I had hoped to get at least one or two more of my Summer Backlog Challenge list completed before the deadline of September 23rd, but alas this isn't going to happen. Still, I did manage to pass the challenge by completing five out my ten choices, so I don't feel to bad about it. I still intend to finish the rest of the games, just on my own schedule. I will try and make a point of finishing sooner rather than later though. A number of things happened which caused me to drop the ball towards the end of the challenge, unfortunately. Firstly, a ton of triple A games all dropped within a short space of time. First it was Yakuza Kiwami 2, then Dragon Quest XI, and mostly recently Spider Man. So I spent quite a bit of time playing each one of these instead of focusing on my challenge list. Then, my cat grew very ill and had to be put to sleep, and I haven't really felt like spending much time gaming since then. Not on the bigger games, at any rate, I have still been dipping into retro and indie titles a little bit. I will recover eventually, but at the moment I miss my fuzzy buddy.
I've also recently acquired an Nvidia Shield TV, which has done it's bit in distracting me away from my task as well. With this little beauty, not only can you stream 4K video from all the usual sources, you can play Android games, install emulators for retro consoles and computers, and play certain Steam games via Geforce Now. This works amazingly well provided you have quite a fast internet connection, and it means I can play some PC games in much higher quality than my poor PC could ever manage. I don't own many of the compatible titles just yet, I have tested out Grim Dawn and Two Point Hospital, both of which are fantastic. The Geforce Now service is currently free because it's in Beta, and I have no idea how much it's likely to cost when it's rolled out properly, though I hear it will be less for Shield owners vs those who login via PC's, Macs or mobile devices.
You also get access to a range of 40 or so games to play around with via GeForce now, though most of these are quite old. I have tried out a few of them to see how well it works and I have to say I am very impressed. So far I've tried the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, Alpha Protocol and Sonic Racing Transformed, and they all look great and play really well. The Nvidia game pad that comes with the Shield TV is very nicely put together - it's comfortable and the buttons are good quality. I have experienced no lag at all with the games and though I haven't tried streaming at full 4K yet, 1080p still looks very nice indeed. The main reason I bought the Shield TV is for the retro gaming - though I do have a Raspberry Pi box which is good for certain things, it wasn't quite delivering the goods for me. With the combination of the ARC Browser, Retro X and ton of great emulators, the Shield TV provides a robust and reliable method of playing the classics, and capturing the footage so I can make more videos for you. That it also allows me to check out Android and Steam games as well is a very nice added bonus!
You've probably noticed that I've been releasing quite a few episodes of RetroGrade recently. This is because they are fairly easy to make (though they still take about five hours each). Unfortunately I can't just decide which PS2 game I want to make a video about on a Saturday, play it for a bit and make a video on Sunday (technically I could do this but I would be short changing both myself and my audience), whereas it is possible to play an arcade game for a couple of hours before summing up my thoughts. I realise that I've been saying that PS2 Tuesdays is going to return for a while now, and it is - I just need to work out what I'm going to play and then spend enough time playing it so that I can give it a fair review. That's also why I don't review many RPG's on the PS2, though I hope to try and rectify that by making them either the first or last game in a season going forward. I think I might take a look at Burnout Dominator, Soul Calibur 3 and Rogue Galaxy during the rest of the season, though this is subject to change.
OK, I've rambled on enough for now. I am really quite excited about the opportunities that the Shield TV offers up though! As always, if you have any recommendations for games I should check it, be it modern, retro, Android or Steam, then let me know! In the meantime, take care.
Showing posts with label modern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label modern. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2018
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Wii Hidden Gems #7 - Sam & Max: Season One
This time I'm taking a look at the Wii version of Sam & Max Season One. The titular duo are freelance police, with Sam being a dog and Max being a "hyperkinetic rabbity thing" as the game often describes him. They were created by Steve Purcell and originated as a comic book form in 1986, where they developed a cult following. After Purcell became employed at LucasArts and worked on the graphics for titles such as Monkey Island 1 and 2, he was given the chance to make his own Sam & Max graphic adventure, which was subtitled Hit the Road and was released in 1993. The game became hugely popular and ranks up there with the true classics of the genre, securing Sam & Max a much bigger audience. In 1997 there was a fairly short lived TV series starring the duo, but then things went silent for quite some time.
Fast forward to around 2002, and there was word that a new Sam & Max game was in development, a true sequel to Hit the Road. Unfortunately LucasArts decided to pull the plug on the project in March of 2004, which was the impetus for Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner and Troy Molander to leave and start their own company, Telltale Games. After moderate success with early titles like Telltale Texas Hold 'Em, Bone, and some licensed CSI games, they manage to secure the rights for new Sam & Max games directly from Steve Purcell. The six episode first season was originally made available from October 2006 to April 2007 on the PC, with the Wii version appearing on the Wii Shop in 2008. A physical version containing all six episodes and some fairly inconsequential bonus materials was published by The Adventure Company in 2008. The game was hugely successful for Telltale, and led to two further seasons for Sam & Max, as well as future series like Tales of Monkey Island, Back to the Future: The Game and The Walking Dead. Nowadays Telltale Games are a really big deal in the industry, securing the rights to huge properties like Game of Thrones, Minecraft and Batman. I intend review each of their series eventually, but I am starting here with Sam & Max: Season One, aka Save the World.
As each episode of Sam & Max: Season One introduces new characters and develops old ones, I am going to break them down into their own mini segments with my thoughts on each. Overall though the characters are very strong and entertainingly written. One or two of them are on the verge of being extremely irritating but that is deliberate. While there is an overarching plot that connects each episode to the one after it, the thread is pretty thin in this season to be honest, and Telltale definitely get much better at this by the time we get to Season Three.
This time Sam & Max are investigating Ted E. Bear's Mafia Free Playland and Casino and trying to track down a mole who is working for the cops in secret, by using the phrase "Does the carpet match the drapes". This is definitely the funniest episode so far, as it was hugely entertaining going around trying out the code phrase on everyone you meet, and the musical number that the creepy animatronic bear heads on the wall sing was great as well. New characters this time around include Leonard Steakcharmer, a shady gambler to attempt to cheat Sam out of his tokens while playing Indian Poker, Chuckles, the second in command at the casino, and Ted E. Bear himself. This time Sybil is a professional witness, preparing to testify against the Toy Mafia, who put a hit out on her. Bosco is once again attempting to disguise himself by wearing a beret and affecting a bad French accent. This was the briefest episode so far for me but also the best written. 8 out of 10
This was another great episode with another entertaining musical number part way through. This time, apparently the president of the United States has become a victim of hypnotism, but after further investigation, it is discovered he was a robot all along that was actually the one doing the hypnotising. After the heroic duo have dealt with him, the chief of staff activates the Lincoln memorial, who it turns out is a huge stone robot. An emergency election is called where Max stands as presidential candidate in opposition of robo-Lincoln, and it's your job to ensure he gets elected. New characters this time around include Agent Superball, a member of the secret service who is always trying to deny you access from where you need to go, and the animatronic Abe Lincoln himself. The Soda Poppers return, with Whizzer trying to start a campaign for the victims of Soda Abuse, and Specs and Peepers on the opposing sides of a civil war between North and South Dakota. This time Sybil is running a dating agency, and Bosco has turned Russian. 8 out of 10
The final episode of the first season sees you visiting the moon as the title would suggest, in an attempt to stop the big bad's plan once and for all. In case you haven't played the game yet and would like to, I am not going to reveal too much information about this one or I would spoil for you. Overall I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the previous three episodes, but I would say it's on par with episodes one and two. Pretty much all of the characters you've met over the course of the previous episodes come back in one way or another, and it all leads to a fairly satisfying climax. 7 out of 10
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| You will revisit certain locations, such as the office, multiple times throughout the season. |
Graphics: 7 out of 10
The visuals of Sam & Max on the Wii are OK but definitely not the best I've ever seen by quite some margin. There's also some really bad performance issues which I believe could have been sorted out if a bit more time was spent optimising the code. With the Wii proving itself more than capable of running impressive software like the Super Mario Galaxy games or Xenoblade Chronicles, it should be able to run something as simple as a graphic adventure game without any difficulty, yet there are times where I encountered chronic slowdown with an absolutely abysmal frame rate. Most episodes feature a rather ill advised and poorly implemented chase sequence in the Desoto, which is where the poor performance is most noticeable, although there were also a few moments in regular game play where the action slowed to a crawl and looked as if the game was about to crash at any moment. It actually did lock up completely on me once. The ugly looking background textures were a side effect of the episodes starting life as downloadable content on the Wii Shop, where they had to come in under a certain size. If you play game on PC, it will look and perform a lot better.
Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
The voice work is really strong with a relatively small group of actors playing a whole bunch of different characters. Bosco was definitely the highlight for me, with his British and Half Elven voices being extremely funny. Hugh Bliss and the Soda Poppers could get irritating, though this is intentional. Jared Emerson-Johnson has composed some great music for this series as well, from the main theme, the various background tunes and the musical numbers like the ones from The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball and Abe Lincoln Must Die!
Game Mechanics: 8 out of 10
Setting the technical performance of the game aside, graphic adventures like this actually work really well on the Wii thanks to the simple point and click interface. You navigate around the different areas of the world, converse with the different characters to try and glean what you're supposed to be doing, pick up any objects you find and use them to progress through the story. The episodic nature of the game means that there are never too many options available to you at once and though some puzzles will require a certain degree of thought with a bit of effort it should be possible for even genre newcomers to make progress. These episodes are definitely on the easier end of the graphic adventure scale, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They are meant to entertaining and completable within a few hours, not super challenging.
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| On the set of Midtown Cowboys during Episode Two - Situation: Comedy. |
Innovation and Cleverness: 6 out of 10
Telltale Games were the pioneers of the episodic adventure game, which have since become hugely popular and have seen other companies bring their own take on the genre into the market (such as Life is Strange and Blues & Bullets). The Wii controller is also a perfect fit for this type of game, and Telltale were fairly big supporters of the system in the early days. It's a shame that the third season of Sam & Max never came out for the Wii, but that's another review for a later time.
Value & Replayability: 6 out of 10
Copies of Sam & Max: Season One can be fairly easily obtained for about a fiver, and the game should take you about 12 hours to complete if you spend 2 hours on average on each episode. I would say that's pretty decent value for money. Whether you will ever replay the game again after the first time is questionable though. I could potentially see myself playing through the episodes again in a few years time, although the plot is not in the same league as classics like The Secret of Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle.
Overall: 7 out of 10
Sam & Max: Season One is definitely worth playing. If you have access to a PC though, I would definitely play it on there rather than the Wii as it will look nicer and not suffer the same embarrassing technical issues that are present on the Wii. Having said that, for me personally it's still a nice game to have in my physical Wii collection as it is part of the diverse range of games that are available for the system. Many people cannot look past the shovelware and see the quality titles underneath - whilst Sam & Max is not as polished as it could have been it is most definitely not shovelware and is still very entertaining despite its problems. Hopefully Season Two will have ironed out the flaws - we will find out when I get around to playing it in a month or two!
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Yakuza 5 review
When Sony finally did announce that the game would be released digitally on the PlayStation Network, I decided it was worth supporting and used some of my birthday money towards it. Whenever I buy a new game I always have to try it out a little bit, even if I don't intend to play it all the way through there and then. This is usually only the first few hours of the game, but I had so much fun playing Yakuza 5 that I ended up spending about 12 hours on it! Still, after that first day and a bit of playtime, I did set it aside so I could concentrate on finishing Tales of Xillia. Roughly one month later I came back to it though, and have now completed the game having spent about 75 hours on it in total. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed myself, and now firmly intend to go back and play the first four games, plus Dead Souls. If you are curious about the Yakuza franchise and have never taken the plunge, let me attempt to explain why you should strongly consider giving it a go.
Having watched some of the videos that go over the plot of previous games, it is apparent that these games can get rather convoluted and hard to follow. That wasn't really the case with Yakuza 5 though, despite it being deep into a well established series. The main protagonist of the games, Kazuma Kiryu, has moved from Tokyo to Fukuoka, changed his identity, and is just trying to make a living as a humble taxi driver. That all begins to fall apart when the chairman of his former yakuza family cuts in line and gets into his taxi one day, in order to warn Kiryu that there is a war on the horizon between the Tojo Clan and the Omi Alliance. From this point on his is gradually drawn back into the yakuza life yet again, and the plot deepens from there. He is only one of five playable characters though, and after about 15 - 20 hours of playtime depending on how thorough you are with the side activities, the game shifts onto Taiga Saejima, who fights differently and has plenty of his own problems.
While there is enough mystery in the plot to keep you interested throughout the games long play time, it never becomes too hard to follow. Also, by shifting things up every 20 hours or so, the game remains fresh. Saejima's part of the story was my least favourite but I kept going in the knowledge that I would eventually get to play as three more characters after him. His main side activity was hunting, which was a nice change of pace from all the fighting, but the opening hours of his chapter really dragged for me. By far my favourite was Haruka. She has been in the series since the very first game, where she started out as a little girl that Kiryu had to take care of. Now she's about 15, and has been noticed by the head of a talent agency for pop idols. She is in the very early stages of an idol career as week take control of her, preparing for the finals of a TV show called Princess League. Her chapter was a lot of fun, and the rhythm based concerts and dance battles were a very nice change of pace. This game really has three key strengths: the characters, the variety of gameplay, and the sense of fun.
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| Take that! A foot to the armpit. |
Yakuza 5 does look very good for the most part and the engine has obviously had an upgrade since Yakuza 3. The key cut scenes of the game have had the most attention, with the character models looking extremely detailed and realistic. Outside of these the rest of the game running in realtime is slightly less detailed and there are one or two rather ugly textures to be found, but overall this is an impressive looking PS3 game. When things get really hectic there are signs of slowdown, but nothing that's too detrimental to the overall game play.
Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
The Yakuza series hasn't had Enlgish voices since the first game, and from what I heard when I tried to get into it all those years ago, that's no great loss, as it was truly terrible in places. My untrained ear can't really tell if the Japanese actors are good at their jobs or not, but it all seems perfectly fine and having them speak their native tongue just makes the game feel more authentic. There are some quite brutul sounding crunches in combat, and the move where Kiryu grates somebodies face on the pavement always makes me wince due to the unpleasant sandpaper noise that accompanies it. There is some great music in the game as well, from the tunes that play while your in combat, the suitably cheesy ballads that you can belt out at the karaoke parlours, and the pop or dance tunes that Haruka performs to.
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| Harukaaaaaaaa-chaaaaaaan! |
The Yakuza games are chiefly brawlers - kind of like a modern day equivalent of something like Streets of Rage. There is a lot more to them than this though as I will attempt to explain. When you first take control of a new character, their move set and abilities are fairly limited. By beating random thugs that will come at you in the street or by taking down people in the story, you will earn experience points and level up. Each time this happens you will be given three pips to spend on a variety of things, from extending your life bar, to learning a completely new move. By the time you're getting towards the end of that characters chapter, he will be incredibly powerful and able to beat the shit out of most enemies, bar the bosses. I was playing the game on the default Normal difficulty and never really had too much trouble in any particular fight. You are given healing items from completing side quests and from random drops so even if I did get close to being defeated I could just down a Staminan Spark or something and be right back in the fight. Those who are good at action games may want to go straight to Hard mode.
In addition to regular moves, each character also has their own array of heat moves. You earn heat by successfully beating on your opponents, or by blocking incoming attacks. Once the bar is filled you can then trigger some really painful looking attacks like the face grating one I mentioned earlier. You can also pick up a large variety of background objects and use them as weapons as well, all of which have their own heat move associated with them. So you could pick up a bicycle, beat somebody around the head a few times with it, throw it at them and them stomp on top of them for good measure.
If the combat was all the game had going for it then I would start to tire of it eventually, and this is pretty much what happened back when I tried to play the first game. The great thing about this series though - the later games at least - is the vast variety of things to do. Aside from the taxi driving, hunting, pop idol business and other main side modes that each character has, there are also many more side activities. You can go to a hostess club and attempt woo a pretty girl, you can go bowling, play darts, air hockey and billiards. Virtua Fighter 2, Taiko no Tatsujin and UFO Catcher machines can be found in Club SEGA that are based in most of the cities, and there are a whole host of gambling games like poker, pachislots and more in there. Plenty of things to break up the fighting. All of the mini games are at least competently implemented as well, which is important.
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| Just grin and bear it! |
While Yakuza 5 is building on the previous titles in the series, it does bring a lot of its own new stuff to the table as well. The decision to allow you to play as Haruka and make musical performance the focus of her chapter instead of combat was a masterstroke. Really a lot of the reason that I played all the way to the end is because I couldn't wait to see what new thing the game would throw at me next. The story is good enough to back up the game play though, resulting in a highly polished experience.
Value and Replayabilty: 9 out of 10
As I mentioned in the intro, it took me 75 hours to get to the end of Yakuza 5 and while I did complete most of the sidestories for each character, I came nowhere near to doing everything that is possible to do in the game. My overall completion rate was about 25%, so if you were truly determined to get 100% it would take a long long time indeed. When you get to the end of the story for the first time you unlock two extra modes - one where you can play through the story again but with all of your levels and abilities intact from last time, and one where you can visit any city with any character and complete anything that you skipped while playing through the story. So even when you're done playing the the game once, there's plenty to come back to.
Overall: 8 out of 10
Yakuza superfans will probably hate me for not giving this game at least a nine out of ten, but the combat can get somewhat repetitive and so I'm marking it down slightly for that. This is based on my own enjoyment of the game after all. I did have a lot of fun playing through the story though, a few dull moments aside, and all of the optional content was a ton of fun. I definitely will be going back and playing through all of the previous games now, and any future titles such as Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 6 that will hopefully be brought over eventually. If you have never tried this series before then jump on board, you're missing out on quite a lot!
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Jetpack Joyride | Mini Review
So then, the overall plot behind the game sees you take
control of Barry Steakfries, the hero, who takes a prototype jet pack for a
joyride. In order to escape the laboratory with the purloined pack, you
will have to first navigate 30,000 meters of deadly zappers and missiles, which
is way, way easier said than done. I’ve put quite a bit of time into the
game and furthest I’ve managed to get is about the 4,500 meter mark. This
game is firmly in the “endless runner” category, except in theory it’s not
actually endless. From your point of view when you first start out, it
may as well be though. The layout of the lab changes each time, and
before long you are careening along at a breakneck pace. Eventually
it will become unmanageable and you will make a mistake, bringing your run to
an end. While you’ve been dodging the many dangers though,
you’ve been picking up coins, which can be spent in the Stash on a variety of
things. Probably the most useful are the Gadgets, which change up
certain aspects of the game – but you can only equip two of these at a
time. They include stuff like a device that causes the missiles to
misfire more often than not, and another that randomly turns certain coins into
precious gems. As you purchase gadgets from the earlier tiers, you
will gradually unlock later ones with more useful stuff. Then there are
Utilities, which are one time use items such as hearts that can be used to
resurrect you one time, and other items that will let you instantly pass a
particularly tricky mission (more on these in a minute).
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| Awww, it's Mr Cuddles!!! |
The Stash is also home a variety of clothing, different
types of jet pack, and vehicle upgrades. The clothing is purely
cosmetic, but the other things may change up the gameplay a little bit.
Because you start with the machine gun jet pack, as you boost you will be
inadvertently filling poor unsuspecting scientists full of lead as you
go. Most of the time that’s perfectly fine, but sometimes you may have a
mission to not harm any scientists on a run. By changing the jet
pack you’ve got equipped – to a steam powered one for example, you can make it
much easier to avoid scientist slaughter. You still need to avoid
crushing into them, of course, but that’s pretty straight forward if you have
decent throttle control. During a typical run through the lab you
will find randomly place vehicle icons, which let you go on a rampage in a
robot suit called Lil Stomper, or a mechanical dragon called Mr Cuddles, for
example. The upgrades mostly give you different skins to equip, but you
can also buy magnet upgrades which will then attract precious coins. Very
useful indeed. The items in the stash will go on sale
periodically, and new items may appear from time to time. Some of them,
like the sleigh and the Santa outfit, are seasonal and available for a limited
time only. Others cost real money if you want them straight away, or if
you are patient you can get them for free if you wait about 15 days.
The missions are part of what playing the game so
addictive. Usually you will have three assigned to you at the
same time, and they include things like high-fiving a certain amount of
scientists, having a near miss with a certain number of missiles, or gathering
a certain number of coins. Sometimes your target will be fairly high but
can be spread over as many runs as you need in order to complete it – for
example 5000 coins. Other targets may be good for just one run, and so
are a bit trickier to get. Each mission has a star value of one to
three, and these stars contribute to your level. Every time you level up, you
get a bonus in coins. Once you get to level 15, you will have
finished that set of missions, but that’s not the end. You are then
awarded a medal and the whole process starts again. There are many
different mission types and they are randomised, so the chances of you getting
the exact same ones are pretty remote. There are 175 medals, so if you
want to get all of them, it will take you a long long time indeed!
So in addition to just managing to get all the way to 30,000 meters, you also
have the additional objective of earning all those medals. For such a
cheap game, Jetpack Joyride has a ton of content! There is also a reward
for coming back every day. Every 24 hours, three tokens will appear
that spell out S.A.M, which is short for Strong Arm Machine. Once you get
all three, you will be encased in a giant robot suit until you get hit by five
missiles. The amount of coins that appear increase dramatically during this
mode, so you can really bolster your coffers if you’re reaction times are
good! Once the S.A.M. has been destroyed and that run ends, you are then
given a daily bonus. If you do this every day for five days, you
will be given a random outfit for free.
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| Make good use of the S.A.M. to earn a ton of extra coins. |
Overall: 9 out of 10
Saturday, January 09, 2016
Evoland Review
The very first version of this game came from a LudumDare competition, which is a game jam where the participants are given 48 hours to develop a game idea based around a particular theme. The theme for that year was evolution, and so creator Nicolas Cannasse put together his game showing the progression of adventure games (more specifically, RPG's) throughout the ages. Starting with primitive Game Boy style monochrome graphics, the player is rapidly guided through concepts like flick screen and smooth scrolling, 8bit graphics and music, turn based battles, full 3D environments, pre rendered backgrounds and HD graphics, plus a lot more in between. Probably the games greatest strength is the way it never sits still for very long and within half an hour or so at the most you are on to the next thing.
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| This part of the game is very remiscent of The Legend of Zelda, though there are stretches that play like Final Fantasy as well. |
There was only one part that I wasn't really a fan of, and that is the games attempt to try Diablo style game play. They never really commit to it as you don't have any skills and the "equipment" that you collect is just a joke, so the game play just comprises mashing the attack button over and over again and killing hordes of week mobs. Hell, some would argue that's all that Diablo is, anyway. Of course, the wise ones amongst us know better! Just as I was starting to tire of this bit of the game however, it was over, and from there the game swiftly moved on to its climax.
Overall: 7 out of 10
Even though the game is not as vast and detailed as something like The Witcher 3, it still must have taken quite a lot of work because there are so many different art and game play styles all rolled into one. Multiple different character sprites needed to be created, and both real time and turn based battle engines needed to programmed. The whole game was put together by two people, so it's quite an impressive feat. In summation, I really enjoyed my time playing Evoland, flawed though it is in places. If you are a fan of the games it references - chiefly The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Diablo, then I heartily recommend that you spend an afternoon playing through it. There is also a sequel, where this concept has been fleshed out to last at least 20 hours. I plan on playing it soon, so I will be sure to let you know if it manages to remain interesting for all that time. In the meantime, take care!
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Tales of Xillia Review
Over the Christmas break, I picked up a copy of Tales of Zestiria on the PS4 for a reasonable price (£25). After checking it out for an hour or two, I remembered that I never quite finished Tales of Xillia despite really enjoying what I had played of it, so I decided to set aside Zestiria for the time being and go back and try to finish Xillia. As it turns out, I didn't have very much of the game left to go - just the last chapter of the story. I managed to play through this content in a couple of days, then after a quick break I decided to start Tales of Xillia 2 rather than attempting the bonus dungeon of the first game. I'm now about ten hours into the sequel, so you can expect a follow up review to this one at some point, hopefully a few weeks rather than months or years! Anyway, now I will attempt break down exactly why I found Tales of Xillia so enjoyable and why I think it may just be my new favourite in the Tales franchise.
The main plot of Tales of Xillia is pretty compelling, and carried me through most of the game. Things do get a little weird and convoluted in the final stages of the game, which is a bit detrimental to the overall quality, but for the most part the game is well written and what's going on have a nice mysterious quality to them that makes you want to learn more. The story revolves around two main characters, and you can choose which one to play as at the start of the game. The story plays out the same way regardless for the most part though there are times throughout the game where the two will become separated for a while and you will experience scenes and areas that the other character won't. In order to see every little thing you will have to play the game through twice.
So on the one hand we have Jude, a medical student who is running late for an important exam as the game begins. On the other, we have Milla, who is actually the human embodiment of the Great Spirit Maxwell. She has control over the four elements of earth, wind, fire and water, at least for a time. Something happens very early on in the story that robs her of her powers, and leaves her pretty much as a normal human being, but with no knowledge of human culture, manners and typical day to day things that the average person just knows. As you can imagine, the comedy potential of this is pretty high, with all sorts of little scenes playing out such as Milla trying to work out why her stomach keeps rumbling, and things of that nature.
In addition to these two protagonists, there are four other characters that will eventually join your party over time - we have Elize, a troubled little girl with an animated (and very opinionated) puppet called Teepo. I loved Teepo, he was one of the highlights of the game for me - it was always a delight to see what he would come out with next. Then there's Alvin, a rather cocky mercenary type who is more than a little shifty in his motives, and then Rowen, a butler who was formally a great warrior on the battlefield, where he was known as the Conductor. Rounding out the main cast is Leia, a childhood friend of Jude who happens to have a crush on him, while Jude himself is slowly falling for the enigmatic Milla.
While the main story is indeed decent for the most part, as in most Tales games it's actually the characters that is the stronger part of the game, and I believe this is the strongest cast they've ever had in a Tales game. As veterans of the series will know, there are hundreds of optional skits that you can watch, all of which are fully voice acted and most of which are very funny and entertaining.
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| It's great to play such a colourful game for a change! |
While the game doesn't really look light years ahead of Tales of Vesperia, the previous game in the series that was designed for HD consoles, I still think the game looks great, especially the vibrant colours. With so many games going for a colour palette consisting of brown, mud and turds these days it is very refreshing to see such brilliant blues, gorgeous greens and ravishing reds. The towns are all nicely designed for the most part, but the wide open areas of the world can look a little sparse and lacking in detail at times. There's also some quite noticeable pop up at times as townsfolk and background elements are drawn in seconds after the rest of the environment is loaded. It's a bit jarring, but it's nothing that effects the gameplay. Finally, while the main characters and the antagonists they go up against are all well designed, less important characters and the humans that are just milling about in towns definitely look like they've had less effort spent on them. This is understandable I suppose, but still a little disappointing.
Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
The soundtrack of Tales of Xillia has once again been composed by series stalwart Motoi Sakuraba, who as far as I know has worked on every game in the series, which is a lot of games by this point. As a result of the sheer volume of music he's had to come up with over the years, and also from the fact that he has his own style, his work does have a habit of sounding extremely samey at times. There are most definitely pieces of music in the Xillia soundtrack that are extremely reminiscent of stuff that's come before, but there's also a fair few pieces that sound a bit different from previous titles. I'm thinking specifically of the Chinese style tunes from the city of Xan Diu and surrounding areas like the Xagut Floodmeadows. Even the standard sounding stuff is still well done, it just comes across as a little derivative.
Now let's turn to the voice acting, which I thought was great! I do know that people had issues with Milla's voice work, but to me it sounded perfect. Yes, so alright, her lines often sounded a little stilted and unnatural, but think about it - she's not used to being human! She's a great spirit who has suddenly been thrust into a world she knows very little about, so of course her mannerisms are going to be a little strange. The other characters are really well performed as well, in particular Teepo, Rowen and Alvin.
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| Choosing to play as Jude or Milla does add a bit of replay value to the game, but it doesn't change things in a major way. |
Game Mechanics: 8 out of 10
The Tales series are action RPG's through and through, with quick, often hectic battles that can be over in seconds. They play out a bit like a fighting game, except there is a lot more depth, especially when it comes to boss fights that often require more than just mashing the attack button to defeat. Careful defence, exploitation of the enemies weakness and command of your other characters is important to succeed. Of course, being the right level for the fight helps as well, but I never really found that I needed to grind in Xillia at any point, until after the story and the bonus dungeon comes into play. After dabbling with that place for a little while, I decided to put it off until later. You can also link with any of the other three characters in your party by pressing a direction on the d-pad, which gives you access to specific abilities. In the case of Leia, it allows you to steal items from downed enemies. While linked you will also be filling up a bar on the left hand side of the screen. As the segments fill up, you can unleash powerful link attacks with your partner character, and it's it's completely full you can fire off Artes without using up any TP until the bar is drained and you start over.
In Tales of Xillia, character development mainly takes place with the Lillium Orb system. It's reminiscent of stuff like the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X where you have nodes that you can activate with points earned from levelling up. The nodes around the outside of a segment typically give you a small stat increase of some kind, but by completing a segment the middle will then be filled in, earning you a more significant upgrade such as an Arte or a Skill. Artes are your active abilities that you use in battle, which are either offensive moves or buffing / healing spells. Jude and Milla both tend to favour attacking directly with their fists or weapons, whereas other characters like Elize serve more of a healing role with a nice sideline in powerful magic spells. Skills are more passive in their nature, and your character has a pool of skill points to spend, which increases as they level up. The skills can be turned on and off at any time so you can tweak your characters for different boss scenarios.
Xillia also has a rather strange shop system where you have to donate random items that you've picked up from shiny spots on the overworld or in dungeons, as well as from random drops from defeated monsters. It all seems rather complicated initially but there's actually not that much to it. What I would do is choose either weapons or armour and then donate all the crap that I'd picked up recently to level up the shop and unlock the next tier of equipment. Then the next time I would do the same for the other type of gear. You still have to have the money to be able to buy the gear as well, so it's difficult to actually break the game by unlocking multiple tiers of weapon at the same time, for example. I played with game with the combat difficulty set to Normal, which wasn't very challenging for the most part. Those confidant in their abilities might want to turn this up a notch.
The story of the game is broken up into chapters, and as you progress you will also unlock opportunities for completing various side quests and sub stories. Some of these are very simple one and done fetch quests, others are more in depth and will take you most of the game to finish as the next little piece of the story is doled out. It is possible to miss out on these optional scenes (and a good many of the skits as well) if you plough on with the main story too quickly and don't take the time revisit towns that you've been to previously. It is quite easy to go back to other areas because you can access a map and fast travel to them with ease. I would definitely recommend doing everything that you can to get the most out of the game.
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| Teepo is my favourite character by far! |
Innovation & Cleverness: 6 out of 10
When you get down to it, the Tales games are all quite similar to one another, with just subtle improvements and differences from one iteration to the next. Tales of Xillia is at least a bit more free form that previous games in the series, with the wide open environments between towns to explore and the optional side content that you can take part in. Otherwise, mechanically and stylistically, it's pretty much business as usual and will hold no real surprises if you've played one of these games before.
Value & Replayability: 8 out of 10
My completion time for Jude's side of the story was about 35 hours, without tackling the extra dungeon. It would take roughly the same amount of time go through the game as Milla as well, and I had such a fun time going through the game that I could actually see myself doing that at some point in the future. For now, I'm focused on completing the sequel, which takes place one year after the first game.
Overall: 9 out of 10
As I said in my intro, Tales of Xillia has knocked Tales of the Abyss off of its number one slot in this series. The whole game was hugely enjoyable from beginning to end, and I may well come back and play through Milla's version of the story if I can find the time to do so. From what little I've played of Tales of Zestiria so far, I doubt it's going to beat Xillia - the characters just aren't as immediately like able and the the camera seems to have quite a few issues in combat. That's another review for another day, however. For now, I would recommend Tales of Xillia to both newcomers and those who have played a Tales game before without reservation. It's a refreshing change of pace from all of the western RPG's that have been released recently.
Friday, August 08, 2014
Vanquish review
Personally I think Vanquish looks pretty darn good for a 4 year old game. The space colony that the game is set on is nice and detailed, there is very little slowdown during combat, and there are some great robot designs. The huge bosses that you will encounter during the five acts of the game are a particular highlight, with some of them towering over the player. Also of note is the main DARPA robot suit belonging to the player character Sam Gideon - it brings to mind the designs of Yoji Shinkawa (of Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders fame) as well as the suit from the Gamecube game P.N.O. 3. My only minor gripe is that the design of the colony itself could have benefited from a bit more variety. Apart from a brief section in a park, most of the action takes place in similar looking corridors.
Sound and Music: 7 out of 10
The music of Vanquish is perfectly decent and helps add to the excitement of battle, yet it is not particularly memorable outside of the theme that plays over the end credits. This is partly because it can get drowned out a bit by the noise of battle, as bullets, rockets, and robot shrapnel flies all over the place. The dialogue can be a little bit on the corny side, and also tends to bit a bit overacted, despite having a cast made up of experienced voice actors like Gideon Emery and Steve Blum. As far as the sound design is concerned, there's not much here that stands out, apart from the noise when you switch weapons, and the way everything is slowed down when you go into bullet time.
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| I for one would like to see a Vanquish 2 one day - how about you? |
Yes, Vanquish is yet another title in a long line of games that have incorporated bullet time into the gameplay, but it really works well here and is a fundamental part of combat. Though the levels do offer opportunities for cover, it can be destroyed fairly easily by the bigger enemies in the game, and the play is even penalised for the amount of time spent cowering behind crates and the like. You are actively encouraged to use your suits slide boost or a roll to navigate the battlefield and get yourself out of trouble, and while doing so you can hold down LT to enter bullet time and take down your enemies. This bullet time doesn't last forever though - there is a meter in the bottom right of the screen that depletes while time is slowed, and if it empties completely then your suit overheats. While you're waiting for the suit to cool down again you are extremely vulnerable to enemy fire, so what I tend to do is drop out of bullet just before the meter runs out, so I'm not left without shields at a crucial moment.
You can equip up to three different weapons at a time as well as EMP and traditional grenades. The weaponry varies from your standard assault rifles, sniper rifles and rocket launchers to some more interesting fare like disk launchers and lock on lasers. My load out was usually a combo of the normal assault rifle because of its high ammo count, the heavy version of it for taking down the larger "RI" robots quickly, and then something a bit more interesting in the third slot depending on the situation. There are quite a few times throughout the campaign that calls for a sniper rifle for example, yet I'm not that keen on them so I would swap this out for a rocket launcher of shotgun given the opportunity. Sometimes downed enemies will drop upgrade cubes as well, and picking these up with a particular weapon selected will improve that weapon in some way - be it a higher ammo capacity or more damaging rounds. Dying on the Normal difficulty or above will downgrade your weapons by one level though, so be careful!
Innovation & Cleverness: 5 out of 10
The main thing that Vanquish brings to the third person shooter genre is the slide boost mechanic, and it is a very fun thing indeed. In all other aspects though, it's quite a clichéd game, from the setting, to the story and the weapons on offer.
Value & Replayability: 4 out of 10
Here we come to perhaps the biggest flaw of the game - its length. My completion time of the entire campaign came in at under 5 hours, which is incredibly short for a full retail release. Even now, when the game can be picked up for £10 less, that's still a little on the lean side, but I still think the overall quality of the game means that you should check it out. Sometimes it can be good to play through a game in a single weekend, instead of it taking weeks or months. If you have a friend who can lend you their copy though, I would still recommend that over buying it yourself - or maybe hold out for it to appear as part of Games with Gold or the PS Plus Instant Game Collection.
Overall: 8 out of 10
Throughout the majority of the first act I wasn't really feeling it, but after doing battle with the huge boss of that act I was along for the ride. Vanquish may be a little rough in certain aspects such as the story and the acting, and it's an all too brief experience, but at least that meant I was left wanting more. Sadly I don't think the sales were strong enough to make a sequel worthwhile - but then again I thought the same about Okami and we still got Okamiden quite a long time later! If you know someone who can pass you their copy of Vanquish for a weekend, or you spot a copy cheap somewhere, then I recommend you give it a try.
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Wii Hidden Gems #6 - Deadly Creatures
Deadly Creatures sees you take control of a Tarantula and a Scorpion as they navigate their way through various treacherous environments within the Sonoran desert. Throughout the game they will cross paths with each other, as well as rattlesnakes, gila monsters and two humans voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Dennis Hopper who are on the hunt for some buried gold.
The game was published by the now defunct THQ and developed by Rainbow Studios, probably most well known for their work on racing franchises such as ATV Off Road Fury and Splashdown. It was released in 2009, and has gained a small fan base over the year, but remains overlooked by many. Hopefully this review will persuade you to check it out!
Graphics: 8 out of 10
First of all the animation of the two lead arachnids is superb, with your spider and scorpion skittering around the environments in an incredibly realistic fashion. This also extends to the other creatures that you will face throughout the course of the game. The scorpion has access to a range of finishing moves too, some of which are extremely brutal to watch (I am thinking of the one for the rat in particular, which ends with the scorpions stinger embedded right in the poor rats brain).
I do have a minor issue with the graphics in some of the stages, in that things can get extremely dark, making them hard to navigate. This is even with the gamma settings properly adjusted for my TV. There's also a bit of a problem where things look like you'd be able to walk on them, but in fact there are invisible walls blocking your path. This is mitigated somewhat by a guide arrow that can be displayed by pressing the 2 button on your Wii remote.
Sound and Music: 7 out of 10
The music in Deadly Creatures is mainly in the background and there to help maintain the menacing atmosphere. In this game, pretty much everything is out to kill you and the score is oppressive and dark. Backing this up is a variety of snarls, barks and squeaks that the various other insects, arachnids, lizards and mammals make. The spiders sound suitably disgusting and just playing this game makes my skin crawl - the presentation is that realistic.
Capping off the sound is the voice performance of Billy Bob Thornton as Wade and Dennis Hopper as Struggs. They aren't in the game a huge amount - you get to see their story at the beginning and end of the game, and cross paths with them several times throughout the game. They do a solid job of portraying a couple of very nasty individuals, and their presence elevates the game overall as well as adding a bit of mystery to the whole thing. You will want to keep playing to find out what they're up to and what fate has in store for them.
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| A creature, looking pretty deadly. |
I've already mentioned the issues I had with the dark levels and getting lost from time to time. Well, this is more of an issue with the spider than with the scorpion, because the spider levels are typically much harder to navigate around to begin with. A few stages into the game, your spider friend will gain the ability to jump to webs that are handily positioned around the level. Finding them can be a bit of a chore sometimes, and once you jump from one to another it can be easy to get turned around. The guide arrow does help a lot with this though.
Sadly, the scorpion is not without its own gameplay issues. The early levels are fine really, but as you progress you will first get the ability to dig up dirt, and then the ability to chop down foliage with your pincers. Combined with the finishing moves that I've already mentioned, what this adds up to is a whole lot of wagging, which gets pretty tiresome after a while. Generally the motion controls are actually very cleverly thought out and implemented - there's just a bit too much of it during the later scorpion stages. Luckily you alternate between the spider and the scorpion throughout the game, giving your poor old elbows the chance for a rest.
Innovation and Cleverness: 8 out of 10
Deadly Creatures deserves a pretty high score here - firstly for the rather novel idea of letting you take control of a pair of killer bugs, then for the way that it brings in the story of Wade and Struggs with their celebrity voice overs, and then finally with the clever motion controls. Swinging the remote and nunchuk to deal out death to poor rodents is extremely satisfying (if a little tiring). The final level is also very clever if a little infuriating to beat. I'm not going to spoil exactly what it entails here though.
Value and Replayability: 6 out of 10
If I were reviewing a brand new, full priced game then I would have awarded a much lower score here. Deadly Creatures can easily be found for around the £5 mark though, which a good price for a game that takes around 10 hours in total to beat. The replay value is questionable - there are over 400 optional grubs to find hidden throughout the levels, but all that they unlock are art galleries so I don't feel the need to go back and play the game again. This is a "one and done" experience really.
Overall: 7 out of 10
Deadly Creatures is a flawed game, there's no doubt about it, but it's clever enough and cheap enough for me to recommend it everyone. There aren't very many games out there that are like it, and the fans are hoping that one day we will see a Deadly Creatures 2. That may not happen, but at least we have the original - just one of many such unique and clever games on the way if you can be bothered to look hard enough.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Batman: Arkham Origins review
On the whole I was really impressed with the visuals of Arkham Origins. Everything is extremely moody and atmospheric, which works really well in single player. I found the sheer darkness of the levels was a bit if a problem online though, which is where your enhanced vision comes in. Batman can use detective vision as much as he wants, and indeed it is key to solving puzzles offline, but if you're playing as one of the Joker or Bane's thugs online you only have limited use of it before it goes on a cooldown. For a lot of the rest of the time I was blundering around in the dark. However, combined with the sound, the excellent graphics really drew me into the world of Gotham and the story that was being told.
Sound and Music: 8 out of 10
The music in Batman: Arkham Origins, whilst definitely echoing the work of Hans Zimmer on the Christopher Nolan movie trilogy, still manages to add something new with the embedded Christmas music in the score. The game is set on Christmas Eve night, you see, so it makes a lot of sense, even if I happen to playing the game in the middle of summer. Voice work is once again top notch, even if I personally prefer Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy as Batman over the new guys. The game also features top quality sound design, from the trademark boom of Batman's exploding gel, to the cool effect that pulses through your speakers every time you level up. Top quality stuff, overall.
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| It's good to see some of the more unusual villains from Batman's pantheon get a chance to shine, such as Black Mask, Copperhead and Firefly. |
Batman: Arkham Origins brings back the mechanics that have worked so well in the previous games in the franchise, so you have the incredibly satisfying combo / counter system for fighting large groups of enemies. As the game goes on, it introduces more and more special enemy types, each with their own way of being taken down, from armoured henchmen, ones that wield knifes, shield carrying guys and more. It keeps the player on his toes as you constantly have to switch your tactics and dart around the battlefield to stay out of danger.
Then we have the "Invisible Predator" system, where you're frequently locked in a room full of armed goons, and have to take them all down to move on. Simply wading into their midst with your fists flying will quickly get you killed, so you need to make use of conveniently place places to perch on and other hidey holes such as grates in the wall, and strategically take them out one by one. It's still incredibly satisfying to lurk in the shadows until an unsuspecting gang member happens to walk right underneath you, then dive down and string them up! Should you happen to be detected and are at risk from gun fire, you can quickly throw down a gas pellet and make your escape.
The online multiplayer mode is extremely well designed and adds something new to the genre in the same way that the multiplayer of the Assassin's Creed series did, yet I think I left it a little too long to try and get into it. My own ineptitude combined with the dark maps and the extremely high levels of those still playing, meant that I was hopelessly outmatched in the handful of games that I took part it. I expect if I persevered I would improve, but I'm not really an online kind of guy so I would prefer to move on to the next single player experience. The unique thing about the online mode though is that as well as your typical gang vs gang gameplay with fairly standard weapons, a third team plays the parts of Batman and Robin. They win by intimidating the members of the Joker and Bane gangs - which is achieved by taking them down in as quiet and as varied a way as possible. Indeed I had the most fun when I played as Batman for one match, as he is far more agile then your common thug and can make use of his detective vision at all times.
The online seemed to be having a few technical issues when I tried it though - often whilst waiting for a match the entire lobby would be reset so that I was waiting on my own, and once or twice I was dropped from a match in progress. There aren't a huge amount of people still playing, either - though that's only be expected as the game has been out for around 9 months already. People move on quickly in the gaming world.
Innovation and Cleverness: 6 out of 10
While the game is indeed cleverly designed, the single player mode is essentially retreading the same formula that has been used in the two previous games. I would have given this game a lower score in this category if it weren't for the rather innovative online mode, which does add something genuinely new to both this franchise and online gaming in general.
Value and Replayability: 7 out of 10
The single player campaign is fairly brief, yet I was satisfied overall with the length of it. Hardcore players can go back for more with the New Game Plus and I Am The Night modes, which increase the challenge significantly. Then if you can find sufficient people to play with the online mode potentially extends the game play for a long time, though as I mentioned previously the community seems to be dying off a little bit, at least on the Xbox 360.
Overall: 8 out of 10
I was quite surprised just how much fun I had playing through Batman: Arkham Origins, especially when I thought I was done with the series after Arkham City. I really enjoyed the story in this one, which was a fairly slow burn for the first half. Once the "twist" happens it's a fairly rapid plunge towards the end of the game. Before I sign off, I must also add that I quite enjoyed most of the side content this time. I still haven't got the patience to find and solve every single of the the Enigma puzzles, but I did take the time to do everything else, and had great fun doing so. This game really brought me back on board after the double disappointment of Arkham City and of The Dark Night Rises at the cinema, so I'm now really looking forward to seeing what Rocksteady Games brings to the table with Arkham Knight.
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