktop of what Nina would have said and done during this time. You’re able to click around this desktop, looking in Nina’s files and folders, exploring her most intimate poems and pictures. It’s this freedom to explore the game at your own pace, and to see as much or as little as you’d like which truly sets the tone here. You really feel like you’re actually exploring someones computer, which, as many of you may know, can be a hugely personal and scary thing (I know I certainly wouldn’t want someone free roam of my PC).

Once you’ve explored Nina’s desktop as much as you’d like, you can proceed to boot up and play the online multiplayer game Nina is playing. This game (Valtameri) has you defeating enemies on the screen whilst dialog plays in the background between Nina and Blake. The game isn’t fun, and is merely there as a backdrop/scene to the actual depth of the story; Nina and Blake’s long distance relationship.

The dialog is down right cringe-worthy in spots, but as a whole took me back to my teenage years of chatting up girls online. It’s authentic, and generally does a good job of showing how a relationship can manifest from terrible flirting between two awkward participants.

The dialog plays out seemingly separate to the game being played itself, a fact that took my other half by surprise whilst we were playing. It wasn’t until I explained to her that multiplayer games are more of a backdrop to you catching up and socialising with others that the story made more sense to her. To put it in perspective, I explained all the times I would play Halo Reach or Call of Duty with friends at uni over Xbox Live just to catch up on the day’s events.

Once you’ve finished the boss on each level within Valtameri, you’re rewarded with a new cut-scene which further expands on Nina and Blake’s relationship. This may be in the form of Nina taking revealing photos, or even her searching for flights to California (Blake lives on the west coast – Nina the east). These cut-scenes themselves can make you extremely uneasy also – the intimate detail Nina proceeds to show throughout Cibele is definitely not for the faint hearted, something which may put many players off. It’s tasteful though – nothings inherently sexual here. Yes, Nina’s in her underwear and taking awkward sexy photos, but you know the context, and can see how awkward it all is, giving precedence to the story at large.

Once the cut-scenes over you’re introduced to a new date (sometime in the future) and proceed to start again, looking through Nina’s desktop files before proceeding into Valtameri again. This continues for 3 acts until you finally get the conclusion – Blake visits Nina in New York. In the conclusion, Nina and Blake lose their virginity together, but end up going their separate ways, with no future relationship manifesting from this encounter. It’s not a spoiler to say this, that’s the whole point of this game, it’s just jolting when it happens; we’re all used to game’s and narratives as a whole giving a fairy tale ending – with Cibele it shows the awkwardness of real-life, and how everything is a shade of grey rather than black or white.

As a consequence of the “narrative” Cibele pushes, there are going to many that refute it being called a game. I can kind of see why; the interactivity of Cibele is limited merely to the desktop portion of the game – here, you can see as much, or as little as you’d like about Nina’s life. Snooping around her personal files will certainly give more context about her current feelings on different matters, but there’s no way to actually influence the story being told. You are just an observer into this girls adolescence.
Cibele is a great narrative experience, one that brings to life the awkwardness of our teenage years of flirting, and one which truly helps to evoke feelings of awkwardness and cringe-eyness. As I said before, it was weird seeing so many chat up lines or conversations I once had growing up, and especially to see it from the other side (from the girls perspective). Whilst Cibele doesn’t do much as a game in that you don’t do much at all (think like walking simulators), it still does a good job of reflecting that one weird period in our life we’re all going to experience.

3/5

16/09/2016
Weekly Gaming: Lumo (PC)

Hi all!

I hope you’ve all been well. This ones a bit late, as I forgot that I had reviewed the game but never published it on here! So for this week, enjoy my video and written review for Lumo, a classic isometric platformer that I enjoyed, but felt was quite flawed.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/264425/lumo-pc/

Apologies if this reviews a bit over the place, I must admit I felt my words were certainly convoluted and all over the place whilst writing the review and the script.

Anyway, until next week, have a great one!

-Dan

02/09/2016
Weekly Gaming: Ryse (PC)

I’ve been intrigued with Ryse since it first came out on the Xbox One. It’s troubled development (originally planned to be released as a Kinect game) and mediocre reviews that all said it had generic gameplay with shiny graphics made me hesitate on my purchase at the time. Now with Ryse being ported to the PC, and with it also being included on a Steam sale for £3.74, I decided to pull the trigger, and finally give the game a go, to see if all of those criticisms were valid.

The first thing that grabs your attention about Ryse is it’s insane amount of detail. Every marble staircase, every glisten of light, and every single model in the world looks absolutely stunning, so much so you’d be forgiven at times for thinking it’s a 3D film. This amount of realism also extends to the characters on screen and the animations deployed. Facial expressions are intrinsically comprehensive, properly portraying emotions like never before, so much so that when people are angry, you truly believe their rage. This amount of graphical detail is consistently pushed into your face with each execution the gameplay ensures you participate in on a regular basis. Suffice to say, if there’s one thing that should keep you interested throughout Ryse’s 5 hour campaign, its the constant gorgeous presentation.

So how about the story – one of the core tenants of any game and the glue which holds and explains the gameplay set pieces. Unfortunately, this part of Ryse does not hold up well. It starts off all good and fine – your main character Marius Victus is a typical roman centurion, who just so happens to have a bad start to his career when barbarians invade rome and kill his family. Doing what any good centurion would do, he gets sent off to the front lines of the empire, taking on the barbaric Britains as they try to reclaim their land. It’s once you’re introduced to the main protagonist that the story truly starts to digress.

You see, it’s not the personality of Neo’s son that brings the games plot down, it’s what he represents; a clear deviation from the current grounded story. From this character onwards, the story of Ryse starts becoming magical, with Marius soon discovering that he cannot die – a fact which he shrugs off and never takes advantage of. Due to this severe change of tone, Crytek then have an opportunity to write things into the script which clearly goes against the ethos of the first half of the game. You start rebelling against Rome as a whole, dressing up in black to scare Romans but to also get into a colosseum undetected. For a man that knows he’s immortal, you sure like messing around in brothels and colosseums to go a round-about way of killing the people you hate. By the end of the campaign I was just left feeling disheartened and annoyed; it started so well – with a grounded story being an absolutely fantastic reason to admire and enjoy the characters portrayed. But alas, Crytek couldn’t keep it up, and despite the campaign being relatively short, it’s second half feels like it overstays its welcome.

The story was a bit lacklustre then, but what of the gameplay itself? Surprisingly, this part of Ryse actually holds up quite well. I’m all too used to the classic fighting system that Batman Arkham Asylum introduced all those years ago, and as a result, I felt right at home with Ryse. The combat is fluid, with a single press of the X or B buttons on the Xbox controller and a movement on the analogue stick causing Marius to charge across the battlefield to the next enemy you’d like to take on. Counters are present, ensuring you can maintain a decent combo, which in turn unlocks more moves to carry out, and finally, an execution system is present, a feature Crytek hopes will truly differentiate Ryse in a crowded market.

When an enemy is hit enough to become stammered, you can proceed to press the right trigger on your controller, causing a execution to take place. This brutal animation, which requires quick-time buttons to be pressed at precise moments, gives back health, xp, or a myriad of other benefits, and is needed to be used in order to progress in many areas. This incentive to execute people is a rewarding system, both aesthetically, and from a gameplay perspective, and it’s a lovely repetitive system that I enjoyed thoroughly throughout.

The enemies that you fight change throughout the course of the campaign as they would to increase the difficulty, with some being able to block your incoming attacks, or others not able to be stammered/killed unless you counter them enough times. This variety is short lived though, and before long you’ve seen every enemy variant Ryse has to offer. Whilst that statement may sound boring on the surface, it’s through clever level design that Crytek have managed to redeem themselves here. Enemies are spread out and come to attack at just the right moments, ensuring you’re constantly kept on your feet no matter what the area. Don’t get me wrong, it gets repetitive and predictable after a while, but for me, that was quite alright, as I felt empowered whilst mowing down hoards of enemies.

So, was Ryse truly the mediocre game reviewers made out? Yes and no. It could be argued that the entirety of the game, from the fighting, to the story and even the environments themselves were created purely for the aesthetics alone. This would explain why a colosseum level appears half way through for seemingly no reason, and why the execution system was introduced, with the incentive for doing so coming just after. Regardless of the reasons Ryse was made the way it was, I still enjoyed what (little) time I had with the game, and would recommend fans of action games to pick it up should they find it only sale for ridiculous prices once again.

4/5

26/08/2016
Weekly Gaming: The Walking Dead Michonne Episode 2: Give No Shelter

Hi all!

So this week, I’ve decided to post an (old) review for Telltale games’ The Walking Dead spin-off series, Michonne. Given that I was rather tepid about the first outing of the game (which can be read here), I didn’t have much hope for the second episode. Lo and behold, my pessimistic side won out, with the game being massively underwhelming compared to other Telltale ventures.

If you want to give the review a read, you can click on the link below:

http://www.vgchartz.com/articles/adminnew/?task=edit&story=263776

As always, thanks for visiting, and will see you next week!

-Dan

01/07/2016
Weekly Gaming: Doom (PC)

Hey all!

So this week I’m looking at ID’s latest take on Doom on the awesome platform that is the PC. It’s hard to put into words how much I genuinely love this game, and how I lost an entire weekend to the game when I really didn’t expect much.

So without further ado, go read my full review at the link below!

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/264338/doom-pc/

For those of you who are interested, I felt that this review was so different to the original draft I posted that tomorrow I’ll be posted an editorial on the edits that happen to a review before it’s posted over at VGchartz.com. It’s gonna be a long article, but I hope it’s worth it to many of you out there that would like to see the difference.

Until tomorrow!

-Dan

20/05/2016